Tell Your Teen This When They Start Their First Job

I've gotten older. I get that. But hey, what's this unfair stuff about my babies growing up too? You can stomp your feet while dabbing your eyes with tissue and sneak into their bedrooms to press down their heads as they sleep (just me? ok, never mind) to keep them from gaining inches, but you can't stop the job that hormones are programmed to do: make them grow.

 

And since we're speaking of jobs, do you have anyone in your house starting their first one? You do?? Well, I can only say that I wish someone had told me when I was 15 what I have learned about jobs since then. The things your boss needs from you can be a mystery when you start working.

 

I had my first job at 15, it was in a nursing home as a dining room assistant. I liked it, it was fun, and on the nights that the red-headed woman worked, she would set aside a slice of cherry pie for me. My boss, on the other hand was awful, but I liked the pie-lady, and ever since then I've worked part time, full time, 3/4 time, only on weekends time, but I've always worked. Not only because money is a necessity but also because there have been jobs, like my first one, that I've either really liked or the people I worked with were the reason I stayed.

Thinking about the jobs I’ve had and the things I did while in those jobs sometimes stops me in my tracks. Did I really do that? Why did I think that was going to work? Maybe I should have tried harder. Maybe I should have left after that first five minutes. Like after they asked me to open up the store BY MYSELF at 5:20 a.m.

 

Did I know better, or had I known better, would anything have been different? 

 

Bottom line is there are some basic work skills that your boss or clients expect you to have. Surprise, right? Well, it might be to your teens. So, let them know what they are. You can't prevent all schooling learned from hard lessons, but you can take the sharp edge off of at least one or two experiences:

First, the obvious things:

Clean appearance, appropriate clothing, teachable attitude, decent and respectful toward others, no gossip. Right up there with these traits are: plays well with others, respect for the chain of command. Throw in not pilfering and minding your own business and you’re a good catch.*(Imp note added: see below)

Second, don’t be a pot stirrer.

Show up and do your work, ears away from the gossip telephone game. If you end up working for someone you really can’t believe is in management, still do the same. Go to work, do your job, if there is no request to violate your morals, values, safety, then do your job.

Third, do not make up answers.

When someone asks you a question, if you aren't sure about the answer, say so. You don’t have to say, “I don’t know,” but you can say, “Let me find that out for you.” You don't want to be the one responsible for paying for a family of eight's meal when they came in and wanted to know if kids eat free on Tuesday and your 'Uh, sure' is Uh. Wrong. Ask your manager, they're the one who knows about free fries with every 23rd burger, and what not.

Fourth, learn to manage your time.

Oh lordy lordy lordy, learn to manage your time. Decide how many minutes you need to get the job done that you're asked to do while there. You don't want to come in at 1:00, laugh play chat and then look up at the clock at 2:20 and go Holy Cr*p running to the point of your deodorant quitting on you, to stock the shelves your boss needed you to do over four hours, not two. Nose to the grindstone.

Fifth, your time belongs to your boss.

Remember that your employer is paying you for your time. This means that while on their clock, you will do their work. Nothing else. No turning yourself into a baby deer on Snapchat. I know it's fun, but it has to wait. *why is this one in italics? because my keyboard isn't cooperating. bad job, keyboard*

Sixth, learn something new every day.

This makes you look really good. It also makes work more interesting if you ask questions. You don't have to sound like a parrot paraphrasing everything your boss says, but ask about it. People like to talk 'shop.' That's what old folks call work. Just this little feather in your cap called 'interest' will make your boss big puffy heart you.

Seventh, let positive be your cheer!

No matter what is going on, pesky friend problems, an English class that just won't quit, save the grumbling for later. Bring a positive attitude to work. You're not a Kardashian, you have to earn a living. Try and smile, even if you don’t love your job–because it’s your job.

Eighth, look like you're revved and ready to go.

Roll up your sleeves (that's an expression from the ages) and walk in straight spined, with energy, and on each day you work even if you have to knock off a Starbucks to do it. Try to not let anyone hear you complain or whine, either, because honestly, who likes to be around that?

Ninth, keep dissatisfaction to yourself and don't tell it to a customer.
When dealing with difficult co-workers or supervisors, let your lips say “yes” but your mind whisper “pumpkin head!” At review time, let your supervisor know of any changes you'd like to see them consider. NO guarantees but that is the appropriate place for something like this to be brought up.

Tenth, be a young adult.

You will be a legal adult in a few years: don't wait until then to think on your own. Be self disciplined, self motivated, and self directed. Work without supervision, I mean, come on, how old are we now? Even if mama still calls you her baby, your boss won't see you through those same eyes.

 

I've got to leave for my own job in a few hours so let's wrap this up,

What I want to tell you is to Behave. What employers truly hope for is to get their money's worth: your time, and they're paying for it. You are known by the quality of your work, and one day, on a college application or for a job application while away at school, you're going to have to put down the name of someone who's worked with you as a reference. Your boss at your first job may just be that person whose name you fill in on that line. You want their words about you to be the ones that make the reader say, "Hey, we want this kid."

This list might just help you keep on collecting that biweekly check. It would be awesome to maybe stick to two or seven of these, right?

 

So, dear teens, make good use of time while at your job. And don't think I don't see you now, so I'm going to suggest you turn off your phone and get to work.

 

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*ETA: A friend of mine, whose opinion I respect, has these important words to add. I feel what she contributes here is far more important than the tongue-in-cheek tone I've set this post to. *Thank you, Rebecca Weinberger:

 

"Rebecca Weinberger It would be great if this included things like how to respond to sexual harassment and exploitation and wage theft. What to do when your boss does ask you to violate your morals or safety. How to document this and support unions and know how to use HR while knowing they are always there to protect management. We rarely talk about the realities of what work really looks like in this system and this article looks like it's setting people - especially young women - up for victim blaming when these things do happen, as if being well dressed with a good attitude is enough."



But My Feelings, They Are So Strong

Emotions are with us, every day. Some of these feelings are fantastic, others chew our stomachs up and leave us light headed and spent. I'm one that runs either hot or cold, there is no moderate temp in my blood. And when all is aligned just wrong versus just right, I feel like I'm losing my mind, because my feelings, why must they be so strong?

On days that are without challenge, I do all right with the mildly conjuring-up-feelings emotion. I am able to sail through the meh moments, but when I’m walloped in the temples by something that sends my diastolic numbers pounding through the Velcro cuff, I need help.

 

It's the cross-eyed angry that spills out and shocks me when I look in the mirror and don't see steam blowing out from the top of my skull. In those moments, I don’t know what to do with myself. My breaths come in shallow and rapid and my scalp tightens around my skull. From my teen child who takes me on in a verbal tug-of-war for an extra round of PlayStation to the neighbor who comments on my recycling pile on the side of the house, I am sent to the edge. 

What do I do with these bull-in-the-ring emotions?

I do the only thing there is to do: unclench my jaw so I don't run to the dentist thinking I need a root canal from the pain only t be semi-relieved (I guess) that I trenched my TMJ.

 

It’s hard to keep a cap on it, especially when I'm out in the world where everyone is watching. And the world loves to witness a melt down – but I won’t have them see it from me. That's what the Trump campaign is for.

SO. ----------> Here are a few ways to keep yourself from doing a Brittany Umbrella Dance for your whole neighborhood to catch on video next time you lose your cool:

◾Decide that whatever it is, it is not a big deal. Even if it is, table it till you’re behind closed doors. Remember that these days, everyone’s got a camera.

◾Use the word “frustrated” when explaining your feelings instead of “mad.” Saying “mad” just makes you “mad.”

◾Deconstruct your feelings. Make it a game; think about what led to what, and how you got there. This buys you time until you get home and can pull into your garage and lose it in the minivan out of view.

◾Write a letter full of every GD cuss word you can think of. Oh, do try it–it feels so good.

◾Find a friend who can talk you down. Call, text, tweet it out. Someone is sure to side with you and that’s all you want really, to hear, “that sucks donkey balls, man!”

◾Count to ten. It takes the Ready-Aim-Fire sequence out of your brain. And whatever you do, NEVER jump across a counter and grab anyone by the lapels. Not even if they sent your family's luggage to Australia.

◾Observe and note what your physical reaction to being mad as hell is. This will crack you up because you’ll sound like a Learning Channel Special: “Tingly scalp, beads of sweat on upper lip. Light headedness and numb fingertips accompany the pounding heart bouncing out of the rib cage.”

 

Being mad and feeling it should not be the same thing as going mad. Life will always have moments that move you to anger quicker than unchecked rice on the stove. But an angry fool is still just a fool (you can quote me on that).

The next time you want someone’s head on a platter, take a bunch of deep breaths instead and walk away. We all know that no matter how good it feels to call for a beheading, in the end, it would still just look gross.

 

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Pow! I'm a Life Coach!

Taking care of children is a mind blow. They look to you as possessor of all knowledge, and I'll be honest, it's fantastic for the ego. I give my three children life lesson as vignettes of my life appear, without summons, and today I thought, Why shouldn't I take my podium pounding sessions public? And so I have.

 

 

 

You too can now can benefit from the well from which I dip. As with anything, take what serves you, leave what serves others.

 

LESSONS LEARNED: Volume 26 of What Life Has Taught Me:

--Say “good morning” back, especially when you don't feel like it.

 

--Repeat someone’s name after they introduce themselves. People love to her their names.

--I am not going to assume anything, but let's talk friends. If you’re not interested in making friends, then move along: nothing to see here. BUT if you are tired of your social circle consisting of one, then I’ve got some tips for you.

Friendship Tips 101:

◾Before you say you want friends, you have to know what that means. Friends mean responsibility, caring, being there. If it’s not a two way street, then that’s not friends. You may just be using each other to not be alone. That won’t work.

◾Manners are important. Manners mean no nose picking, farting, grabbing your crotch or constantly sticking your side boobs back in place.

◾Don’t play with your food, don’t chew with your mouth open, don’t eat with your hands, don’t wipe your hands on the tablecloth or on your shirt or anyone’s shirt when you pretend to give them a hug good-bye.

◾Don’t focus only on the people that you want to like you. Think of everyone. They usually turn out to be cooler than the ones you think you want to like you.

◾If someone doesn’t like you, accept it. Don’t be needy. Don’t ask what is wrong with you, why don’t they like you, is there a chance?, don’t give them money to like you or buy them presents. Move on.

◾Just because you feel like doing something doesn’t mean you should do it. You may want to laugh and point at your friend’s new haircut but that’s not nice. Don’t do it.

◾Ask people about their lives, it shows you care. And if you don’t care, well then, we need to ask why you say you want friends. Back to step one: meaning of friendship.

◾Always ask permission before touching, grabbing, snatching, pushing, jumping, climbing, bumping, rubbing a person. ALWAYS.

◾And the most important rule of all:

 

If anyone says they won’t be your friend if you don’t play spin the bottle or Doctor with them, tell them your mother doesn’t let you play those games. Then leave that house and never be friends with them again. Oh, sorry, forgot I wasn't talking to my kids again. 

 

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A List of Gratitude About The Person I Live With

It's a closed-in, blustery windy surprise snowstorm-in-spring day over here. We are all of us cabin-fever locked inside. I'm feeling a lack of  I'm-so-blessedness and I sit here, wondering what I can do about it, because I'm wandering around this house like a bear poked early out of hibernation.

I think it's time for me to prepare a list of gratitude of the people I share this cabin with. I met a man months ago, a young man, who told me he begins his day with a reach over to his nightstand, where he finds his pen and his notebook- the one with the filled in pages of three things he is grateful for.

He says that before his feet touch the floor he has spent a few minutes, eyes closed, bringing to mind different things every day, of what he is grateful for. Every day brings a new prayer of gratitude, and at the end of the week, he has a running list of seven days x three = 21 things he finds good in his life. Many of them are hidden blessings.

This morning, I sat with the keyboard in front of me and once I typed "Number One" of what I could find to be grateful for about the person who is now crunching potato chips loud enough for me to hear in the next room over, the good thoughts broke through and flowed. I'm not going to say it was like a clear running stream after I hit the obvious first five, and the last six minutes of typing more like water finding its way to the surface after a winter thaw, but here it is:

My list, finished in about 35 minutes, on what makes me feel appreciation for my life partner:

1.  How he just shouted to me, asking why he keeps seeing the less than sign next to a number 3 on his facebook.

2.  How he has committed to studying the craft of writing a symphony. Books taken out of the library in 4-week intervals and practice spurts at the piano. With God as his witness he will understand how all the notes work.

3.  We can discuss the beautiful gift from above that coffee is, forever.

4.  He doesn't care that I have public radio on all day and he ever so considerately looks up to give occasional eye contact when I loudly agree along with the headlines of the day. (I ignore the pained expression on his face, the world is not perfect, and no one in it is, either.)

5.  He understands the frustration and the disappointment in how the mechanics at our warranty-covered car shop, and our warranty-covered appliance repair, and our warranty-covered anyplace, try and sell me on the most maximum repair service versus when he calls they act like they've known him since kindergarten. I can sum this up by saying: Mark believes what I tell him.

6.  I watch him open his mouth, the temptation for the last word burning on his tongue, but then he takes a deep breath, and closes his mouth. This is a grand effort, the feeling of implosion. I know, I have felt it often myself. I appreciate it.

7.  He will ask me if I want the last oreo/potato chip/meatball, even when there is no way humanly possible if you have a heartbeat to not see him licking his lips while he offers it up. I pretend I am full.

8. After 20 years of hearing stories about my mother, here as an immigrant, supporting six children as a single woman in a country that did not make it easy to be female and Latina, he talks of her with the equal measure of pride as I do.

9. We secretly daydream about living in a library.

10. Listening to Car Talk together is what Saturday mornings mean to us.

This little list here, people, it helped me. There is a lot to be grateful for. And though this cabin feels a bit tight this morning, there is room to shove myself out of the way to see glimmers of good fortune in its corners.

Happy weekend, everyone. I love you, guys.

* * *

7 Date Night Ideas That Failed Us

To keep that love alive and the home fires burning, you need to date your mate. Date them and forget about the To Do list that hangs over your head even when it's out of sight. Make the time to forget about the 1,000 things you have to do before the month is over and especially do not discuss your kids when you're together. Like, pretend you don't even know them. Little Mark, Jr. who? If you follow this advice you will remember once again, just why you are together. A bottle of wine, no - two, will help bring back smoky memories of the carefree love you shared way back when.

We have been married 20 years, and we are so due for a date night that we'd need six months at a monk's retreat to silence these buzzing brains from trying to balance life. With this not-dating guilt in mind, I decided to give Date Night a try after an article I saw as I flipped through a magazine while waiting to get my prescription for dry eye syndrome.

The whole half page was glossy with exclamation marks for quick and easy love tips for the married crowd! *By the way, not today, but sometime soon, I'd like to talk about why only women's magazines are DATE NIGHT DATE NIGHT KEEP YOUR DATE HAPPY and men's magazines are "Get yourself this car, belt, shoes, vacation and you be you, dude."

Starting with Idea No. 1 and all the way to Idea No. 7, I felt a tingle of high hopes. Well not really, but I had a flash that at least one of these would be hot fun. Poke the flames, yannow?

Yeah no.

Here's what goes wrong when you're two decades into chronically unromantic:

Idea 1.) "Short on time or money? No problem! Here's a quick and easy way to stoke those embers! (am I the only one so far going ewwww... ) Pick a new board game to play!"

What actually happened: We brought out the game. Something called Othello. I got dizzy as soon as I saw all the black and white discs and the reversible board and the 10-page instruction booklet. I had to put my head down. Meanwhile, since my husband wanted to go to bed before sunrise, he became "order-y" and saw it as one more job to delegate.

Date Night Idea #1: a bust. Let's move on ...

Idea 2.) "Pick a theme! Have fun enjoying "Irish Night" or "French Night!" (again, pretty sure it's just me, but ewwww with fake accents)

I did all right with this one. And for future reference, I told my husband the only love language for me is Jalisco's Mexican take-out. With wilting Styrofoam containers opened up on our laps, we sat and watched Nacho Libre. Then we both fell asleep on the Costco chaise-o-lounger with salsa stains on our chests. Fun? I guess it was a bit of all right.

Idea 3.) "Pop in your wedding video, look at your honeymoon pictures!  Here's some exclamation marks to get you started!"

Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Idea #3 gets my vote for worst idea ever. THE WORST. What's hot about looking at my stomach so flat and my husband's hair so dark? We both got sad-eyed and gobsmacked about how we had no idea we looked so good that we wondered why the hell didn't we just walk around nekkid back then?

Dang, we were hot. (Me: He was lucky to get me. Him: She was lucky to get me)

Idea 4.) "Feed the kids an early dinner and put them to bed!"

Still laughing about this one. Since we don't believe in Benadryl for dessert, the only ones that would be going to bed after an early dinner would be me and Mark.

Idea 5.) "Slumber Party! Pile blankets on the floor along with throw pillows and have a sleep over!"

Ummm, we already do this. Substitute piles of newspapers for throw pillows and the book we're reading for a blanket, and pretty much, there's our *Slumber Party!*

Idea 6.) "1-2-3 Get artsy! Grab a canvas and brushes and co-paint a picture together!"

I'll tell you right here and now, if my husband wanted to grab a paintbrush then I'd have no need to work 2.5 part-time jobs so I could call Rob the Painter every two years for the past ten years to paint the walls in this house.

Idea 7.) "Make a platter of favorite snacks! Pop some kettle corn and cozy up for a movie!"

What?! Now I'm the one handing out exclamation marks.
Snacks and a movie? Why didn't you say so 7 steps back?! Turns out we've been date-nighting for the past 20 years!

It's just like this dang world to try and make us think we have to change what we've been doing when what we've been doing, is right all along.

xo

 

* * *

I've Already Faked it 3 Times Today

The waiting room was full last week at the health clinic, and when I finally had my turn at the receptionist's desk, she handed me a clip board. "We need this filled out for the new year," and she pushed the paper to my hand. I stared at the sheets and had no idea what this information was that they needed, I mean, I just handed her my card. I took the forms and filled in what I could but it might as well have been a travel application to Mars. I brought the clip board back to her and laughed that same weak laugh my kids do when they are without a clue, "Oh, hahaha, pretty sure I did this right. Let me know if it's not, haha." And then I ran back to my row of chairs before someone else took my place.

I had faked it. 30 days into the new year and I have already begun to pretend I know what's going on.
---

This morning at exercise class, there was an instructor subbing for our regular, Jan. I go when Jan is there because she always calls out directions and moves so I can put my brain on automatic and concentrate on keeping blood clots away. I rely on Jan telling me when to go right with my hip twist. But with Sandy, today, we were on our own. By the ten second mark of Pharrell Williams' "Happy" I knew this was a solo mission. It didn't take long for me to figure that out, the way I was face to face with the woman next to me every third beat was a clear enough clue. But I kept on faking it, arms up in imitation of others and legs out when I caught an orange running shoe fly up into my peripheral vision. I knew it while I was doing it, and I thought it through the rest of the class, I am the biggest faker on the planet, look at Sally over there - she has the decency to stop and not pretend she knows where to put her left foot when coming out of the daisy chain.

50 minutes later, I had faked it through Total Body Conditioning like the intro to ballet class I took as an elective in college thinking it'd be nothing but stretched out arms and out-toeing. [here's a good spot to insert the weak laughter from paragraph one] [here, let me: hahahahahaha]

I shook my head as I drove home, how old am I? Am I still that 5-year-old kindergartener sitting at the craft table all disoriented about how the other kids know which fingers to put through the handle of the scissors? The answer is evidently yes.

My life is fakery and how is it that other people know what to do? I came home to open my emails and the one from our soccer team was marked priority. Clicking it open it has a schedule for practices along with the words "red/blue as usual, let me know if you got this." I reply back "Got it!" with no idea what is supposed to be red/blue. The fakery here is high level alert because the team manager, the one from where these emails originate, is my husband. It's a scary thing the portals that open when we allow fakery in.

It's just a bit past noon, and I've had a good talking to with myself. I'm trying to zero in on just what faking brings me, because the very reason we choose behaviors is that they reward us in some way. Faking the happy dance and pretending I know what I need to do for soccer, what's the pay off? That's a hard one to answer.

Some fakery, however, is obvious. The third time for the big F, was about 10:30ish today, when I saw someone I know through someone they know, in other words I wouldn't recognize this person if you plucked them out of the setting that is the only place I ever see them in.

As we stood feet apart in the grocery store this morning, grabbing our bread and oranges and microwave popcorn before the predicted snowfall of 4-6 inches strangles us homebound tonight, she asked me if her snow pants were too much. I looked down at her legs, pressed my lips together at what looked like to me, plain old cotton leggings. "They look fine, fine." "Oh, good. I was worried, Andrea," she started, "I mean, yes they were originally $260 but they are Les Moise. We don't leave for Granby until March, but I just had to break them in. They're less constricting-y and not as shiny-y as Gorsuch."

I just nodded, "Yah," and had already quit caring she called me Andrea. I had just faked it for the third time.

I had no idea what Les Moise is and I have even less of an idea wherewhichwhat Granby is. I am without knowledge of the binding iridescence of Gorsuch.

The big reward in choosing to fake it this time? That's an easy one. Obviously not having to sit through any answer from her that is Les Moise-y and Granby-y.

 

Go Ahead, You Can Miss Them

They're our children. Our son, our daughter. They are our family, and we're their parent. For a long time, we were more than their main caretaker. We loved them, adored them, obsessed and fussed over them--so star struck in love with them that every eyelash length, we knew. Every freckle and its placement on their arm, we knew.

We were the only ones they wanted when all they knew was that they wanted. "Only mommy," my children would say when someone else stepped in to bathe them, dress them, feed them. 24 hour days, from breakfast through to dinner, from waking up through sleep in the night, our children are the undercurrent that hums in our life. They are the hub and all else radiates from that center.

But they grow up, and they start on the path that leads to life on their own. Kindergarten, middle school, camp away, travels alone, first love, college, their own families. They have to.

But somehow, if we shed a tear and say that we miss our children, we're told that we smother. That our tears are selfish and crippling and we should feel shame for how we sickly cling. As if our tears are a twisted prayer for time to hold off and keep our children from their own lives.

All I've wanted to do in my life is to be real. To leap into the love I have for the ones most important to me by being there, with open arms and an equally open heart, and have a place for them inside of me that will never grow cold.

I spent the first minute that I met my children looking down at them through a blur of tears so thick I couldn't make out their faces. As the nurses brought them to me, I took them in with trembling hesitancy for fear of crushing their small form. I've since held them in a fearless bone-breaking embrace, sobbing hard enough to soak through the shoulders of their clothes as they moved from their first home with me into their first one without me. I know what has made them laugh, cry, be happy, and scared. I know what they liked to eat, what they found funny, their favorite kind of weather and how I knew they were tired by the way their faces grew paler than usual.

When I hear someone's harsh words telling me I should only have one reaction to witnessing my children as they reach milestones, and it should be without tears, I can't understand. Yes, my tears have been part of each step they've taken into their own existence: but it is from overwhelming emotion of having a life spent with them. My goodbye holds within it the one that came before and the one to come after. Why is there no space allowed for new bearings as we see life shift?

My tears were part of the goodbye when I first dropped my children off for their first playdate without me. My tears were there again when I waved goodbye, seemingly forever, as they turned and looked, turned and looked, to see me watching them from the front of our home on their first morning walking to school alone. On the day they first sensed that someone outside of their family liked them, my heart seized goodbye then when I caught a flash of secret smile meant only for them.

I say a thousand goodbyes a thousand different times, and each one with tears, as my children practice and discover life without me. I breathe a shaky goodbye one breath of love at a time. I say goodbye for every treasured second of their days spent with me. I whisper a watery-eyed goodbye that is not visible to them with each step they take into their own, setting the words to the wind knowing they'll carry through and surround them.

And when I'm gone from here, I will have said enough goodbyes in my lifetime that I am confident will fill the silence in my childrens' hearts. They will hear my warbly-voiced on the edge of tears words I love you I miss you I am so glad my life was with you.


Why are we shamed for weeping as we witness our childrens' lives unfold? There is joy and gratitude that cannot be held within a pat on the back and a hug of congratulations. To have had such a life, spent in such a privileged place in someone's life!

What other outlet is there that can speak in a language adequate enough to translate for a heart that bursts wide with pride, excitement, appreciation and love for them--if not one's tears?

I will not be shamed for crying tears over my children. Because I know every memory, hope and wish that exists in each hot drop that falls for only them.

 

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You can find more of my writing here:

 

ScaryMommy

 

Purple Clover

 

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What You End Up Saying Instead of I Love You

It would be perfect: I had memorized every word the night before. Actually, more like the early morning of. At 2:19 a.m., I knew exactly what I was going to say and do when we dropped off our oldest son at college the next day.

I would stand before him, like the Virgin Mary. Offering gentle outstretched hands with my head leaning just slightly to the side, I would pull my child in close. Reaching up to smooth his hair, his trusting eyes would search out mine. I would smile with the peaceful restraint of someone who had just been drugged and sigh, "My beautiful baby boy. How proud we are of you, how well you will do this year. We love you so!" Then we would share a brief but meaningful hug with the end goal being lasting just long enough to cement the moment. His arms over mine, I would whisper, "Goodbye, my son!" I would then turn, no looking back, and walk to our minivan, on firm--not Jello--legs. And then, it would be over. Goodbye with a noble chin up like Margaret Thatcher.

Ha!

Wednesday's college drop-off went like this: Our son walks us to the car. We knew it was the goodbye. My resolve is to gift him with the reassuring calm of our love and wisdom. What sprang forth instead, was:

Use single-ply for toilet paper because double-ply plugs. You have to sleep or you'll start to feel depressed. Make sure you smile back so you look happy to be here. Never put your drinking cups mouth side down on counters because so many germs. Wash your hands because other people wipe their butts and they never wash their hands. I've seen it.

He tried to step away for air as I made his neck into a lifesaver.

Did that stop my brilliance? Nope. I shout directions like I did that night almost two decades ago when we first left him with a babysitter.

Clenching him by his shirt, I start anew:

Don't lend money. Look over your shoulder when you walk home alone at night and do not walk home with earbuds in so you can hear if someone is following you. Eat protein or you'll feel depressed. Always take a shower because it's like a miracle. So is a new shirt, so let me know and I'll send you some. Good posture and a good haircut save many a day.

Then I fall full-face into my son, in the same desperate way that he would try to crawl back up into my arms and out of his small plastic bathtub when he was four months old.

I couldn't stop. My voice muffled by his chest, I continue.

Read labels so you know what you're eating. In your white plastic bin are three bottles of vitamins and calcium each, take them. Change your toothbrush when it's splayed. Drink water. Keep a hat--earmuffs aren't the same--in your backpack. And an umbrella--because chills and rain come out of nowhere in Wisconsin. Move five minutes for every hour of sitting. If you think you need to go to the health clinic, don't think, go.

I force down the lump rising in my throat. I don't know why I am on this mission, but I am. I caw, Purell. Wet socks are bad. Be sure and see some blue and green every day, because scurvy is real.

All the while I am spouting verses that sound like Mother Goose, the real message has yet to happen. My beautifully rehearsed golden college send-off speech that I am determined to carry out.

It's now or never for the final goodbye, so I square my shoulders and step back. I open my mouth to bestow my practiced pearls of love and wisdom upon my son, and I hear a crackled glottal fry worse than a Kardashian fill the air.

Suddenly, streams. No, rivers. Waterfalls. I lunge for my son and a flood of tears that would not stop soak his shirt while I am back to swinging from his neck like a weighted pendulum. I try to break through but the moment swallows me up and I am croaking like a frog.

Never has my voice disappointed me more.

"Mom," my son asks, sounding genuinely puzzled. "Why are you crying?"

He asks me so simply, as if words could answer. I squeeze my eyes and hide my face in his neck. I pull on both his shoulders and want him to know that I just need him to do all these things I've sputtered at him like someone who has five minutes to blow up fifty balloons.

I can't be here anymore to make sure he does everything so I need him to.
I need him to listen to this manual on how to care for himself and all these things I've thrown at him will keep him safe, sound, healthy, happy.
I have taken care of him his entire life, and now, I won't be here to do it.
He has to be the one to make sure he arrives home every night.
Without earbuds in.

Because this beautiful baby boy, the one we are so proud of, the one who is going to do so well, we love him so much.

And if there was a google translator that he could plug in to make sense of my, "Wash your hands because others don't and earmuffs are not the same as a hat," it would tell him with 100 percent accuracy, "Your mama loves you so much it leaves her stupid."

* * *

 

*Special thanks to my dear friend who is walking this path with me, Peyton Price of Suburban Haiku, for providing the inspiration for this post. Times like this, friends carry us. 

Respect the Loophole

1:25 p.m - 1/4 of an inch of juice left

I drink coffee as the vehicle for the 1,000 calorie flavored creamer. I eat bread for delivery of the fat-laden butter. The only reason I walk on the treadmill is because it makes it Ok for me to listen to Eminem even though I'm older than his mother.

I eat Raisin Bran for the raisins in milk and Lucky Charms for the cute baby marshmallows. (most people get the Lucky Charms one, but tell me the Raisin Bran one is just dumb because why not just eat raisins. Duh. Because I love raisins in milk but raisins in milk as a snack would call too much attention.)

Life is full of loopholes.

You can say you're doing research while you Youtube ThugLife cat videos. “I have to do this. It keeps my hand on the pulse of America's humor, kids!”

In summer's muggy haze, there is no easier time for a dinner loophole than quartering up a chilled head of iceberg lettuce to cool everyone off. Who wants real food anyway?

All you need for a loophole to present itself is a good set of brains, both hemispheres, one for sound reason, the other for downright conviction.

My children are masters of the loophole. They can slip in a cuss if they turn it into a reminder of how my hearing isn't what it used to be. "Mom, I know you think you heard me tell my brother he was going to get his ass destroyed, what I actually said was 'I wonder about tonight's asteroid storm.' You know you need to ask the Dr. about your hearing." True enough, my child.

You can loophole making faces at your brother because your mother says Don't say anything mean to your brother and you're not saying anything. Saying "Don't touch him" makes you wish you would have said Touch Him because the almost of a one inch away poking finger is more annoying than the landing of the finger.

Loopholes allow me to visit my kids at work. I can go to the grocery store where one is a bagger and to the pool, where the other one lifeguards. I had to buy groceries anyway, which explains why I'm at the store during his shift, and before one starts huffing and puffing that I'm at the pool spying on him, let me just say that the only reason I am at the pool is to see if the Silver Swimmers were holding a Waterworking Those Bat Wings lap session.

When I see how long my children will make the quarter inch of apple juice that's left, last to the point of them barely pouring enough into a glass to wet a hummingbird's lips, because of my words, "The person I see drink the last drop of juice, has to go to the basement and get a new gallon," we're entering some loophole-ripe ground here.
 

Here we have an empty gallon of juice. With no one responsible for bringing up the replacement, since I didn't see who drank the last drop.

 

  It is impossible for me to get angry in the face of such beautiful circumventing genius.

***

The Truth About Appearances

I was asked on twitter today about balance--and I knew they weren't talking about my Wii Fit score. They wanted to know what advice I had on getting it all done. It being, all of 'it'. I sat at the other end of the screen, surprised, because Wow Do I look like someone who has it all together?

How did that concept ever appear? I wanted to apologize if I made it seem that way because I am no master of my universe. Instead I said "There is no balance. Only daily work and reminding myself to be my personal cheerleader."

Later this afternoon, I googled "Balance+Life+Women" and found out a few things that made me laugh out loud in an ouch that hurts to know way. For instance, did you know you're supposed to do certain things daily?

True, one site suggested that for balance in life, you need to outline time needed for your daily non- negotiables.

And then they gave The Big 7:

Exercise
Sleep
Homecare
Work
Bills
Childcare
Cooking

They offered the tip that if you must, let some things slide, like TV. As if I didn't feel bad enough already about not meeting The Big 7 up there as it was... I find out that I should have had time to watch TV in there? I was even failing at watching TV??

Here's how I handle my Big 7:

-My exercise is speed walking for 50 minutes like I'm in England. Then I do 10 minutes of arm exercises. I also ignore all articles that begin with "Get that bikini body ready now!"
-My sleep is wherever I land in the house between the hours of 1 a.m. and 7.
-Homecare? (hire out, says the article) Yeah, no, tried it. By the time I picked up the house I decided I might as well clean it. Or not.
-Work hours for me are easy. I have one of the best jobs that suits me more and more each year. I get paid to play with preschoolers.
-Bills? I don't like to talk about money. That's not good, I know.
-Childcare. Schedule it? I am on deck, on call, that's how I like to do it all--with the kids in the background.
-Cooking? Now you hit on a non-negotiable. Food allergies, five hungry people. I'm the one who does feeding time because I'm the smartest, fastest, and best at it.

We are all scrambling for time. If we compare what others accomplish to what we've done, this won't ever work. We don't know if someone has a friend who comes over to help, or a mother that lives just six minutes away. Someone might have kids who play well by themselves, and still others may just have the knack for organizing their time.

Each one of us sees what someone else is doing and it's kneejerk simple to go to a chastising inner dialogue. Why aren't we writing more, exercising more, laughing more, funning more? We want to get things done and be productive, but what is THE TRICK?

I've thought long and hard about a better answer to give to that tweet from this morning. Almost 12 hours later, I'm pretty sure I know what it is.

The Big 7 up above don't count if you don't start with the mother of them all: if you don't have this one thing, the one you must do, nothing will work. Everything we do takes energy and without This One Thing, you'll be sapped of it. So-

Take care with how you talk to yourself.

That is all of it right there. Nothing will have your shoulders landing on your knees faster than the spiral of self-talk of how you're not as good as anyone else, how you can't keep up with everyone else, and how all that you do is half assed and slapped together.

Want to feel overwhelmed? Tell yourself you'll never find the time to do anything.
Want to feel muddled and confused? Just think of all you have to do over and over.
Going for anxious? Remind yourself of how far behind you are from your goals.

We need to feel good about ourselves to find the energy and drive to pursue and commit to the things we want. If you want to fire yourself up for all that you want in life, remember where good feelings come from. From hearing something good. That means no more of how much better and more together others are than we are. I'm no psychologist but I'd bet my cheetah spotted shoe collection on how depleting critical self talk can be. We have got to reframe our relationship with ourselves.

So. Don't do it anymore. Stop bad talking yourself. The Big 7 up above are whatever The Big 7 are to you. Take your non-negotiables from there.

Exercise - absolutely I do not miss a day. I want to live.
Sleep - without a doubt I am working on change. This year, I started changing into pajamas.
Homecare - clean toilets, floors, non-sticky counters and folded laundry. Enough.
Childcare - is what you need it to be in the season you're in. Parenting is dynamic. Children grow, life gets easier. It's easy to forget that. Your time to do will come.
Bills - a definite work in progress.
Work - I'm lucky, I like mine. I get to color! And play-dough in the morning!
Cooking - this is my fun. Dicing carrots, chopping garlic, feeding my people. This fills my tank.

This is how my Big 7 work for me.

And just typing that, made me smile already.

So go on, love on yourself and realize that we never know how others make it work, we can only know what makes it work for us.

Peace out.

xo

 

* * * 

Crash Course in Motherhood Fashion

I'd take the socks off but I'm not at Phase 5 yet.

I'm always looking for fashion ideas. I could post every day about the smart outfits I see on my favorite fashion blogs DudeMom and Already Pretty but I'm not a fashion blogger, so. But that doesn't stop me from window shopping and daydreaming on their sites.

I could be like them, if I didn't have the shortage of items required, like tops and bottoms. My closet is full but not with what they have. Over here, it's time for a long overdue Goodwill Drop and Run. The kind where the receiving clerk chases me down with, “Hey! We told you last week! We want vintage not 1992!”

 

My closet is made up of the 5 Phases in my life:

Phase 1. Survival

 

Phase 2. Slept in it? Woke up dressed in it? Guess I did.

Phase 3. Errands

Phase 4. Surprise! It's Clean Shirt Week!

Phase 5. I think I'll Care Week

Phase 6. Church Day

I am a busy mom of three, and I need what I have. Since you're here, I'm taking a gamble that you're like me, so I am going to share my tips and tricks to help you on your busy mom personal journey. And I promise you, you don't even have to learn how to use belts to accessorize.

Biggest mom fashion game changer I made was to adopt the uniform. For the first five years of my kids' lives I lived in my black cardigan with husband's T shirt underneath. Smart, chic, and no nonsense. I only replaced it because the elbows got shiny. 

Into the second decade of mothering, I learned to work with my budget of $65.00. Full disclosure: it's actually $70.00 but I need to have money left over for a breve latte. 

-Flats need to be the first thing you buy. Faux animal print flats take you across your day of many purposes: from school drop off where you are the fashion envy of the mom minivan queue to the ten items or less check out lane, your cheetah scheme pointy toed self says, Yeah. Feline. I went there.

-Next, get yourself a flowy purple top. Like the kind Pioneer Woman wears. Flowy is key, because hides the flab, hugs the curves. And BONUS: color of royalty! That's what you'll tell yourself all day now that you know this, what do you think Lordes is singing about? So, have at it and plunk down the cash on your next Kmart run.

-Pair the blouse with stretchy pants, call them yoga pants, whatever, we all know, STRETCHY PANTS.

Can you picture me now? I'm killin' it. Purple top, black stretchies, awesome cheetah flats.

Go ahead. Quit wishing and be me. Start out with $65.00, spend $19.99 on the shoes, $23.00 on the blouse, and $14.99 for the stretchy capris. Come home Sexy, Sophisticated and Snazzy with $3.02 bouncing around in your pocket after your Starbucks stop. 

You're not just a mom in a T shirt anymore. Never again look like you just woke up and put something on. Or slept in it.

 

Even if you just did. (see Phase 2)

 

* * *

Make Every Day Opposite Day

If you want to make friends in real life, do the opposite of what I do.

If reading that first line above has you skimming through this post for quick and easy tips, then I'm putting money on you wanting to know how to get people to be friends with you.

I wish I could help you with that, but I had to turn to the internet for friends.

But here's an idea that my son suggested the other day, “Hey, mom, you should do a post called “Do the opposite of what I do to make friends since you don't have any in real life.”

Great idea, son, let's let them in on all my secrets of Living a Hermit Life.

 

And with a snap of a finger, because I can only snap my fingers on my right hand, a post is born. I promise you, if you do the opposite of what I do in my real life, then you stand a good chance of getting to know some human beings.

Follow these pointers below to a social life that consists of more than the people in your computer: (I love the people in my computer) -

1.) I forget breakfast. That means, do the opposite: begin your day with breakfast. Heading out the door after four cups of coffee and nil in the stomach makes for a very shaky school drop off (pun intended.) You don't want to be the mom in the car line laying on the horn to the van full of preschoolers being dropped off in front of you while you shout, "you droppin' off gramma or what?!"

2.) I wear my slippers a lot. Sure, I have my winter coat on over a pajama top, though I do have outside wearing pants on. So, this means you should dress in a manner that invites a good first impression. We all want to keep it real, but if your daily life involves jeans so stiff you can stand them in a corner, then it's time to change it up a little. Also? Use a real pony tail holder in your hair, and not the inked up red rubber band from that morning's newspaper. Trust me, the inked up rubber band could make it or break it with someone.

3.) Shoes. Shoes are nice – as I said, I wear slippers. Wear shoes. Your teen son's size eleven Converses tossed on your size seven feet, sans socks, do not count as shoes. People hand out friend points for shoes, but extra points if the ones on your feet are your own.

4.) Talk kindly about your children. A soft "Oh, heavens, I can't believe Johnny forgot his lunch" falls much better on the ears than "sonuvabeehive that kid of mine would forgot his head if it wasn't screwed on. I've half a mind to just let him go without – I don't care if they call home. We'll see how quickly he forgets his lunch again with the memory of hunger pangs..." or anything like that. I hear.

5.) I do not like to wake up. I have to talk myself through my morning saying, Smile Smile Smile Would it kill you to smile? So, you, friend-maker, Be Cheerful. Do not walk around with the biggest, blackest, most face-esconcing made in Italy sunglasses that money can buy on your face just because you don't feel like eye contact. Especially when it's cloudy out.

6.) Learn to make a great food for church or school potlucks. This is because I do deli pick up and dumps. If you don't take my word for it, and still decide to go and hit the up orange clearance deli sticker priced salads anyway, at least be sure it's not the advertised 99 cents a pound macaroni salad splayed across every flyer in town.

7.) Never begin a sentence with the words, No offense. I don't do this, but people have started sentences to me this way. This is a freebie gem for you, from me -- Don't say, "Gee, I wish I could be more like you and just let my kids screw up on their own, no offense." No offense does the opposite. It offends.

8.) Be alert for opportunities to show sincere praise. Loosen those lips and don't be afraid to give a compliment. My shyness much too often has me keeping my words of  "Oh, I am digging your chunky zebra bangle right now" to myself. Do the opposite, give the praise, give the compliment. It works wonders to melt even the coldest, or shyest hearts, like mine.

9.) Be open and accessible. I kind of walk hunched over, because I'm always cold and really should get my thyroid checked out BUT this doesn't mean you should walk around looking like a comma.

Try out these nine steps of friending. See if you don't get invited to a new book club! Either way, report back and meet me online tomorrow morning. We'll raise a cup of coffee in hopes that you get lucky and the next person you meet, you charm the heck out of them.

My best advice, though, is to keep your eye open for someone with a morning newspaper rubber band in their hair. Now, those people are keepers.

 

* * *

Air Conditioning and Private Schools: All in One

I was raised with a long list of conservative Dos and Don’ts of life. I abided by most. The ones that made sense, like “Don’t let your lips touch the spigot when drinking from a public water fountain,” were easy to follow. The questionable ones, “Stay away from that mentally unstable girl/boy that always gets into trouble,” were harder to follow, because those kind of ballstothewall beings are my favorite flavor in people.

Then there was the no negotiating if you want to remain recognized by this family don't-ism, ”DO NOT LIVE WITH SOMEONE IF YOU’RE NOT MARRIED!"  Loud enough for me to hear, even if it was whispered to me by my mother.

I never did live with anybody, not that I wasn’t asked *brushes imaginary lint off shoulders.*
The fear of being dead to my family kept me from co-signing any co-lease for cohabitating in a co-op. However, as there always is a however with most insights, I am now of a different mindset due to the emotional and psychological duress that could have been avoided, *nice non-cohabitating girl or not*, had I lived with my husband first.

It was our first married night at home together. As I dumped out the laundry basket full of our first shared comingled his and hers clothing, there was a sudden shock of a view, fleeting, but enough of a sight that I prayed I'd been mistaken.

“Did you forget to empty out tissues from your pants pocket before throwing them in the laundry?” I asked my husband of ten days. "Because I just dumped this out and saw what looked like shreds of tissue that had gone through the dryer."

“Nope,” his answer came back quickly. He didn't even look up from ESPN.

And just like that, what could have been an arms entwined google eyed experience of what a metaphor of our coupling this laundry was; turned out, instead, to be a whispered shameful conversation at lunch with my girlfriend the next day.

“Oh my God,” I checked over both shoulders to make sure no one else was listening. “I need to tell you something. His underwear…” I stuttered. “It looked like a lace doily. Like the first ones ever made. I swear, the Smithsonian called asking for it.”

“Get.out.,” my friend mouthed back, disgusted, “like, how old do you think it was? ‘Cuz that’s just gross.”

“I know, I know,” my confession continued. “I just couldn’t get the holey Swiss cheese memory of the backside of his boxers out of my mind, not even, you know, later…”

“You gotta tell him it’s just not right, and that it turns you off. He’ll listen to that.”

“But what can I do? When I brought it up… he…he… he was almost proud of how old his boxers were. He bragged, ‘yup, had those babies since my fraternity days. No one milks a buck like me.’ ”

My single friend echoed my thought, “Ewwwwwwwwww…”

With her reaction, I decided to keep what happened next, to myself.

My husband lovingly double folded the threadbare overused tissue he called underwear, and as though delivering the golden tablets to Joseph Smith himself, placed them in our shared dresser drawer, right next to my honeymoon trousseau of days old satin underthings.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.

20 years later of lace doily as underwear, and my spouse hasn't changed (forgive the pun). His backside still looks as if I'm watching Doris Day through those gauzy filters she began asking for in the 1970s. His reasoning, God love him, is clear. "You call it air conditioning, I call it private school for the kids."

Frugal or saintly, I can't decide. Either way, my children, Cohabitation. No matter what I tell you in my parenting feverishness, consider the option.

* * *

100 Word Blog Post Challenge (can she do it??)

Can I do it (I just lost four words right there)

Casey of Life with Roozle issued a 100 word blog post challenge. I'm going to try. Like I said, a challenge.

::

I remember when I was in college, wishing I had my own pictures of myself. It made me sad that I had to count on others to have a record of the things and people in my life then. BINGO. It hit me, Well you know what you can do? Buy your own damn camera, woman.

And so I did. A ten dollar Kodak instamatic at Kmart. And ever since then I have pictures of myself that are mine.

I've heard, “Don't wait for someone to give you flowers, buy your own.”

My flowers are my armloads of photo albums.

If there's something you wish you had in your life, don't just wish - give it to yourself. 

::

**118 words. So what, my own blog - just like my own photos.

Visit Casey and leave a comment. Then take your own 100 word blog challenge.

 

* * *

6 Quick and Spritely Ways to Lose 6 Ounces!

Food is fun. And if you and your family have a heart for itty bitty Lilliputian things like we do, then you can have yourselves a blast preparing these cute little snack could-be-dinner items. In the process, you have the fringe benefit of incidentally losing up to half a pound over six months from mini snacking where you barely have to open your mouth. How cute a time of munching is that?! [rhetorical question, please don't answer]

Pixie Meal #1 - Take one thin slice of apple, slice it even thinner. Arrange in artful pinwheel and dot with one raisin. YUM. And on an appetizer plate? So adorable.

 

 

Pixie Meal #2 - One itsy beef cold cut, rolled up so cute and tight, then cut into 1/4 and set next to just an oh so outer edge of tomato. Hors d'oeuvres for one! FUN!

 

Snack Time? Meal Time? #3 - Three crunchy and satisfying baby carrots, premium brand only, atop a generous tomato slice. My mouth is watering!

Yay! Time for MiniMeal #4 - See? You can eat all dingdangday long because it's mini meals! A coleslaw cup o'lettuce hits the spot around 3 PM., right about the time your vision gets dotty. 

 

Ho ho! No time to say "I'm full!" because you still have Meal #5 - Look what awaits you, the world's bittiest quesadilla. How can you say no? You don't!

What? Time to eat again? Yes, my friend, it is. Mini Meal #6 - And for you, it's slice of pizza time! All you need are 10 Cheerios strategically aligned in a pie shape with one stable counting finger (check that blood sugar).

 

Got all your travels in, Gulliver? Awesome! Now's the time you reward yourself with aaaaall the bread. Baked bread, pressed bread, crunchy bread, raisin bread. All the full-sized gluten, all of it for full sized you. 

If at the end of the day, your stomach still sounds like a steamroller over fresh granite, you can always lose your mind and have all you want of gazing at this ceramic burger that my son made in art class. I can't fall asleep on an empty stomach, so I keep this on the kitchen counter. Just looking at it makes me sigh with full-belly contentment.

At zero calories, not even taking in the sun is a better deal.

Ceramic burger most satisfying when ogled while munching marmalade toast.

:: 

  

School of Ugly Ducklings For The Win!

I was not an especially good looking pre-adolescent. When I was five, six, oh you could stretch it to, say seven, I was curly headed and large-eyed adorable. But when my eighth birthday party rolled around, had there been a Models-R-Us talent scout in attendance, they would have seen no reason to hang around for more than two pictures. Maybe they'd drop their card on the table on the way out but probably not.

My arms were long, my fingertips almost grazing my knees. My legs looked like matchsticks with marbles midway down. As true today as it was back then, my feet were too big for my height. Do some predictive foot  length calculations back then, and the charts read a potential adult height of 6' 2. My appearance, along with the square-toed black orthopedic lace-up oxfords my Doctor told my mother I had to wear to fix my pronated gait, made me look like a capital L.

I was skinny, knobby, with eternally startled eyes that took up half my face. The cherry thrown on top was that I was also hairy. Hair on my arms, my legs, my knees, my knuckles, my forehead. My eyebrows extended to my temples, and my hairline begged for a Ronco at-home electrolysis kit. Had you shown me a picture of Chewbacca back then, I may have secretly wondered, Daddy?

My mother was oblivious to all this hair and bones gone wild on her child. Too tall for my height, she would dress me in much too young for me swirly sailor dresses that barely ended at the top of my legs. She then had the nerve to have me top it all off with lace anklets The portrait would not be complete without a velvet bow the size of a Rain Forest butterfly slapped to the side of my head. Since my hair was too thick and curly to keep long, she kept it cut in short, tight ringlets that made me look like Oscar from The Office.

All this was as bad as it seems, for awhile. Back then I fretted daily about not sailing out of heaven on the boat called Good Looks. But, looking back from the safe and grateful distance of no longer being the long lost daughter of Chewbacca, I can see how the hand dealt me played out well.

There were many advantages to not being one of the prettiest girl in second (third, fourth, fifth, sixth...) grade.

I buried myself in books. I read everything. Books became my alternate world where I was the lead character and heroine. Had I been receiving invitations to go share a cherry coke with Tommy Boyer (oh, the daydreams of that blue eyed boy) at Rexall’s drugstore, I don’t think I’d have the time to go through 180 reading hours a week.

I studied hard. From all the reading I was doing, I was turning into a walking encyclopedia. I got the rep for being smart, and my expectations for myself formed - I was a smart kid. One who got As. I wouldn’t be the one asked to walk home with Brian Cahill, (I was always a sucker for a boy with long hair) but he sure looked for me at Social Studies project time.

Kids turned to me with their deepest, darkest secrets. With the every-woman-for-herself world of the beautiful and popular, who could these poor beauties turn to? I was the trusted one. I never would have imagined the pressure of not being able to ever be less than perfect until they confided in me. To hear their woes and angst of making sure they stayed the prettiest – I don’t think anything else made me more appreciative of being able to pass through the hallways unnoticed. Messy hair and all.

My best friends were boys. I got to know them as friends before they were to be boyfriends. They liked me. I was someone they could talk to without feeling nervous or having to be full of bravado. We could laugh together and they could ask me how to get Mary Morrisey to sit next to them on the bus for the class field trip (she chose me). I made them laugh; that right there, at a very young age, is when I realized it was pretty dang awesome to be funny.

I became funny. Best confident booster in the world.

There was no curse of being the ugly duckling growing up. It was kind of made for me, in retrospect. It suited me and made me what I am today; a pensive, intuitive, woman who writes humor. These spectacular benefits of growing up less than visually pleasing have not been forgotten by me.

It’s the very reason I made sure my children's first pair of shoes, were these:

 

 

Is That... Do I? What The Heck I Can't See

A difficult decision, but undeniable circumstances. It had to be done.

Fortunately, all went well and I am home. Resting comfortably? Yeah, sure, but I am whining and complaining all the way.

I had eye surgery Tuesday morning, and everything is still blurry with some razzle dazzle fireworks going on. I can't do a lot on my own and the eye drops that I have to take to avoid infection and calm inflammation sting like a mofo. I'm not happy. One can be grateful, and still not be a grinning fool.

Everything looks like nothing it actually is. My glasses don't work because my vision will be off until the swelling subsides, and so I pretty much have every light on in the house turned up to full candle power because dammnit I just can't see. I can make things out, but it's all a guessing game.

I finally decided to just get over it and enjoy the ride. So now, instead of migraine inducing jaw clenching frustration over screaming BUT WHAT IS IT! I just go with the flow. What I think it is, it shall be.

Like this picture I saw today. It was a holiday ad, but it looked like it was a woman who had just gone paleo and had rubbed the blood from her raw steak on her dress. Or maybe she's a fancy butcher. Either way, why question it. She looks happy.

I also went on a tirade, my children held captive to it on a Sunday morning, while I launched with all I had into an op-ed piece in today's paper where I read the author's opinion that a certain segment of our population is 'undeserved' of special attention. What?! After a few minutes, my middle son came over to walk me to the sofa and help me lie down. He glimpsed at the article I was frothing over and said, "Mom, actually, the guy agrees with you. It says, 'underserved."

Never mind.

Mostly, I just have to take a deep breath these coming weeks, and heal. Everything will still be there when I'm up and 20/20.

Except I'm kind of worried about one thing. I just logged on to Facebook and I can tell something big is going down.

All my friends' updates say they were up till dawn "Ordering Chinese presents" for their kids.

Holy Cow I hope when I'm able to see again that Oriental Trading Company does speedy overnight delivery.

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NaBloPoMo Day7 - Flash Movie Reviews

photo credit: http://www.wikigallery.org/

It's the weekend. This week has made me feel like the old back-broken man in The Wood Gatherer.
My cure is just one thing: immersing myself into oblivion with a microfleece blanket, a bowl of popcorn swimming in butter, and some good movies.

Let me help you wipe Monday through Friday off your mind with my flash movie reviews.

Ah, Friday night and my sofa, here I come. *Warning: Movie spoilers ahead*

Hunger Games: Shaky cam clown regime makes kids duke it out and hopes no one will notice how much their lives suck.
 
Pacific Rim:  Giant robots fight-punch crusty monsters from the briny deep. If you have a problem with this, you probably shouldn’t see this movie.

Turbo:  A tale about a mutant snail. You’ll never look at Chap Stick in the same way.

Hunt for Red October: You guessed it, a hunt for red October.

Star Wars: A war with people in space.

Saving Private Ryan: You can guess it’s about WWII with soldiers trying to save a guy named Ryan.
 
Lord of The Rings: Believe it or not, there’s only one ring and the *lord* quote quote has been dead for a thousand years. Or the lord’s just a creepy eyeball chained to a tower.

National Treasure: Nicholas Cage tips his hat to American history while trying to clear his family’s name.

Pirates of the Caribbean/Curse of the Black Pearl: Pirates who sail the Caribbean and something about a curse, and maybe a pearl.

Planes: Someone took the story of Cars and flipped it backwards.

How To Train Your Dragon: An instruction manual for training scaly flying beasts.

Kung Fu Panda: A pudgy panda that does Kung Fu that finds out the secret to winning is believing in yourself.

Matrix: There’s a dude who lives in a computer and there’s no sunlight but he somehow needs to always wear sunglasses.
 
Thor: Hammer wielding buff beach bum lays a beat down to some trolls with crackly skin and dandruff issues.

The Avengers: Whose bright idea was it to put all the super heroes in one movie? Nobody saw that coming.

Captain America: Wonder where his allegiance lies.

Man of Steel: Mean square-head general from Krypton with a haircut that looks like he just got out of the shower plays hide and seek with man in tights.

Despicable Me: Pointy nosed middle aged man commands an army of earplug-looking yellow beings that brings all the kids to the theater because they love these things.

Indiana Jones: Not what you think. Doesn’t take place in Indiana. Beats Nazis with a bull whip and finds stuff from the Old Testament.

The King’s Speech: You can bet by the time it’s over the King’s gonna give one helluva speech.

Lincoln: Probably not about JFK. How daaaaaaaaaaaare yoooooooooooou think it’s about JFK.

Argo: Ben Affleck works movie magic to save American embassy workers in a tight spot.

Transformers: Exploding space robots hide each others’ valuables underneath historic land marks on Earth.

Lone Ranger: Believe it or not, he actually has friends.

Iron Man III: Iron Man decides to throw in the towel. Probably not going to show up for Avengers Club meetings.

The Butler: It actually is about a butler.
 
Real Steel: A touching father/son reunion story and robots still can’t settle their differences.

Galaxy Quest: A look into the epic age-old conflict of space squids versus galaxy lobster men.

Finding Nemo: A large portion of this film is spent looking for an orange fish named Nemo.
 
Hotel Transylvania: Paranoid monsters at human-excluding hotel.

ParaNorman: Sketchy animation drives small children out of the theater.

P.S. My favorite thing about escaping into movies? I don't have to try and say anything. 

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This post is part of National Blog Posting Month, NaBloPoMo. Click to learn more about it and to participate on your own blog. If you've written a NaBloPoMo post, feel free to share it in the comments.