February 03, 2010 @ 10:15

Can you believe there is more snow in the forecast for us?  It has been so surreal driving around town with snow on rooftops and lingering snowmen that haven’t completely melted yet.  We just don’t get snow that lingers down South.  It’s beautiful.  Although, I gotta admit I’m getting a little tired of the mushy yard . . . 

The boys had a blast last week with the snowdays.  So I think I could get over mushy yard for more of this . . . 

The ambush . . . 

Doesn’t really look like a fair matchup does it? 

He didn’t seem to mind. 

Until Bear started making Bear-sized snowballs . . . 

And put one down Puppy’s hoodie . . . 

But mom knew just how to make it all better. 

February 02, 2010 @ 06:21

I’ve been having nightmares lately.  Nothing to really worry about.  My subconcious leads a very full and active life, that’s all.  I am a picture thinker so dreams have always been a constant.  I find people who never remember their dreams to be a curiosity.  The last couple of nights though I’ve dreamt about deep fried catfish and giant sandwiches with double cheese and cake and cake and cake.  I’ve hit a plateau in my weight loss.  I haven’t lost any weight in about three months.  I think.  I’m not going back in to check that on past posts because I don’t want to get obsessed.  Eating disorder recovery is a damned slippery slope when you can’t give up your demon 100%.  I could live without whiskey if I were an alcoholic.  But you gotta eat.  That’s part of why I get so enraged by the people who continually feed the disease.  The beauty, fashion, and diet/weight loss industries primarily.  I have had a dislike of the Special K commercials for a long time.  Ever since the one they ran that used the phrase “studies show that women who eat breakfast weigh less”.  You see the problem with that sentence?  Weigh less.  Less than what?  I weigh less I did at my highest, but I’m still not to my healthy goal yet.  But there are so many people suffering from eating disorders, many of whom will die from the disease, that weigh less than me.  Is that your winner statistic Special K?  Lose weight until you die?  You win, you weigh less!  Here are some other statistics: 

MORTALITY RATES

• Eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness
• A study by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders reported that 5 – 10% of anorexics die within 10 years after contracting the disease; 18-20% of anorexics will be dead after 20 years and only 30 – 40% ever fully recover
• The mortality rate associated with anorexia nervosa is 12 times higher than the death rate of ALL causes of death for females 15 – 24 years old.
• 20% of people suffering from anorexia will prematurely die from complications related to their eating disorder, including suicide and heart problems

From : http://www.state.sc.us/dmh/anorexia/statistics.htm 

But whatever marketing company Kellogs uses has managed to top it in a way that I just can’t believe made it to the air.  Seriously, I don’t know exactly how many peole have to put a stamp of approval on an ad that costs that much money, but surely at least one person down that line raised an eyebrow.  The mom with the red robe after Christmas with the Santa butt commercial, it was funny.  But this one?  Irresponsible.  It features a woman who appears to be at a healthy weight sitting down with her daughter (way to follow through on the message there) in a child’s chair.  When she stands and it gets stuck on her behind, she immediately feels the need to diet.  Congratulations Special K, on being another contributor to the you aren’t good enough machine.  Little girls, and boys, too, thank you so very much.  I’m gonna go out and buy some more Kashi cereal today. 

February 01, 2010 @ 06:12

My contribution to the quote challenge . . .  from Judith Viorst . . . 

I’ll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.
It seems the woman I’ve turned out to be
Is not the heroine of some grand story.
But I have learned to find the poetry
In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

First of all, I have to tell you what happened when I googled my quote.  It was just a big fat kick in the ironical throat.  I love Judith Viorst.  Thinking that this poem was from the book “It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty”, and wanting to make sure I didn’t misquote, I googled it.  As I typed . . .  It’s. Hard. To. Be . . . .  and so on, you know the way google tries to predict what you want and cut your work short for you?  Well, I’m so damned old - and my favorite quotes are so damned older than that - they never once came up.  Apparently nowadays, it’s just hard to be hip hop . . .  

This past Christmas I went shopping for a little something for my niece, who will very soon be the dreaded thirteen.  As I wandered about the stores I realized that in the last few years, as I’ve retreated further and further into my obscure-artist-filled iTunes playlists and crazy hobbies and odd books, the current trends have passed me by.  I did get another hint there.  While talking with a younger friend (college aged) not too long ago, I said something about the magic song.  To which he replied, “Huh?”  You know, the magic song.  Just like that episode of Friends, (and there’s another clue - Friends is so last decade) that episode with the magic story about backpacking across Europe, the magic story you tell when you want to have sex.  My friend informed me that there is now a new magic song.  And I don’t even know who the artist is.  Never heard of them.  And well, I’ve got just enough pride left to not tell you what the magic song USED to be, and not enough powers of recollection to tell you what the magic song is NOW.  *sigh*  Tell me this!  How will I know if some dreamy guy with an acoustic guitar is trying to seduce me now?  I mean really?  I suppose a dreamy guy with a guitar for me is so last decade, as well. 

I’m really not bemoaning my age, or the woman I’ve become.  Inside my head, I still feel nineteen and confused by boys and not quite sure of what the future holds and fresh as a daisy, just like when I was actually nineteen.  But side by side with all of that girlish confusion lies confidence.  A sure and steady belief in what matters and what does not.  When I look in the mirror, the woman I see is far more appealing to me than that daisy girl.  Lines and all.  I like her.  Alot.  I haven’t written a novel.  I haven’t finished college.  I haven’t made millions.  I haven’t won too many hearts.  But I haven’t scarred too many either.  I don’t believe that I have screwed up too badly.  And what I have gathered around me, in place of dreams of authoring great novels and stealing the hearts of millions and being rich and at my leisure, is a life that is full.  Satisfying.  Every day I get a little bit better at not being a reactionary.  At being a patient mother.  At giving up on grudges and misconceptions, even when they are about me.  I’ve been trying my best to remember that what I know about others is almost never the whole story.  I’m working hard at believing in the best in people instead of the worst.  I’m getting better at it, but there’s still far to go.  And, largely because of some of the amazing women that I’m lucky enough to call friends, I’ve gotten some glimpses of a world far bigger than I could imagine when I was just nineteen.  I realize how lucky I am that my worries center around helping one small boy navigate the big big world and one not so small boy launch himself into it.  I never really worry about where tomorrow’s breakfast will come from.  I can work.  I never really worry about shelter.  If our house crumbled into the dirt tomorrow, well, we’d just find another one.  We live in a place where poverty is rarely marked by starvation.  We are the lucky ones.  We have it good here.  And here I am, at an age where I could buy into that sad sad American thing and seriously start worrying about what little nips and tucks I might could pursue to knock some mileage off my face.  But I just can’t drum up any little bit of caring for jockeying for position in a race that doesn’t matter.  My friend Natalie and I were talking about shopping one day.  She said, “Hey have you noticed the clothes at Walmart look better these days?”  To which I said, “No, sugar, it’s just different now that we are paying for them.  Now the dollars measure up differently.”  I can remember a time when a pair of $200 jeans might have impressed me.  But now, you wanna prove to me that you a woman to be reckoned with?  Show me some denim on your butt that you snagged down at the consignment shop for two dollars on your way home from volunteering at a soup kitchen.  Show me a woman who would rather by mesquito nets, or a case of Plumpynut or a box of bees or a whole water buffalo!, than designer fashion and I’ll show you a woman who knows of true beauty.  And if I can pass along that knowledge to my two boys, then I’ve made more contribution to the world than any other kind of success I could have chased after. 

I think back to how frightened I was when I divorced.  And now, inside my head, I tell myself relax sugar, you got this thing.  Just keep focusing on the things that matter.  Be a good mom.  Raise some healthy kids.  The rest is gravy . . .  or drivel.  There is nothing sweeter than being able to look around at the people in your world and being totally in love with them.  And I certainly am.  I mean really, have you looked at you guys? 

Oh, and just in case you are wondering, I’m sure this strange streak of narcissism/navel gazing will die down soon and I’ll post some more cake and cute kid pictures . . .  but not today.  ;)  And Kat?  Tag, you’re it. 

The Pleasures of Ordinary Life 
 
I’ve had my share of necessary losses,
Of dreams I know no longer can come true.
I’m done now with the whys and the becauses.
It’s time to make things good, not just make do.
It’s time to stop complaining and pursue
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I used to rail against my compromises.
I yearned for the wild music, the swift race.
But happiness arrived in new disguises:
Sun lighting a child’s hair. A friend’s embrace.
Slow dancing in a safe and quiet place.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

I’ll have no trumpets, triumphs, trails of glory.
It seems the woman I’ve turned out to be
Is not the heroine of some grand story.
But I have learned to find the poetry
In what my hands can touch, my eyes can see.
The pleasures of an ordinary life.

Young fantasies of magic and of mystery
Are over. But they really can’t compete
With all we’ve built together: A long history.
Connections that help render us complete.
Ties that hold and heal us. And the sweet,
Sweet pleasures of an ordinary life. 

Judith Viorst

I’ve got this funny thing that I do.  I pretend to myself and to others that I’m not girlie.  This is born of my great need to be in control.  It’s a security blanket that makes me feel safe, strong, secure.  I’m not a lady and don’t you dare call me one.  I’m a tough cookie.  A lot of my friends buy into this.  Or play along.  If the truth is that they are just humoring me?  I’m okay with that.  Just so long as they keep doing it.  On that whole idea of being a lady?  I’m actually just a weeping, swearing, cookie baking, hockey watching bundle of contradictions.  My best guy friend always asks what I’m doing first thing when I answer the phone.  Usually because it’s always something hilariously strange like . . .  flipping back and forth between the Godfather and a hockey game . . .  or baking cookies and installing a new deadbolt.  It’s never an all girl kinda picture that I paint.  I just don’t relax into a lot of things that typical girls do.  And instead of languishing over it, I have actually come around to reveling in it a bit.  To the point that it drives a few of my friends nuts.  So here I am, unfit for stereotypical girlie ways.  I don’t think all babies are pretty.  Precious, yes, pretty?  Heck no.  I hate to shop.  I like shoes like men like lingerie.  I think they are props.  The shoes I walk around in every day?  More than likely they can go from office to paddock with no problem.  I think sex is a team sport.  Almost all my exes are still friends.  I’m a home owner.  If something is wrong, with the car or the house or the whatever, I fix it or competently hire someone else to fix it (not sayin’ I couldn’t use a seminar in carpentry though, Heather has cringed over some of my DIYs).  I’m a single mom, so I never get to be the good cop.  I’m all bad cop all the time.  But I do get to read the bedtime stories and make the birthday cakes.  I’m not complaining.  It’s not all hard.  But I’ve got this life that has made me choose not to give in to soft.   

Except that . . .  I am.  Soft. Very.  Like a marshmallow.  Even though I love to watch old, and frequently cheesy, action movies, dammit I cry every time Stan saves the train driver in Volcano.  I really do sit with a lap full of embroidery and scream things like “Put the puck in the damn net!” at the television.  But I can also make a soufflé.  If I cook dinner for you, it’s probably going to make you forget how good your momma could cook.  But it’s most definitely not an invitation to date exclusively.  Sarah had to tell me what commitment food was.  That’s how little I participate in the game.  It’s not that I wouldn’t be capable of flirting across a candlelit dinner table, I’ve just been too busy. 

As much as I love pedicures, I love hockey more.  Beer over wine.  Godfather over Casablanca.  I’m just not in possession of one half ounce of princess-ness anymore.  It atrophied.  And I think that’s why I never get treated like one, because I don’t demand it.  Subliminally or otherwise.  And I like that about me.  And all of my friends who’ve got that same thing going on.  But I would sure as hell put on high heels and cook dinner for a man who brought me flowers. Enjoy you’re heaping helping of contradictions for the day. 

,center.

I spent a really good weekend with my best girl.  Which was also surreal in ways I cannot begin to explain.  But the highlights were . . .  lots of laughter, tinfoil hats, and little to no drama.  How did we manage to have tinfoil hats and no drama? I can’t explain that either.   

I did however turn my three day weekend into a four day weekend in a not fun way.  Food poisoning is so not how I wanted to spend my last day of being forty.  And tomorrow I’ll be forty-one. 

January 02, 2010 @ 10:36

With fresh strawberry filling and a few white chocolate dipped strawberries. 

December 30, 2009 @ 06:43

I’ve decided that this year, I’m not making any resolutions.  I’ve done the no resolution thing before and it wasn’t particularly satisfying, but I’m approaching it differently this year.  It seems as though the minute you start thinking about your resolutions for the new year, you immediately start taking a negative inventory of yourself from the year just past.  And that’s not helpful, is it?  You look down and berate yourself for not hitting the goal weight.  You hate yourself for not being able to 100% quit smoking for another year.  You tally up all the things you did wrong, or inadequately, or just didn’t do at all.  Well I’ve had it with that crap.  I’m going to spend the last couple of days of 2009 remembering what I did right and did fun and resolving to do those things again. Now won’t that be a much easier list to put together than a list of all the things that I, or other people, think are wrong with me?  And when it’s written down I will have no desire to stuff it in a drawer and hide from it. 

1) I made the whole quit smoking process (a years long process) a full time reality.  All the time.  I’m not even considering a cheat night on New Year’s Eve. 
2) I completed an official-got-a-number-and-everything 5k. 
3) I went on a beautiful family and friend filled vacation to the Grand Canyon. 
4) I spent some precious time with friends.  Whether being a fool on the beach or being there for someone in a crisis, I love the people that are in my life.  For better or worse. 
5) I was enchanted daily by my children.  Even on the tough days, they regularly rock me back on my heels and drop my jaw. 
6) I had some awesome hiking trips, short spur of the moment day trips and carefully planned adventures.  They were all grand.  Even that day we nearly died on Petit Jean Mountain. 
7) I made changes in my choices for myself and my home in an effort to shrink our carbon footprint.  Saved lots of money in the process, too. 
8) I did not allow myself to get caught up in the drama of others . . .  too much . . . 
9) I did not settle for less than what I wanted . . .  too often . . . 
10) I went to the beach on 24 hours notice. 
11) I drove to a strange town in a different state and danced under the stars to Big Head Todd and the Monsters. 
12) I painted my living room emerald green and my bedroom orange. 
13) I loved my children. 
14) I loved my job. 
15) I loved my life. 

Hope y’all are loving your life, too.  Happy New Year! 

December 22, 2009 @ 21:53

A baby Jesus cake for Christmas . . .  for scale, his face is about the size of a nickel.  He sort of needs a gold lame’ diaper though, doesn’t he? 

December 18, 2009 @ 06:18

As I was putting away some of the holiday loot that Puppy came home with, including a full sized stocking, we had this conversation . . . 

Puppy:  Mommy, let’s hang my new stocking right next to my gingerbread man one so that I will get lots and lots of presents. 

Me:  Okay, we can do that. 

Puppy:  I’ve been good this year so I will get lots of good presents. 

Me:  (rolling eyes and grinning behind his back) Yes, you have been good this year. 

Puppy:  You’ve been a very good mommy this year, you’re gonna get lots of good presents! 

Well didn’t I just? 

Merry Christmas Everyone!

December 14, 2009 @ 21:56

Well, it’s actually chocolate cake with an inner layer of chocolate ganache and buttercream.