Shedding the @#$%!

I didn't make any official resolutions at the beginning of the new year.  It's not that I didn't have any ideas, it was worse. I knew that I wasn't feeling committed to success. Why say it if you know you don't really mean it, was my thinking.  My list, if I had made one, would have included better fitness, eating healthy, watching less tv, and thinking more positively.  Writing more was probably on the "non-list" also. Alas, there was not a list and 17 days into 2013, I remained listless.

As I let the obligatory guilt and low level shame sluff away, I noticed something important.  As much as I wanted to lose a few pounds off my midsection, I wanted to lose a whole bunch of other things maybe even more.  It started as a disdainful look at my cluttered closets and turned to a long, piercing stare down of my kitchen cupboards.  Slowly but persistently I began to hear an official call to arms -  purge!

clutter (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

I woke this morning mentally prepared for a day of letting go of the c-rap in my home. Who knew that we had three separate jars of cinnamon, oregano, and baking powder? Combined and tossed. Herbs that I don't even like to cook with but that have secured prime real estate on my lazy susan for years and years - garbage. How long have I stared at that half used jar of confetti sprinkles? Can't remember when? Goodbye.  I tell you, it was like a mini-colonic.  I opened the cupboard again and nothing fell out, nothing tumbled past my head or crashed to the counter. (What is this new feeling?)

Recycling bins (Photo credit: olishaw)

Next, I went through the medicine.  Again, how many bottles of ibuprofen does one family need? Outdated prescriptions and boxes of allergy pills with one lone tablet remaining.  Why did we keep that dog medicine that our neighbor gave us when her pet died? Why do I have vodka, Irish Creme, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil mingling on the shelf willy nilly?  The recycling bag of emptied bottles was filling up with completely gratifying speed. (Do I look thinner in these yoga pants?)

Upstairs, the chair in my bedroom screamed out to me.  The chair from hell that holds the perfect nightmare of odd socks and mix matched tidbits.  Mutual fund statements, an Easter card, a broken and half dismantled trumpet, and so many socks! Sort to charity, toss, match and toss some more. I gave those socks a fair shake.  They had at least a year or two to find their mate.  The jig's up.  After this last load of laundry, all single footwear will be banned from my chair! The "maybe it'll show up" whispers will not sway me.  This is a brutal purge and I am not playing. (I look so good in this v-neck tee.)

The unread books, untouched refinishing project, unused cookbooks, cracked containers, and dusty jewelry still remain but they are not long for my world. The truth is that shedding so much of my @#$%! is exhilarating.  I feel 10 lbs lighter and notice a little muscle definition. During my break I sat down to jot these thoughts instead of watching an episode on Netflix. I feel absolutely positive!  Maybe this is just the jumpstart I needed or maybe I'm just better at sprint activities than I am at lifestyle marathons.  Whatever it is, I'm taking it and loving it.

Queer Eye for Sanity and a Dash of Hope

Queer Eye (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

How ironic it is that I am watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy these days.  Thanks to the wonders of Netflix, I can watch the archived episodes of many cancelled cable shows that I never got to see in their prime.  If you never saw this "reality" makeover show it's basically five design gurus helping clueless heterosexual men become more stylish.  They makeover their wardrobe, home decor, grooming, culinary, and entertainment choices and leave the straight men in a cloud of fabulous fairy dust.  From the perch of their Manhattan loft, the Fab Five watch as cameras reveal how the men incorporate their new skills, appearance, wardrobe, and gorgeous home into their normal life with their friends and loved ones. 

As a child I was a tomboy and a mess most of the time.  In adulthood not much has changed.  There is one bottle of shampoo and one bottle of conditioner in our shower, family photographs is my only design theme, and though I enjoy baking, meals are pretty uninspired.  After every episode, I say out loud, "I want the Fab Five to come to our house!"  Mostly, I want them to come because they really do have an "eye".  Every single time they manage to take a dump of  house and transform it into a vision of awesomeness.  The guys that they makeover, almost always say,"I didn't know how to make this place (or myself) look good but if I did, it would have looked like this."  They are overwhelmed at how much their own preferences and lifestyle and personality are actually reflected in the space.  That's all I want.  Five, funny, creative guys with a seemingly unlimited spending account, to "get me" and show me what my style really is.  Is that too much to ask?

Evidently so.  In the real world, as I'm dreaming about chic, New York, style gods, my kitchen ceiling is spraying water all over the floor.  Over my morning coffee, I heard the clear sound of a shower.  Why would I hear the shower?  My husband never showers with the door open.  I get up and go to the kitchen.  Oh, of course, I hear a shower of water because I now mysteriously have one in my kitchen.  Too bad I don't have my soap and shampoo with me.  Eating breakfast while showering could shave so much time off my morning routine. What would the Fab Five from Queer Eye do in this situation?  Cry? Run screaming? No.  They would probably crack jokes about taking a group shower and then pop a bottle of champagne.

That is why I am completely hooked on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. In the midst of a very real life, watching someone's impossibly picture perfect transformation brings me some hope.  As I look up at the gaping hole in my ceiling I decide that one more episode is just what I need.

Liebster ???

About a week ago this little bumper sticker arrived as an alert in my email.  There was a comment from my blog from someone I've never met. Steph at The Healthy Mom had bumped into one of my posts and wanted to share a virtual "thumbs up" with me. The Liebster Award is given to new blogs with 200 or fewer followers (I was a safe bet with 19).  It's meant to bring attention to undiscovered blogs and encourage folks to check 'em out.  Perhaps another intention is to force new bloggers to explore others as well and enter the deeper end of the blogging community.
 I'm grateful that Steph at The Healthy Mom found me somehow and took the time to give me this public pat on the back.  I really do feel so ignorant about the blogging world.  I struggle to make time for the writing and have not read many other blogs, I'm a little embarrassed to admit.  Steph's recognition and the requirement to suggest 5 others gave me the nudge to go exploring.  It was a wonderful way to hear from a wildly diverse group of people who I will likely never meet but can probably learn from and/or have fun as a voyeur in their life. Being nominated for a Liebster comes with a few guidelines, of course, including the following:
1. You must thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog, with a link back to their blog.

2. You must include the blog award, along with its purpose and guidelines, on your own blog.
3. You must pass the Liebster Blog Award on to 5 blogs (with fewer than 200 followers) you think deserve some recognition, and let them know of your nomination via comment on their blog, twitter, Facebook post, etc.

My Liebster nominees are:

The Healthy Mom  Thanks again to Steph for giving the shout out. Mom is in the title of her blog but she writes about a much wider range of topics than parenting or health.  I think she is funny and smart and honest, all qualities that make for interesting conversation.


1Voice 4 Peace  Jennifer was the first person I ever knew to write a blog.  Her writing is always a little calmer and thoughtful than I'm feeling and I love how reading her stuff can slow me down enough to pay attention.


Random Reflectionz  Christie is my bestest cheerleader.  I'm not sure about the rules of these fellow blogger awards.  Can I give Christie one of these if she's already received one?  I will plead naivete or plain blogging ignorance if anyone cares.  She's writing about everything and whether it's her relationships or current events, she's always smart and clear in her writing.

A Little Lucidity  irreverent and funny, Lucy lays it all out there and takes nothing too seriously. This blog has a PG-13, sometimes R rating for language and content if that bothers you be warned.  I think she's funny as @#$!.

Stratford-Deford  This is a blog I found just by punching the "next blog" button at the top of the Blogger page.  Sally's photography drew me in immediately.  I would love to fill my home with the images that she captures.  City scapes or landscapes, it's all beauty.


So there you have it.  Thank you mysterious Liebster Award creator for helping create an avenue for encouragement and exposure and pushing me to check out other voices.  My favorite thing about writing this piece is that I really am not that well connected and have just begun to write let alone follow other blogs.  As I went in search of other blogs that spoke to me, I was hooked by a Mormon, some lawyer types, and a self-proclaimed potty mouth.  All of us are raising kids and navigating relationships.  Thanks to all of you for the support, humor, and perspective that your blogs offer me!

Mother's Day Preparations

Mother's Day card (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a couple of weeks,  a holiday that I don't have to do ANYTHING for will arrive with secrecy and hushed excitement.  Partners, prepare your children for Mother's Day.  It's one of the best ways to teach our children how to be great, compassionate, kind, thoughtful people.  Here's a composite flash on my special day over the years:

 I lie in bed listening to the boys bickering.  "Why did you put the toast in now?  It's going to be cold by the time everything else is ready."  The younger brother defends his place in the Mother's Day Preparations, "Well, you're ruining everything.  Why can't you let me just do it?  You're an idiot."

I beat back my urge to go downstairs and referee the cooking feud and roll over in the bed instead.  After quite a bit of clanging and more stage whisper name calling, I hear feet on the landing of the stairs.  Here we go.  Mother's Day.  Breakfast in bed.  One of my favorite family traditions.

The boys walk in with a tray of food, coffee, and sometimes a bud vase with one of our garden flowers.  They hand me cards first, then a present.  My husband hands me a card and present as well.  Sometimes there's even a card "from" our dog.  Lord knows he's my youngest baby.  Sometimes the presents are homemade.  Sometimes they are coupon books for services that the boys promise to offer at future dates.  Sometimes they are a shared effort of pooled allowance money and really shock me (a Shuffle for my gym workouts really took the cake one year).

There is a clear attempt at being nice to one another while I eat my breakfast.  They know that a day without bickering is the only present that I really want, any day of the year.  "Do you like the eggs?  I made the eggs."  I do like the eggs.   There is something very different about them.  Tomatoes, cheese, spinach(?), no it's lettuce, and something sweet...raisins?!  After my deduction, I respond, "I do like the eggs.  You put some of last night's salad in, didn't you.  I wouldn't have thought to do that.  It works though (it did, mostly)."

A version of this has happened for the last 13 years.  The first two years my husband did most of the cooking but once they were old enough to put bread in the toaster or open a cup of yogurt, they have come up the stairs with my breakfast.  I love Mother's Day because it is their day to really think about someone else (Father's Day too).  They know that there will be no card and present waiting for them after I open my surprises.  They are actively trying to think of things that I will like, or at least things that they can afford that I will also like.  That is why I like the over blown, Hallmark highjacked holiday of Mother's Day.  It is one of the first ways that my boys started to learn selflessness, kindness, generosity, and gratitude.

A good friend of mine told me that she instructed her husband to teach her son about Mother's Day.  She understood that her husband's love didn't always show up aligned with holidays or birthdays.  In spite of that, she wanted him to teach their son the importance of thinking of and caring for others.  "He won't know how to stay in a decent relationship if he doesn't get a chance to practice these practical ways of caring."  Amen!  I don't love scrambled eggs with lettuce and raisins.  I do love my 8 year old son "visioning" a gourmet, one-of-a-kind brunch for his mother - just to show her how much he cares.

Out in the World

My youngest son had a big field trip this week.  His class drove down to Springfield to tour the capital, Lincoln themed sites, and meet the governor(!).  This child is a wonder mix of 1/2 part goofball and 1/2 part conscientious, passionate advocate.  Some in our family think of him as an annoying eco-terrorist.  That's an extreme description but he definitely can get on a soapbox and argue fiercely for what he believes is important.  Using as little electricity as possible, not wasting food, water, and other resources, humane treatment of animals (like not eating them), and gardening are big topics for him.  He's also the boy who juggles and unicycles for exercise for hours at a time and is fond of using quirky catch phrases to communicate, often leaving the person that he's talking to confused and unsure if he is making fun of them or is a little "touched" himself.  He will greet you with, "Happy Birthday!", just because and respond to every other comment you make with, "Cool Beans!".

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn addresses attendees before the opening of the 2010 Chicago Green Festival (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like I said, he's a wonder mix.  You can perhaps imagine my mild concern about him traveling to Springfield and being given an opportunity to speak to the Governor.  I trusted that his teachers were just as aware as I about his charming and disarming qualities and would do what they could to stand near him, perhaps keeping a chloroform drenched rag in their back pocket when they were visiting the Governor's mansion.

The day in Springfield started at 5am as the 7th  graders loaded onto the buses (with a bathroom and seats that reclined!) and they did not return until 11pm.  He burst through the door late that night and exploded with excited memories of the day.  Starting with food (always) and how great Subway is, transitioning to the great movie in the Lincoln museum and how it blew his mind with the funky 3-D effects, and how he sold his chips to a fellow student and found some coins on the street, turning the trip into a moneymaking endeavor.  Finally he started to talk about their time with the Governor.  I kept a calm, interested expression, trying to mask my anxiety about what he might soon be sharing.  He wasn't returned to us with a police escort so I had that fact to reassure me.

"Oh! I asked the Governor a question!"

I smiled.  Here it comes.  "What was that?"

"I asked him if he had any new ideas about how to take care of all the people that couldn't afford housing any more and how to tax the 1% more.  He didn't even answer the question!(?).  He just talked about something else that he wanted to say.  It wasn't even about what I asked.  His assistant was cool though.  He told us fun things about the mansion.  I told him he was cool beans."  Whew.  He did it.  Completely himself - challenging, quirky, charming, funny, and completely "out there" and also respectful and appropriately deferential when necessary.  He backed off the Governor when he evaded his question, something he wouldn't have done at the dinner table with his family members.  He was out in the world, successfully synthesizing his values and personality traits with our lessons on "proper" public behavior and courtesy.  I was very proud of him.  He's going to be ok, I thought - Happy Birthday!

Fessing Up

1970 Oldsmobile Vista-Cruiser (Photo credit: aldenjewell)

At the movies recently I saw a promo for a movie about stay-at-home dads.  They repeated several times to one of the newbies of the group that, "There's no judging."  That mantra was followed by a stream, a hilarious stream, of mistakes each of them had made or crazy things their children had done, while they were distracted. In each case, their children had survived.  I immediately thought of the day that I curiously tugged at the gear handle in our boat of a station wagon and started rolling the family tug down the gravel driveway.  I flashed on the morning that my 1 1/2 year old son opened the front door of the house by himself (we didn't know he could do that) and went for a walk, crossing two alleys and traveling 3 blocks before we found him.  No judging.

I  want to hear your own confessions.  I was raised Catholic and am ready to use this space for a little emotional purging.  What is the thing that you survived that still amazes?  The parenting mishaps/indiscretions that your own children survived?  I'm prepared to share a bunch of mine but it would be so much more fun if I wasn't the only one laughing at myself...