Monthly Archives: November 2012

Whatcha Gonna Do With All That Junk?

Posted on November 4, 2012 | 7 comments

Keep Trash Donate month has been brought to you by butts. And by boobs. What’s next? Gettin’ in my drawers, of course! My JUNK drawers!

This morning while I waited for the waffle iron to heat up I opened the dreaded junk drawer in the kitchen to see what kind of treasures I might find.

Keep – rainbow shoe laces. MQD went to Boston this summer for a wedding. Like a good husband and a good dad he brought back presents. Emily and I both received a pair of rainbow shoe laces. I am not sure what it means that we both got the same gift. Or that it was rainbow shoe laces but they were a gift and I am keeping them. Perhaps not in the kitchen drawer any longer, but I am keeping them nonetheless.

Trash – I remember the day that I grabbed a couple of condoms from my midwife’s office. In the bathroom in the waiting room there is a basket filled with condoms. Lucy was ten days old. I had an appointment to get an IUD already scheduled. Evidently I was afraid that the spirit would move us prior to that date. Clearly it did not. Expired condoms (or soon to be expired) hanging around are dangerous. In to the trash they go.

Donate – I have had this unopened package of letters in the drawer in the kitchen since I made MQD his Big Birthday Party Poster “Twenty-nine is so METAL!” I am well known for grabbing two packages of something when it is likely one will do. I did not want to run short on letters and I had yet to settle on a theme. On the off chance the theme of his birthday party had turned out to be alliteration brought to you by the letter Q I did not want to run out of letters. Hence, the two packages. Monday morning I will toss these in to Em’s backpack. Surely her teacher can make use of them.

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Belly full of waffles. Sun is shining. Lucy’s teeth have popped through and her fever has broken. Em is drawing quietly in her room. MQD is hiding in the bathroom (because that is what Dads do, it’s in the manual.) Shaping up to be a good Sunday.

7 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense, Parenting

Tagged condoms, junk drawer, keep trash donate, nonsense, shoelaces

Day Three: Keep, Trash, Donate

Posted on November 3, 2012 | 12 comments

Today’s episode of Keep Trash Donate is not sponsored by my ass. I will give you a moment to be sad.

I thought I’d move on to another part of me that gets no attention. Well, they get a lot of attention but mostly from my nine month old. Lucy is getting teeth this week which means I have a boob out about 20 hours a day. Oddly a single boob is even less than 50% as sexy as a pair of boobs. I will leave that to the mathematicians among us to figure out.

Donate – I am getting rid of a terribly cute dress. It’s purple. And purple is cute. It is a “nursing dress” which means it has two secret mysterious spots to stick a boob out. And it is designed to hide the extra chub one is likely to be carrying after having a baby. I wore it the day I went to have my colposcopy after Lucy was born. (How dare I bring up women’s health issues during Movember?! Jeez, can’t men have just one month!?) Staring in to my closet this morning I realized I haven’t worn it since that day. That was almost eight months ago. I get my boobs out about ten times a day. 10 times 30 days times almost 8 months? 2400 times I have pulled a boob out and that dress didn’t scream “Wear me!” from my closet so it is outta here.

Trash – In to the trash will go a t-shirt I have had since Emily was six weeks old. It’s a pretty spectacular t-shirt really. It has the whole I am one shirt masquerading as two t-shirts thing going on. I enjoy that. A lifetime ago I was a skinny mini and could have appeared in public in nine layered shirts. A couple of kids and a whole lot of pints of ice cream later, not so much. Now I walk that fine line of searching for the ideal coverage. Not skin tight, because nobody needs to see that, but not so loose that it looks like I am hiding something far worse even than reality. Consequently the I am really one shirt but I look like two shirtst-shirt is a great choice. Even better this t-shirt is another item in my nursing clothes repertoire. You can lift up the top layer and pull a boob out of the gigantic underneath arm holes. Gelatinous stomach is covered, boob is exposed. Win win.

So, why am I throwing it out? I was carrying Lucy when I smelled it. Poop. I pulled it off, sprayed a little laundry schmutz on it and I went to throw it in the washing machine when I saw another tan-ish stain on the arm. It had been on there for years. About seven years, actually. This shirt has always had a tan stain on the forearm. I just ignored it. It was a comfy shirt, nursing mom or not. In that moment I knew I had been wearing a shirt with a shit stain on it for seven years. I don’t actually know that tan stain was shit. But I feel it in my bones. I am not ever gonna wear that shirt again. Trash. Day three.

Keep? I don’t mind if I do. I donated a nursing friendly dress. I trashed a nursing t-shirt. What am I keeping? Is it a nursing friendly tank top or a fun sweater that buttons up the front? Nope. Is that because I don’t plan to nurse Lucy as long as I nursed Em? Nope. I just don’t plan to wear nursing dresses and t-shirts for the next four years so I will be keeping these shoes. They are gorgeous. Most recently they were the crown jewel in my Halloween costume. 1983’s A Christmas Story. The Leg Lamp. “Only one thing in the world could’ve dragged me away from the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.”

Day three. Keep Trash Donate. Some day I will be standing just over six feet and two inches tall at a cocktail party and my kids will be at home with a babysitter. I will be making wonderfully amusing small talk in a beautiful pair of heels. I will not be wearing a purple nursing dress shaped like a tent or a t-shirt with shit on the sleeve. Or a lampshade.

Mark my words.

12 Comments

Posted in Parenting

Tagged Breastfeeding, DIY, Halloween, nablopomo, nursing clothes. a christmas story

It’s in my genes…

Posted on November 2, 2012 | 14 comments

MQD took the day off of work today “to spend some time with the family.” I am not sure this is what he had in mind.

“I’m glad you’re gonna be home. We need to get Halloween put back up in the attic and I am going to clean out the upstairs closet. And since you’re home will you take a picture of my butt in all of these jeans?” I point at the big pile of jeans on my bed.

Instead of raising an eyebrow and asking me “Is this what you do all day while I am at work?” He kicked back on the bed in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pajamas and waited for me to drop my pants. That sounds like Sexy Time right there, no?

Yesterday I decided to Keep, Trash and Donate one item every day for the month of November. I shall call today day one and day two since I am keeping, trashing and donating more than a few pairs. I am keeping 13, tossing 2 and donating 9 pairs.

The Keep Pile

I shall spare you all the details and just deliver the highlights of what I learned today.

1. Turns out I had only 24 pairs of jeans total. I am a gross exaggerator with zero credibility now. I do not have 30 pairs of jeans after all, not of the too small or the too big variety.

2. What I do have are lots of hugely unflattering jeans in various sizes for various reasons all stemming from the fact that I have had two children and I never throw out a pair of jeans. Exhibit A. Let me present to you I Have The Same Jeans in Three Different Sizes. Here they are in descending size.

I pulled off the jeans in the top picture and said “These are obviously too big and make me have a totally flat ass.” MQD agreed. It stung a little.

This was the first pair I tried on and I was starting to doubt the wisdom of asking him to help me with this task. But he didn’t just stop there. “Yeah, it’s like you stuck a cutting board in your pants.” A FUCKING CUTTING BOARD. Moving on…

3. When you have a baby and you plan to breastfeed that baby willy nilly all around the town you make peace with the fact that people will see your knockers. You (if you are me) never really love the fact that people will see your stretchmarks and your gelatinous gut. You like to save that for showing the entire Interwebz. So you purchase an assortment of strangely high-waisted jeans that give you SADDLE BAGS.

This was a discovery I just made this morning. Three of these four pairs will be donated. The fourth will be going in the trash as the bottoms are terribly frayed. I know, I should upcycle them and make a purse and a coozie and a lampshade but it isn’t called Keep Donate and Make Some Ugly Shit You Found a Tutorial For On Pinterest. Exhibit B: Mom Jeans – More Unsightly Than I Knew

To the people of North Carolina, I may force you to see my stomach while I nurse my baby but I will no longer subject you to the saddle bags created by my Mom Jeans that pretend they are not Mom Jeans just because they are Lucky or some other decent brand.

4. I am a really lucky girl and I am in a way better head space than I even knew. My husband nodded in agreement while I said “these look awful on me” and I did not throw something at him. Perhaps just because he was hiding behind the baby. But I’m calling it progress.

Stay tuned to see what I Keep Trash and Donate tomorrow. I can’t promise more ass pictures. Not until I get myself a new pair of jeans anyway.

14 Comments

Posted in Family, Nonsense

Tagged keep trash donate, mom jeans, motherhood, MQD

November

Posted on November 1, 2012 | 8 comments

November means a few different things in the blogosphere. It’s kind of hard to figure out which way to go.

There’s Movember. I could campaign all month to raise money and awareness for men’s health issues, specifically prostate and testicular cancer. This is an issue close to my heart. I could spend the month writing about my father. Every little girl loves her dad and I am no different. My dad is a prostate cancer survivor. And moustaches? I am pretty lucky. One of my favorite people is a proud wearer of the moustache. I could write about my dad, post funny pictures of Q and his ‘stache. The posts almost write themselves, right?

I could spend November being grateful. Quite a few of my friends on the Book of Face post a new status every day leading up to Thanksgiving. I’ve got more than 30 things to be thankful for surely. Shit, in the last month I can zip up almost 30 pairs of jeans that have been in my closet for the last two years without seeing the light of day (what up, p90x! Hollah atch’er girl!) There might be a few other slightly less trivial things I am grateful for.

But what about NaNoWriMo? National Novel Writing Month. A movement that began in 1999 in San Francisco – a month long effort to produce a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. For several years I have been tempted to give it a go. Creative fiction writing terrifies me. I am way too chicken shit to start it unless it is on a dare and NaNoWriMo is a good enough reason to give it a go, right?

If NaNoWriMo is too daunting there is always NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month. The first NaBloPoMo was in 2006. Currently NaBloPoMo is sponsored by BlogHer. Surely I can commit to a post a day, right?

I’ve had a pretty good run this last week or so in the Blog Universe and I have lucked in to a handful of new readers. It has resulted in my feeling a wee bit of stage fright. I want desperately to deliver the funny, the poignant, the truth. And I am coming up with a fat lot of nothing. Maybe this is the kick in the ass I need?

It’s November 1st today, guys. Today. I kinda need to make up my mind. Em gets off the bus in three hours and Lucy is currently asleep in my lap. My Get Shit Done on the Laptop while Lucy Sleeps time will be over in less than an hour. And my String Together a Complete Sentence in My Mind time is over the moment Em gets off the bus in a Post Halloween Candy Coma, a coma that can only be cured by more candy.

Speaking of those 30 pairs of jeans… I should probably clean out my closets. Did you just feel the A-ha moment?! I just had one.

November. Here’s the plan. You are familiar with the game Screw Marry Kill, I hope. A list of three people. You have to pick one to screw, one to marry and one to kill. It’s a mindebendingly important game among teenage girls and people with nothing better to talk about. Andy Cohen brought it back to me on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live (by the way if you don’t watch WWHL you must have really important things to do while you fold your laundry. Click the link above to see Meryl Streep play Screw Marry Kill!)

I won’t be playing Screw Marry Kill all month while hitting you up for Movember donations (although that is a spectacularly clever idea.) Instead I will put a link to Movember in my sidebar and nag you on occasion!

I will be writing every day this month and participating in NaBloPoMo. Instead of Screw Marry Kill I wil be playing a game of Keep Trash Donate in an effort to clean out my closets, give a little in the form of donations to my local thrift store and remind myself that there is more to be grateful for in this life than Stuff.

All month. 30 days. Something I will Keep, something I will Donate and something I will Trash. The only rules – it can’t be something that belongs to the kids or to MQD. I get cleaner closets and less clutter, you get a peek at what matters to me.

I will start with those jeans in my closet. Stay tuned for gratuitous ass pictures.