Category Archives: Nonsense

Fast enough so you can fly away…

Allow me to set the scene.

I was still wearing my velour sweatsuit as I sauntered past his side of the bed. Sometimes I like to amp up the funny before I bring the dead sexy. Funny goes a long way in our house.

There was a successful transfer of the baby in to the bed. She was out like a light. I woke him from the couch and he smiled. All signs pointed to Sexy Town. I had my fingers crossed and my knees, well, uncrossed. He was sitting up in bed when he asked me to grab the cord for his phone.

So, I was sauntering past the bed getting ready to bend over in my velour sweatsuit all Jessica Rabbit like when he said “You’re leaking.” I looked down at my shirt for the tell-tale spot of milk. I grabbed my chest the way only a nursing mother can. I wasn’t wet. “This?” I said, pointing at a spot on my shirt. “Nah, that’s old.”

While I was busy giving myself a breast exam he bent down and grabbed his own phone cord.

“You ruined it,” I said. “I was gonna bend down and get it for you.” I was smiling. But I might have been starting to pout. We had already turned down a street that didn’t head to SexyTown. Might as well pout.

Incredulously he smiled back at me. “I ruined it? You! Talking about your OLD stain! That ruined it!!” By now I had snuggled up against him on the side of the bed. Between the two of us we had about a foot and a half. Lucy and the dog took up all the rest of the room. And like kids we started to laugh. I kept trying to get the words “you mean this old stain?” out of my mouth in feigned breathy sexiness but I couldn’t do it through the giggles. The more I tried to stop the laughter the funnier it was.

The Internet is abuzz this week with breastfeeding pictures. Should we post them on Facebook? Should we nurse in public? Or is it a private thing? You can guess how I feel about nursing a baby in public. Feed your babies, ladies. Cover up or don’t.  Just feed your babies.  Anywhere you want, preferably before they are super mad. I find hungry, crying babies really troublesome, a little exposed boob here and there, not so much.

But I can tell you where breastfeeding doesn’t belong. It doesn’t belong in my bedroom while I am in a fast car on the road to SexyTown. Because evidently “old stains” can send that car careening towards Laughter and there is no turning that car around. (Note: you need to say “old stains” with your hands up making the “I  don’t know what all the ruckus is about” face for the full effect.)

This post is dedicated to the fools that think nursing a baby in public is disgusting and attention seeking.  I will give you disgusting and attention seeking, how about this wet tshirt contest winning picture? And to the new mothers that think they will never, ever get to SexyTown again.  You will.  I promise.  It seems like you won’t.  But keep visiting that little village called Laughter, it will carry you and your marriage right on through.

Movember!!!

This morning Le Clown and his motley crew only needed to raise $355 more dollars to meet their goal!!

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For the love of prostates make a donation!! Lucy’s mustache still hasn’t come in but the hair on her head is just barely representing. It is not for lack of trying!!

We take Movember seriously in our house and so should you. I have a dad, a stepdad, a father-in-law, a husband and an ex-husband. Without any one of these men the lives of all three of the women in the picture above would be wildly different. We are lucky that we have all five of them in our lives. One man in six will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. One man in the five listed above has already beat it.

Donate if you can. And if you can’t – tell six men you love to make an appointment to see their doctor.  We’re serious. Just call them up and say “Hey, I love you.  Make a doctor’s appointment, please.”

You’ll feel good once you did. I promise.

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Breaking up is hard to do

So is dieting.

I think breaking up and dieting are both really shitty ways to spend your time. So, instead of dieting I prefer to just eat healthy most of the time and commit to staying active.

Instead of breaking up I think we should just take a break. You and me. I know I said I would write every day this month. But I have something better to do. With family in town for the weekend I think I need to focus 100% of my energy on how really fantastic my kids are. Not everyone wants to talk about that I have recently noticed and I need to take full advantage.

Please don’t diet while I am gone. You’re probably already missing me. Don’t add insult to injury.

And if you are quietly rejoicing because you have come to the conclusion (as I have) that my plan to Keep, Trash and Donate all month long and regale you with tales from the inside of my closets and drawers is painfully dull perhaps even more boring than last Decembers Christmas countdown of ornaments?? Well, just keep that to yourself. I am a sensitive girl.

If you are bored in my absence may I suggest you play Pantyhose Face? or Frozen Pizza Box TV Face? Dieting and breaking up are both really difficult. Entertaining yourself shouldn’t be. And if you still need amusement? Go visit my friend, Le Clown at Clown on Fire. He thinks I am smart and funny. He has other good qualities but so far those are my favorites.

See you in a few days!

Since 1917

Dear Duke’s Mayonnaise,

I love you so much.

Today I cleaned out my kitchen cabinets.  I threw out a very gross open bottle of chocolate flavored red wine.  I am donating a small bag of canned goods that I bought when I decided I was going to try and get over my disdain for kidney beans.

When I rearranged my stuff in the pantry I realized I had three unopened containers of Duke’s Mayonnaise.  Because when I go down the condiment aisle and I see you there I always think it is better to be safe than sorry.  What if there was an emergency that could only be fixed with egg salad? or a turkey sandwich?  Or the delicious chicken recipe I actually got off of the Hellman’s website? Or what if I decide to make grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner? Did you know that mayo makes the best grilled cheese? Don’t butter your bread, use mayo.  You will never go back to using butter.

You’re a damn fine mayonnaise, Duke’s.  You really are smooth and creamy.  Now, come to Mama.

Mommy dates

All month I have looked around my house with my What can I get rid of and declutter lens. This morning I am looking at my house with my Holy Shit, I have a Mommy Date microscope.

When I was very young and dating and someone would stop by my dorm room or I would try and look at my place from a young man’s point of view. This was pretty easy. I didn’t have to clean anything. I made sure there was beer in my refrigerator and that there wasn’t a pair of men’s boxers on my bedside table or a proverbial pair of boots under my bed. I had beer and I wasn’t taken. We were good to go.

When I was older and a single mom dating it was more confusing. MQD came to pick me up for our first date and I can remember looking around my place and hoping that the mini-kitchen in my living room wouldn’t freak him out. I had Pottery Barn curtains. What if I was too far gone in to the land of Grown Up to interest him? I hoped that my futon would make it clear that my 20’s weren;t too far behind me.

This morning I have a Mom Date. We met at a local children’s museum. She blew my mind when she asked me for my number. And then she won my heart with a late night call freaking out about an email she thought she had sent to the wrong person. We email. We text. I even called her the day I got a shitty haircut and slugged back way too many glasses of wine on my front porch. She’s funny. I think she might even like-like me.

But now she is coming to my house. To let her child crawl around on my floor. I have to vacuum. Like Vacuum with a capital V. What if her kid finds that leaf I missed and he chokes? My bathroom is clean. But it doesn’t smell like bleach.

Donate: this frog. Please ignore the dog hair on my couch!!! Please!

Should I offer to make her lunch? Oh man. That’s too complicated. Coffee? Should I apologize for my oh so not green and environment-friendly love of the Keurig cups? Hopefully my offer of real sugar or Truvia made from stevia and not cancer-causing Equal will win me favor.

I suggested we take a walk if it isn’t freezing. Does that make me sound like a fitness freakazoid? I am obsessed. A little. But I don’t care if she is. I should probably not drop a line like “Hey, some of my best friends are totally lazy!”

I’m guessing I should probably not say “So, I guess you read my post…” even though she has read here in the past. I mean it is asinine to assume that she checks back every hour on the hour and she is coming over practically any minute… Gah.

Keep. The viking helmet on our bookshelf in the kitchen because it was a wedding gift and it makes me happy. Who would not want to be friends with a gal with a viking helmet?

Donate. A metal polka dot frog because while it matched the beach-y decor of my downstairs bathroom ten years ago it has no place in my life now. And there is no reason for it to hang out in my living room junk drawer.

Trash. A handful of receipts I had stashed in the catch-all tray in my living room. No one ever returns peanut M&Ms or Diet Coke and let’s face it, that’s what I buy on the regular.

Wish me luck. I brushed my teeth. I am wearing yoga pants. But I might change. Jeans? Oh man, this is so confusing. How do you make sure you look like a good Mom friend but not too Mom-ish?

Maybe we should have mimosas….

Some more Stuff

Stuff. I have written about my tendency to hold on to Stuff before. I hold on not just to scraps of paper and pictures and acorns and single mismatched earrings. I hold on to people, too. It is both my greatest quality and my weakness. In recent years I have learned to embrace the “people are in your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime” theory. Previously I tried to keep everyone in my life for a lifetime. I thought it made my life richer. Sadly, I think it may actually just dilute the people that are there day to day.

I have embraced the theory. I have. I have let go. And I have done so with peace in my heart and the knowledge that just because someone is no longer in my day to day does not mean that they were not there for a reason or that their season may not come around again.

I try to live this theory as it applies to my Stuff, too. I don’t always succeed. Right now in the back corner of my attic storage is a lampshade with black fringe from my Leg lamp costume. I know it is an item that served it’s purpose, it had a reason. I should let it go. But I want it to be a Lifetime piece, I do. I know it has no practical purpose… but you just never know. What if I need it?

In the last seven years I have moved three times. Prior to that I had moved only a handful of times in my life. I took advantage of each move to let go of some things. Having children makes the keeping of everything impossible. Holding on to each and every precious item, it is adding to the pile of Stuff that they will someday lug around.

Daylight Savings Time allows for a perfect morning. We all woke without the use of an alarm clock, our bodies gently nudging us towards wakefulness before the alarm clocks starts screaming Wake Up! You’re Late! (I wake to Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life every single day. Start each day with a laugh and a little perspective.) While Em ate breakfast I rummaged around in my junk drawer in the kitchen for three more items. I promise I won’t spend all month showing you shit from my kitchen junk drawer. Really.

Trash and Donate were easy today. For the trash I have two cheapie cat toys. A catnip toy that has a hole in the corner and a weird little ball that sheds blue plastic pieces. Lucy is a huge fan of cat toys and I am a huge fan of her not choking. We no longer have cats so these items have outlived their usefulness. They have neither a reason nor a season coming up in the near future so in to the trash with them. As I tossed them in to the kitchen garbage can I got a little misty. For the first time in more than 15years I will not be filling a christmas stocking with cat toys for an ungrateful beast that shits in a box in my house. A heartbreaking realization, I know.

Donate – I often wonder if the collect box tops for education campaign is real or if it is akin to the collect soda pop can tabs for cancer campaigns of my youth. I had jars of tabs, bracelets made of tabs, tabs in my pockets, in my backpack. I don’t remember ever doing anything with them, but I knew it was tacky not to pop them off before I chucked a can in to the trash. (In to the trash! Gasp, those crazy non-recycling 1980s.) I clip boxtops from the few items of prepackaged food we buy and I toss them in my kitchen drawer, or in to the bowl of fresh fruit that sits on the counter. Very occasionally I get it together and turn them in to the school. This year I have managed to send them in on three separate occasions and it is barely November. Yeehaw, stay at home mom for the win!

My Keep item is one that has surely outlived it’s season. But dammit, its reason is genius! 17 years ago I used to go to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va quite often. Any and all funds that were not spent at Anheuser Busch’s amusement park were spent on their fine American made product, the Budweiser. Even as a young gal I oozed class and style. I didn’t always have a frosty mug with me, sadly, and I couldn’t just go around slugging beers from a can. I could snap on this metal handle and Tada! This item has a two-pronged approach to assisting you in catching a wicked buzz. Not only does your beer stay nice and cold because your hand is not warming it up but you can’t put it down without it tipping over so beers had a tendency to disappear before my eyes!

I can’t tell you the last time I used this. I pull it out on occasion to show someone. Typically someone visiting from my college days. But this item has lived in every junk drawer I have had for the last 17 years. It has outlasted the purge of moving to a new state. I can’t get rid of it now. Dare I say that this item has no reason, it has no season? Is this a Lifetime junk drawer item?

For today I am going with a solid, yes. Yes, it is. I wanted to show you how handy it is. No can of beer to be found. Here it is providing a handle to my jar of Fish Oil Supplements. Fish Oil has done wonders for my achy creaky joints in the morning. Amazingly enough a solid decade of Budweisers did not seem to make me bounce out of bed feeling like a million bucks. Who knew?

Stay tuned for 26 more days of my treasured pieces of crap. Can you even imagine the wondrous items yet to be revealed?

Whatcha Gonna Do With All That Junk?

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.

It’s in my genes…

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.

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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.

November

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.

Balance

It’s no mystical secret that life is a careful balancing act. Every single decent therapist I have ever spoken to has said within twenty minutes “Well, Kelly, it sounds like you need to find some balance and I can’t tell you how to do that.” Well, I am not forking out $125 an hour for you to ask me questions.

Balance. I have spent my entire adult life looking for it. Work and play time. Ambition and relaxation. Exercise and diet. Save money for your future but live in the moment.

Looking crazed, I thought I’d be gone for hours!! Free as a bird!!

I work really hard to keep balance in my life currently. Take care of everyone else and take care of me. It isn’t easy. I left the house this afternoon with the intention of staying gone for a few hours. I have never been away from Lucy for more than about 90 minutes but MQD and Emily were both home. She had a full belly. She had just had a nap. She would be fine and I needed to get out. Bad.

MQD is pretty good about not crying wolf. I wasn’t gone 45 minutes before he sent the first text “We have a very sad baby.” I was getting my nails done. Yup. I am that shallow. Once a month I take an hour for myself and that is what I choose to do. Judge me, if you like. It makes me feel pretty. I sent him one back “Bring her to me, I can’t leave just yet.” He got things calmed down on the homefront and ultimately I was even able to stop and get milk on the way home. That’s right. I went to the grocery store. Party on, Wayne.

I could have stayed out longer. But I wanted to be home. Walking through stores window shopping or sitting somewhere drinking a cup of coffee wishing I was at home would not make me happy. I took my perfectly manicured fingernails home and strapped on an apron. Emily and I sat on the floor in the kitchen and we grated six zucchinis while Lucy took out every single piece of tupperware we own. And I was happy.

That might have been enough Balance for the day. But enough is never enough for me.

After I whipped up some ridiculously good zucchini bread (slammed full of vegetables and almonds for protein power!) I sat back and thought “I’m not cooking another god damned thing today!”

For breakfast tomorrow my family will have delicious zucchini bread made with love and natural sweeteners. For dinner tonight? I taught Emily how to line up Scoops Tostitos chips and place a loving dollop of canned hot dog chili in each one. Then we put some cheese on those bad boys and slid them in the oven.

Because it is all about balance. Em had a fever this weekend and was under the weather. I told her she could have anything she wanted for lunch, anything at all. She picked salad. SALAD.

My girls will grow up loving vegetables. But some day, many years from now, I hope they will both stumble through a 24 hour grocery store after the bars close and grab some Tostito Scoops, a 79 cent can of chili made with godknowswhat and some cheese. Her friends will encourage her to just put them in the microwave (or cook them with their space-aged cell phones) and she’ll say “No way, man, my mom made these when we were kids and you have to take your time and line up the chips and cook them in the oven.”

If it sounds like I hope my kids grow up to occasionally stumble drunkenly through a grocery store and eat food that is one step above low level dog food, yes, I do. They will also probably buy their vegetables from the farmer’s market and recycle like their life depends on it. And that, friends, is Balance.

It’s not hard to picture her drunkenly stumbling around, actually.