Tag Archives: This Book Will Change Your Life

Day 60: The Impossible Pizza

Posted on January 9, 2011 | 3 comments

“Order an impossible pizza.”

I think this challenge wants you to call up and order a pizza with 1/8 mushrooms, 1/3 extra cheese, 2/5 pepperoni and on and on…. but much like the dine and dash  challenge I just can’t do it.  I love a lot of things in this life.  My pizza place among them.  So I am not about to call them up and be a pain in the ass.  (More of a pain in the ass than I already am…) So…. what would my impossible pizza look like?

Well, a lot like this….

But that looks like a bowl of cheese and pepperoni?  I KNOW.  And this is what I live with.  Can’t blame a man for trying to prolong his life, I suppose, but seriously?  When your commitment to eating a low carbohydrate diet in an effort to control your blood sugars (thereby lowering your insulin usage) is so  strong that you eat BOWLS OF CHEESE AND PEPPERONI instead of PIZZA….. that’s really… something.

And what that something is is a buzzkill.  It’s no fun to eat a bowl of ice cream topped with M&Ms and dip sourdough pretzels in to the soupy blend once you’re half way finished when next to you on the couch is a man eating a bowl of ricotta cheese flavored with vanilla extract.  Don’t bother to try this experiment.  I have now done it enough to tell you with certainty it is no fun.

But if what is good for the goose is good for the gander and all that…. I’m thinking I might eat alongside him for a bit.  Can’t hurt.  I’m supposed to start obsessing about my weight soon, right?  Isn’t that on the Bride To Do list?

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Day 59: Are you psychic?

Posted on December 17, 2010 | 3 comments

Day 59’s challenge asks you if you have psychic powers, and suggests you try and move an object with your mind.  I have been writing this post in my head for a week, but I couldn’t quite post it.  Because it wasn’t and still isn’t wholly true.  I was going to use my “psychic powers” to lift the big black cloud that is hanging over my head.  And I thought for a day or two I had done it… but nope.  Back in full force.  The holidays are hard on everyone, nothing new there.  I am staying home this year, with MQD and Em and I am thrilled to begin anew, new nuclear family holiday, new traditions.  But I am sad all at the same time, sad that I will be missing my family, sad that  MQD will be missing his, worried that the Christmas we make for Em will not be “enough.”  Even though I know, cognitively, that makes no sense at all.  She has only a few years of Christmas expectations, I have thirty some and it is me that I fear disappointing.

Something about walking around feeling like you have it all for a few weeks… I suppose the letdown of “holy shit, is this it?” is inevitable.   But I don’t even know if that’s it.  I am just cranky.  Blue.  Sad.  Irritable.  Part of MQD’s  christmas present says it has been delivered, according to Amazon and it’s not here.  So I cried.  And resisted the temptation to break shit.  That’s not like me.  I roll with it.  That’s what I do.  But underneath the sad and the scared and the insecure and the holy-fuck-it’s-freezing is something else… and I can’t seem to tease it out.    It feels like anger.  Or at least that is how it is manifesting.  I am being short, snippy, rude to the people I love the most while I maintain my cheery disposition for everyone else.

I carried this feeling for ages in my twenties, that no matter what was happening on the surface, underneath I was unsettled.  Fearful.  Sad.  I am angry with myself now for feeling robbed of enjoying this time.  A time when I have nothing but love and joy surrounding me… how dare I rob myself and those around me of that?  It is self-indulgent and childish, and I so wish I could just “get over it.”    But to someone who has never felt it, it is impossible to explain.  It’s like being nauseous.  When you know you won’t really puke.  Only I feel like I might burst in to tears. I am constantly choking it back.

And in case all this drivel wasn’t whiny enough my back is aching daily again.  It makes me feel old and broken and impatient. So the radio silence of late… I don’t have much to report.

So what am I going to do about it?

  1. Get some exercise again.  Regularly.  Move the blood.  Maybe it’s silly, but I can’t help but feel like when I have no energy or bad energy that moving it all around will help reorganize things in that old body of mine.
  2. Mind my mouth, keep at this.  At least now I hear it, and I apologize immediately.  Next step, just shut the fuck up if I have nothing nice to say.
  3. Trust.

And with all the psychic power I can muster… I am gonna try and move this out

and see more of this.

Ahhh, but at least I have my sense of humor.  When all else fails… at least I can laugh at myself.  What song is playing?

Try to stop my hands from shaking
Something in my mind’s not making sense
It’s been awhile since we’ve been all alone
I can’t hide the way I’m feeling
As you leave me, please, would you close the door
And don’t forget what I told you
Just cause you’re right, that don’t mean I’m wrong, another shoulder to cry upon…

Sad state of affairs when your problems are so simply spelled out by a 1986 Billboard hit.

But it’s true.  I don’t “want to lose your love”  and it has “been awhile since we’ve been alone.”  I don’t expect MQD to fix it.  And I thank him regularly for his  patience.  I know he didn’t “do this.”  But he fell in love with me just the way I was, which was sad, impatient, broken and scared.  I need to remember I was also hopeful, renewed, optimistic… even then.  I’ve come so far.  Now is no time to go backwards.  One foot in front of the other.  And if I am angry… I am angry with myself. For not being mindful of the joy  and the love that I live every day.

I think if I can attack #1 (exercise) with a vengeance and really focus on #3 (trust) that #2 (my shitty disposition and accompanying smart mouth)  will solve itself. And then maybe I can land a Date with that sweet boy that asked me to marry him. And sit back, with a smile on my face, my little lady asleep upstairs with visions of sugarplums dancing in her head, and start getting my Christmas on.  Because seriously, Bad Mood, roll out.  I don’t have time for you now.

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Day 58:Our kids shall inherit the earth….

Posted on December 8, 2010 | 1 comment

Day 58 challenges you to think about what it is you will pass along to your children, specifically what skills. The suggestion that they offer is whittling. Not being particularly fond of whittling I had to come up with something else. While I was thinking about this, letting the challenge roll around in the back of my head until somethign crops up organically, Em was having herself a dance party in the living room.

Dance parties consist of a lot of various moves. But the single move that she has embraced from a very young age has been the air-guitar. She employs it mid power-slide, while head banging, even while absent-mindedly looking out the window. But recently she has added a new element. The “wheedling.”

I looked all over youtube for an appropriate clip showcasing this skill and I can’t find it.  And she will not do it for the camera. If you don’t watch Metalocalypse on AdultSwim you should .  Dethklok, the band on this cartoon show, features Skwisgaar Skwigelf , the fastest guitarest ALIVE! When he is playing sometimes he makes the sound we’ve all made, usually when  all alone practicing our air guitar.  It can best be spelled out “Wheedly, wheeedly, wheeedly, wheeeedly….”  etc.

So, anyway… I am thinking about whittling when I observe MQD assisting Em in her wheedling.  And there you have it… what skill have we passed along to Emily?  Wheedling.

Perhaps it goes deeper than that.  Like her mother, Emily will do anything for a laugh.  She values the joy of those around her more than maintaining decorum.  She has no problem making herself the butt of the joke, so long as the joke gets a laugh.  And I could be no more proud.  The kid is funny.  She had me rolling last night at dinner.

Is it okay to call your kid an ass?  As in “My kid loves to make an ass of herself.”  I hope so.  Because man, does she ever. And I fucking love it.

In lieu of a wheedling video I will share here my all time favorite Emily June original tune…  (only slightly better than last night’s “I wanna RED! RED!” song about popsicles to the tune of Twister Sister’s “I Wanna Rock!”)

I present to you… My Pet Maggot

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Day 55: A Test of Patience

Posted on November 24, 2010 | 10 comments

Day 55: A test of Patience, Flip the Perfect Pancake!

Today’s challenge is called a “test of patience” and invites you to learn to flip the perfect pancake.  Well, I can’t.  And it is not for lack of trying.  In fact, I can’t even cook the perfect pancake.  And I think it is largely because I lack patience.  When MQD and I first started dating and he first started hanging out with Em and me he would make pancakes pretty frequently on the weekends.  I didn’t realize that I had managed to do this, (and it was not my intent) but one morning Em asked for pancakes and specifically asked MQD  to make them.  I thought she just liked his better than mine.  Until she pointed out that she didn’t think I knew how to make pancakes.  Only Mike and Daddy.  Perfect.  Em thought I didn’t even know  HOW.  I was off the hook permanently.

And truthfully?  I don’t think I have made pancakes since.  I make waffles.  And they’re tasty.  But they don’t require patience.  Don’t open the waffle iron until it beeps.  Done.

Several weekends ago we had a weekend guest.  A guest that can flip the perfect pancake and I thought about asking him to teach me.  But in thinking about that I realized that he has already taught me patience.  It’s funny that I am sitting down to bang out my feelings on this today of all days, the day before Thanksgiving.

Three years ago I had a turkey sandwich from the Kangaroo in Newport News on Thanksgiving day.  I had just dropped off Emily with Jer and my in-laws for Thanksgiving. I was invited to stay but elected to get on the road so there’d “be less traffic.”  Truth be told I couldn’t keep myself from crying and would rather just rip the band-aid off.  It was the first holiday I’d spend away from her.  I drove all day towards Chapel Hill.  I pulled in Amy’s driveway in Hillsborough at about six that evening, stopping for another gas station turkey sandwich.  She wasn’t home yet and I called her parent’s house to see if she was on her way.  I had my laptop and I could get on her wi-fi from my car.  I double-checked my email, again.  It was still there.  The email from a landlord that was happy to show me an apartment the following day.  A landlord that didn’t care to check my credit.  A landlord that would walk through the apartment I’d later rent  and turn his face while I weeped, pretending he didn’t see me.

That weekend was messy, full of tears and wine and laughs and new friends.  On Monday I went back to the beach.  And I moved the following weekend.  I might be the only woman in the history of the world that ever separated from her husband and enlisted him to help her pack and help her unpack, but I did.  When he left my apartment the day I moved in my family was still there, and a few of my friends. He gave me a hug and he said I was “gonna be okay.”  A question I asked him often for years, always “is it gonna be okay?’

That day I thought we were starting over.  That our friendship would begin anew that day and somehow we’d be this unstoppable force, parents, ex-spouses, friends.  The following year brought many arguments and ugly phone calls.  We were “friendly” in front of Emily but the ease we’d always had with each other was gone.  As my life moved forward and his did, too, we didn’t share the day-to-day.  We didn’t know each other anymore in the familiar way we had and nothing had moved in to take its place.  There was just an empty spot where our marriage had been.

A couple years later when MQD and I got more serious and I could see the future I was building I felt like it was important to try to extend my hand in friendship, again.  Jer came to visit, to get our Christmas tree.  It was awkward.  We were polite.  I invited MQD over that evening so that Jer could meet him.  And then I beat feet outta there as fast as I could.  I spent the night out with MQD that night and argued with Jeremy when I got home in the morning.  I was ready.  Ready for us to talk about my relationship with MQD and about the future and about how we’d work it all out.  He didn’t want to.   Worse than that he wouldn’t even really argue with me.  He was just gone.   Christmas passed with more polite conversation.

In February of 2009 I sent him an email.

I know you’ll likely not reply to this email but I wanted to talk to you.  I think it is really important for us to be  able to maintain a dialogue about Emily in order for us to be the best parents we can be.  And I think we’re doing a great job with this. But …. I also think it is important for us to be able to have a dialogue about well…. us.  Not about you and me, but about you and about me.  No one has known us, either of us like we know each other and I hadn’t bargained on this.  Losing our friendship all together.  Maybe I’m naive, but I thought we could do this, and still have each other.

It was about twenty months later that he called and said “Hey, can you call me back when you have a minute? I need to run a few things by you, figure out what I am gonna do.”  It was my friend Jeremy.    Calling me to ask for advice.  Because no one has known him longer.

The following week the house guest, the one that can flip a perfect pancake, came to stay the weekend.  We all stayed up late, laughing, talking about music and telling stories, playing games.  We made Chicken Penne.  We took Em out to run around downtown.  We all went for pizza.   And ice cream.  And beers at He’s Not Here.  We watched the SweetWater Brewing Co painter paint a new logo on the wall.  We talked about Jer’s plans to move off the beach soon.  Maybe to Colorado, maybe someday settling closer to his little lady.     MQD and I talked excitedly about wedding plans and the band that we hired.    We all talked about the future.  Not the past.

He left a day later than we’d planned.  At MQD’s suggestion that he stay another night so he could go by Em’s school on Monday morning.

So… three years.  It took three years.  My old friend, Jeremy, came to visit.  He came to visit my home, my amazing fiancée and our, all of our’s, beautiful daughter.    It was worth the wait.  And pancakes are over-rated. Friendships are never perfect, anyway.  I’ll take friendship over a perfect pancake.

This post is for you, Mike.  Oddly.  Your patience with me has given me the strength and the capability to heal.  I know it has not been easy.  I know it has been maddening at times.  I do not know how you have held my hand through the last two years.  I hope that you did it because you knew this day would come, and that it was worth it.  Because while my friendship with my ex-husband will benefit Emily, and it will benefit me, surely, it stands to strengthen you and me and our marriage more than I ever knew.  I have moved on.  I have let go.  I can love you with all of my heart, with everything I am and not look back.  And I have only you to thank for this.  Your understand and your encouragement and more than anything your love and your commitment.  You made me see a future where I’d never thought there’d be one.  And god damn… it looks good, babe.  That future looks really good.  I love you, babe.

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Day 54: The best day ever

Posted on November 21, 2010 | 3 comments

Day 54 is the best challenge yet, if you have the intellect of a middle school boy.  And I do.  Today’s challenge was to count the number of times you umm… passed gas.  Now, I’d suggest you stop reading if you are under the mistaken impression that I am either a) a lady or b) possessing even a moderate amount of class.   I should preface this all by saying I had kept the joy I found in a well-timed fart under wraps until I had an audience.     Becoming a mother strips you of  your shame.  And I didn’t have a lot going in.

So… count your farts.  Simple mission for the day. I’d planned to execute this challenge Friday and then there were people in the office ALL day.  It was almost 6 pm and I had had zero farts.  Lame.  Redo.

In preparation for Saturday’s mission I drank a bunch of beer on Friday evening.  Really.  That’s why.  What?  It worked.

Woke up Saturday morning and managed to pull one of my favorite jokes on Emily before we’d even made breakfast. “Hey, I have a secret?”  Fart.  #1.  Morning progressed nicely with #2 and #3 immediately following the morning’s breakfast of eggs.  Ran some errands for a bit so the late morning was relatively uneventful.  Returned home where MQD insisted there was no way I was only up  to #4.  4 through 7 were intentional and added for comedic value.  Dinner was more eggs (Yum, arrabiata made by the man!) so I blasted right in to the low teens while Em and I had a competition of sorts.  I told you.  We are gross.  Shameless.  And frequently  laughing at our own body functions.  I managed to “holler back” to MQD on at least one occasion, a very gross and extraordinarily crass skill I have perfected since meeting this fine young man that shares my sick sense of humor.

All in all it was a grand day.  I came in high, for sure, sitting pretty at around 17 when MQD fell asleep on the couch around 10 pm and I no longer had anyone to giggle with, making my efforts far less amusing.

Incidentally, if you’ve not read The Gas We Pass.… get on it.   It’s an informative follow-up to Everyone Poops.

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10 Day Challenge (2) & Day 53

Posted on November 18, 2010 | 2 comments

Quick and dirty, right to the point…..

Day Two: Nine things about yourself.

  1. I miss my family even more now that I am happier.  That seems backwards to me.
  2. Lists like this make me very self-conscious.
  3. I don’t read as often or as much  as I wish I did.
  4. Of all the things I no longer have a budget for (booze, smokes, shoes, drugs & rock and roll) the thing I miss buying most is underwear.
  5. If I hadn’t encouraged Em to wean at 3.5 I think she’d still be nursing.  And I am okay with that.
  6. Watching shitty television, while it is an embarrassing habit, is more relaxing to me even than napping.  Because I have an awful time falling asleep.
  7. Locking the doors to the house at any time other than before I go to bed makes me feel unnecessarily frightened.  I feel more comfortable with the windows open and the doors unlocked than I do barricaded in my house.  Even after our home was broken in to last year, I still rarely lock my doors when we are home.
  8. I would much rather be cold than hot.
  9. I think I cry once a day.  Sometimes more.  The Happiness meter is judged by whether or not I was crying over something silly and sentimental or something sad.   But I’d rather be over-emotional than a robot.

And as for Day 53’s challenge to “Return to Sender” all my junk mail, I finally got some last night.  (Heh, some junk mail, I mean.) However, none of it is really worth sending back.

Can’t send back catalogs, they provide countless hours of entertainment in our house.  They barely qualify as “junk mail.”  And while I generally consider unsolicited requests for charitable donations to fall in the category of “junk mail” I am not going to go to mail it back to them, costing them time and money in processing its return.  So, in order to keep today from being a total wash, I did look up the way to stop receiving ValPak coupons.  Because they annoy the crap out of me.  I have never used one.  Ever.  And yet, I’d bet there are a few on my fridge right now.

Now, if you’ll excuse me I am gonna wake this lazy bag o’ bones and take him outside for a few.

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Day 52: The Meaning of Life

Posted on November 11, 2010 | 2 comments

Day 52: Determine the meaning of Life by looking it up in the dictionary.

the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally.
And if that doesn’t do it for you, from Monthy Python’s Meaning of Life: The End of the Film
Well, it’s nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.
I think a combination of those two is a pretty fair assessment.
And for me?  The Meaning of my Life.  It’s pretty simple.  John Lennon said it best.  All you need is Love. I woke up one morning, turned over and found this.  And my heart almost exploded.

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Day 49: Citizen’s Arrest

Posted on November 3, 2010 | 3 comments

Impropriety: The quality or state of being improper, not in accordance with decorum.

Day 49’s challenge was to make a citizen’s arrest.  While it would have been a lot funnier to “arrest” a stranger the opportunity to arrest my mom and step-dad was too great to ignore.  MQD and I had plans to get our “wedding tattoo” on Friday evening and my parents were coming in to town, too.  We planned to meet at Carrburritos and then stop in to Glenn’s to go over our art work, leaving Emily with my parents for a bit.  MQD and I anxiously awaited Paulie finishing up the last-minute tweaks to our artwork while Em took a stroll around Franklin St with my family, stopping at Time After Time to do some shopping.

Our idea to memorialize our eternal wedded bliss on our skin was to combine the Sailor Jerry anchor and the “Stewed Screwed and Tattoed.”

I think we were successful.  I couldn’t be any happier with the way they turned out.  Not only did I get to share this occasion with my betrothed. But…. as I was laying on my stomach, teeth clenched, tattoo gun buzzing away behind me, making idle chit-chat with the other fellow in the shop getting work done I heard my favorite sound.  “Hi, Mom!”  And I looked up to see my sweet five-year-old girl.  In her Cinderella dress.  And four new bracelets.  And a new ring.  And  new pink fuzzy hat.  And my mom.  And my step-dad.  And buzzz….. fuck that hurts.

And I was getting a tattoo.  And my daughter was there.  Surely worth a citizen’s arrest of my mom and my step-dad, David.  Who brings a five-year-old to a tattoo shop?

So, Mom and David, consider yourself arrested.  Thanks for hanging out with Ems while we finished up a few wedding details.

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Day 48: You never get a second chance…

Posted on October 28, 2010 | Leave a comment

To make a first impression.  I’ve had Day 48’s challenge in my purse for a week.  And in this last week I realized that I very rarely speak with anyone that I don’t know, peripherally.  I live in a decent sized community and yet the checkers at the grocery store, I know them.  The lady at the bank,  yep, I know her.  I should have had someone fill it out the other day at Trader Joe’s, I don’t go in there regularly enough to know all the folks that work there.  But I was also hesitant to bug someone that was at work.  And I guess I just don’t cross paths with a lot of strangers.  Accosting someone and saying “Hey, what’s your first impression of me?” when all they know of you is that you’re bugging them and waving a piece of paper in their face seems kind of ridiculous.

Last night, for our anniversary, we played a dice game with our 13 year old neighbor.  Odd way to celebrate, I realize, but his mom was working late and he frequently hangs out at our house instead of staying home alone.  In an odd way it was the perfect way to look in to our future as parents.  Two kids in the house feels right.  Before we set to playing our game I asked Austin to fill out my Day 48 challenge. It brought tears to my eyes.  I don’t know if anyone has ever said a nicer thing about me.

I think she is very unique and creative and spontaneous and has a good personality and treats people with respect.

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Day 48 & the funk

Posted on October 19, 2010 | Leave a comment

Day 48 requires me to get out and mingle.  The “funk” has had Em and I under the weather for going on 72 hours.  So… as soon as I can get out in the world I will be back with a vengeance.  And I will OWN Day 48.

In the meantime, I am horribly busy clearing out my DVR of all pre-recorded kid’s shows and crappy reality TV. What?  It’s good for me.

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