New Year, Old Me

Did I ever tell you about the time that I stuck pantyliners in my armpits so I wouldn't get sweat marks?
And then the pantyliners moved and traveled to the neckline of my shirt. The sticky underside of the pad had black lint stuck all over it.
It looked like I had stffed my bra with maxi pads.

I didn't tell you that story?
Huh.
It's a good one.

Morning Breath, Sweats, and a Bidet. And Jimmy Choo.

My husband tried to sneak in a kiss on the lips this morning before he had brushed his teeth.
I've been on my guard pretty much the rest of the day.

I stepped out in sweat pants with my highschool logo on them while simultaniously wearing a Twilight apron. My shame knows my bounds. But all I did was go to Walmart, where I fit right in. I did stop off to get another diet coke, but Janelle, the convienence store lady, had already seen me twice, today, in my leopard print slippers that I bought AT a grocery store IN Idaho.
Again, shame...no bounds...

My day really was going quite marvelously. I was watching the 6 hour version of Pride and Prejudice while clobbering my laundry pile. Calvin bounced in and out and around me and Kelly and I were being pithy and smug in our texts. Who could ask for more?

But then I ran out of fabric softener.

Hence the speedy jaunt to Walmart. Where my happiness was sucked right out of me. Between the squeaky, way-ward shopping cart that left my right bicep sore from trying to force the cart foreward and not into the lady wheeling her oxygen tank round, I was done. My cocoon of bliss at home awaited me. But so did the bell ringer and a petition signer.

The petition guy got me first.
Would I sign a ballot measure to legalize marijuana?
No. "Sorry", I said, "But my husband is law enforcement and he catches so many of the worst guys because they have a small amount of drugs on them."

SPeaking of drugs, which we were, the petition guy looked like he had smoked a bit in his time because clearly my words were too much for him. He looked at me, said, "Dude" and then I said, "Dude" and I went on my less than merry way.

My husband called while I was driving. He had stopped off at the house for lunch... how was I doing... what's new.... He was interested in what I had to say until I got to the, "I bought a different kind of fabric softener. Purple Fusion Snuggle. It was on sale." I knew he had checked out at that point so I threw in, "I read a great article about Karma Sutra. I can't wait for you to get home."
He was back.
I admitted my lie. We hung up.

On the way home, I got a fresh 54 ounces of liquid love. When I got home, I unloaded my purchases and went back to Mr. Darcy just as he asked Elizabeth if her feelings were unchanged.

Almost immediately, I was better. And then my mother in law texted me to tell me she had just ordered me 3 new pairs of shoes and went on to say that "it was a lucky day for us when you came into our family."

Wow, right?
I know!

And by the time Elizabeth and Darcy and Jane and Bingley became man and wife, it was time to take my daughter to ballet. So I snuck into the kitchen, hid the big bag of Cheetos inside my coat, grabbed my drink and told the boys I would be back.

Then I sat in my car, fingers orange and coated and salty and debated, with Kelly, the pros and cons of giving a bidet as a holiday gift.

All in all, a great day.

P.S. For $200 more, The Brondell Swash 1000 has a warm air dryer and an automatic deodorizer. Something to think about.

Angel of Music

I had a post for you.
It was about the time, last week, when my husband took me on a frozen yogurt run, and I had Phantom of the Opera on in the car.
I told him I would totally be screeching singing if he weren't in the car with me.
And then he told me to go for it and then for whatever reason I cranked the music up so loud it was nearly painful. And then I added more pain to the mix by singing.
And then, in my post, I went on to tell you how he hit a bump in the road (which coincided nicely with me slaughtering Christine's plea for the Angel of Music to hide no longer) and that I told him his bad drving messed up my vibrado.

It was hilarious.
To me.
But the post was lame.
So I deleted it.
And was bummed that I wasted 32 minutes at the computer with nothing to show for it.
So I clicked this bit out for you.

My apologies.
My writing is nearly as bad as my singing.


No it isn't.
But my dancing is....

I Was Only Dreamin'

Do you know that song? It may be, in my ever so humble opinion, the best song to come out of the 80's. I fondly recall having a 45 record, A RECORD, of that song. I played it on my JCPenny stereo that was roughly the size of a bookcase.
Sweet, right?
I mention that lovely ditty because it sets the mood for this post. I have had bizarre dreams as of late and I could really use some deciphering.

The other night, Saturday night, I had a dream where Kelsey Grammer (Fraiser... ex-hubby of Camille from RHWOBH..if you don't know that acronym, let's just end this relationship now, K?) saw me at a soiree and approached and did the kiss on the cheek thing. Soooo Hollywood. BUT, in addition, he placed his hand squarely, confidently even, on my boob. And as he stepped out of the kiss, his hand remained in place.
I was freaked out inside but tried to seem low key. And the dream faded out.

What's that all about?

I have had several weird dreams before the Frasier-Feel-Me-Up. By far the most disturbing and bizarre one started with me, in my bed, sheets askew and my husband dead asllep next to me. I distinctly recall I was wearing huge, HUGE white granny panties (which I may or may not actually own) and a hot pink satin bra (again...may or may not).
I was trying to wake my husband up by sort of rolling him back and forth. No go.
I was pushing him with my leg, calling his name, nothing was working.
Then I noticed my bed was smack dab in the middle of a cubicle maze on some non-descript floor of a non-descript office.
I looked around, acutely aware of myself, half naked, surrounded by people. I noted with relief that no one noticed me and my bed and my granny panties.
And then I saw one guy, waaaay across the room. He saw me, dropped his pen, pivoted his body towards me ever so slightly and folded his arms on his desk and settled in for a good stare.
Creepy.
And what did I do? I nervously and slowly  pulled my sheet up to cover my hot pink bra. And then (help me, please, help me understand myself!) I looked to my right and picked a cheesy, delicious nacho off of the enormous pile of nachos that materialized right when I needed them most.

Fruedian wanna-bes, have at it. What does any of this mean?

The Constant Companionship of Critcism and Insecurity

I'm a year older.
And I feel about 100 years wiser. Last year was a rough year, to put it mildly. But it's a year that I wouldn't change. Maybe when I'm old and arthrictic to the point that my fingers curl in on themselves, this will be the year that I describe as the year that I really, really learned to liked myself. Even if it came about as a survival skill.

Things started to go down hill last Halloween. I remember it vividly because I was smack-dab in the middle of hot glue-ing spanish moss to my son's camoflouge pants. (Think gilly suit, people). My emotional demise started with a phone call. A really long phone call about how terrible I am. It escalated to public confrontations, continued in emails, spanned 9 months and all the while was coated with other people asking me what was happening because they were told....blah, blah, blech. There was a final nail in my emotional coffin but really, at that point, I was already an insecure shell of my former happy self so it didn't quite sting as much as you'd think.
The worst part was this was all unfolding at church. Church: a place to learn bout kindness and compassion; understanding and charity. It's like when you are watching the news and you hear about a crime. And then to find that crime was committed by a police officer- someone who holds themselves up to be an example of what they say. This was something like that. Being church associates made it that much more dissapointing.

   Kelly was my constant sounding board. I told her everything and she told me that what was hapening was unfair, untrue and below the belt. It felt nice to have my ego stroked. Or my goodness reaffirmed. As the problem got bigger and messier, word got out. My Massachusetts friends that knew were great, phenominal even.  But there's only so much you can do for someone who has decided that leaving her home is optional.

And my husband, well, he was my rock. I could write a book on all of the tender ways he cared for me and protected me. Sitting next to me at church, he resembled more of a pitbull than the jovial husband he has always been. It was like you had to get thru him to get to me. I felt so protected by him. At home he would vent his frustrations with their behavior and he would make sweeping declarations of their character. Oddly, I would defend them in ways and try to justify, on some level, why they treated me the way they did. When I had made all the excuses for them that I could, I came up with a story in my head that maybe so-and-so was beaten severly and often by someone who looked like me and so years of pain and heartache bubbled up when I was around. Like they had no choice in hating me.

How could I not understand?

And let's be clear, this trick only came about after spending way too much time blaming myself for their bad behavior. Because, if you haven't already learned, criticism is merely the wrapping paper. The true gift is insecurity.
 But I'm not saying I didn't laugh when my husband joked about "no-fly lists" and "full cavity searches" for our special friends. It wasn't a belly laugh. More of a pityfull laugh while the tears flowed. So that makes it OK.
Because, despite my wicked wit and sharp tongue, I am a tender hearted girl. I don't understand cruelty or meaness. Of course I have said and done things that have hurt others. Those are the moments of life that I hate the most. But I have never set out to bring someone down or tear them apart. And I don't ever remember a time when someone did that to me...not even highschool or jr. high...those trecherous years when bad behavior seems the norm...even then I was handed kindness on a plate and told to eat it up.
I did. And I do.
 I'm the first to blame myself so criticism fells like, "I knew it. I knew I sucked."
This was the first time in life that someone was force feeding me anger and hatred and telling my small world know how much I deserved it.
Not fun.
And again, mixing church stuff with this only complicated matters.
But it brought powerful rewards. Each time I got the wind knocked out of me, someone would come out of the woodwork with an unexpected kind word. A perfect example was a Sunday when  there had been an issue; church was over and I was walking to the car with all of my bags. I was trying to get to the car in one piece and just as I got close, my husband got out and came around to open my door and take my bags. At the same time a guy from church came up. I opened my mouth to thank him for the really beautiful lesson he had given about service. In the lesson, he got quite emotional as he thanked members in the class who cared for and taught his teenagers and young children. It was so heartfelt and genuine...just loveliness at it's best. I was sitting alone, in the back (don't know where my attack dog was) and I was hardly keeping it together. You see, I can never let anyone cry alone. So as he spoke and was moved to tears, I cried, too.
And here, in the parking lot, was my chance to thank him for such a fabulous class. But before I could get it out, he was extending a hand to my husband and talking about his class. And he was confiding to my husband that, as he was discussing the lesson on Christ-Like service, he said (and I hope I never forget his words) "I was looking out across the room and I saw your sweet wife and I thought to myself, 'Who serves more than her?' " And he added, "So I just sort of went off on a tangent."
I would have never guessed I had anything to do with his impromtu speech.

It was like a tender mercy dropped down to let me know that I'm not scum, at least not in everyone's eyes.
And it's been my experience that every time something happened that cut through me, something even more loving and kind came from somewhere unexpected. It was like the universe was puting it's finger under my chin, forcing my eyes upwards and saying, "You can do this, kiddo."
And I did it. With class, if I do say so myself. I never bit back or said the sarcastic, snarky things that I could have in those moments when I was being emotionally fillet-ed (how in the heck do you spell fillet in the past tense??).
There is so much more to this story. There was one night when I went to tuck my daughter in and she was crying. She said that she knew what that family was doing to me and that, seeing the way I was handling things made her feel like she could handle the mean girls at school.
That night my tears were tears of gratitude.
Needless to say, when the call came asking if we'd like to relocate, again, it was a tender mercy. One that said, "You've done well. You've been through enough. I knew you could do it. And now, so do you."

For that bit of knowledge, I will be forever grateful. Makes it worth it all. And besides, my hair that I lost is growing in nicely.
So Happy Birthday to me! I really like me. And I really like you.

I hope the feeling is mutual.

What is it? Wednesday?

Just a moment ago. I had to pee so bad- so, so bad- that I thanked my lucky stars I was in a rental. I knew I was in trouble when, while trolling thru Pier 1 searching for a sette, I ignored my bladder. And then I went to the preschool to get Calvin. On the drive home, I had a vision of me getting pulled over for speeding. In my mind, I threw my license out the window and yelled my apologies as I burned rubber and merged back into traffic. Like that wasn't enough, I took a breath and did that cruddy, unexpected choking thing. I was trying to cross my legs, press the gas and avoid the po-po. Coughing didn't help. So I sipped my diet coke with distain since it was what got me into this mess in the first place. It was rough. But I managed.
After I recovered, I asked Calvin the Caboose questions about his day. He had burst into the car with an energetic, "We talked a wacoonth in thienthe!" (Keep up, man. He said science.) so I had a good jumping off point for out chat.
"Mom, thith ith my wacoon mathk." He said while lifting his balck and white creation up so I could see it in the rearview.
"Did you know wacoonth don't like people?" I did the required "No, I didn't know that."
 A second later he announced, "I don't like you."
I sat up just a touch straiter to see him in the mirror. He lifted his mask up off his face.
"It'th only 'cauth I'm wearing my mathk."

I suggest that if you do not currently have a four year old in your life, get one. They are awethome.

So are 6, 11, 12 and 14 year olds.

On a seperate note, I deleted the Facebook app off of my phone. And the US magazine app. Not the US Weekly- news movers and shakers app. The US-look who moved it and it popped out and guess who's shakin' in on a yacht with P-Diddy app.
I have decided I am wasting moments here and there and I'll never reach a few of my personal goals with these brain suckers at my finger tips. Best to keep them down the hall...on the computer.
I'm pleased to announce that at the very least, my bathroom breaks are much shoter. And not because I have over come some intense intestinal problem. The length of my potty breaks were in direct proportion to the length of the facebook news feed and the Zooey Deschanel article.
Too much honesty? Forgive me.

I'm doing all of this in the hopes of checking it off of my "Do It Or Feel Bad Forever" list.
On the top of that list: write a book.
That goal popped up a few years ago. I was trying to start a journal, a little compilation of who I am and how I got here.
Very boring.
So I took the liberty of writing it in narrative form.
Suddenly, it was much more fun.
I started with my first date with my husband. And 400 pages later, I think I may have a book on my hands. What I will do with it, I know not. I may simply print it, bind it and set it on my shelf. The only library it may rest in will be my own. Tucked away in the room that, right now, needs a sette.
And Pier1 is over priced.
And I need a refill.


Let's chat soon, yes?

I Should Probably be Too Embarrassed to Tell You This

You know how diet coke tastes funny right after you brush your teeth with minty toothpaste? On my way out the door to take my son to seminary, I was scrambling to pop something in my mouth to take the minty away. (You see, I get my first drink on the way home.)
Anyway, in a pinch I grabbed a handful of bacon crumbles left over from the salad I made last night.

Bacon.
At 5:50am.

Bacon.
To make the diet coke taste better.

What the hell is wrong with me?