My Dad

I was chatting with my dad today and I had the same thought that I have every time I talk with him. "Man, I love this guy! He understands me!" He's always had a knack for words. He always is so very honest.

I see now where I get my "talent" of words. I was born with the same genetic defect that my dad has. We both have diarrhea of the mouth. Yes, self-diagnosed for the both of us, but it can only be explained in that way. You know when you have a thought? It usually passes through a mental filter that determines if it is appropriate to say aloud or if it should just go back into that black empty space in your mind. Well, diarrhea of the mouth can be described as not having that filter and things just come out as they are thought. It is brutal but it is honest.

I member some of my dad's worst episodes that caught me off-guard. I still don't know if I should be offended or if I should laugh. He laughed, so maybe that was a cue that I should have chimed in too, but I think I just stood there pondering.....

A few years ago I had begun to experiment with my natural hair style (you know, embrace the curl) but my dad looked at me and asked if the Santa Ana's had done my hair. No, the wind did not do my hair and it took some very expensive hair product to make it look like it did.

This summer I wore a pretty green ankle-length skirt and my hair in a side pony-tail. My husband loved the look, but my dad asked me if I was "Norah Jones or something?"

Today I went to visit him at work because my Costco does not open an hour early for business members, as I thought, and I didn't want to wait in the parking lot for an hour. He looked at my vest and (cute)boots and asked if I was going camping in the snow...

This man that I didn't know so well as a child is one of my most favorite people in the world. He cracks me up every time I think of him and there is always a good "Dad story" to tell at any given time. Like the time that I worked for him and he made me "Employee of the Month" after catching me napping in the back storage room. I also got a raise. Nepotism at its finest!

So there you go, Dad. You tell me that you don't read my blog anymore because "it's too real" and I dedicate a special entry just for you. I love you! You are so much fun to share with the world!

Confessions of a stay-at-home-mom

I believe in God. I also believe in living my life transparently. As many friends know, I am a bit shy. I've always been a quiet person and that has kept me from many opportunities to build relationships that go beyond "the surface". Part of me wants to keep all of my insecurities to myself, but as I try to change into a transparent person, I realize that God has my back no matter what other people think of me. As long as I trust in him and obey his commandments, I'll be perfect in His eyes.

Have you ever wondered what I am really like? Maybe for years you've thought that you knew me, but now aren't sure. Once I realized that my husband loved me for all of my wierdness, I set off to set the rest of my relationships straight and go with the honest truth. It's been a fun experience for me. I realize that I have fun laughing at myself. It's actually brought me closer to many of my friends and family members too.

Here are a few fun facts about me that maybe you didn't really need to know:

*I shave my toe hairs more often than I shave my legs.
*I have dance-offs with myself in the mirror when the kids and husband are away.
*I secretly listen to Britany Spears on my MP3. There are a few songs though that just make me want to puke....
*I pick my nose, but have very long-ago given up eating what I pick.
*When someone tells me that my kids are very good looking, I fully agree.
*I have a complex with wanting to be the best at everything.
*I fear that if I stop exercising, my husband will think that I am unattractive.
*I have an addiction to granulated, processed sugar.
*OK, I have an addiction to food.
*I am intrigued by the Real Housewives of Orange County as well as A Baby Story, but don't have cable now so I can't watch either.
*I am a frequent showerer....sometimes 2-3 a day. It may have something to do with my super sensitive sense of smell.
*In high school, I swam because I couldn't stand sweating...but swimming in my sweat was apparently just fine with me.
*I have mood swings.....all the time.
*I have a weakness for Big Macs.
*I know that it wasn't in God's plans for me to have a little girl, but I still wonder often what it would be like...Sometimes my thoughts bring me to tears.

I love my friends and family with all my heart. I promise to be as honest and open as I can. It's the least that I can do for those people that truly want me to be a part of their lives. It is my prayer that they will all be transparent with me also.

Life without the mini-van

I might be exaggerating when I say this, but my life is doomed without my mini-van. Not a day goes by in which I can say that the "Swagger wagon" just rested in my driveway. Multiple pick-ups and drop offs to school and extra-curricular duties, grocery shopping and other-stuff-shopping, sanity drives to nowhere in particular (but without kids in the back)....It is the normal mom job.

Basically, I drive a bus. I take advantage of the auto-sliding door to get the kids in and out without having to stop the car....I mean, engine. My vehicle protects the soccer EZ-up and multiple folding chairs, just in case. Within the many, too many, little nooks and crannies you will find a plethora of knick-knacks and half-eaten granola bars. I call it emergency food when I find fruit snacks and Ritz crackers beneath the seats. I once even found a 3/4-full yogurt tube in the back compartment. Thank goodness is was so filled with sugar instead of dairy that it wouldn't stink up my van.

So, my van has a little problem with a popping front door and I took it in to get fixed. It could be a week before we reunite again. I worried a little when the "guy" told me this, but we've lived with 1 car before...That is, until I smashed into a parked armored car and then we had no car....Good Pepperdine memories! My husband usually rides his bike to work (he's one of THOSE save-the-earth while getting exercise kinda guys) so I can use his car, except for one day this week when he needs it to go super far away....Los Angeles. It's gonna take a little planning to get everyone to where they need to be with just one car, but it's a good challenge. It will force the rest of the family (mostly me) to do a little bike riding and walking (save-the-earth kinda transportation).

Needless to say, I am so attached to my van. It's not like it's the envy of the neighborhood or that I like to take my friends and family on joy-rides just to show it off. That is just plain silliness! I am just so dependent upon it. It helps me take my groceries home. It keeps mum about all of my over-budget purchases at TJ-Maxx or when I secretly endulge my sweet tooth as I wait in the church parking lot to pick up my son from Youth Group. If I need to hide from my kids to take a nap, it will always offer the back bench, although it's only been a thought/pipe dream. It will never criticize my horrible singing when I do my best impression of Steve Perry. Hey, "Don't Stop Belivin'"!

This is a reminder to me that God is still blessing my life. God has given me many things to help me cope with my temporary "loss". Our second family car is a blessing. The friends that I am going to call to help me get my kids home from school will be a blessing. The extra calories that I burned running home from the dealership was a blessing as well as the many more that I will be burning as I walk to and from the boys' school multiple times this week. My husband's flexible schedule is a blessing and so is his job to which will pay for the repairs.

...And as I snooped around his car this afternoon as I waited for the little guy to get out of school, I found a nice emergency plastic baggie full of ketchup and crushed pepper packets just in case I ever get trapped in his car. How VERY thoughtful!

What I've learned from zucchini

It's an interesting title. It was meant to catch your eye so you don't overlook the AMAZING and emotional synopsis that I am about to tell.

So there's this 5th grade Thanksgiving play. It will be filled with talking and singing gourds and poultry. Some of those being zucchini. I, being of a pretty creative capacity, had signed up to make a few...ok, not a few, it is way too many, costumes to replace the ingenious butcher paper squash and turkeys. The old costumes were falling apart. Elmer's glue can only hold for so long. New costumes needed to be made to last for the rest of the life of the play. I had some material in my rafters. I have a sewing machine, I also have a mom and mother-in-law that have some knowledge of sewing.

My mom did interior design and professionally made quilts, coverlets, chair covers, curtains... She also made most of my wardrobe while I was in elementary school (that is, until I got too fat and had to start wearing my Dad's t-shirts to school)....I guess I was thinking that I'd have an innate ability to sew. I spent many hours in front of her sewing machine making scrunchies and odd-shaped pillows. I even had my own Cabbage Patch sewing machine when I was 10.

Here's what I first learned. As soon as I sat down to make new patterns, I quickly realized that I just didn't have the sewing knowledge to make any complicated design. The turkey costumes were put aside because they were just too difficult for me to create in my mind as well as in felt. Wings and tail feathers for 8+ turkeys...all under budget (pretty much $0) was not an easy task.

I moved onto something that looked a little less complicated. The zucchini. 2nd, I learned that a zucchini can look a lot like a pickle if you choose the wrong color and size. I didn't want people to think that I was a failure by sending pickles to the Thanksgiving play. 3rd, I learned that a zucchini is not only green. It has many other shades of white and yellow. I had to make sure to protect the integrity of the "Cucurbita pepo". I used fabric paint to recreate the natural beauty lines and spots along the deep green flesh. 4th, I re-learned that I can't sew like my mother. Maybe it was because I wasn't using her machine (I don't think that was the case) or maybe it was that I had broken the foot pad that keeps the fabric from moving around while the machine stitches (I don't think that was the case either). I think it was because I am an amateur seamstress...I was gonna write "amateur sewer", but we all know that "sewer" is also, like, the thing that our poopies go to after we flush...LOL!

Yes, that was lesson 5. Sewer and sewer (one that sews) are the same word.

I'll end with this. I greatly admire the craftiness of the person that made the construction paper costumes. I also have great respect for parents that volunteer at my boys' schools. They take on projects just like this one all of the time. A little stressful and a little frustrating at times, but I know that my kids, as well as future 5th graders, will long for the day when they can be the zucchini in the school play because the costumes are "Totally RAD" (as a boy in class yelled out when I took them in to show them off).

Parking

For some people, it comes as second nature. It is so simple. Line your vehicle up to fit inside of the lines. For me, it doesn't come so easily. I admit, I have a problem. I should NOT have passed that portion of my driver's test, but I did....somehow. (Oh yeah, I didn't have to parallel park...or even park in a parking spot for that matter...How did I get my driver's license anyway?)

For the 17ish years that I have been legally allowed to push a pedal to accelerate a 4-wheel motor vehicle (minus the 30 days that I was on probation and had to WALK home from high school...poor me!) I have been practicing my parking skills and have gotten much better. I still have days though when I need to repark because I hog 2 spots or when I am at Ikea and drive into a space crooked. Really, I don't understand how my spatial abilities could be so bad. I mean, I can understand, but refuse to admit that I am a poor driver.

Today I perfectly parallel-parked in front of the kids' school. I was an inch away from the curb and I didn't hit the car in front or behind me. PRAISE THE LORD! I have always been afraid of parallel parking. This sense of insecurity comes from many failed attempts of trying to parallel park on a hill at Pepperdine in an 80's Mercury Sable. I never hit anyone, but I remember sweating profusely as I attempted to fit into a piece of curb the size of a brontosaurus. Usually after minutes of backing into and trying to swing around, I'd give up and go down to the bottom of the hill and park in the parking lot (to which I'd still have issues with fitting inside the lines). I'd hike all 4 million steps up to campus. Either way, I was sweating the same amount.

So what do I have to say for myself? It must have something to do with self-confidence. I do a much better parking job when I don't have an audience. I go early to school so I can pick out my special spot to practice in. I can't promise that I'll get any better, but my van is highly visible so you can take extra precautions to move your car out of my way when you see it coming.

Mother Nature

WARNING: SENSITIVE WOMAN INFORMATION

I've had a bit of spare time to catch up on all of my "academic" reading material lately. It is so interesting to me how many ads there are for Tampax in Good Housekeeping, Fitness, Family Circle...... They all look a bit like this: A neatly dressed woman in a nicely pressed, green dress suit has a fancy, red bow-tied box in her hands ready to gift to a fun-loving woman. Since when did "that time of month" come in a fancy package? I don't ever remember a time when I thought to myself, "Oh, I really wish that my monthly visitor would be gifted to me in a beautiful box." What are the people at Tampax thinking? That they can glorify a woman's menstrual cycle by packaging it in a sparkly box?

I was watching the news a couple of days ago and I saw another ad from Tampax with Mother Nature (to whom is really getting on my nerves right now). The unsuspecting woman sees the green-dressed Mother of all...cramps, mood swings, hot flashes, bloating.... But the woman is one step ahead of Mother Nature. She has a "cute little transformer-like tampon" that she pulls out of her pocket. If that ain't kryptonite..... Mother Nature is angry. The woman can go on dancing!

I'd personally like to see Mother Nature and Midol go up against each other in an ad. That would be awesome! In my case, Midol really kicks butt!...more so than a collapsible pocket-sized tampon.

A Martha Stewart Kind of Day

It's funny that I think of Martha Stewart as the "Superwoman" of this century. For many years I've been reading her magazines and watching her on tv but always thought that I'd never be as creative or as passionate about my own home as she is, but today I had a Martha Stewart kind of day. I don't often have them. They are simple but packed with acomplishment. They are days that have you thinking, "I am a good homemaker!" They are days in which your "crazy" is suppressed and you can easily put your best food forward (even though I think that we all know that Martha Stewart is a little crazy herself).

It started at 4:30 this morning when I woke up for a run with a friend. I was prompt and on time. I perfectly parked my car along the side of the street less than 6 inches from the curb. That is a huge success for me! I got home and as the boys started to get up, I finished another 2 miles on the treadmill. I started my dinner....yeah, my dinner....by boiling down a fryer for some homemade chicken stock. I used some herbs from my garden outside to make it even tastier. My son loves my homemade chicken soup and dumplings. A very healthy choice and budget-friendly too.

As I waited for the fridge repair man, I weeded the vegetable garden and sprayed the plants for insects. I even planted some sunflowers against the wall and harvested carrot seeds that I planted into our planter beds.

My middle son and I made early preparations for tomorrow's start to school by taking medication to the elementary school and an immunization card to the middle school. We picked up the little guy at a friend's house and then went home so I could prune the rose bush in the front yard in my floppy straw hat.

I was so proud of myself for holding off my children from tv until 4 PM. They fought all afternoon, but I remained calm. I completed my half of the carpool to soccer practice and then finished my soup by chopping the chicken and vegetables to add to the stock. I even saved the breast (I managed to pull it out in one piece so it was in the shape of a heart) for a chicken casserole that I will make later in the week (because my meals are planned out for the next 5 days).

At a time when I usually nap, I was folding laundry and cleaning up the little boys' room. I wasn't bitter about it. I just do a better job than they do. I balanced the soccer team's check book and even cuddled a little with my little guy. (He's a little aprehensive about his first day of kindergarten).

If someone were to ask me what I did today, I really wouldn't have anything much to tell them. It was a meaningful day spent at home tending to the simple things that get lost in the hustle and bustle of life. I would tell them, though, that I brushed my teeth 5 times. I guess that's as many times as I went to the bathroom today also. I don't know why, but I felt the urge to. Maybe that isn't so Martha-Stewart-y, but I must be getting enough liquids. Hooray!