The List.

Hey, remember when I made a list of 101 things to do in a 1001 days and did them all?

Yeah, me neither.  To be fair, I have another year.  I've completed 30 out of 101.  Hmmm.  Not doing so hot.

Since I've last looked at the list, I've completed:

9. Start a college fund for Mo-mo Totally makes me feel like an adult.

15. Go trick or treating with Mo-mo  Gnomish cuteness.

20. Join a mommy group When I was between jobs, I met an awesome group of SAHM mom's from the neighborhood.

25. Learn to knit  Kind of?  I learned, but mostly forgot. 

47. Spend the night at the Lemp Mansion  Alas, no ghosts.  Just a very uncomfortable creaky bed and an interesting old house.

 

53. See something at the Fox Theatre  Wicked.  Yeah. (Note: Wicked as in the actual musical we saw, not the Bostonian adjective.  But it was pretty wicked.)

57. Do something amazingly special for our 5th wedding anniversary.  See above--we went to the Lemp Mansion

63. Start an herb garden Really?  This was a goal?  Huh.  I planted an herb garden, but I thought it was on a whim.  Oh well.  Still counts.

66. Purchase a matching set of living room furniture  Thanks, Craigslist.

84. Clean out everything from my room at parent's house.  Thanks, random basement flood.  Wait, I think there may be a couple things still in that closet. 

98. Purchase a new car for Batman  He is riding in style with his new Honda.  And by "in style", I mean that his bumper is no longer duct-taped to the car and he has air conditioning.

100. Find a "mommy friend"  Got several of them.  Hooray!  Friends, keep procreating.


I have to fess up--There are two that I did.  Then undid.

80.  Get at least 25 followers to my blog. 
Back when I was blogging regularly and had it under the original title of "The Whole Mommy Thing", this was true.  Then I got impatient and tried to switch platforms and realized that I suck at trying to code things so went back but didn't realize that it got rid of all of my followers.  So yeah. 

101. For every goal I accomplish, put away $10. When it hits Sept 19, 2012 do something fun with that money. 
See, last year when Batman and I had both just graduated from school, we were broke. We're still broke but less broke than we were then.  My parent's took us on an amazing vacation to Cozumel.  I had $200 or so saved up.  We broke the piggy bank and spent it on fun crap in Cozumel instead of waiting.

Excuse my absence, I've acquired this thing called a life.

 

I love writing.  I love writing this blog.

I also love my daughter.  And my husband.  And spending time with both of them.  And reading, and playing World of Warcraft (have I mentioned this before?  Yes, I am one of those people), and I love doing crafts...you get the picture.  With my new job, writing has been pushed to the end of the line.

It's not going to be like this forever.  This is something that I enjoy, so I'm going to do my darnedest to keep up with writing in it twice a week.  And I'm going to look for more opportunities to use the word "darnedest" because it's a great word, dagnabbit.

Forgive me, recently my vocabulary has been kidnapped by the early 1900's.  I used the phrase "nosy parker" earlier this week and my coworker convinced me that I must have made it up.

I love my job.  I believe in keeping a buffer between my work life and the internet so I'm not going to go into much detail, but I'm working with a nonprofit organization as an event planner and individual giving portfolio manager.  It's challenging, interesting, and I'm given both responsibility and resources to do the job right.  I adore it so far.

Batman passed the bar and is now officially a lawyer.  I'm so proud, I knew he could do it!  Of course, now he has to get a job...

We're still living with my folks.  We were planning on moving out right away until we took a close look at our finances and realized that we could either a) move out right away, and live paycheck to paycheck when our student loans kicked in or b) wait to move until Batman gets a job, save up a ton of money and pay off some of our debts in the meantime.

So we've decided to be fiscally responsible.  I know that my parents are ready to have their space back and we're definitely ready to have ours, but I think we made the right choice.

I've started quilting.  I seem to have craft ADD.  I've abandoned my knitting mid-scarf, the light is too bad in my parent's house to cross-stitch, and my mood/the weather have not aligned so that I can paint the toy box...so I'm attempting to make a baby quilt instead.  My aunt runs a big yearly quilt show in Louisiana.  She collects quilts to donate to babies in the neonatal unit so I thought that this may be good first quilt project.  I would love for someone like her to actually teach me how to quilt, but I'm making do for now learning from a book.

That's about it.  I love my family.  I love my work.  I love my friends.

Life is good.

List of Five Things Going on in My Life

1)  Batman is taking the Missouri Bar Exam in nine days.  This means that I don't really have a husband for a week and a half.  I have a grouchy, Red-bull drinking, permanently-attached-to-a-study-guide person who sometimes is in bed when I wake up.

He's been studying at Borders to cut down on the distractions.  Apparently interrupting him to show him a video of kittens being cute, I mean really cute, like baby-panda-bear-sneezing level of cute, is an unnecessary distraction.  He and I must have completely different definitions of "necessary".


2)  I'm creating a Lorax-themed toybox.  I bought an old wooden toybox from a garage sale about ten years ago and I found in the garage recently.

I've primed it, drawn the pictures on, and now I just have to paint it.  It's awesome.  One of my hidden talents is that I can reproduce cartoons perfectly.  This made me very cool for about three days in sixth grade when everyone wanted me to draw them a picture of the Simba from the Lion King.

  

ONLY YOU CAN SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.  No pressure or anything.  Except if you don't all the bears and fish and birds will die horrible drawn-out deaths.

3)  My family is going to Cozumel in two weeks.  I can't wait.  Batman will have just taken the bar exam and so it'll be lovely to be able to kick back and relax.

One thing we're going to do is go SCUBA diving.  Everyone in my family except my sister-in-law is SCUBA certified.  This sounds like fun, right?  Well, kind of.

My step-mom is certified but she only did it because she said she would if everyone else does.  Peer pressure is nothing compared to family pressure.  I get the feeling that she doesn't really like diving and now that she knows everything that could possibly go wrong, she doesn't want any of her children anywhere near the water.

She wants us to watch a refresher DVD before we go.  And practice in the pool before we leave.  And practice in the pool when we get there.  And never get farther away than five feet from the dive master when we go down.  And she'd prefer if we never actually SCUBA dived. 

She's taken to randomly quizzing us about potential SCUBA-related disasters.  We'll be eating dinner and suddenly she'll ask "Quick, what do you do if your regulator comes out of your mouth?  What if your secondary regulator isn't working?  WHAT IF YOUR DIVE BUDDY ISN'T PAYING ATTENTION?"

She's a bit of a worrier.


4)  I have two interviews coming up in the next two weeks.   Yes, I'm that awesome.  Now if only I could convince the interviewers of that fact...


5)  My friend Crystal just moved back to the St. Louis area.  We've known each other since high school and we were roommates for a year in college.  It's awesome to be back in the same city with her.

She just got engaged and I've nominated myself to be her unofficial wedding planner.  I like making lists, I have plenty of free time, I enjoy shopping, and I have tons of opinions---I'm perfect for the job.

Knit wit.

Last night I went a knitting club meeting at the library.  My cake decorating class just finished and I figured it would be a good way to learn, as learning to knit is one of the things on my 101 list. 

I was the first person there besides the little old lady who ran the group.  She was incredibly nice and showed me how to begin.  She was a little deaf, so we had the awkward overly-loud always-repeat conversation thing going on.

Nice Old Lady:  "SO HOW OLD ARE YOU, DEARIE?"

Me:  "I'm twenty-seven."

N.O.L.:  "EH?"

Me:  "TWENTY-SEVEN."

N.O.L.:  "TWENTY SEVEN?  I FIGURED YOU FOR SEVENTEEN.  I THOUGHT YOU WERE IN HIGH SCHOOL!"

This was flattering at the time but it fed my insecurities later.

I was enjoying myself until the next two people showed up:  two 12 year old girls.

At this point, an awful lightbulb went off in my head.  What if I had misread the flier?  What if this was not a general knitting club but one for teenagers and kids?  What if I was the creepy upper-20-something that just crashed in on the kid's knitting club and the nice old lady was too sweet to tell me to get the heck out?

Here's something you should know about me:  I'm a strange mix of confidence and insecurity.  I can fake confidence really well.  I do stupid stuff all the time.  I'm the sort of person who routinely loses her shoe in a mud puddle, drops an ice-cream sandwich on a white blouse, and walks into the wrong meeting room (always full) an hour early.  And I'm good at making it look as if I just brush it off all the while I'm swearing at myself in my head. 

So I'm sitting in a library conference room, knitting furiously, and trying to remember what exactly the flier said.  I search my memory for clues:  was that why the lady thought I was in high school?  Did the librarian who showed me the room give me an odd look?

I tried to search my purse for the flier.  Of course, everyone stops what they're doing and looks and me while I rummage around in it.  After an incredibly long and loud (how in the heck is the stuff in my purse that loud?) minute of searching to no avail, I pull out my chapstick and pretend that I was looking for that the entire time. 

As I knit, I thought furiously.  Finally I came up with a plan.  I excused myself as if I had to go to the restroom, went to the front of the library, and reread the flier that advertised it.  If it was a knitting club for youth, I would politely apologize, leave, and NEVER EVER EVER go to that library again in case someone recognized me.  I would wait until I was home to die from mortification.

As it turns out, the flier said nothing about age range.  When I went back to the room, there were two more women there, both in their thirties.

So I now know how to knit.  And I'm able to go back to that library without fear of humiliation.  I think I'll go again next week--I need to learn how to cast on and cast off.  

The basics.

Stepmom, midway through dinner:  Where's the Tony's?  Has anybody seen it?

I spot it on the counter and grab it for her.

Batman:  Oh.  My.  God.  This is a historic day.

Stepmom:  What?

Batman:  We almost went through an entire meal without having Tony's.  This is unprecedented.

Dad:  In most marriages, this would be grounds for a divorce.

  This is spiced deliciousness, ya'll.  Seriously, if you haven't tried it, you should. 

Mo-mo almost got an older sister.

Today Mo-mo and I went to the waterpark.  We sat in the shallow baby area, playing with her rubber ducky.

A seven year old girl started staring at us and inching closer and closer.  Eventually she was sitting right next to us.  She kept staring intently at me until she burst out with, "You look like my brother's girlfriend's friend's violin teacher!"

Thanks?

Later, when Mo-mo and I were tubing through the lazy river, she passed us in an inner-tube and cackled in a very good evil villain voice, "SO WE MEET AGAIN!"

I almost stole her and took her home with me just to hear what she'd say next, but I figured Batman wouldn't approve.

In a funk. And not the fun music type, like on Glee.

So I've been out of sorts for a bit.  This whole not-having-a-job thing is getting me down.  Oh, and the not-living-in-my-own-house thing.  And the not having money is kind of a bummer too.

I'm awesome at multi-tasking.  I juggled full-time grad school and making a 4.0, working part time, being the president of a student organization, organizing a charity walk, taking care of my awesome daughter, being a loving wife, and keeping the house semi-clean all at the same time.  Oh, and I actually had a social life.  So this stay at home mom action should be no problem, right?

Wrong.  I hate the lack of structure.  I'm also a stress organizer---when I get stressed, I organize and clean.  I can't really do that here. 

Give me a paper to write, give me an event to organize, give me a meeting to plan, and I'm a rockstar.  Give me day after day of having no definitive deadlines or things to do, and I start wearing pajamas until two p.m. and watching seven episodes of Buffy and eating box after box of old Girl Scout cookies  (really parents?  WHY ARE THERE STILL THIN MINTS IN THE FRIDGE?  Well, there were.  Until I ate them all.) 

I constantly talk to Mo-mo, even in public places.  It's a running commentary of what is going on around me.  I also make sound effects when I'm pushing her around in a cart, and I pretend it's a space shuttle.   

It's embarrassing when I realize that people actually listen to me.  I had someone direct me to the bananas when I asked my daughter where she thought they were in the grocery store. 

Anyways, I'm taking steps towards unfunkifying myself.  (Defunkify?  Dial back the funk?  Whatever you call it, I'm going to quit throwing myself pity parties.)

I've been exercising at the YMCA.  They  have a nursery there too and Mo-mo seems to love hanging out with other babies.  I have my ever-constant craft projects (one is almost finished, I'll post it soon).  I'm taking a cake decorating class at Michael's.

I met this fabulous guy at my friend's wedding on Friday.  He works at Sephora and he's "passionate" about skin care.  And he loves to do makeovers.  I could do with a new look.  My current look is best described as vampiric pale without the sexy creature of the night allure. 


Observe:

Oh my god!  I'm blinded by the pale!

Yeah.  I'm not saying that I'm going to go out and get myself a lovely fake orange tan, but I could stand to get a little sun.  I've also been wearing the exact same shade of eyeshadow for the last four years or so.  It's time for a change!  My wardrobe deficiencies (too numerous to name) shall have to wait until I have income.     

My Day By The Numbers

Number of puzzle pieces put into the correct spot (out of 2,000):  approximately 500  (minus 15 knocked down by the cats)

Number of cats currently residing in my parents' house:  5

Number of cheerios eaten by my daughter:  approximately 40

Number of Pepperidge farm cookies eaten by yours truly: 5  But I think I may have to have more now.

Number of times I informed Mo-mo that it was rude to try and join the kitty when she was in the litter box:  3

Number of naps: 1

Number of job applications completed:  3

Number of stores I attempted to find fabric at only to find out that they were either closed or didn't sell fabric:  3

That about sums it up.

Shape of an L on my forehead

 Batman and I have finished our degrees and we are moving from southern Illinois to St. Louis.  

Exciting, right?  Batman is done with law school and I'm finished earning my master's in public administration.  We're ready to start our adult life, start paying off some debt, and maybe even thinking about owning a house.....right?

Hahahahahahahaha.   No.

Neither of us have jobs.  Batman at least has an excuse, as it is very difficult to get hired until he passes the bar exam.  We're living in my parents basement indefinitely.  The plus side is that my parents are very nice people and we'll be saving quite a bit of money.  We've lived with them before for a summer (two summers actually) between internships and moving.

The downside is that no matter what, it's still living with my parents as an adult.  I feel like a bad stereotype:  playing World of Warcraft in my parents' basement, unemployed, eating the snacks my stepmom provides.

Have I mentioned that I turn into a sloth when I live with my folks?  They a) believe in  eating ridiculous amounts great food and b) keep the house quite cold.  It makes me want to hibernate.

 

So here's my plan:  

1) Apply for jobs.  Duh.

2) If I do not get a job by the time that Batman is finished with his bar review class in early July, I will start doing temp work.  I have mad data-entry skills.

3) Try not to go insane.  You know, without my own space or my own kitchen or all of my books.  

4) Do some cool things with Mo-mo.  I'm going to be living in a bonafide city...I intend to take advantage of it.

5) Do some projects.  I have a list.  I always do.  I'll share them with you all as I work on them.      

Instead

I was going to write a "Meet the Animals: Part 4" for my cat Anoosh.


Instead, here is a cartoon I drew about her a couple of years ago.






It explains everything.

Why I Changed My Style

If you've actually been following my blog for a while, you may have noticed that it has evolved from the stereotypical mommy-blog to one with a more humorous bent (with random list updates thrown in).

Why?

1) Mommy blogs are boring.
They give me a headache--all those side badges, random giveaways where you "earn" chances to win things through incredibly lazy marketing ploys, and entry after entry of photos that no one gives a crap about.

And even worse, I was starting to write like a boring mommy blogger. I still fall into it every once in a while--you can tell when I do it because I start putting exclamation points after everything. "Mo-mo almost crawled today! It was so cute! She is so sweet!" Blarf.

This blog was my wake-up call to get off my ass and write something that people (not counting those related by blood) might actually enjoy reading.

2) I refuse to take myself that seriously.
Writing about an average day at the park and posting photos about it is boring even to me. Unless a rabid squirrel attacked my foot or I have a way to make it an interesting story, I can't believe that people really want to hear about it.

3) I'm a smartass.
But you probably already figured that out.

Although she is the sweetest and cutest baby in world. I don't even have to use exclamation points to get my point across, I just have to post this photo.

Tall Tales

Based on her current height, the doctor estimates that Mo-mo will be 6'2" as an adult.

clothes added because if my daughter goes upon a rampage destroying a city, she won't be allowed to dress like a hussy.

That's my husband's height. I'm 5'6"--not a bad height, but just one inch above average. There's a wide range of heights in both of our families, but no one who is that tall.

I'm terrified of the day when my daughter hits puberty and becomes the inevitable surly, moody teenage girl. Her possible future height has given me yet another thing to worry about it.

I want her to be confident and love herself and her body. I don't want her to worry about stupid people who make stupid comments. I've come up with three plans of how to deal with this.

Plan A: Wrap her in bubble-wrap and home school her. Never let her leave the house.

I think this is a totally valid parenting option.

Plan B: Teach her sassy responses.

Q: "How's the weather up there?"
A: Cloudy with high probability of annoying.

Q: "You must play basketball!"
A: You must play miniature golf!

Q: "How did you get so tall?"
A: My mother and father hung me up for an hour every evening with weights attached to my ankle. They did it because they believe in the ten tenets of Zoobooblia, our Lord and Alien. The taller you are, the closer you are to Master Zoobooblia. Would you like a religious tract explaining about the starship coming of our Master?


Plan C: Accompany her everywhere and punch anyone who is mean.
I will take down those 7th grade bullies like nobody's business. I ain't scared.



I suppose Plan D is to be a good role model for self-confidence and loving one's own body. But I'm still rather partial to Plan B.

10 Books I Read in March

I read. A lot.

Reading has never been something that I had to make time for--I usually read in the evening before I go to sleep and I usually have a book in my purse. I grew up sneaking novels behind my math text book. I've always been good in school because I read fast and remember what I read. I have seven large bookcases of novels alphabetized by author and one arranged by subject for nonfiction.

I'd go broke if not for libraries and my stepmom's reading habits (we read the same authors).

It takes me about three days to read a new book. If I really like it or if I've read it before, one day. If it takes me a week, I'm either incredibly busy or not really getting into the story.

Here's a quick round-up of ten books that I read in the month of March.


1) Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

Robin Hobb writes fantasy novels with flawed main characters and intricate and rich historical/political/social background. They're not the typical "quest" style fantasy book with one dimensional characters or cookie-cutter settings. This is the first book of the Wild Rain Chronicles Trilogy but would best be read after the three Liveship Traders books--there's too many characters and too much background information mentioned for it to really stand alone. It's much more upbeat than her recent Soldier Son series. It follows the same pattern of multiple characters, multiple stories as the Liveship Trader series. Rather short for one of her books, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to the next one. Basic plot: after making a deal with a dragon to help save the last batch of dragon eggs, humans must decide what to do with the stunted, deformed and dangerous baby dragons that resulted.


2) Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult


I like Jodi Picoult's books. Her characters are usually interesting, have an interesting "twist", and they almost always make me cry. This one was a disappointment. The main female teen character doesn't ring true. It's repetitive and just a rehash of high school stereotypes. You really don't find yourself rooting for anyone. I much preferred "My Sister's Keeper" or "The Tenth Circle". Basic plot: after a school shooting, all of the participants' stories are told flashback style and the line between victim and perpetrator blur.


3) The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb

This book tries too hard to contain too much. A teacher's life wrecked by the Columbine school shooting, a druggie wife going to jail, a complex family secret--after a while it's not interesting anymore. It has too much going on to really do any one thing well. "She's Come Undone" and "I Know This Much is True" are much better. This isn't an awful book by any means, just not a fantastic one.

4) The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

This book is beautifully written but the pace dragged a bit. I love Kingsolver's "The Poisonwood Bible", "Prodigal Summer"...wait, I love all of her books. But one of the things I like most is their strong female characters. This one was written from the point of view of a homosexual male Mexican-American author and it doesn't quite ring true. The historical details are fascinating--the character works for Kahlo, Rivera, and Leon Trotsky and it made me want to read a biography of Frida Kahlo. But when the character moves to the US and gets caught up in the anti-communist movement, the book just becomes rather boring. I like the repeated imagery of the lacuna and Kingsolver's prose is always beautiful, but if you've never read any of her books I'd pick a different one.

5) Sister Mine by Tawni O'Dell

This book could have been amazing. Instead, it was just pretty good. I love the offbeat and quirky characters but there are just a couple too many of them--she should have had a couple less and fleshed them out better. The romantic problems of the main character seems forced just for the point of having a resolvable conflict. The main character's sister returns home after everyone assumed she was dead, pursued by a housewife, a lawyer, and a Russian mobster.

6) Black Magic Sanction by Kim Harrison

Book 9 of the Rachel Morgan series. It's series about a witch who does demon magic and has a pixie and a vampire roommate--so it's definitely a guilty pleasure book. I enjoyed this one because the plot is actually moving along instead of just another string of people trying to kill Morgan and her barely getting out alive. Totally trashy but fun.

7) Tea with the Black Dragon by R. A. MacAvoy

This is one of my stepmom's favorite books and I've had it sitting on my bookshelf for borrowed books for almost a year. It was fun--a fantasy novel set in the real world about a dragon in human form who resides at a hotel and a woman searching for her daughter. It was written in the 80's and I think the dated references to cutting edge computer technology are hilarious.

8) Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth

This is the only "reread" book I'm including on the list. This has no relation to the god-awful recent movie with the same name. It's a memoir written by two of the children of Frank and Lily Gilbreth--efficiency experts of the 1910's with twelve children. "Belles on their Toes" is the second memoir, written about how the family held up after the death of their father. Interesting, quick read and a fun bit of history.


9) Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris

Harris also writes the Sookie Stackhouse series (which the TV show True Blood is based on). This is the fourth book in the Harper Connelly series. The main character can sense dead bodies and tell what they died from, and so works for private investors and the police when she can. I've been unimpressed with this series so far because Harper is spineless and her romantic involvement with her stepbrother gives me the heebie-jeebies, but this book is pretty good. The character shows a bit of backbone and the story is interesting.

10) Flirt by Laurell K. Hamilton

Why do I keep reading Laurell K. Hamilton's books? They're awful. After I read this one, my review of it to Batman was, "I could write a better book with my butt." I adored the first six or so Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels. Set in St. Louis, Anita Blake was a gutsy zombie re-animator who was licensed to kill vampires. Now she's just a ho. Who has sex with anything and everything. The last ten novels have been all about sex and incredibly explicit but not even in an interesting sort of way.




Wow. I just reread this entry and it seems as if I hate everything I read. I will admit that March was kind of a downer in terms of books not living up to expectations--but there's always April. And May. And I love books enough that I'll never stop reading.

Reason #523 why I probably shouldn't be allowed to have kids

Me: You know what's a fun word? Hobo.

Batman: Hobo?

Me: Yeah, you know--homeless guys with sticks and bindles. It's kind of strange that kids dress up like hobos for Halloween. "Look ma, I'm impoverished!"

(awkward silence)

Me: I think Mo-mo's next word should be hobo.

Batman: So that would make the words she knows....mama, dada, hi, duck and....hobo?

Me: But we'd have to teach it so that she'd say it angrily. So that it would seem like she's calling people hobos. When she doesn't get what she wants she'd yell out, "HOBO!"

(awkward silence as I contemplate how to do this.)

Me: I know! Instead of saying "no", we'll say "hobo" from now on. That way she'll start shaking her head and saying "hobo". But we have to start now. And we have to be consistent.

Batman: .....No.

Me: Don't you mean "hobo"?

Author's note: Humor does not equal reality. You probably shouldn't teach your children to say things just for your own amusement, especially in the wrong context.

Progress report

I'm doing pretty good with my "101 things in 1001" days list (see sidebar for a link to the complete list.) So far I have I've blogged about twelve of them.

I've also recently done:

12. Take a water babies class with Mo-mo
The first class was last week. I forgot to take pictures, I'll take some tomorrow and post them soon. Mo-mo was unsure of what she thought of it and had a furrowed brow the entire time.

82. Keep a food diary for a week
What I've found out: I eat a ton of saturated fat. And I need to start eating breakfast because I don't snack as often when I do.

So I've crossed off 14 items in 125 days. I'm tempted to make a chart to show my progress but perhaps my love of graphs should be kept to myself.

The next two months are crazy--there are about eight different goals (most revolving around events or graduation) that I hope to accomplish.

Mommy Envy: The First Birthday

Do you want to know one of the negative aspects of being connected to other moms online? Mommy envy. This ugly green-eyed monster rears its head from time to time.

Huh. Envy has bad posture. I never knew that.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I live in the real world. Not in Lollipop Bizarro Land where money grows on trees. Which is where other moms must live.

Now I want some candy.

The latest object of my mommy envy? First birthday plans.

I love having parties. I make some cheese dip, grab some trays of cold cuts and beer from the supermarket, and if I'm feeling domestic I'll make some cookies. People come over (usually board games are involved) and have a good time. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am, it's easy-peasy.

My plan for my daughter's first birthday: Go to a party store. Spend $20 on paper plates and utensils, maybe a buy a couple of balloons and a banner. Make a cake. Grill some hamburgers and hot dogs. Have about ten family and friends attend. Have fun.

Apparently I've been throwing parties incorrectly this entire time. I was unaware that parties require themes, matching place settings, multiple centerpieces. Elaborate favors. Theme based food. Matching cupcake liners. These two blogs in particular, the celebration shoppe and the hostess with the mostess make me feel...well, slightly inadequate. But I can't stop looking through them. They're like crack but instead of making you turn tricks on a street corner for your next fix they make you question your worth as a mother and leave you coveting things that you really can't afford and don't need. So it's exactly like crack minus the hooking.

It isn't just party blogs that are way over the top. On the mommy boards that I frequent I get to hear of parents renting out halls. 100+ guests. Renting an inflatable bouncy machine. Petting zoos, $10 worth of stuff in favor bags, clowns, magicians. All for the FIRST birthday party.

I understand getting more elaborate when your child is older but he or she isn't going to remember their first birthday. It seems slightly excessive to spend over $100 on it.

I think what bothers me more than the money is the amount of frustration it represents. There is no way in hell that these parties are easy to throw together. Every little detail shows hours of work and effort. I imagine all of the Bree Van de Camp moms of the world who have a heart attack if something is out of place.

These are parties for CHILDREN, my friends. Your child should have fun at their own party instead of having you trail behind them saying "No, don't touch that. No, don't play with that." Note to all: If you don't enjoy the party you're throwing because you worry too much, you're doing it wrong.

Yes. I'm also jealous of those gorgeous parties. I consider throwing one myself. Then I tally up how much time and money it would take to do something that awesome. Then I think that a backyard bbq sounds like a fabulous idea.

There are definitely some happy mediums. My cousin throws pretty awesome birthday parties for her children and doesn't spend a butt-load of money. She also happens to be supermom. In honor of her and the other mom's who have nice parties without being outrageous, I've decided to have a first birthday theme for Mo-mo: butterflies. Or maybe cupcakes. (Yes, cupcakes is an actual theme, not just a food choice.)

All I know for sure is that she's going to have fun, I'm going to have fun, and Batman will have fun. There will be cake and grilled meat. And really, that's all one needs in a first birthday.

There is also a 95% chance that Mo-mo needs this dress. And matching cupcake liners.

(un)Apology for Country Music

Hello. My name is Bee and I like country music.

I've kept this forbidden love hidden since eighth grade. Our social studies teacher gave us an assignment to choose a song with at least four similes and metaphors, play the song for entire class, and describe what those similes and metaphors mean.

In hindsight, this assignment does not belong in the realm of "social studies".

I think the teacher just wanted a) students to think he was cool and b) kill the rest of the school year without actually teaching.

This same teacher was rumored to be an undercover FBI agent. At least every day in the middle of class one student would raise their hand and ask if he was really truly a FBI agent. Because I can keep it secret, I swear.

He'd act annoyed but he secretly loved it.

We had to submit three song ideas and the lyrics. I turned in: Garth Brook's "The Fever", Deana Carter's "Strawberry Wine", (in hindsight: not an appropriate choice as it's about a girl losing her virginity) and "I am the Walrus" by the Beatles. That last one I kind of threw in at the last minute because my brother was convinced he knew the deep hidden meaning of the song.

When I got my proposal back, my teacher had written something snarky, like "Not country music! Anything but country music!"

So I pretended I just submitted country suggestions ironically, did the presentation over "I am the Walrus", got a crappy grade because really there is no good explanation for what the hell it's about (plus Wikipedia wasn't around yet so I couldn't even fake it), didn't get to into honors History my freshman year, and started pretending that I didn't like country music.

It baffled me how other kids effortlessly started learning about "cool" music. My parents listened to country and oldies so I listened to country and oldies. The radio was never turned to anything else so I was never exposed it. In grade school I had heard of New Kids on the Block but didn't know any of their songs.

Freshman year of highschool I borrowed all of my friend's tapes and made copies, started listening to alternative music radio stations, and dated guys who knew about music. I found some more acceptable (in other words, "cooler") music styles that I liked: ska, punk.

I managed to be stunningly musically hip for about two weeks in college. I could b.s. with the best of the hipsters--discuss how this singer started xyz spin-off band, how their second album was unfortunate because their record label was horrible.

Then I realized that it takes a ridulous amoung of effort to be musically hip so I gave up and started listening to whatever caught my fancy on the radio.

I like music with interesting lyrics, especially ones that tell a story. That runs the gamut of country, oldies, musicals, alternative, "emo" (ugh, I hate that word), soft rock, punk, and even some rap. My ipod playlists are varied and eclectic.

"eclectic" may be a code word for pretentious

That being said, I do have three issues with country music.

1. There has been an influx of recent songs about what it means to be country, party in the country, or defining yourself as country. These songs are now boring. Unless you are Gretchen Wilson singing about being a redneck woman, stop singing about this and write something more interesting.

2. I HATE "Eight Second Ride" by Jake Owens. Here are the lyrics to the chorus with my notes in red.

And she said hey boy, do you mind, taking me home tonight?
No woman would ever really say that. I hope.
Because I ain't never seen a country boy with tires on his truck this high
Really? That's your reason for wanting to sleep with him? Wow. Klassy.
I said climb on up but watch the cup that I spit my dip inside
Ew. Ew ew ew ew.
Hold on tight 'cause it's gonna be wilder than any 8 second ride.
You're comparing sex to something that lasts 8 seconds? Perhaps you should look for a more flattering metaphor.

The rest of the song is equally as marvelous.

3. I also hate the song The Christmas Shoes. Words cannot describe how awful and sappy this song is. My dislike for it is so infamous that my dad bought Batman a gag gift of The Christmas Shoes turned into a story book and tried to make us watch the made-for-TV special.

It's awful. You owe yourself to listen to it here if you've never heard it. Hopefully it won't make your head explode.



Despite these complaints, I love country music. Give me some Johnny Cash, Hank Williams Sr., George Strait, Big & Rich and I'm happy. I'm no longer ashamned to admit it.

Meet the Animals: Part Three

This is Fat Momma.

She does have a proper name--it is technically Isis. But we never call her that.

When we lived in Texas, we (and the rest of the neighborhood) fed outdoor cats. They kept down on the tarantulas, scorpions and snakes. I wish I could have adopted them all--instead, I just satisfied myself with feeding them.

As we got to know the regular cats, we named them. Mostly unofficial, undignified nicknames like Squinty, Ducky, and Bad Momma.

Then Fat Momma, so named because she was scrawny with a huge pregnant cat belly, had kittens in our carport. It was as if she chose us--so we had to adopt her.

We gave her kittens away to a neighbor and she stayed with us. When we lived in Texas, she was still pretty wild. She was an indoor/outdoor cat, sleeping outside and coming in mostly to eat. She did not trust our dogs. She liked being petted but hated to be on the ground when we were walking around--she acted as if she thought she'd get stepped on or kicked.

Moving was pretty hard on her. We had to stage our trek up to St. Louis in segments-- there was no way to get two dogs, two cats, two cars, and all our stuff there in one trip. Fat Momma lived with my mother-in-law for a month or so during the transition. She hid most of the time. Once we became convinced that she had gotten out and were frantically calling to her all around the neighborhood. It turns out that she just was hiding in the basement ceiling.

Fat Momma and my other cat, Anoosh, have slowly forged a truce. They were not fans of each other at first, mainly because Anoosh is unrecognizable to other cats as a cat. Now they'll share a chair and play kitty tag.

Fat Momma is a pretty relaxed cat now. She doesn't go outside anymore and she seems okay with that. She responds to a whistled tune--she always comes to investigate. She loves to sit on laps and get petted. We entice her to cuddle sometimes by petting the air and she'll hurry to us to get those missed pettings. She hates to travel and hides when she sees suitcases but is okay once we get to our destination. She likes toy mice but our dogs tend to steal them.

We call her Fat Mar-mar, Fat Meow-Meow (we've been attempting to move away from Momma because we don't want to confuse Mo-mo), Batman, Tuxedo Cat, Fat Panther, Volumptious (misspelled on purpose) , and even rarely Isis.

Sample menu

Here's an example of our most recent two week menu. It's five meals per week, two days scheduled for leftovers, plus we usually eat leftovers for lunch. When it says veggies, I just mean a random frozen veggie with it. If the orange shrimp, beef satay, or meat loaf pie is any good I'll post the recipe!

Day 1
bruschetta and cheese stuffed chicken breasts
veggie

Day 2
turkey burgers
veggies

Day 3
chicken ziti with tomato artichoke sauce
garlic bread
veggies

Day 4
sesame pork tenderloin
rice
veggies

Day 5
foil packet garlic baked salmon
crash potatoes
veggies

Day 6
enchiladas

Day 7
meat loaf pie
veggies

Day 8
ravioli
garlic bread
veggies

Day 9
peanut satay beef
rice
veggies

Day 10
spicy orange garlic shrimp
rice
veggies

Meet the Animals: Part Deux

In a previous post, you met Odin. Now meet Athena.



I had always known that we wanted two dogs. I think that it's healthier for dogs to have a companion and a friend. Odin was so co-dependent on us when he was a puppy that we quickly realized that he needed another dog to bond with.

We were at the party of a friend of a friend in Texas and the neighbors mentioned that their dog had just had puppies. If someone mentions puppies or kittens, it is physically impossible for me not to go see them. I looked at the puppies (i.e. cuddled and baby-talked them), mentioned I would be interested in adopting one when they were weaned, and the neighbor called me a couple of months later.

When I went to pick one out, all of them looked almost exactly the same. I was overwhelmed with cuteness. I decided to sit down and pick out whichever one came to me first.

None of them came to me.

Finally the mommy dog walked behind me and one puppy tried to follow her. That was close enough in my book.

From day one, she and Odin were best buddies.


We decided to stick with naming motif with had going (names beginning with vowels, various gods and goddess) and call her Athena.

Her mom was a husky and her dad (as best we could figure out) was a pit bull. She had beautiful light blue eyes when she was a puppy and now they're closer to a tawny yellow.

She is as brave as Odin is meek. While he wouldn't even jump off our bed as a puppy, preferring to whine until we set him on the floor, she would throw herself off of the five foot high drop-off in our back yard.

She's an escape artist. Odin knows the boundaries of the yard, and probably wouldn't even leave if a gate was open. She routinely hops the fence at my parent's house and used to squeeze out of our yard through the tiniest holes.

She's smart but a little lazy. When we were teaching the dogs about the electric fence, we'd put them on leashes, throw lunchmeat on the ground until we gradually got to the boundary, let them hear the beep and get shocked, pull them back in and tell them how good they are. Odin learned that beep = shock. Athena learned that lunchmeat on the ground = shock. She spent a week on our porch before she learned the boundaries by following around Odin.

She'll sit on command if Odin does it first. She thinks that fetch is a game of tackle Odin, or sometimes of taking the ball and running away with it.

She's a fierce defender of Mo-mo. She even growled at Odin the first week if he came too near--but she's ever so gentle to Mo-mo herself. She is a compulsive licker and a stealer of the pettings. She dislikes swimming and getting baths. She bolts down dog treats and steals Odin's if he doesn't watch them well enough. She loves getting her belly rubbed. She has horrible manners on the leash. She's tough--she doesn't whimper when she's hurt like Odin does. For anyone who says that pit bulls are a horrible breed and should be outlawed, we point to her and her sweetness. We call her Theena, Tina, Theen-bean, Theeners, Beena, and Butterscotch Ears.

She is also a Good Dog.