Author: charleneaross

It’s Hot

charleneaross4 Comments

On Saturday morning I was wasting time on the Internet pinning things to my Pinterest page. Inspiring sayings that look like this:

Wouldn’t you like a life like this?

Yummy food I really and truly do hope to make one day that looks like this:

Tuna and chickpea salad
Tuna and chickpea salad – sadly I’m the only person in the Ross household that would eat this!

I was also pinning pretty clothes I’d like to own. (BTW – I’d also like the life that goes with clothes like these!)

You can totally see me wearing this right? (No? Sigh…)

and this…

Fall fashion with leopard shoes
Adorable! Love those shoes.

and this…

Beautiful fall fashion for office
Wouldn’t I look nice wearing this to my publisher’s office in NYC? (You know, if I had a publisher?)

and this…

gray and teal fall fashion
Adorable!

not to mention these seriously cute brown boots…

brown-boots-for-fall
My life will not be complete until I own these boots! (Click the picture if you want to find out how to buy them. They’re only $43.00!)

and finally this…

greay and peach fall fashion
I cannot tell you how cute I’d look in this!

Then I left the house to drop Chandler off at the bus for his cross country meet and take Marley to her soccer game. This is what the the car thermometer said:

102 degrees in September in Los Angeles
Hot hot hot

Yes, mid-September is still summer, people, and it’s usually Los Angeles’ hottest month. My poor kids. It’s way too hot to run 3 miles or to play soccer for an hour.

How to pack an ice chest for hot soccer games
Ready to go with cool towels, Gatorade and plenty of water.

And even more importantly, poor me. How am I supposed to obsess over warm and cozy fall outfits that I cannot afford and have no place to wear in weather like this?

It’s just not right.

I’m curious… are you pinning on Pinterest? What do you like to pin? Follow my Pinterest page here. (I promise to follow you back!)

A Blog of my Own

charleneaross38 Comments
Wordpress blogging
Early morning blogging

I’ve been blogging for skirt! since July of 2008 – four wonderful years. It’s been great. I truly love it.  I’ve gotten to express myself through my crazy jumble of words and friends and strangers alike have told me that they like what I do and that many times I’ve brought them to laughter and sometimes to tears. (Which of course is what every writer strives for – well, maybe not every writer – but certainly this one.)

I’ve gotten some opportunities to do some pretty cool things. Spanx invited skirt! to a pre-Oscar gifting suite last year and since the wonderful women who run skirt! are in Georgia and I’m out here in Los Angeles I’m the one who got to go and get the awesome gift bag full of booty. (Yes, pun intended!) I also got to attend a fun press lunch at a chi chi Beverly Hills hotel, have been given earrings, concert tickets, books and even some beer.

Spanx Booty bus at Beverly Hilton pre-Oscar gifting suite
Riding the Spanx Booty Bus

But the absolute best thing about blogging for skirt! is the other bloggers I’ve met. Both skirt! bloggers and women with fabulous blogs of their own – Tina, Kim R., Elizabeth, Cheryl, Kim P., Julie, Renee, and Ginger (and many, many others) – mwah, I love, Love, LOVE you ladies. My life is truly better because I’ve had the privilege to read the beautiful words that spill out of your soul and onto my computer screen. I cherish the friendships we have created.

But blogging for skirt!, as wonderful as it has been, has held me back in some ways too. The comfort, security, community and the built-in readership has kept me from starting a blog of my own. But now I think I’m ready. Now I think it’s time.

So with quite a bit of help from the blogging goddess Kim Tracy Prince, I’m jumping in with both feet and starting my own site. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s all mine. Hopefully it will inspire me to write more often. We’ll see.

As you can see my web address is www.charleneaross.wordpress.com. I had to use my middle initial because someone already stole www.charleneross.com even though they aren’t currently using it. (Rude!) And I have the wordpress in my address because I’m too freaking cheap to pay the $18 to get rid of it. Baby steps. One day I’ll pay it. Just not today.

You’ll notice there are a few posts before this. They are just skirt! blogs that I’ve double posted to get my feet wet in this WordPress world. I’ve still got a lot to learn about the “insides” of a website. But hopefully you won’t mind reading my crazy jumble of words while I learn.

My hope is that this site will not be “Look at me, look at me” (though let’s be honest, I do like when people look at me as long as I’ve had time to do my hair and make-up!), but more of a “hey this really cool-funny-ridiculous-happy-terrible-or-mundane thing happened to me and this is how it made me feel – do you ever feel that way too?” As a writer my hope is to connect with people. And to make them laugh. Most of the time my goal is to make people laugh. (And not because I stepped outside without my hair and make-up done!)

Please feel free to leave a comment so I know you’ve stopped by. (And yes, it’s sooo much easier than leaving a comment on skirt!)

And as always, thank you so much for reading.

A House Full of Girls

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My brother is out of town for a week so I am watching his two youngest – my 14 and 16-year-old nieces. Needless to say there’s a lot of extra estrogen in a household already stuffed to the rafters with tweenage and midlife hormonal mood swings. I’m not quite sure Dave and Chandler will survive.

Monday we went en masse to Target on our way home from a Labor Day trip to the beach to get school supplies. The 14-year-old needed tampons.

“Should we get them later?” asked Marley, mortified at the thought of her dad or her brother knowing that one of them was being visited by her monthly friend. (Sorry to break this to you Marley, but it doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what’s going on with one quick glance at the fuller-than-usual bathroom trash.)

My niece just shrugged and said, “That’s okay.” Her mom died one month and one day after her eleventh birthday. She’s never had the luxury of being discrete about her cycle when it comes to members of the opposite sex inside her household. At least she has two sisters. And two grandmas. And more aunties than she can count. But of course that’s not the same.

I turned the cart toward the feminine hygiene section. Chandler followed us in. “You really want to come in here?” I asked him.

“Why?” he said and then looked at the items on the shelf. Without another word and speed usually reserved for a track meet, he did a 180 and bolted to the safety of the main aisle.

Once we got home we worked out shower schedules and tried to find the best place to put the massive amount of clothing the girls brought for the week. I wonder if they were confused and thought they were moving in for good. (Not that I am in any position -EVER- to judge about having too much clothes!)

I leaned against Marley’s doorway and watched them all in her room – two on the bed, one on the floor. Marley’s in girl heaven. Her cousins -a high school senior and freshman- hanging out and talking boys, make-up and Instagram. I wish their mom could see them. She’s missing it all – middle school, high school, braces off, first boyfriends, periods, braces on.

Or maybe she’s not.

Maybe she really is watching over all of us. I like to think so. I hope so. I even feel it sometimes. In my bones. But who really knows.

After showers and dinner we banished the boys and snuggled on the couches to watch the season premiere of Switched at Birth. Marley and I have been anxiously awaiting its return. It’s our favorite show to watch, just the two of us. (Though girl cousins are always welcome to join us.) It’s a show about a tragedy that should have never happened (two girls switched at birth, obviously) and how the families deal with it; this new normal that is not normal at all.

It’s TV-14 and has themes that are perhaps a little too mature for Marley, as there’s a bit of teenage sex going on, but it’s very well done. And it gives us great discussion points. We talk after about what happens in the show – teenage sex (and how of course that’s something she’ll never do), love, trust, consequences about bad decisions, what makes a family.

I look at my family around me, how the tragedy of the loss of my nieces’ mother, my brother’s wife, my parents’ daughter-in-law, my siblings’ and  my sister-in-law, my friend should have never happened.

But it did.

And now sometimes I talk to my nieces about love and trust and the consequences about bad decisions and teenage sex (and how they are never ever going to have it, but if they do, please be smart and please talk to me because I’m not their mom, but I’m here for them, I’m here). We talk about what makes a family.

We make a family. And this week my house, my home, my family has a few more girls.

Life’s Little Moments

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High school football game
We believe that we will win!

The kids went back to school last week and Friday night was the first home football game. I wasn’t planning on going. Thankfully Chandler doesn’t play football, but he is in marching band. I probably sound like a terrible mother for not going to see her son perform, but our high school marching band doesn’t really march. They stroll onto the field before the game in their “Blue Crew” tee shirts and then sit in the stands for the entire game. At half time instead of performing they get a break and swarm the concession stands.

Our high school has actually has an excellent award-winning music program, but our focus is on performing, not marching, so in the stands they sit. And they only play two or three songs. I know because I went to all the games last year. He plays percussion – I hear him banging drums all the time! Plus he’s in Honor’s Wind Ensemble – I’ll go to those performances. (Have I convinced you yet that I’m not a terrible mother?)

Anyway…

Thursday night I received a call from the president of the music booster club looking for volunteers to go to the game and bring the snacks to the field and watch the instruments when the band took their break. Even though I hadn’t planned on going, I hadn’t planned on doing anything else either, so I said yes.

Marley was happy because even though she doesn’t care about football she does like to prance around and check out the social scene. The football game started at 7:00, but the band (and band volunteers) had a call time of 6:00. Marley had soccer practice from 6:00-7:00 so Dave was going to drop her off at the game just after 7:00 and she was going to meet me in the stands.

Our football team is terrible. We are the second worst in our league. We used to be good, but a few years ago the elite, private Christian school down the way started poaching all the best players. (Which if you ask me doesn’t sound very Christian.) Of course I have to admit if that school thought Chandler was so amazing at track that they offered him a full scholarship we’d be saying buh-bye to public education too, so who am I to judge?

Even though our team is terrible it was the first game of the season and there was a free barbecue for kids wearing “Blue Crew” spirit tee shirts we have a lot of school spirit so the game was packed. When Marley got there at 7:10 the line at the ticket window was so crazy she decided to blow it off. She was tired from soccer (and being back in school and having to think for the first time in two months), so she and Dave just went home.

I knew a lot of people at the game, but none of them were sitting near the band, so I ended up sitting by a couple that were there to see their daughter cheer. The dad smelled like a brewery, but he was entertaining. (He obviously doens’t know that if you’re going to come to your kid’s game/performance/whatever hammered that you are supposed to drink vodka because you can’t smell it. Not that I’ve ever done that -seriously- that’s just what I’ve heard!)

Somehow our sucky team blocked a punt return on the opposing team’s first drive and ran it in for a touchdown. We didn’t get the PAT, but seven minutes into the game we were ahead 6-0. Our opponents quickly scored and got the two-point after conversion, making the score 8-6. We scored – again not getting the conversion (12-8), then they immediately scored again (14-12) and then scored again (20-12).

It was an exciting game, but maybe because it had been a while since we’d all been to a football game, or maybe because we -the parents- are all jaded, the game just seemed long. Really, really long. And, despite our two touchdowns, a little hopeless.

Dave texted me for a game update. 20-12 with about a minute to go in the world’s longest football game, I texted.

“I think that time has actually stopped,” said my drunk friend. “This is the longest football game in the history of football.”

“Maybe they’ll score on this drive and tie it up so we can go into overtime and make it even longer,” I joked.

“I think I’d prefer to take the loss,” he said.

There was a large group of kids in the bleachers to the right of us that had been rowdy -in a good-natured cheering sort of way- all night. At least 20 of the boys in the group were shirtless, their bodies painted with player’s numbers and team cheers. The group started to chant, “We believe that we will win. We believe that we will win. We believe that we will win…”

Oh to be young and have such school spirit and optimism. There was no way we were going to win this game.

But then…but then…

With only three seconds left in the game and the quarterback scrambling to find a receiver that was open, looking like he was about to be sacked any second, he threw it 25 yards into the end zone and the pass was caught! It was amazing. It felt like a scene in a movie.

The score was now 20-18. We went for the 2 point conversion and scored. 20-20. We were now in overtime and the stands went wild. Nobody cared that this was the longest game in history anymore.

I texted Dave. 3 seconds left and we tied the score. Going into OT.

The high school is literally at the end of our street – only a half mile away. Dave texted back, Marley and I are coming to watch from the hill.

In overtime each team was given a chance to score again from the 25 yard line. If both teams or neither team scored they would both go again. If only one team scored, that team would be the winner. Our team went first. We scored! It was the other team’s turn.We held them back. They were denied!

The marching sitting band played. The cheerleaders cheered. The crowd hugged and high-fived.

Against all odds our scrappy little football team won its first game of the season 26-20.

If you want to know the truth, it will probably be the only game we’ll win this year. But who cares, because those last few moments of this first game…they were magic!

bodyheART

charleneaross2 Comments

I ❤ my body.

Well, not really. But I’m trying to.

About a week ago I went to an amazing seminar called BodyheART at my gym. The seminar was started by a woman named Amber Krzys who spent the first 31 years of her life hating her body and the last 3 years loving it. She wants to teach other women to love their bodies too.

Well, I’m older than Amber and therefore have been hating my body for a lot longer than she hated hers. Her body-loving-soul-searching process took her 9 months.  In the seminar that I took she spoke for an hour. You can only learn to love your body so much in an hour. I think I still have a ways to go.

I do admit that once I reached my 40’s I started hating my body less. (Most days.) Of course that’s actually quite ironic because it was around the time I turned 40 that my metabolism, whom I thought I’d had a pretty good relationship with, decided to flip me the middle finger and go on strike. I’m not quite sure what I did to piss her off so much and I sure wish she would go back to working like she used to, but I don’t think that will be happening. I think she’s done. I probably made her too tired by eating too many cheeseburgers washed down with margaritas and expecting her to work overtime.

I hear she gets even more pissed off when I turn 50. (I can hardly wait!)

Yes, when I reached the age of 40 a few years back I took a good long look in the mirror and realized that my thighs poked out of my legs in a perfect imitation of a potato sack stuffed into a too-small sausage casing my entire post-pubescent life. If I had thunder thighs at twenty, they certainly weren’t going suddenly turn into the graceful gams of a freak-of-nature-supermodel beach volleyball player at forty.

I’m not trying to say that I learned to love my body, but I pretty much just shrugged my shoulders and realized that this is the body I’m intended to have. I try to work out 3-4 days a week (more like 1 or 2) and cut back on the cheeseburgers so my metabolism will quit being the enemy.

I even tried taking the words “I’m so fat” out of my vocabulary. Except at night when I get ready for bed and the florescent light in my bathroom hits my arms just right and accentuates every little dimple of fat – then all bets are off.

And yes, my stomach that used to be as flat as a board no many how many French fries I stuffed into it now has a tiny little pooch. Okay, okay, some days that pooch isn’t so tiny. But as I look around, I notice that many of my post-40 friends have tiny little pooches too. I think they are kind of cute. Well, my friend’s pooches are cute. Mine drives me fucking insane. But I just suck it in, pull on a Spanx cami and remind myself that I could have a flat stomach once again if I never ate carbs and worked out 7 days a week.  I’ll choose French fries and a little self-loathing over that any day.

But I want to try to be kinder to myself.

During the seminar Amber had us close our eyes and do a couple of visualization exercises. We were sitting on the floor of the aerobics studio of the gym and I was wearing jeans and sitting criss cross and as I closed my eyes all I could think of was how my fat belly pushed against my jeans. Here I was at a seminar trying to learn how to love myself more and the first thing I was doing was hating myself.

The visualization exercises that Amber had us do really moved me and actually filled my eyes with tears.

The second hour of the BodyheART seminar is a photo session where you take two photos. Amber draws a heart on your face and a heart on your favorite part of your body and photographs you.

Ugh! My favorite part of my body?!

I was seriously considering having my feet photographed.

I actually think I have cute feet. (As long as you’re not looking at the kankle ankle part.)

I really didn’t know what part to have photographed and didn’t know what to wear. I was feeling icky and ugly and fat and didn’t want to go.

So of course I had to go. I don’t want to feel like that about myself anymore. I’m too fucking old for that shit. I really am. I really like myself at this age. I want to like my body too.

My favorite part of my body is my waist which, when you compare it to the junk I’ve got going on in my trunk, looks really small.

Okay, I’ll stop and be kind to myself. I do have a small waist, but like I said I’ve got a bit of a belly right now. And some serious muffin top back fat so I didn’t want to be photographed from the back either. And I couldn’t decide on what to wear to have my waist photographed so I chose to have my heart drawn on my left breast and have that photographed.

Oh calm down, I didn’t have to take anything off. My boobs are small – especially for my height, but I actually like the fact that they’re small. I hate wearing a bra and usually end up ripping it off and going braless when I get home. (Unless my son has his friends over – then I cover up – I’m not that mom!)

But my breasts are semi-perky (you know for being so emptied out after nursing two babies for 6 months each) and I have a little mole on the cleavage of my left breast that I think looks sexy when I wear a push-up bra.

bodyheART
photo taken by Autumn Lee

I want to say that I love my pictures, but I have to be honest… I don’t. I think I look older than I am – I don’t like the dark circles under my eyes. But I chose to think it’s the lighting and not my face. I will say that I don’t think my arm looks fat (and I always think my arms look fat) and I think that little bit of cleavage I’m rocking looks pretty good.

bodyheART campaign

And one of the things Amber taught us is that all actresses’ and models’ photographs are retouched. So the fact that I don’t love these photos is okay. I know that if I had this photo retouched it could look something more like this after…

celebrity retouch photo
Even Nicolette Sheridan (who is gorgeous) looks better after a retouch!)

So while I did not leave the bodyheART seminar loving my body I do notice that even two weeks later I hate my body less. I’ve even gained two pounds since that day (thank you Easter candy) and haven’t beat myself up about it.

There was such a beautiful energy in the room during the seminar and the photo shoot. Look at these beautiful women I got to spend the day with. (The photo shoot was a blast.)

bodyheart campaign

I know that there is no perfect face. There is no perfect body. I’m trying to teach myself that my body is just perfect for me.

To learn more about the bodyheART campaign and see what REAL women look like un-retouchedclick here.

Follow me on Twitter @Rossgirl08 and connect with me on Facebook.

 

This blog was originally posted on skirt.com on April 25, 2011. 

Spanx for the Memories (How I Got to Ride the Spanx Booty Bus)

charleneaross2 Comments

Throwback Thursday post: Since the Oscars are Sunday, I thought it would be fun to re-post this. Originally published on the now defunct skirt.com on March 2, 2011.

The Friday before the Oscars I was invited by Spanx to attend a Pre-Oscar event and board the Spanx Booty Bus – a fabulous double-decker bus with bins and bins of Spanx that drove around Los Angeles during Oscar week to be used as a backdrop to film interviews and a place where stylists and celebrities could pick up their Spanx to look flawless on the red carpet. (Hmmm…sometimes this whole blogging thing does pay off!)

The day I boarded the Spanx Booty Bus at the Beverly Hilton Hotel I met with some wonderful ladies from Spanx and a lovely woman named Wendy Lewis showed the new product line that includes some darling swim suits, bras, and outerwear.

Karina Smirnoff from Dancing with the Stars on Spanx Booty Bus
Karina Smirnoff from Dancing with the Stars standing outside the Spanx Booty Bus
(I tried and tried (and tried) to upload this photo of me on the Spanx Booty bus, but for some reason this photo and my review just wouldn’t get along. Boo!)
The swimsuit below is gorgeous but I could never wear it as a bathing suit because sadly the only thing that’s going to tame the thunder of my thighs (other than liposcution) are board shorts or a skirt.  I think its adorable though and would definitely wear it with jeans or a skirt (paired with my red shoes of course) for a night on the town.
Spanx one shoulder swimsuit red
After my tour of the Booty Bus and the booth Spanx had set up in a gifting suite for celebrity moms at the hotel, I was given a gorgeous gold lame bag with three products to try and review – the Bra-llelujah, the Simplicity Open Bust Mid Thigh Bodysuit, and the Tight End Tights.
Charlene Ross with Spanx Oscar weekend at Jayneoni Moore celebrity gifting suite
Me with my Spanx bag full of Booty
The first thing I tried on was the Bra-llelujah, a bra designed to smooth and flatter your back and eliminate backfat. (Who me?)  Not only does this bra do what it promises and tackle that nasty backfat problem, I have to tell you with 100% honesty that this is thee most comfortable bra I have ever worn in my life. I truly hate wearing bras and will usually rip mine off less than two minutes after walking through my front door and put on one of those little camis with a shelf bra built inside to wear around the house. The problem with those little camis is they don’t make my boobs look particularly great (which is why I mostly only wear them around the house). This bra makes me look amazing and it’s very comfortable, almost like it’s not even there. I’ve worn it 3 days in a row (don’t judge me!) and have never once had the urge to rip it off. Bra-llelujah indeed!
The Bra-llelujah retails for $62 and I have to admit that I am notoriously cheap when it comes to bras and underwear, which is kind of stupid since I wear them more than any other article of clothing. I received the Bra-llelujah in black, but I think I am going to have to splurge and invest in a beige one as well.
The next item I tried on were the Tight End Tights. I actually love wearing skirts or dresses with tights and these tights were fabulous. They sucked me in, flattered me, and were very comfortable. They never rolled down or bunched in the knees like some tights will do. The only thing I’m bummed about is the tights they gave me are cobalt blue which limits what I can wear them with. I think the nice ladies at Spanx are kind of like clever crack dealers – they knew if they gave me these tights in blue I’d need them in black (and possibly gray, and maybe even brown) so yes even at a retail price of $26 I will definitely be stocking my underwear drawer with these.
The last product I tried was the Open Bust Mid Thigh Bodysuit that retails for $84. The fantastic thing about this bodysuit is that you can wear the bra of your choice with it, but of course the first thing I thought of when I saw it was, How the hell am I going to pee when I’m wearing that? Of course Spanx was created by a woman and that little problem was taken care of with a cotton double gusset in the crotch.
Open Bust Mid Thigh Body SuitGusset in Open Bust Mid Thigh Body Suit
Seriously more comfortable than it looks.
The cotton is supposed to fold over itself so you don’t walk around completely crotchless, but I have to admit I could never really get it to do that. At best it came together, but never really seemed to overlap. This took a little getting used to, but didn’t really bother me. In truth it actually made me feel like I was wearing sexy underwear which is a pretty good trick when you’re wearing full-body shapewear.
To be a thorough tester I did try peeing with it on to see how it works. Talk about comedy – I was so nervous that I was going to dribble pee on it, I couldn’t pee. It’s kind of like when you go to the doctor and you have to pee in that little cup and you are so nervous that you’re going to miss and pee all over your hand that you just can’t do it. I finally did pee and amazingly not one drop ended up on the body shaper. (Whew!)
I tried to get before and after pictures to do this piece justice, but after many takes in 3 different outfits (with three different photographers) it just didn’t happen. But trust me, the difference was huge. I know it doesn’t look like it would be comfortable (at least to me) but it really was.  It wasn’t binding or constricting and you didn’t get that dent in your thighs that you can get from some shapewear. (Not that I would know anything about that!) Even when I was wearing this bodysuit with pants the semi-crotchlessness of it didn’t bother me.
Before Bra-llelujah with back fatAfter Bra-llelujah and Spanx tights No more backfat
The photo on the left – backfat and a lumpy butt – on the right…not so much! (Seriously I wish the photos did these tights justice – I really couldn’t wear this skirt without them.)
Bra-llelujah and cobalt blue tight end tights
Here I am rockin’ the Bra-llelujah and cobalt blue Tight End Tights.
(Please ignore my son’s shoes and dog’s toy that so rudely jumped into my photo and the look on my face that says, “Take the damn picture already!”)
One of the things I love best about Spanx (other than what it does to my ass) is the story of its founder, Sara Blakely, who was a fax machine saleswoman that turned herself into an inventor because she was just trying to find something to wear under a pair of white pants that wouldn’t show VPL. In just 10 short years Sara now employs 100 people, has given over $10 million to charitable organizations, and empowers women entrepreneurs with her Leg Up program. Read Sara’s full story here.
Spanx will not give you the ability to wear something that is too small for you and make it fit, but it definitely will smooth out bumps and jiggles and make whatever you are wearing – especially if it is something skimming – 1000 times better. If you are going to invest in shapewear I’d definitely suggest checking out Spanx – it’s comfortable and it works!

The Long Road Home

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As we start our journey home from Colorado to California (with a two night layover in Las Vegas) I find myself a bit weepy.  I’m not sad.  In fact just the opposite; I’m so happy right now I can hardly stand it.

I think it’s the nostalgia of the car trip that’s getting to me.  My husband Dave and I are listening to “The Best of Van Morrison” – a road trip staple – while the kids zone out to Star Wars in the back, their huge wireless headphones blocking out the music and our terrible singing.  I find myself thinking of our first real road trip over 16 years ago when I set off on a cross country drive sitting next to a man I loved more than any man before him.

On December 27, 1991, after putting all of my furniture into storage, I shoved my entire wardrobe and everything else I deemed essential into a rented Uhaul car-top carrier attached to my 1984 Toyota Celica and Dave and I set off towards New York.  (Okay, technically it was New Jersey, but you know…)

Dave and I started dating in the summer of 1989.  I fell hard for him right away.  I think he fell hard for me too but HEDIDNOTWANTAGIRLFRIEND so he was very non-committal.  (Once after we were dating for about a year we went to Phoenix for the weekend and he introduced me to his uncle – who lived there – as his date.  His date?  To Phoenix?  Yeah, he had serious commitment problems.)

In January of ’91 he got a promotion that required him to relocate to New York.  And even though I still never heard him ever utter the word “girlfriend” we decided to carry on long distance to see what happened. We managed to see each other for long weekends about every six weeks.  In October he asked me to move to New York.  I’d been ready since February.

I really think that if he hadn’t moved to New York we wouldn’t have ended up together.  It was the distance and missing me that made him realize he was in love with me.  If he had stayed in California I think I would have grown tired of waiting for him to commit and left him or I would have started nagging him for a commitment and he would have grown tired of that and he would have left me.  It turns out the distance that  separated us is ultimately the thing that brought us closer together.  It’s funny the little curve balls life tends to throw at you.

So two days after Christmas, after giving up a highly coveted job in the music industry and a really great apartment, I kissed my friends and family goodbye and set off on the road trip of my life.  We had a great time.  We tried to visit the Grand Canyon (well we did visit the Grand Canyon, we just couldn’t see it because it was socked in with fog), we stayed with some friends in Houston and had the best Queso Fundido I’ve ever had in my life, made it to New Orleans for New Year’s Eve, and got lost on some Louisiana back road that provided us with a story we still tell today.

When we were living in New York (okay, okay New Jersey) Dave actually lost his job due to a merger but was still under contract so he was still getting paid.  Talk about the time of our lives!  One day we were walking down the street in Hoboken and Dave turned to me and said, “It’s so cold.  Let’s go to Florida tomorrow.”  And we did.  We drove all the way down to Key West.  A few weeks later we drove through New England all the way to Montreal.  Four months later he got a job in Los Angeles and we loaded all of our belongings and my Celica onto a moving van and drove his Honda back home.

We’ve been on many crazy road trips since then – LA to Seattle and back, and twice we’ve driven roundtrip from Los Angeles to Wichita (once to pickup heirloom furniture and another time for his grandmother’s funeral).  When Chandler was just shy of four and Marley was only 3 months old we drove from Los Angeles to the Canadian Rockies and back.  We had to stop every 3 or 4 hours so I could nurse Marley, but that was one of the best and most beautiful trips of our lives.   3,000 miles in 10 days.  We both wish it could have been longer, though that probably would have meant driving even farther.  Not counting this trip where we are sure to log in over 2,000 miles, we’ve probably driven over 20,000 miles together on road trips alone.

There are things that remain constant for all of our trips:  two travel mugs and a Thermos full of coffee to start our day, music that is (for the most part) mutually agreed upon, whenever we stop for gas he fills up the car and I wash the windows, we always have a big box of Gobstoppers to suck on (the passenger pops them into the mouth of the driver), and the air conditioning is only turned on once the outside temp reaches 83 degrees (that’s his stupid ass rule – though you know, with all the fluorocarbons the A/C releases into the air I put up with it without complaining.)

This is actually our first vacation car trip since that trip to Canada almost 8 years ago.  Sure we’ve gone on some 5 or 6 hour drives for camping trips, but that hardly counts as a road trip by our standards.  And today, as we start our journey home and sing “Have I Told You Lately” to each other, the first song we danced to together as husband and wife, happy tears escape from the corners of my eyes -tears shed in reminiscence of the road trips of our past and in anticipation of all the miles we will surely travel together in our future.

*This post originally appeared on skirt.com on August 24, 2008. I have archived it here after learning that skirt will be shutting down the blogging portion of its site on November 30, 2013.

Recycle Me Please

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Let’s not even talk about the 948 mile drive here in an SUV (which actually got surprisingly good gas mileage on the highway.)  I’m plugging my ears and saying “La, la, la” in denial over that one.

But yesterday I threw away a milk carton for the first time in over 10 years.  I’ve been recycling for a long time – way before it became cool.  At home my recycling trash is bigger than my trash trash.  I wash those Styrofoam trays that meat comes in in the dishwasher and take them to school to be used to pour paint into so at least they’ll have a second use before sitting in the earth for 50 years.  I use the backs of my daughter’s spelling flash cards for my shopping lists and then put them in my purse instead of throwing them away at the market so I can put them in the recycle trash at home because God forbid that tiny piece of paper (which only takes 2 weeks to biodegrade, unless of course it’s thrown away inside a plastic bag, then it’s anyone’s guess) gets thrown into the regular trash!    When I walk my dog every morning I actually pick up trash.  Not just bottles and cans that will get my kids 5 cents at the recycling center (I mean c’mon, you’d bend over and pick up a nickel wouldn’t you?), but actual trash in the gutter because I know it’s going to wash away into the ocean.  In a word; I’m kind of a freak.

At home I use a detergent for my dishwasher that is phosphate free because we are killing our oceans.  Okay, I have to admit that it doesn’t get my dishes quite as clean as the leading brand that most people use, but I’ve been using it so long I hardly notice any more.  (Don’t worry those of you who eat at my house, I scrub away all the yucky stuff before putting my dishes in the dishwasher – trust me, my dishes are clean.)  But here, at the timeshare, I use that leading brand (it was supplied by the timeshare), don’t scrub my dishes, put in the pots and pans that I usually wash by hand to save space in the dishwasher and not run it as often, and okay I admit it, ran the dishwasher when it was 75% full instead of completely stuffed.  At least I remembered to bring my Simple Green for cleaning the counters.

Last night my husband held up a red wine bottle and said, “I hate to do it, but I’m have to throw this away.”  “I know,” I said.  But the thought of that glass bottle sitting in landfill for a million years sent me over the edge.  I dug the milk carton (biodegration time:  forever – even longer than the wine bottle) and a tin can (biodegration time:  100 years) out of the garbage (both already rinsed out out of habit) and placed them next to the trash can under the sink.  I’m calling the front desk today to see if recycling is an option.  We are in Colorado after all.  Isn’t this place even more hippie-granola than California?  And if they say no?  Well, we are carting our soda cans and beer bottles back to California to claim our redemption fee.  Maybe there will have to be a place for milk bottles and tin cans (and flattened out cereal boxes) too…

*This post originally appeared on skirt.com on August 19, 2008. I have archived it here after learning that skirt will be shutting down the blogging portion of its site on November 30, 2013.

Colorado Here We Come

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5:51        We leave home 9 minutes ahead of schedule.  A Ross Family first.  It’s Friday morning and we are finally taking our long-awaited family vacation.

6:37        The sun pops up from behind the mountains and I realize my sunglasses are in my backpack my husband Dave has so conveniently placed in the back of the car where I can’t get to it.  (In his defense he was trying to give me some room for my feet.)  I have to resort to the ultra crappy pair I keep in the glove box for emergencies.  Sun directly in your eyes before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee definitely constitutes itself as an emergency.

7:20        Boredom has already set in for Marley.  She’s finished her entire breakfast – a peanut butter and jelly sandwich – and claims to still be hungry.

8:07        Our children are lucky enough to have a DVD player built into our SUV and have decided on a Star Wars marathon for our long trip. (Yep, all 6 movies in a row.)  Marley has announced that she is bored of Star Wars.  I hand her a banana hoping it will occupy her for at least a minute and a half.

8:32        We hit our first rest stop to stretch our legs and say goodbye to our morning beverages.

9:26        We cross the state line into Nevada.

9:28        I’m trying to rock out to Joe Jackson.  “Is she really going out with him,” my husband and I sing at the top of our lungs.  “Mom, mom, mom.” I hear from the back seat.  “What?” I ask in the nicest mommy voice possible to mask my annoyance.  “Blah, blah, blah, blahdy blah, blah,” my son says making a joke.  I fake a laugh and tell him he’s funny so I can go back to my music and relive my 80’s youth – hopefully without further interruption until we hit Las Vegas.

9:50        We enter the outskirts of Las Vegas in less than 4 hours.  Good timing.  The last time I drove to Vegas – about a year ago – it took me 7 hours to get here.  Apparently leaving at 6AM on a Friday is better than leaving at 2PM on a Friday.

10:10     Las Vegas Blvd.  Chandler is pissed that he forgot his camera and his cell phone.  His complaining pisses Dave off who is cranky because he’s been driving for 4 hours and really, really needs to pee. (Yes he did use the rest stop an hour and forty minutes ago but then he went and had a 3rd cup of coffee.) 

10:46     We are back on the 15 and passing Nellis Air Force Base.  Fighter jets are mock fighting and doing cool fighter jet turns.  This holds the kids attention for about 30 seconds as they’ve moved on to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

11:44     We cross the state line into Arizona.

11:55     We enter the Virgin River Gorge.  Dave gives a science lesson on sedimentary rock.  Oddly enough this holds Chandler’s attention longer than the fighter jets did.  The mesas are stripes of gold and yellow and Grand-Canyon-red.  It is a magnificent sight.

1:08        We cross the Utah border.  We changed time either here or in Arizona (who knows what goes on with the time zones in Arizona – I can’t keep up) so it’s 12:08 in driving time, but 1:08 in actual time.  Does that make sense?

1:20        Dave and I hit the drive-thru at Arby’s and take our food into Burger King where Marley wants to eat.  I have vowed not to gain weight on this vacation (good luck right?) so I give my 2nd potato cake (minus one bite) to Dave (apparently I don’t care if he gains weight).

2:15        We see a landscape of mesas so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes.  (One day I’ll blog about all the unbelievably ridiculous things I cry about.)  To quote Baz Luhrmann it is ‘Spectacular Spectacular.’  What a gorgeous miracle.  I want to bring it to the kid’s attention but Chandler is actually reading which is a miracle in itself.

3:04        We’ve moved on to the Best of Hall and Oates and Dave and I are now belting out ‘Rich Girl’.  This song came out when I was in 8thgrade and my best friend Dale and I would whisper the word bitch when we sang along because we didn’t want to get into trouble.

3:54        While the scenery is breathtaking the air in the car is a different story.  I mean two kids, a husband, and a fast food lunch…  While there are many giggles coming from the backseat it sure would be nice to be able to roll down the window.

4:39        Chandler just read me an excerpt from his book “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” – that truth be told is little more than a comic book, but as I said before the kid is reading (for about 2 hours now!) without being coerced or setting a 20 minute timer.  It makes me laugh so hard that I have to read it to Dave who couldn’t hear Chandler’s sweet, quiet voice behind him.  It is so stupidly funny I laugh so hard I cry and snot starts coming out of my nose.  I have definitely been in this car way too long. And good news – we only have about  6 more hours to go – you know – if we don’t stop to eat!

5:45        Utah I70 mile marker 125.  Incredible beauty.  I wish I could write beautifully descriptive prose that would give you some idea what the beauty outside our car actually looks like.  (See I just used a form of the word beauty 3 times in 2 consecutive sentences.  I am pathetically unimaginative.)  I’ll say this:  there are a lot of mesas and cool rock formations.  A lot of red, green and gold.  Even my husband’s insistence of listening to his Utopia CD can’t annoy me (too much) with such beautiful scenery to look at.  (See there it is again.)

6:49        I look out the window and see a rainbow confirming that those big, puffy, white clouds to the right (south?) of us are indeed rainclouds.

6:50        I look over our accommodation amenities and notice that Internet access is located nearby (within 5 miles) and not on site.  Not quite sure when to break the news to Dave as he’s got to be online at 6AM tomorrow for work.  This will obviously not go over well.  Maybe things have changed since this was printed out in March.  I mean, hello, we’re staying at a Marriott and it is 2008.  They’ve got to have Wi-Fi.  I decide not to mention it just yet.

7:06        After 12 hours and 16 minutes we cross the Colorado border.

7:12        We see rain clouds on the horizon – big ugly, black ones, unlike the cute, fluffy, white ones that made the rainbow.  And this time they’re in the actual direction we are heading.  I realize I forgot to pack Marley’s raincoat.  (She only has 3 and we live in a place where it never rains.) Dave – the person who has to pack for one, not three (oh and I planned the meals and packed the food too because we’re in a timeshare with a full kitchen) – seems flabbergasted.  After all we did talk at length about raincoats.  And yes I know I should make a list and I did – lots of lists – just not a list of what to bring for myself and the kids.  So there ya go, another point for me in the crappy mom column.  And now that I think of it I may have forgotten Chandler’s swimsuit (2 points) but at least he has a raincoat.

7:32        We stop in an adorable downtown area of Grand Junction, Co and have dinner at a brew pub.  Dave and I both really want a beer.  I tell Dave, who has driven the entire trip that I’ll take over driving.  He has a beer and I order a Diet Pepsi.  Back at the car he tells me that he’ll drive. I try not to be annoyed that I drank a Diet Pepsi for nothing.

8:45        Marley has packed it in and has cuddled up to her pillow and fallen asleep.  Chandler has opted for a movie.  The full moon lights the highway and we can see that this drive would be really beautiful if it were light.  I’m over the beer and put in a Todd Rundgren CD (ugh!) for Dave to reward him for continuing to drive and to keep him awake. 

9:37        It starts to rain.

10:57     16 hours and 6 minutes after leaving home we arrive in Vail, Co. I take back all the mean things I said about my kids in my last blog as they were amazingly (almost) PERFECT on this long, long trip.  The timeshare is beautiful, the rain has stopped, I did remember Chandler’s swimsuit, and – Thank God – we are set up in our room with the Internet.

*This post originally appeared on skirt.com on August 17, 2008. I have archived it here after learning that skirt would be shutting down the blogging portion of its site.