Boys don’t like to say goodbye. At least not like girls do. My husband always complains that it takes me forever to leave a family function because I have to tell everyone goodbye. Uh… isn’t that called being polite? Isn’t that what people do? Apparently not men.
Chandler just went to his first school dance. Homecoming. He went with a group of friends instead of going with a girl. (Thank god because it’s his junior year and the last thing he needs this year is the drama and the distraction of a first girlfriend.) The kids he went with are his core group – his band friends that he’s hung around with since 6th grade.
But he left the dance with his track and cross country friends.
“Did you tell your friends you were leaving?” I asked him.
He kind of shrugged and mumbled something. (I’ll take that as a no.)
Who does that? Apparently boys.
A girl would never do that. Now a girl might would definitely go somewhere with her girlfriends and leave with a guy. But she would never come with one group of friends and leave with another. And if she did – at least she’d say goodbye.
And men think women are difficult to understand.
Is this a universal thing or is it just the men in my life who don’t feel the need to say goodbye?
Yeah, I chose a picture of Bradley Cooper shirtless. You’re welcome.
Diamonds
You can totally see me wearing this, right?
Pinterest
And since Dave won’t let me date – which is the only reason I’m not Bradley Cooper’s girlfriend (obviously)…
or buy me diamonds – due to the violence and price fixing, not because he doesn’t think I’m worth it (so he says)…
if I want a little beauty in my every day life, Pinterest it is.
But, lately it seems Pinterest is starting to become a bit like Bradley Cooper and diamonds – unattainable.
I mean, I’ll never wear this little black dress…
My backyard will never look like this…
All that’s missing is a cabana boy with umbrella drinks.
Or this…
When do I move in?
And 35 years of applying make-up has never once resulted in anything that’s ever looked remotely close to this…
Gorgeous! (But I think if I tried it I’d look like a suburban hooker.)
But there is one thing I can do…
I can cook.
So lately I’ve been turning my Pinterest attention towards food. Beautiful, yummy, delicious food. Crock-pot meals. Appetizers. Desserts. I have been pinning away like crazy. And I’ve even made some of the recipes. Although I’m not sure my efforts would actually be called a success.
First I tried this crock-pot recipe for Mongolian Beef. Doesn’t it look gorgeous?
A crock-pot meal my kids would actually eat.
This is what happened when I made it…
Uh… not quite like the picture
In my defense it was Dave who got it from the crock-pot to the table. But still. I don’t think a pretty plate would have saved it. It’s no small wonder that Marley would not eat it. (Chandler however thought it was delicious.)
Then I tried this…
This is about as gorgeous as food gets.
Mine was almost as pretty…
Not too bad
Except my balsamic reduction sauce didn’t really caramelize and came out rather runny. And the heirloom tomatoes weren’t as flavorful ask I’d hoped. (Maybe because I cheated and got them at Trader Joe’s instead of the Farmer’s Market.)
I was starting to feel like a Pinterest failure. My food was either ugly and tasty or beautiful and meh. There had to be some way I could bring the beauty of Pinterest into my real life.
And then I found it. Something I could do. Something attainable. Something I could make useful. Beautiful even.
I took my kitchen drawer stuffed full of plastic bags…
This is one heck of a mess!
And folded them like little flags. Now my plastic bag drawer looks like this…
Home organization at it’s finest!
Yeah, I can fold a plastic bag like nobody’s business!
It may not be nearly as beautiful as this…
I might or might not have a Bradley Cooper (Secret) Pinterest Board
On September 1st I publicly proclaimed that intended to write and post one paragraph a day on this blog. Turns out I failed. I wrote (and posted) the first 10 days in a row. (Yay!) But then… it just sort of tapered off. Writing every day is one thing. (I didn’t even do that.) Writing something worthy of posting is entirely another.
I could make all sorts of excuses.
Like, I had other goals for the month to attain as well. Ones that weren’t made so publicly. (Though I’m not that bright, so I’ll tell you what they were now.)
I was also going to query three agents a week. Of course it would be a lie to say that querying got in the way of posting. I only queried two. (No, not per week. Total.)
My plan was to write my blog posts in the morning and send my novel queries on my lunch break.
But I also wanted to keep going to the gym five to six times a week. The good news is, this is goal I actually achieved and I lost three more pounds since finishing my Just Lose It Weight Loss Challenge. But it turns out being fit and being a writer is hard. Hopefully I’ll figure it out so I don’t have to choose between the two. (But I’m not holding my breath.)
And I recently went back to work full time (again). I’m still trying to re-figure out how to get my ass to work on time every morning. Typical morning: I get up at 5:00 and write (or procrastinate and check Facebook, Twitter and emails while convincing myself that it’s “working”) or go to the gym, make Chandler a peanut butter and banana sandwich (he’ll make it himself without complaint, but likes me to do it and he’s off to college in less than two years so my peanut butter and banana sandwich days will be over for good so I really don’t mind), walk the dog, get Marley up, make her eggs for breakfast (she refuses to eat lunch at school, so she needs a big protein-filled breakfast), make eggs for myself (I like mushrooms or spinach in mine and eat three eggs, but only two egg yolks – shut up), shower and get ready for work, change my clothes three times even though I pick out my outfits for the week on Sunday (nine out of ten times I go with the original outfit chosen), pack my lunch (even though I try to do this the night before I never seem to remember everything) and get out the door by 8:40. (I’ve only actually left at 8:40 once. It’s usually 8:45. At best.)
You’d think putting together outfits like this would help me get ready faster in the morning. You’d be wrong.
Balance was another one of my goals for October. But you’re smarter than me. You can see that that was an unattainable goal can’t you?
So I’m going to be smarter too in October. This month my only goal is to post to my blog each Monday.
Um….
And to maybe query an agent or two. (Per week.)
And not flake on going to the gym.
And to stick to the first outfit I choose. (This one might be the hardest one of all.)
I’ll let you know how it goes.
There are only three months left in 2013. Do you have any October goals?
Marley got an offer to go to Las Vegas this past weekend with my brother. It meant missing most of her classes at school on Friday and missing her soccer game on Saturday. Usually this would have meant an immediate no. School is too important and we have made a commitment to her soccer team to be there every weekend. But then I realized that Chandler would also be out of town as he was going up to northern California for a cross country meet. If we said yes to Vegas then Dave and I would have a kid-free weekend. At home. And we haven’t had that in a very long time.
Visions of pre-kid weekends danced in my head. Sleeping late. Going out to breakfast. Lounging around and being lazy. Reading. Doing nothing. Maybe we could go out to dinner. Or take a walk on the beach. Sure there was some house cleaning and grocery shopping. But there were no sports. No chauffeuring kids to various places. Just us. Doing less.
“What do you want to do this weekend?” I asked Dave having a pretty good idea of exactly what it was he’d want to do all weekend with no kids.
It turns out I was wrong. And his answer kind of shocked me.
“Well,” he said. “The one show I’ve always regretted not watching is Breaking Bad because everyone always talks about how good it is. AMC started a marathon of all five season on Wednesday and I started recording them. I thought maybe we could do a little binge watching this weekend.”
“You want to watch five seasons worth of Breaking Bad in one weekend?”
“I don’t think we can get through all five seasons, but we could probably power through at least 10 or 12 hours. What do you say? Are you in?”
How could I say no to such a romantic offer? Sitting on the couch side by side, each with our own bowl of popcorn and a cozy blanket thrown over us with the curtains drawn to block out the sunlight of the gorgeous weekend to watch the lovable Walter White use his mad chemistry skills to cook the purest crystal meth anyone has ever seen. (And you know maybe violently kill a few people and blow some shit up along the way.)
Nothing like a little binge TV.
I don’t know if it will be possible to avoid all the spoiler alerts that are sure to be all over the media this week after last night’s final episode. I’ll obviously have to keep off of Facebook and Twitter. And keep my radio turned off. No local morning news. It’s probably not practical for me to go through my daily activities this week covering my ears while saying, “La la la la la.” So I suspect I will inadvertently find out what happens to dear Walter and his family. (Just like I did with Downton Abbey’s Sybil when we binge watched that.)
We did actually have some plans this weekend so are only about eight or nine episodes in – just at the beginning of Season Two. There are 59 episodes left in our DVR queue. If we watch an episode a day we’ll be done in two months, but we have busy kid-filled lives so I don’t think that’s very likely.
My mortgage is with Megabank and I have a very small (let’s call it cute) secondary checking account with Gigantobank. (These are obviously not the names of my financial institutions, but you get the picture.) For some reason I always confuse the two. The only way I really keep them straight is by their physical locations in proximity to my house. Last month I had to write a check for Chandler to register for school and I couldn’t find my primary checking account check book. I was running late for work so I wrote him a check from my Gigantobank account even though I knew I couldn’t cover it. I figured I would withdraw some cash and head to Gigantobank at lunch and make a deposit. When I got there and ran my bankcard through the machine the nice teller informed me that I used my Gigantobank card and I needed to use my Megabank card. “Oh,” I said and went to get my Megabank card out of my wallet until I remembered. I don’t have a Megabank bankcard. They own my house, not my cute checking account. Shit. I was at the wrong bank. The closest Gigantobank was a 10 minute drive from the office and I didn’t have enough time left on my lunch break to make it there and back. I. Am. Such. A. Loser. I resigned myself to going to Gigantobank the next day. It was only when I returned to the office that I realized my mortgage was due and I could have paid it while I was at Megabank. Epic Fail. On every level. It’s a wonder how I make it through the day.
I was reading my girl Mama Kat (as I tend to do) and was intrigued by a writing prompt link up she had last week. The prompt was to take a picture every hour to document your day.
Well, as you have probably guessed, my life is pretty glamorous. I was going to do a weekday “day in the life” post, but thought you might be too insanely jealous to look at this eight times on repeat.
Put this on repeat for 8 hours and like me, you’ll be living the dream!
I know, rockstar life right?
So I decided to document Sunday. I will be honest and admit that this past Sunday was a bit busier than most. I mean, it was Emmy night after all. So sit back, relax, grab a cup of coffee, scroll down at all of the pretty cell phone pictures and try your hardest not to wish you were me…
6:00 Beep Beep Beep. That’s the sound of my alarm going off. Yes, at six. It usually goes off at 5:00 (yes, even on Sunday) because I feel unbalanced if I don’t get some “me time” in the morning, but I went to bed at midnight so I needed the extra hour of beauty sleep!
(Oh, and if you’re wondering why I went to be so late it’s because I already told you – I live the glamorous rockstar life – I was at a cross country meet 75 miles away where Chandler ran a race at 9:15 PM! See – I told you, you’d be jealous!)
Just me, my computer and creamy coffee – aaahhhh!
7:00 I took my dog Rocky for his morning walk to the park and basked in the beauty of Ladyface Mountain.
I cannot tell you how many times I tried to take this photo so my ankles did not look fat. (I obviously failed!)
9:00 The only reason I run is so I can hang out and have coffee with my friends afterward. Although I don’t actually drink coffee as I’ve already caffeined up earlier and what kind of friends make you do something you hate three times a week? I should return the favor by posting their un-make-uped-sweaty-post-running pictures. But I won’t because I actually know how to treat people! We sat outside of Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf because we smelled bad and were afraid we might get kicked out. (Or maybe that’s just me.)
I swear I brought the donuts home to my family (I had to buy them – they were just too cute) I did, however, inhale the Stonyfield yogurt!
10:00 I had to rush home to get Marley ready for church, a day at her friends, and then a Bat Mitzvah. But first I had to stop at Cost Plus. I mean, I have my priorities.
A girl’s gotta do what a girls gotta do!
11:00 I stretched while making a few phone calls, took a shower and gave in and washed my hair even though I really didn’t have enough time to dry it properly because I hadn’t washed it since Thursday (and have worked out twice since), obsessed about the inelasticity of my skin as I looked in the mirror when I dried my hair, and started the weekend’s laundry.
Remember, I warned you how jealous you’d be of my rockstar life. So much fun and it isn’t even noon yet!
12:00 I rushed out the door to meet my mom at Costco. Because I was in a rush and didn’t want to make her wait I grabbed the first pair of shoes I saw, which were black even though I was wearing a brown belt. The shoes were flip flops, but still, I think the mismatch is only slightly less offensive than how I smelled at Coffee Bean two hours earlier.
This should last about a week.
1:30 Got home, from Costco and heard the dryer going and panicked. On the one hand it was fantastic that Chandler does his own laundry, on the other it means he put my clothes in the dryer and my clothes don’t go in the dryer. (Well they do, but only for 10 minutes on low and then I hang them. And yes, I am aware that I am a freak. Thank you.) Fortunately he had just thrown them in, so melt down over teenage son being responsible was averted. I then ate some tuna salad while putting away groceries, realized running makes you really sore and rolled on the foam roller and then went into the bathroom and saw Dave brushing his teeth. It occurred to me that there was a chance I might have forgotten to brush my teeth in the morning. (Like a 99.9% chance.) So, it turns out mismatched accessories and breakfasting post-running/pre-showering are not my greatest offenses of the day.
Getting ready for some meal prep.
2:00 Put another load of laundry in the washer, hung a load outside to dry and then ran to Trader Joe’s for even more groceries.
My happy place.
3:00 I turned on the Emmy’s Red Carpet, but had to do some meal prep for the week and make a meal for a friend who just had surgery, so I cooked and took notes on fashion at the same time. Not happy about having my attention taken away from my beloved Red Carpet.
Getting ready for the week.
4:00 More prepping. More cooking. More red carpet watching.
Yes, this really is our old school TV.
5:00 Sat down to fold laundry and watched beginning of Emmy’s while vegetables finished roasting. Then pressed record on the DVR and left to go to my mom’s house for dinner. (On Emmy night – I know!) Left the kitchen in a huge state of disaster to be dealt with when we returned.
Yes, I actually walked out the door with my kitchen looking like this! (Notice laundry still hanging outside.)
6:00 Relaxed and had dinner with my family. It was lovely.
Dinner al fresco
7:30 When I was offered dessert for once I said yes. It tasted like heaven.
Yum!
8:00 Came home, cleaned disaster of a kitchen, and put away hanging laundry.
To be put away tomorrow – don’t worry – I’ll sleep just fine with them right there! (I hope to put away the folded laundry in the den sometime before Tuesday.)
9:00 Kicked Dave and Chandler out of the den and sat down to finally watch the Emmy’s in peace. (Well, if peace means sitting on couch with laptop and typing away furiously while watching.)
10:00 Got distracted by a dress on a Target commercial I was trying to fast forward through and tried to look up dress on Target website. Struck out. Stupid Target – if you’re going to show a dress on a commercial please have it available for me to look at and not buy online!
Just me, the Emmy’s and Target.com
10:45 Left the house to pick up Marley at Bat Mitzvah at 11:00 SHARP. (There was no school on Monday – staff development day.) Dropped off Marley’s friend, came home and tumbled into bed next to sleeping husband for not nearly enough sleep.
Time to get home and get to bed!
Woke up at 5:30 on Monday (again, slept in because I went to bed too late) and started rolling so I could do this for eight hours straight…
Now be honest – you are totally jealous of my rockstar life, right?
I was deep cleaning the kitchen the other day. You know – the move the appliances and the knife rack off the counter and scrub the grout with a toothbrush kind of cleaning, instead of my daily wipe the bread crumbs off with a sponge type of cleaning. It’s amazing the amount of clutter that accumulates on the counter – things I don’t even “see” on a daily basis. The sea salt I cook with that I rarely bother to put back into the cupboard. Ditto for the honey used on peanut butter sandwiches. And for the box of dandelion tea. Behind the toaster I found a napkin holder that Chandler made for me when he was in elementary school. I don’t know if it was a class project or something from Indian Guides, but can I be honest? It’s ugly. I suppose it does have a bit of a Mondrian quality to it. (You know, if Mondrian were sloppy. And didn’t use yellow.)
Proudly displayed on my kitchen table for years.
I used to proudly display it on our kitchen table, as good mothers of bad artists do, but we use cloth napkins now, so not only is it ugly, it’s useless. I can’t quite bring myself to throw it away, so I do what any bad mother would do – I chuck it into the back of the high pantry cupboard never to be found again. At least until the next deep cleaning. Chandler is 16 now. I’m 100% positive that if someone else made it he’d find it not only ugly, but offensive. I know that even though it sat on our kitchen table for years he’s forgotten all about it. And he’s certainly smart enough to know that we have no practical use for it. But I also know that if he found out I threw it away he’d never forgive me. So to the back of the pantry it goes. At least until I tackle that with a deep cleaning.
By now everyone has seen the “Worst Twerk Fail EVER – Girl Catches Fire!” video. (And if you haven’t – where ya been? Camping in the wilderness with no WiFi or cell service? What’s wrong with you?)
Here it is in case you missed it:
And you also probably know that it’s fake (though I admit, it fooled me) via the ever so awesome Jimmy Kimmel Show.
I think it’s hilarious, but I’m bummed that it’s fake. I felt badly for the girl when I saw it, but I was a little bit happy that someone had an even bigger twerking fail than me. (And of course Miley.)
Yeah, you heard me right, I myself have had a twerking fail. And I think it’s time to come clean…
A few weeks ago the four of us were watching America’s Got Talent and Robin Thicke was on singing “Blurred Lines.” That song is a current guilty pleasure of mine, but Dave and the kids are not fans. And since I know they all hate it, I got up and danced in front of the TV. I waved my hands in the air and sang along. I was having a good ol’ time. (No, I wasn’t drunk, just obnoxious.)
Marley said, “Hey Mom, let’s see you twerk.”
“What’s twerk?” I asked.
Yeah, I’m obnoxious mom, but apparently not pop-culture-savvy mom. (This was a few weeks before the Miley Cirus twerk fail.)
“Oh my god, Mom. You don’t know what twerking is?” Marley asked me, unable to believe her my-mom-is-so-lame teenage ears.
She took me straight to YouTube and showed me this:
I watched the video very closely then squatted down, stuck out my butt (which even with my recent weight loss seems to be the perfect size for twerking) and then I thrust my hips. And almost threw my back out.
It seems these old hips do not move that way. I spent the rest of the night rolling on my foam roller.
Thank god there was no video. I mean, I wouldn’t put it past Marley to post it. Of course if she did, I’m pretty sure it would have gone viral.
Worst Twerk Fail EVER – Suburban Mom Throws Her Back Out!!! That fake girl on fire wouldn’t have stood a chance against me.
Today I went running at eight o’clock in morning and left the kids a list of chores – vacuuming, dusting, bathroom cleaning – the bare minimum to make our house presentable tolerable. I ran two and a half miles today and I’ll admit that it was easier than the two miles I ran last week, but that’s because we ran a much flatter course, not because I’m getting better. Everyone in run club is so nice and encouraging. They all say that they hated running when they started. A lot of them tell me that now they love it. I know I will never love it. I refuse to drink the running Kool-aid. But I think I will go back again next week. Maybe. After running I went to coffee with some friends from the gym. It’s nice to have gym friends. 20 years of gym memberships and this is the first time I’ve made actual friends there. At coffee we talk about kids’ sports, the scariness of paying for college, and what a treat and a luxury a Hawaiian family vacation would be. When I got home the house was clean. Not company-clean. Or mom-clean. But kid-clean. It’s not perfect, but I didn’t have to do it. It works for me.
Chandler likes what he calls lay low weekends. Lay low weekends are do-nothing weekends. He’ll do his homework. Maybe play some video games. Revel in the luxury of boredom. This is not a lay low weekend. This is a sports weekend. Chandler had a Cross Country meet on Friday. He kicked butt and got a PR. (15:51 in case you’re curious. That’s right my son ran 3 miles in under 16 minutes. Sorry. Braggy mommy moment over.) After the meet he got off the team bus and met some friends at the high school football game and got home around 10:00. Marley skipped cheering her brother on at the XC meet and went to a friend’s house for the day. She and her friend went to the football game as well. Of course everyone knows that football games are more about socializing than sports. Especially for 8th grade girls. They’ve got to check out the social rituals of high schoolers to help lessen the culture shock they’ll be experiencing in one short year. Dave and I enjoyed an impromptu dinner at a cute Mexican place called El Rey a few miles from the meet in Ventura. I’m still eating clean and eating four meals a day. In all the excitement of the day I forgot to eat my third meal. Forgetting to eat is something that never happens to me. The food was amazing. And not just because I was so hungry. (As a bonus, the owner/manager was also super hot quite handsome.) We’ll be back for sure. Saturday morning everyone got up at 6:00. Chandler had a 15 mile run at 7:00 and Marley had to be on the soccer field at 7:30. After we got home we barely had time to catch our breath before Dave and Chandler ran out the door to volunteer at a triathlon in Malibu. (I told you it was a sports weekend.) Marley got a haircut. Then we ran errands. As I type this I’m daydreaming about the beer I’ll be enjoying tonight with the burgers I’ll be grilling. Tomorrow the kids have nothing going on but I have to go on a stupid sucktacular 2.5 mile run with the run club that I accidentally joined. I’m tempted to blow it off, but I signed up to bring pretzels and water. But afterwards I’m going to do a whole lot of nothing. I’m going to lay low.
Charlene Ross 