Summer

Our garden: squash, zucchini, peas, spinach, watermelon, cucumber,basil, sunflowers, dill. Such yummy satisfaction and anticipation.

Our beaches: hot sun, hazy mist, white sand, pebbles, sand dollars, sea gulls, green ocean, calm bays, wild surf.

Our lake: grassy knoll, warmer waters, babies splashing everywhere! swimming to the bouy and back while littles ones call Mamma! Mamma! floating on my back, watching a bald eagle circle over head.

Hot days. Cool nights. Thunder and Lightening! Drying breezes. Turkey flock, new poults squawk. Our summer is so pleasing.

Happy Freakin' Mother's Day

As the wife of a chef, I know better than to expect a lot of special treatment on Mother's Day, one of the busiest days of his whole year at the restaurant. Living in Maine, Mother's Day coincides with the season kick-off. Tourist season, that is. So not only is it a huge day for restaurants it is also, often, the start of the summer opening hours. For us, that means we'll see a lot less of our Chef from now 'til Columbus Day. It is also the official start of black fly season.

I hate Mother's Day.

The kids and I had pancakes this morning, we love our pancakes. During breakfast a client called, not for business but to see if she should go with her family to brunch at our Chef's restaurant. Pangs of jealousy. I left the table to talk. I returned to find little girl had peed in her seat and little boy had dumped the last of our best real maple syrup onto his plate. He was swirling a piece of pancake in a half inch of amber gold and I got all teary eyed at the waste of maple syrup, the pee on my persian rug and the lack of breakfast in bed or out in a restaurant on Mother's Day in general. I sat right down on the pity pot. I hate the term 'pity pot' but sometimes it just suits.

BUT we wiped up, wiped off, and got dressed. Outside was fabulous, breezy enough to keep the black flys at bay, pleasantly cool and very sunny. I dug in my garden, chased the kids around the yard, read a book! We had cucumber sandwiches for lunch on bread I baked this morning - yum! Little girl napped, son watched a movie while I sat with him in the couch and finished my book! Then our Chef came home and made us dinner while I soaked in the tub!

I Love Mother's Day!

There is a lot of pressure at Mother's Day. It is what Valentine's Day used to be, way back, before marriage even. You know, showing up at work the day after, the girls at lunch sharing Valentine's gift and dinner stories. Now I am a Mom and Mother's Day has eclipsed Valentine's Day. The V day passes without a second thought in our house, but I am personally guilty of making Mother's Day somewhat of a big deal, even though I know my husband will have to work, and not only will he have to work, he will have a grueling day! Do you know they served over 500 brunches this morning/afternoon?! Fat fucking bitches. Woops - there is my jealousy coming out again.

Yeah, so anyway, here is the nitty gritty: I got 3 cards, a promise my car will be detailed next Sunday (that means a professional will shampoo 2 1/2 years of vomit, piss and cheerios out of the seats and rugs) and the best tissue paper flower I ever saw. Plus this chance to think about what a freakin' lucky lady I am today, how wonderful my husband is and my kids, well, of course, how wonderful they are too. Mother's Day is a chance to reflect on what being a Mom is, which is often under appreciated, but who ever said having children was about us? Because being a mom just makes you a given in the life of your child, the life that is very much theirs, not ours. That's hard to swallow sometimes. It is hard to not control my children and somewhat confusing since I need to keep them safe and healthy 'til adulthood. Where do you draw the line between parenting and controlling? Oh wait, I don't really get to draw that line, do I? Yup, it is hard to accept the lack of control I have over my kids, and I am not talking about discipline. But anyway, to all you Moms out there, Happy Mother's Day, enjoy the ride!

Truth in Politics?

Maybe it is just me, maybe I am jaded, but when did it become surprising that politicians curve the truth to fit their needs and when did that become something other than politics? Me, I am honest all the time and have lost friends over it. I'd be an awful politician because not only can I not please all of the people all of the time, I can not even please some of the people most of the time. That's not because of me, that's because of human nature and because I don't always know when to keep my mouth shut (OK, maybe it is because of me.).

When Barack Obama finally denounced the Rev. Jeremiah Wright this past week, why was anyone even surprised? Was he supposed to stay on a sinking ship? Yes, he can be found on You Tube speaking highly of the guy just a year ago, but, really so what? Is he not a politician? Should he not try to get elected and if that means dissing his former friends and ministers than so be it? Politics isn't all nice-nice, right? And everybody ought to realize this.

Politicians reverse their stance on issues all the time. What I find so amazing is that it is even an issue. Talking about honesty and politicians seems like a waste of time to me. These are not honest people, they can't be, not if they want to get elected.

You've probably held an office job at some time, some corporate gig at one point or another in your life. If not, you have at least worked with people, right? Any time you put a group of people together you get politics. It is a natural result and most people feed on it (why else would those reality shows where people vote each other off the island, out of the house, etc. be so very popular?). Did you speak your mind at this job, and tell it like it really is on a regular basis? How did that work out for you? Not too pleasant, right? Uhg, I've been in some politically hot spots in the office world for being young, naive and earnest enough to think I was helping out with all my insight. Made work hell, because, while I did have great ideas to streamline administration and the overall effectiveness of the office, I was stepping on the toes of all the other people there, including my direct supervisor. Nobody wanted to hear my good ideas except the very top people who were delighted by my insights. Too bad they didn't sit in the cube next to mine because work was hell.

What about Hillary. She turns around all the time and lies a lot, right? But I bet she knows how to work the system and I bet she can get people to do what she needs to have done, fast. Rolling Stone wrote about how she recently requested nearly 1.5 million dollars in budgetary awards this year for the Abyssinian Development Corporation and the Pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church, the biggest church in Harlem, shortly thereafter endorsed her campaign. RS treated it like they were uncovering another Dick Cheney gets rich off of Halliburton contracts piece. That Hillary Clinton is doing whatever it takes to get elected (duh.). Umm, isn't backing the official who will do the best for you and yours a main principle of democracy? And is not choosing the candidate you think is best, for whatever reason you have, what our electoral system is supposed to be all about? The Pastor's people will benefit, Hillary will benefit, nice system.

All this talk about a new Washington freaks me out a little because so many people are buying into it. Am I only the only one who read Plato's Republic? I don't think human nature has evolved one bit in the past, say, 2300 years, or so. Anyone driven to lead a society isn't fit to lead because of that very drive. And only when a philosopher, who has no interest in leading, but the ability to discern the difference between what is and what seems to be, leads can a society achieve it's greatest potential. And is this ever going to happen? No! Why? Because we are all a bunch of people and whenever you put a bunch of people together it tends to get ugly.

And so, my point today: there is no truth in politics and this is the best system we have. Now let's just move on and get some work done.

Boxed in and Overdrawn Out

What a day. This morning the kiddos and I set out for a day of shopping at our favorite box store and our least favorite box store. I won't use any names here, let's see if you can guess. The favorite: wide aisles, designer names, flattering lighting, nifty television advertisements that make shopping there seem fun and, even, hip. The least favorite: Horrible lighting, dirty carts, aisles overcrowded with bargains, eating up America, I've never been there when I haven't seen some awful aspect of humanity (today it was the a text book mullet, which wasn't really so bad when you consider all the truly awful things out there). Actually, I was probably that awful aspect of humanity to some other woman. I saw her look away from us, but first I saw the disdain in her eyes. She had one sweet baby and was having one of those blissful moments of new mother happiness with her one sweet baby, about 9 months old, I'd guess, sitting calmly in his seat on top of the cart. She is proud of how big he is, he can sit up now! They accepted a free sample of the blue fizz yogurt just after we did (WTF? Blue fizz yogurt?!) I was desperate for a diversion! So I got blue fizz yogurt samples, pushed them at my antsy, straining children, and moved on, somewhat frenetically, trying to focus on shopping and getting out of there. No such luck, as I heard the other Mom cooing at her baby who was enjoying his first sample out with mom, my oldest sounded like this, "I want more blue yogurt, please! I want more blue yogurt, please! MY SPOON! MMMYYYYY SPPPooooooooonnnnnn!!! Wahhhhh ahhhh Wahhhhhh! I dropped my spoon!!!" I would have leapt into action to save his spoon sooner but I was distracted by my youngest, I sounded like this, "Sit down, please. Sit down. Sit down, now! Please sit down. Sit down. Mommy would like you to please sit down in the cart. You must sit down. Standing is NOT an OPTION." She sounded like this, "NNNOooooo! NoNoNooooOO! No. No. NOOO! NOOOO!" I was frazzled. We rolled back around (with those gigantic two seater carts, it is more like a fancy K turn, other shoppers literally need to move out of the way) for another spoon from the Sample Lady, and that's when I saw the brief look of disdain. For a moment I was a deer in the headlights, caught in my own memory of giving some other struggling mom the same look back when I was the mother of one sweet baby, and not two very wonderful and beautiful and active and strong-willed toddlers. So we get the new spoon and Sample Lady says, "Here, you need these," as she thrust a handful of napkins at us. I hadn't noticed their dirty faces but sure enough they were blue and slimy and beneath the blue slime was most likely dried ketchup and chocolate milk from lunch at Fat Boys. I was in survivor mode - it started back at Fat Boys, but that's another story. There are no dirty faces in survivor mode.

Anyway, the point of this little rant is that I detest the big box stores and yet I go there. I feel dirty and ashamed. But, 10 lbs of King Arthur Flour for $4.66! 3 paint rollers for under $3! Everything is cheaper there! And they are the only ones with our particular brand of vacuum cleaner bags, so I have to go there, right? The worst thing about those box stores, even the one that I really like, is that I end up buying a ton of stuff I don't need and spending more money by virtue of going there than if I'd just gone to a shop here in town in the first place. Or rather, the next town, since our town is only good for antique shopping and being quaint. Which we love, but maybe isn't always so practical.

That is it. The time for change is upon us! Not only for me, but for all people out there, hoping to save a buck or two. This is very bold. I am about to make a statement. A VERY BOLD STATEMENT. I hereby declare to not shop in a big box store again (unless it is a home improvement store - baby steps, OK?). I vow to buy my vacuum cleaner bags from another source. My King Arthur Flour at the grocery store (for $2 more a bag!). And I bet I will save money in the long run. I have a friend who recently tested a similar theory by only shopping at the local healthy/all natural/organic food store for a whole month opposed to the more mainstream grocery store. The healthy store is way more expensive, but she actually shopped smarter and saved money over the course of a month. But that is just a deeper level of extremism than what I am proposing.

I challenge you to get out of the box too! Everybody claims to hate that big store with its blue fizzy yogurt samples, but it is always mobbed when I go there. Everybody should put their dirty secret behind them. I declare Summer '08 to be the year we all get out of the box!

Beauty's not skin deep

If only I was as hot as I think I am. In my mind, I'm a pretty smokin' babe. Somewhere between Sharon Stone (the intensity of her stare) and that chick from Bridget Jones' Diary (the way she exudes sensuality with her pouty 'good girl' look). Periodically, however, I catch a sight of myself in the looking glass and think, that's not what I look like. I mean, I am well presented. I look good. I could stand to lose a few (50) pounds, but even so, I look nice. I take care, most of the time, with my hair and clothes. I wear no make-up or just lip gloss (actually I think it is lip sheen by Mary Kay, I got it from my lovely and wonderful Aunt Linda) and I look great. But not HOT. Not like the image in my mind.

Today for instance, I walked into the bathroom to check myself out. The kids were in the shower, they love the shower and it gives me 20 minutes or so of time plus, they're really clean. But I digress. I walked into the bathroom to check myself out. I turned sideways, sucked in my stomach, arched my back a little, and thought, Not bad. Then I turned to face the mirror and happened to make eye contact with myself, chewing on a scone. It was burned scone, the one that was really burnt that nobody else wanted and so finally after looking at it for two days I started to eat it and then, with a big mouthful, walked in to the bathroom to check myself out, and check on the kids, of course. There I was. I had to breathe and my gut fell out. The sight of it sitting like a loaf of sourdough under my boobs caused my shoulders to hunch and then I looked up to my face and there I was, chewing. So then I just started laughing at how silly I am!

It is like the opposite of what anorexics have. I think I look great. But really I could and should lose some weight and tone up, etc. A friend once told me that my awesome body image is a really great, positive thing. But is it? I mean, is it great to think you are a lot better off than you really are because it makes you feel good? Couldn't this also be described as . . . delusional?

Well, that is certainly a path I choose not to wander down . . . but in the meantime, I wager if I was as hot as I think I am, I'd sure have an emmy by now. I'd use my hotness to do good for the suffering in far away lands and right around the corner, too. I'd be so fabulous in all those party pictures in Vanity Fair.

Wait a minute! I am so fabulous already! Better than an emmy, I am the sun and moon and stars in the sky to my little ones. For now, anyway, and that is my sole reason for being. Oh, right, and my husband too. And our dog. And my business. But you get my drift. Hey, wait another minute. . . . maybe I am as hot as I think I am. They say beauty is skin deep, but not so in my case. It goes way deeper than that. And I'd wager it's the same in your case, too!

Shazamm!

O Laundry Lady!

My mom did my laundry until I was 18 and she only stopped because I moved out of the house. I was one of those kids at school who didn't know how to use the laundry machines on campus. Or off campus. Or anywhere. Luckily I got a boyfriend quick and in a hurry who could a)teach me how to do laundry and b) just do it for me anyway.

Years passed. I learned laundry. How to separate it, wash it, pull out things that shouldn't go in the dryer, even how to hang it all on a line. But I was never good at laundry and certainly never have enjoyed laundry. When I lived in the city, the first time around, down in 9th street between 2nd and 3rd, I used to sit in this dive bar across the street from the laundromat while the machines did their thing. There were times when I even brought my laundry to the bar to fold it afterwards - and there was smoking then, gross, right? Then, thanks to gentrification (caused by the likes of me moving into the neighborhood), the joint shut down and reopened as a swanky little club that frowned on laundry folding. Luckily right about that time I moved into a fancy American hotel in Budapest and had my things laundered by, I don't know, the concierge? When I went back to NYC I couldn't give up the luxury of having all my items delivered, cleaned and folded into neat little plastic bags. So, until I got too broke, I had my laundry picked up and dropped off. When I was that broke again, I found another cozy dive bar across the street from another local laundromat, though this time in Yorkville, not the too hip to afford anymore east village (I gave that apartment up thinking I would do better when I came back from Hungary. The arrogance of youth.) Finally, my husband, who wasn't yet my husband, joined me in NYC and took over the laundry. He even folded it in the Laundromat.

Years passed. We multiplied. Our laundry multiplied. And I took the enviable position of stay at home Mom in the great state of Maine. We bought our own washer and dryer! It's really hard for me to keep up with the laundry. I do at minimum 2 loads a day. A load of cloth diapers every day, plus one or two more loads of clothes or towels or sheets. It is making me crazy how the laundry never stops. It is never done. I have one friend who has 3 kids and claims to actually do laundry once a week . . . to completion. The whole task. Wash it. Fold it. And, the deal breaker for me, put it away. How is that even possible? She must not let her kids . . . play in the mud. Or last night's fire ring. Or wet their beds, pants, bathroom mats. Let's not even discuss poop. Is this not normal? My kids get dirty, they play outside - it is mud season in Maine, we have started burning old trees, etc., don't kids get really dirty up here? Am I doing something crazy? And if they don't want to wear a diaper, wouldn't I be remiss to make them do so? Isn't she just potty training, against my will and wishes, but so be it, she is? All these things generate a shit load of laundry and I simply can't keep up.

For months, no one in our house wore two matching socks on any given day. And now my son cries if he can't have pajama pants that match his pajama shirt - my girlfriend from Jersey says he is rebelling! Hilarious. And sort of sad, at the same time. So, I went out and bought a whole bunch of little white socks for the girl, little black socks for the boy, big black socks for the man and brown socks for me. Sock problem solved, but I still start every day sifting through the mountain of clean but unfolded laundry that sits besides my bed. It is so distressing. I'm sure I sleep poorly due to all that chaos lying just a mere foot or so from my slumbering self. I can't wait for summer and I'll just let the kids roam around naked. We live far enough back. Who cares. It'll save my sanity, It'll be for the good of us all.

The week before last my Mom came to visit. She did all our laundry and she even put it away. She promises me she likes it. She says that she and her husband compete to get to do the laundry first. She says he actually gets up before her just so he can start the laundry! She says she often wakes at 5am to the sound of the spin cycle and thinks, you bastard! before drifting back to a laundry-less sleep. That is what I need. Not my Mom, of course she'd be great, but she has her whole own life in the swamps of Jersey (thank you, Bruce Springstein) but someone to do all the laundry. A laundress. A Laundry Lady of my very own.

That is it.

O Laundry Lady! Wherever you may be this night, I need you. Heed my call, Laundry Lady, I need your Laundry insight! O mistress of soil and suds, Come. Come and make all right! O Laundry Lady!

Tax Time

Well this stay at home mom has been working quite a lot recently. I mentioned once, in a blog about increasing the income line of my budget, that I had put my own sign out front. That sign says Tax Preparer and these past few weeks I've been cranking out tax returns like there is no tomorrow. And soon enough, there won't be a tomorrow because the tax deadline is looming large. What a relief that will be, right? Work all done, taxes filed away, time to relax and rest with the kids instead of juggle them and my work, keeping the house tidy and organized so as not to frighten clients off - I mean, who wants crazy messy mom lady to do their taxes? And a yard strewn with plastic toys, newly revealed by the thawing snows of winter, and a foyer littered with muddy boots and cast off cloth diapers says nothing greater than, "Crazy Messy Mom Lady Right Here!"

Another time I mentioned that as long as I didn't try to do anything other than care for my children, I was able to keep my cool. Well, certainly I have had a bit of an adjustment these past few weeks. I really didn't put a lot of thought into opening a tax preparer business beyond making a few extra bucks to pay the plow man and maybe actually fill the oil tank up all the way at least once this season. In fact I have now had to really put a lot of thought into what I am doing. There is quite a demand for tax people in my neck of the woods and I have been a lot busier than I ever anticipated. It is great! And it is work. And it has gotten the old wheels turning in my brain, those entrepreneurial wheels that sort of screeched to a halt when a baby rattle fell into their works.

And now I find myself unable to stop! Tax season is over in a few days and to fill the gap until next year I am starting up a payroll business. And my children are no worse for Mom wearing business casual clothes around the house. They spend a lot of time clamoring around my office, my desk chair and my newly constructed desk (I stained a pre-cut piece of birch from Lowe's, laid it over two salvaged file cabinets, trimmed it all out with a nice herringbone I had picked up for $1 a yard a few years back) et voila, the tax lady is in. My son says things now like, "did you see my ad this week, Mommy?"

Who knows what tomorrow will bring to our family and my little ventures, but I can't help feeling that keeping ourselves open and accepting power over our income is a good thing, indeed, a necessity.

I am the couch, the couch is me.

SO I just realized that I am the couch and the couch is me. Yesterday I wrote how our couch is tired and old but too good to throw away. That's an analogy for me! I am tired and old. The kids are beating on me every day, I'm getting frayed around the edges. I've been peed on. But my husband still likes to climb on every now and again. I bring everyone in the house comfort. The dog sleeps in my lap. Yes. I am the couch and the couch is me.

Detective Work

Potty Training. Again. What a drag. The first time I was really ready for it, ready for the moment my son would start to use the potty. Eager, definitely thinking about it on a regular basis and talking about it periodically. Not so for #2 (har har). As baby girl starts to show interest in things peculiar to the facilities we must take her cue. But what a drag. Tonight I was a detective. I discovered a new, very fresh suspicious looking stain on the chaise lounge section of our couch. A really wet stain but I couldn't find an empty cup around, so . . . hmmm. Judging by the size of the stain I could imagine my naked girl perched there, the weight of her chubby little legs causing the spill to roll in telltale patterns. It's probably pee. But she's practically lived in the potty all night - how could one person, much less a little baby girl, wet so much? I walked away but later, after bath time, I went back downstairs and sized up the spot again. I sniffed it this time, just to rule out the pee theory, and it has no odor . . . but then, she's been drinking juice and water and milk all day, doesn't consume any pollutants, why should her pee smell? It's not like she has smelly old drunk guy at the bar pee smell. I remember this guy we used to call Frank the Bank until after a few years he morphed into Frank the Stank. Ah, my past . . . As for the couch, it needs a facelift anyway and this is the final straw. I'm planning to buy new foam rubber to make replacement cushions and several yards of fabric to recover everything. I think the people at the foam rubber store will even cut it to my specifications. There is a foam rubber store up here and I know there is one on Alan street (turns into 1st Ave.) in NYC. Otherwise, there are several online. Custom made slip covers are an affordable way to revamp a tired old couch. Of course, the couch needs to have good bones, a solid and well built framework to recover. Our couch is too nice to throw away, but it is so beat up from the kids, the dog and especially the frequent cushion and pillow cover washings. Removable covers are key but next time I will need more durable fabric, one that will hold up to many washings. Anyway, back to baby girl, we are so proud of her, of course, and I tell her so a lot. That's all there is to potty training, let them have accidents and praise them often. That and a little CSI work as well.

5 Signs Spring has Sprung!

Signs that spring has sprung here in Maine aren't always obvious, well, at least not if you are looking for things like warmer weather and blooming flowers. Indeed, we may be getting another snow storm on Monday. Luckily, though, spring snow isn't lasting (knock on wood.). Still, there are some sure signs of Spring and I've listed 5 of them here:

1. Spring Fashions -- Despite the frigid temps, Mainers start donning spring like fashions under their Carharts and Cabelas. Snow boots get swapped out for rain boots, fleece for Thinsulate. Even I have traded turtle necks for T-shirts under my sweaters. The first year we were up here, I was much weather-wimpier than today and was dressed for full blown winter on a sunny day in April when I was shocked to see Mainers at the grocery store wearing shorts and jellies! The shock was, of course, over the jellies. Where did they even get them?

2. Maple Syrup Sunday -- Today is, in fact, Maple Syrup Sunday, a day when the local syrup producing farms open their sugar shacks for all to see how they boil the sap down into that delicious stuff we love to eat on our pancakes. That's right, sap, from trees. Maple trees. Contrary to what Aunt Jemima and Mrs. Butterworth may tell you, real Maple Syrup is made by tapping maple trees in the early spring, collecting the sap and then boiling it down. It takes about a gallon of sap to get a half a pint of syrup. The price doesn't seem so high now, does it? And ooooh, man, it is sooo good. Nothing compares with fresh maple syrup. Yum.

3. Egg Hunts! Every community around sponsors an Easter Egg hunt with an appearance by the Easter Bunny! We went to one at a local firehouse and the Rabbit arrived on a fire truck. It was thrilling. I kept an eye out for any trouble, because I've heard of poor egg hunt etiquette in other places (http://www.autoreviewonline.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=14227) but there wasn't any. All the children had smiling faces and baskets of plastic eggs filled with toys and candy. Then, the Easter Bunny bought the plastic eggs back for 1 cent each so he could be sure they were all recycled. My son won a raffle! And his prize was a toy gun - shocking right?! But it blows bubbles and he loves it. He asked if he could kill the dog with it, I thought, hmm, we should be so lucky, but said, "no, honey, this gun will just blow bubbles at her." Our dog is very annoying, but we do love her, but I digress. . . .

4. MUD. Maine's spring is also commonly known as mud season. As the snow melts, the earth can't absorb it fast enough, I guess due to the amount of ledge? Or maybe just the volume of water. Anyway, it is super muddy here and everybody walks around in muddy boots and shoes for a few months, right up through black fly season.

5. Black Fly Season - This is a time in late spring, generally from Mother's Day to Father's Day when these gigantic gnats come out and eat you alive. They are vicious and leave blood running down from their bites. They get little kids behind the ears and dogs on the belly. Insidious creatures - too bad our bubble gun won't kill them!

Gosh, I hate to end with black Fly Season . . . How about we end with wildlife instead. What I have noticed so much this spring are the three deer that are living in the woods where we've built our home. I'd normally call it "our yard" but really it is more their yard, at least it used to be before we came. We have this big doe and a medium size one and then a little baby one and they eat from our bird feeder every morning and evening. We didn't see that all winter, so they must be a sign of spring here in Maine. Nice, right? Happy Spring every one!

Drastic Measures

It wasn't until I had kids for awhile before I realized I was doing things I once said I'd never do before. It is so easy to look at another family and think, oh, we'll never be like that, before you really are like that. When I was pregnant with our son, friends of my husband came to visit with their two small children, I believe they were 2 and 4 years old. At that time, we lived in a tiny apartment in Manhattan and were not set up for children at all, certainly not for toddlers. But, we didn't know that. We thought our 750 square foot apartment was huge (compared to our last two places in the city it was pretty big - it was about 10 feet wide and 75 feet long, no doors, what is known as a 'railroad'). We probably told our unfortunate friends, who were crossing the ocean to stay with us, that we had plenty of room. Uhg. If I'd known then what I know today I would never have considered inviting them to stay with us in such a place, or else if we did invite them I would have prefaced it with dramatic warnings, like, you will be forced to sleep together in one room, there will be no door to shut and separate yourselves, you will be staying with non-parents who think they understand parenting because they are pregnant and reading lots of parenting magazines and what to be expected books . . . Oh, they deserved a warning. I think at one point I actually expressed concern that their boys might pee on the furniture when they were running *gasp* diaper-less after a bath. Man, I ought to repent for that one.

Anyway, the point is, or was, that the Mom was having a birthday and all she wanted was to go out shopping by herself. My husband and I whispered together about how sad this family was that all the Mom wanted in all of the bright big city was to get to go out alone for a few hours and try on clothes, totally unmolested by her kids. All she really wanted was to get away from her family. Just for a little bit. Oh, we said, we'll never be like that . . . we laugh about it now, we laugh at who we used to be.

Today I spanked my son.

One of my I nevers. It was horrible and I have no idea if it was the right thing. Here is what happened - he bit his baby sister and broke the skin. She bled. Now this is probably my fault because baby sister has a bit of a biting issue and we have laughed that she learned it from our awful little biting dog. So now big brother may think that, hey, she bites and they think it is funny. Or else, maybe he thought, hey, she bites, I'll bite her back. Or who knows . . . the thing is, he did it 2 days ago and left a big, mouth shaped bruise. I gave him a time out, we talked about it and then we talked about it some more. He apologized, he studied the bruise, I thought it was a done deal. But I thought wrong.

When I discovered the bite today, I took little sister, who was sobbing her hurt cry into her brother's room. He was standing with his hands over his eyes, his admission of guilt. I asked, "did you bite your sister?" he said, "Sure, I did." I showed him what he'd done and said, "now you will have a spanking." But first I dressed her wound and calmed her down. And then I went back to his room and sat on the bed and pulled him across my lap old school style and gave him 3 spanks.

Oh God.

Parenting is so hard.

If somebody, like a random stranger, drew my child's blood I would totally flip out on them but what do you do when it is your own child who has drawn the blood? Uhg. I resorted to drastic measures. Drastic Measures.

Simple Soup

How to cook, how to cook. Quite a conundrum for some. I'm here to set the record straight - cooking is easy! I've decided to make a new blog about it - check out my new site, SimpleSoup. I remember how challenging and intimidating cooking was before I had my epiphany so I've decided to put together my recipes as well as techniques for preparing them together in this new page. In addition to being tasty and easy to prepare, my recipes are wholesome and healthy. Oh yeah, and pretty inexpensive too. In fact, I started making a lot of items from scratch because it was easier on my grocery budget. Like pancakes, for instance. Why buy pancake mix at a premium when you can make chemical and preservative free pancakes for half the cost? Speaking of pancakes, it is Sunday morning, traditionally pancake day at our house, so have to skedaddle, or should I say, skegriddle? probably not . . .

Bon Appetite!

Lead From the Heart

Imagine a letter size sheet of paper, 8 and a half by 11, folded in half lengthwise. That's what's happened to my posture. My shoulder blades are slowly working their way towards each other, they're going to meet in the middle. Soon, I think. Here's what I have that the paper doesn't. A great hunch developing behind my neck, at the top of my spine. I'm folding in half. I'm not thin like a piece of paper, though, I am more like a top shoulder round in a family pack. Grab one of those bad boys and fold it in half and there's me!

How it happened doesn't matter . . . but I know I used to have great posture. I prided myself on my great posture, my great boobs pointing the way as I walked around, gazing down over my cheek bones, smiling at people, proudly, as if to say, look at me! Look at my great posture! Now I'm a sloppily folded, cheap piece of steak. I could blame it on breastfeeding. I could blame it on driving. I could blame it on curling around a pint of Harp at my local pub for hours a day every day for years too numerous to record. I could blame it on the calender, the sun, the moon, the Moonpies I ate last week on vacation, but really the cause of my condition doesn't matter. Here's what matters, I'm going to stop the fold.

A few days ago, I started leading with my heart. If you've ever practiced yoga, you know what I mean. For those who haven't yet had the pleasure, do this: pull your shoulders back and lift your heart towards the ceiling. Now, drop your should blades by trying to pull them away from your earlobes. Are you with me? Your chest should be reaching up and out, your back slightly arched, your shoulder blades back and down. It feels awkward and unnatural, at least it did for me at first, because I have been folding up for years now, but as I grow accustomed to my new posture I like it!

I'm not alone, I saw hundreds of folding women last week on our vacation. Perhaps leaning over the umbrella stroller at the alligator wildlife park made me aware but once I started to notice I saw women all around me with the same concave posture as me. And I thought, what body language is this? We're all folded in half, right down the middle, shoulders wrapping outwardly, hearts shrinking inwardly. What does this mean? I don't know. Maybe nothing but bad posture. But I do know that I didn't used to be this way and that something about leading with my heart is satisfying, more satisfying than just sticking my tits out. It is the very idea of leading with my heart that I really love. Like a small spiritual step, an affirmation that the heart and what is in the heart should lead the way, light the path (cue in "Love is My Religion," Ziggy Marley). Either way, I look a lot better, so there you go, my message for today, follow your heart.

Vacation from Vacationland

Travelling with small children . . . ah, the family vacation. Such fond memories from my childhood. Our family took an annual car trip from New Jersey to Florida to see the grandparents. I recall hilarious exchanges with my brother in the back-back of our Volare station wagon as we barrelled down I-95. Travel was simpler then. Billboards didn't contain smutty ads and we were free to roam around the car, car-seatless. Ah, the 70s. The free-wheeling, free-loving 70s when 70 mph was speeding, not the speed limit.

Our family is on vacation this week and just like the family vacations of my youth, we are in Florida visiting the Grandparents (and the great-grandparents, too!). We didn't drive, we flew, and all in all the travel wasn't so bad. Our vacation started out with a bout of violent vomiting on our Son's part. Airport check-in was easy, the children were well-behaved, we did not get searched at security. All was well. We found our way to the Wolfgang Puck bar, reflected on how airport food has improved and drank two of the extra large (for just $1 more) beers while the kids climbed around on the comfy leather seats. Afterwards, we split up and followed the children around. I took the girl, she was very cute as she ran from traveler to traveler and sneaked a touch at their carry on bags. I was drunk enough from the beer I wasn't even upset when her cheap disposable diaper failed us both. The flight was smooth, one of our party cried and struggled for 2 of the 3 hours, but overall it could have been worse. She bit me but it didn't break the skin. It was a great trip. My only regret was not wearing snot-colored clothing because after a few hours of holding our 28 pound "infant" in my lap I was very nearly smeared entirely over my poor choice of a black shirt. Everyone knows how snot-revealing black is so I really should have known better.

After arriving here and settling in for two days, we loaded up into my Dad's big SUV and drove just over 600 miles in just under two days to see the great-grandparents. The travel part was not much fun, although thanks to our son, who claimed to need the restroom every 20 minutes or so for a large part of the trip and had to be availed since he is, after all, just 3 years old, we got to see many road-side stores and attractions we normally never would have. Most memorable sight: alligator heads and Florida oranges, stacked neatly together and priced just right.

Vacation from Vacationland isn't over yet, but I offer these tips to other intrepid travellers out there:
1. Wear snot-colored clothing, even if your child is well. Undoubtedly you'll be snotted, but you can maintain an unsullied appearance.
2. DO NOT attempt to spend the night in a double hotel room with two little ones unless you have plenty of alcohol on hand and a very good sense of humor, as well.
3. Be sure to have a fade function on your vehicle's stereo so you can drowned out the crying from the back without blasting their little ears.
4. Be sure to see roadside attractions through the eyes of your little ones. It is a very exciting and scary world!
5. Save several days for just hanging out. Life at home is so planned and scheduled, let life on vacation unfold on its own.

More tips are sure to come, but for now, that is all from this Vacation from Vacationland.

Good versus Evil . . . Debt

I set out to write this piece with good debt personified as a white night, galloping across some highlands, like I’ve only read about in 19th century English romances, covered with wild flowers of gold and red and soft yellow, dancing in a May breeze, set against a back drop of the most brilliant, azure sky. And bad debt, of course, would be a black night with red glowing eyes, riding through the lowlands of dark mystery and seductive beauty, where giant old growth trees abound and mossy crags of peat and rocks are hiding places for his victims, scrabbling along , close to the ground, hoping to escape his mighty sword (imagine sardonic laughter here). (and again here.)

But then it seemed too much like a Capital One ad.

So instead, I offer you my simple definition of “Good Debt.” Good debt is any debt accrued for an item or service necessary for basic human survival and education. Shelter, medical treatments (in America, that is, since we don’t have universal free healthcare), a car under certain circumstances, these are things worth borrowing money for, good things, good debt. Provided you can afford the home or car payments, that is, and afford them with enough money left over to pay your other expenses with cash. In my opinion, education and medicine are two things that ought to be free and should not be compromised because of budget.

Ideally we would all pay up front for our homes. But most people could never save up $230,000, or even $130,000, for a home in any reasonable amount of time while paying rent on another place. Yes, borrowing for a home is a good thing. Borrowing against your home later on, after you’ve built up some equity, well, that is never a good thing, no matter how they sell it to you. There are no easy outs of credit card debt, which is something pretty evil I’d like to look at for a minute.

Bad debt is paying more for something than it is worth because of the finance and interest rates. Pretty much all consumer debt is bad debt and most people end up paying many times over what a particular item originally cost. The credit card companies make it very easy to accrue debt, take cash advances, get in over your head. Just spend as much as you can, whether you have it or not, and then instead of paying for it with money, transfer it to another creditor or borrow the money against the roof over your head to pay. Eventually the bottom falls out, there are no more transfer options, the enticing opening rates are long gone and the fees start to multiply. It is not unusual to end up in a pile of month old mail, face down on the carpet, softly banging your head against the floor, a sinking feeling of despair sitting like so much bile in the pit of your stomach as you wonder how on earth you are going to pay all these bills, as you realize that as much as you are paying, the balances keep increasing because of the insane loan sharky interest rates and fees.

At least that is what happened to me. How I got there doesn’t matter. There is where I ended up and by the grace of my lucky stars someone turned me on to a company called Debt-free America, a non-profit debt pooling program that turned it all around for me. Real quick, what they do is take over your credit card payments, automatically deducting one lump sum from your checking account each month. Then they get the creditors to lower interest rates, forgive some fees, behave like civilized people. And in return you promise not to take on any loans or credit of any kind until your debt is paid off – for me, it’ll be 5 years, ending up in summer ’09, woohoo! They force you to pay with cash, if you break your end of the bargain, all deals are off and the credit card companies can go back to their evil ways. They are the true evil doers, by the way, but that’s beside the point.

The point is, if you are sinking in bad debt, there is a solution and it doesn’t involve another loan or moving your debt to another lender. I wonder why we don’t hear more about these non-profit debt pooling programs. Well, you’ve just heard about them, right here, so go get set up and start digging out. And then you’ll be able to qualify for some good debt of your very own!

Hot and Steamy Date

oooooooh, yeah, that's it, just like that, rub my sinus cavities, rub them real good.

Ahem. Yep, that's about the size of it, that's a hot and steamy date for us. Sitting together in a steam shower, suffering with swollen and inflamed sinuses, hoping we stumble onto that sinus pressure point of lore, the one that magically triggers a great sinus flood. Where is it? We need to find it! We frantically seek out the magic button hidden somewhere beneath our eyes and next to our noses, looking for relief.

What have we become? An old married couple? Is a hot and steamy date really a sick-fest in the shower? We used to be a 'hot' couple, in the 1970's disco sense of the word. Now we sit in the shower discussing our bulging midriffs and our equally bulging, at least that's how they feel, sinuses.

Here's the best part, we stepped out of our steamy shower feeling satisfied, we put on our flannel pajamas, and we slept the sleep of babies (in our house that means with a lot of nocturnal disturbances, but hey, it's the best we can do). How'd it happen? As for the sinuses, like this: start at the corner of each nostril and massage in a circular motion, towards the nose, almost closing each nostril, 10 times. Then massage beneath the inner corner of each eye, again, 10 times. Next find the cavity behind the earlobes and massage 10 times. Finally, the ear lobe itself, 10 times. Repeat this 4 step process 3 times, alternating direction of the circular massage motions. Believe it or not, our nasal passageways opened up allowing us to breathe easier. I think the steamy shower helped too. And as for the rest of our satisfaction that night? I guess we've sunk into the comfort of married life, of family life, of each other. That's pretty nice, too. Although, I must say, I think I'm going to pull the disco ball out of the basement for next date night and see what unfolds.

Fear - It's Whats For Dinner

If there was a bottle of fear in the grocery store, would you buy it and feed it to your family? That was the thought in my mind yesterday morning as I by-passed the meat department at our grocery store. If you somehow missed the shocking footage from the beef processing plant out in California this past week, lucky you! It made its way into our cable-free, Fox-free home via the Newshour on public TV. And I can't shake the image of the fork lifted cow from my mind. It's enough to make one think of not eating meat anymore at all . . . and me likey like the steaky steak.

Have you ever been terrified? Not a little scared but truly terrified, fearing for your life, the bejesus scared right out of you? It happened to me once snorkeling in Saint John. There was an amazingly beautiful school of friendly little blue and silver fish, there must have been thousands of them from the sea floor to the surface, and to increase my awe and wonder I swam right through the middle of them and saw TWO GIANT SHARKS!! I screamed out loud under water and my husband swears he could actually hear it and I swam away like an Olympic athlete! Ok, they weren't sharks, rather some big fish eating fish having a rudely interrupted breakfast, but for a few seconds I perceived them as Jaws incarnate and man oh man I was so sickeningly scared. That's how the cows must feel. That fear adrenaline that coursed through my body probably courses through the cows' bodies, right? And then we eat it in our hamburgers, our meat sauces, our beef stroganoff. We say, "take two more bites and then you may be excused," to our babies.

Every farmer worth a salt will tell you an animal brought to slaughter must be kept as calm as possible. It's not that they feel bad for the creatures; it is that they know stressed and bruised meat won't sell (or shouldn't sell as the USFDA decided this past week). Scared animals make bad meat. The meat manufacturers know this. Dr. Temple Grandin knows it. She is a professor of Animal Studies at the Colorado State University who possesses the unique ability to think like an animal. Dr. Grandin has designed humane cattle and pig processing plants and is responsible for the humane slaughter of half the animals in this country.

But how do you know where your meat came from when it is neatly packaged on a slab of styrofoam at the grocery store? For now, we can't. And for now I am going to buy local. Living here in Maine enables us to buy meats from local farmers, slaughtered locally. I'll fit it in my budget, because it will cost more, but so be it. We can eat less meat of greater quality. But for many of you, living in places where you can't buy from the farmer, or deciding it won't fit in your budget, what are you to do? I bet even organic cows get scared when they smell the blood at the slaughter house. I bet even my local cows get scared, but hopefully it only lasts less than a second . . . fear - it's what's for dinner.

Competitive Parenting

Besides not having a Primary Election, there are a lot of things that just don't seem to be done in Maine - for the greater good of us all, I should add. For instance, we don't look twice at a blue tarped house, we don't consider 8am "very early," we don't need traffic lights because we drive courteously and we don't engage in Competitive Parenting.

Competitive Parenting is the practice of one-upmanship in regard to the progress your child is making in his or her development. It is reaching for (and creating) advantage over other children so that yours will get into a better pre-school, school, college, career, life. Experts say competitive parenting occurs to the detriment of the children and that's no wonder, is it? Pushing your child into classes, lessons, sports, etc. rather than just letting them choose their interests and have fun can't be a good thing, can it? But I think Competitive Parenting is most detrimental to the parents themselves.

(I was looking for a great definition of Competitive Parenting and stumbled onto this article in the Boston Globe which is worth a read if you're looking for a chuckle. http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2006/09/25/this_week_in_competitive_parenting/)


As I write this I think of the other Moms I know and am friendly with - we are a large and diverse group. There isn't a mother amongst us who doesn't want the best for her children and for them to attain success in all they do. Some of us are more liberal, others more conservative, some more eco-aware, some more churchy, but for the most part we are able to parent our kids and share our weaknesses and fears with each other in the process.

That I can admit to threatening my boy with not only going back to work, but going back to work in NYC and sending money for a babysitter, to my group of girlfriends is a good thing. And that I can share this and not be met with revulsion and judgment, but rather, understanding and sympathy and comments like, "I am so glad you shared that because I just fake-threatened my girl that she wouldn't be able to go on holiday with us!" is a wonderful thing. We've all had moments we are not proud of in raising our children because full time parenting can be so trying. Every child is different, every day is different, every challenge is different and there is no one right way to approach it. If it weren't for my fellow Moms, no matter how different they are in their political/religious/fundamental views, who would I commiserate with? And if I were unable to commiserate with this very varied group of women, how would I know I wasn't the only one who sometimes felt like/became a crazy lady, shrieking at her babies because they don't listen to whatever request for the 18th time in the last 5 minutes for the 12th time on a particular day and it is only 1 o'clock. What a lonely existence it would be without the shared stories of failure and success in a group of women who are not judging one another or comparing their kids to one another's.

Maybe it is a survival thing, because the climate here can be tough and there is a real sense of being able to rely on one's neighbors if necessary. Or maybe it is a "from away" thing, just like living in an expatriate community overseas, that makes the group supportive and accepting because many of us share being from someplace else. But whatever it is, we don't seem to partake in Competitive Parenting here in Maine, and that, like slowing down to let somebody in on the road, like grass-roots government, like being able to call a friend at 8am, is a good thing.

Democratic Caucus

What a concept: 100 people or so gather in the local gym and then literally divide up by candidate and organize themselves enough to count heads. If you are from a caucusing state you might think it old hat, but me, I'm from Jersey and we have a primary there. Before this year I never picked a party, I always liked to maintain that I was independent, middle of the road, a free wheeling social commentator of no particular party (aside from the party that always seemed to generate wherever I happened to be drinking that day). But this year it was important to go and caucus, as a Democrat, because really I always voted straight down the Democratic side anyway except for that one time when I think I voted for Ross Perot -- is that even possible? What can I say? I really loved his budget pie charts.

Well this year I live in Maine and so I went with a few hundred of my fellow townspeople and those from neighboring towns to the middle school gym - which is a trip and a half by itself, it is so old timey! Here is how it looked - not the gym but the people there. There were about twice as many Barack people as Hillary people. The Barack people had lots of babies and children running around and I was sorry I didn't bring my kids to run around too. The Hillary people had a lot of "ladies" in sweater sets and then a lot of ladies traveling together as part of a set, if you get my drift. There were some speeches by volunteers and then the five towns represented split up into their respective areas of the room. My town had 98 people standing and somebody was to volunteer to be the caucus secretary. That's where I stood up - I was kidless and wanted to make the most of my civic duty. As secretary I took some notes, we did some caucusy stuff and then the caucus chairwoman said "Hillary people over here, Obama people move over there." And that was it. There were twice as many Obama people and for a few minutes everyone was watching them dicker around trying to agree on an easy head count method. Then I noticed the Hillary people quietly forming rows of 5 until they were counted with nary a word. Everyone laughed - the Obama people yelled that the Hillary people were so militant and the Hillary people yelled that they had gotten the job done fast.

It ended up that from my town, Hillary got just 3 delegates and Obama got 6 - as secretary it was my pleasure to record the names before taking my leave into the snowy, icy night. And that was the Democratic Caucus, mid-coast Maine style.

Controlling the Budget

If you've read my earlier posts, you will know I have an awesome and amazing budget spreadsheet. It is a tool I use practically every day (practically in both the sense that it's just about every day and the use of the budget is very practical). In a nutshell, you budget out your whole year on a weekly basis and each week has a bottom line which should match the amount left in your checking account after all income and spending for the week are recorded. Each week's bottom line is added to the income of the next week and then expenses are deducted leaving you with an amount that should again match the checking account. I am so wildly excited about my budget tool that I thought I'd put it in a box and sell but, alas, someone beat me to it! No kidding, the same exact idea and approach to budgeting! No such thing as new ideas. Anyway, you can have mine for free! Just send me an e-mail and I'll send you my budget spreadsheet. But that is not what this post is about. This post is about those items on the budget you can control.

Controllable line items: spending money, gas, groceries, and income are a few to start out with. My favorite one to control is INCOME. There are lots of easy ways to increase the income line of your budget besides the obvious, though not always possible, getting a job/getting a raise at existing job. Sell something on e-bay or Craig's List or, like we do in Maine, Uncle Henry's. Have a yard sale, though it isn't really the season now, is it. Start a business from home - I just put up a sign myself! Take in some freelance work from whatever your career was before having kids, write a blog and sign on with an internet ad service, baby sit for working moms (I'd stick a needle in my eye first, but hey, some of you might love other people's kids like I don't). Get creative and increase your income - you are in control of this one and as quickly as you accept this power you will see how to use it.

Groceries are another easy item to control but it takes time and planning. This will deserve a separate post, but quickly, this is what I do and I feed my family very well on very little. Write out a dinner menu for the week (lunch is typically leftovers and breakfast is a rotation of cereal, oatmeal, pancakes, eggs). Take your menu to the pantry and see what you don't have to buy to prepare it. Make grocery list accordingly. Then, price out the list. Anyone who has done some shopping has a general sense of what things cost (or else 'The Price is Right' wouldn't have ever been a show, right?). Tally it up -- did you make your grocery budget? Need to shave a little? Start with simple swaps - chicken thighs for chicken breasts. Top round for london broil. OK, now tally it up -- still off the mark? Make some bigger adjustments - cancel one dinner and have breakfast for dinner that night. Eliminate fresh broccoli for frozen peas. Pull that frozen poultry out of the freezer and utilize it this week. Another way to start is with the weekly sales flyers - base your menu on what's on sale and then go through the steps I briefly described above.

Gas and spending money go together and are very easy to control. Stay home. Just gracefully bow out of whatever thing you think you need to be at and stay home instead. The world will still turn and even better, you will be on budget. Pretend it is the olden days, pre-credit cards, and just don't go out and buy gas or anything else when the budget is tight. Instead stay home and color with your kids or make money some creative way.

Controlling the Budget is so doable once you realize you have the power. Many folks out there think they have to do and buy certain things and very simply put - they do not. Once you accept this you will see how to control your budget even when you are living paycheck to paycheck, digging out of debt, paying student loans, have little kids, etc. It is an awesome feeling - controlling the budget.

Negative Space

You need to know bad to know good, right? Live the ying from time to time to get the yang. Just so, you must see the negative space of an image in order to see the image itself, the positive space. The image wouldn't exist without acknowledging the space surrounding it, that so-called negative space.

Living in a family is a positive place. So then the negative space surrounding that family is being away from it. I must spend some time away from my family in order to see what a beautiful thing we are.


A chance to miss them. So many of us stay at home moms/dads/etc. don't have this chance but I think it is really important in order to appreciate how wonderful being a part of a family is. Too often I lose track of the greater purpose and get caught up in the day to day drudgery that goes along with staying home with little children. The constant messes, the inane conversations about whether one can or can not walk on ice in rain boots without slipping (I still maintain, should you ever read this young son, that one can not, which is neither here nor there because you have to wear your snow boots when its icy and snowy outside), the multiplying, regurgitating laundry pile. This drudgery can so easily take over - sometimes I forget I chose to raise my kids full time. Sometimes I lose my patience and yell and then think - is this the best I can do? Maybe I should just get a job and put them in daycare . . .

But then, I take a day to be on my own, leave them with their Dad and do something by myself and it is like suddenly seeing the negative space of an image. You know that 'Aha Moment' when you see the face between the vases? That's when I get my chance to miss them and then the image is so much clearer for me again and I can see them for what they are, the positive space.

So, go on, take a moment to dwell in the negative space outside your family. It's a requirement to be an excellent full-time mom/dad/etc.

The Nose Knows

Here's a neat sign that things are going well in your household -- recently a friend of mine was watching my kids whilst a group of our brawny husbands, with me as supervisor, of course, picked up a free piano. Now, Baby wears cloth diapers and typically when in the care of others I don't impose our healthy diapering on them, but this particular friend is a cloth diaperer herself and she took the initiative to change Baby the wholesome way, with cloth. OK, now I am getting up to the part where there is a good sign my home is being run smoothly. My friend was unable to locate the diaper pail to dispose of Baby's soiled goods. Let me just repeat that:

My friend was unable to locate the diaper pail to dispose of Baby's soiled goods.

HAH! In your face cloth diaper naysayers! Neither by sight nor smell was my diaper pail availed! That's because I launder diapers on a daily basis which requires just the wee tiniest, prettiest little retro number of a stainless steel pail. It has a nice plastic canister insert which I go ahead and rinse while the first cold water rinse is filling for my diapers. That's right, I rinse my diaper pail in the washing machine every day. It takes about 20 seconds.

Now if you have ever been to a home with a diaper genie or any other sort of modern apparatus that stores multitudes of poop and pee disposables, with the poop and pee still intact, mind you, well then you know that awful "sanitized" odor that goes with it. Absolutely repugnant. Cloth diapers are much cleaner than their chemical laden disposable counterparts, but are popularly considered to be quite the contrary. Well, the nose knows, doesn't it.

Living Nap to Nap

If you've ever lived paycheck to paycheck you know how stifling that can feel. The paychecks are often spent before they come in and then another week or two weeks or 15 days go by in anticipation of that next check. It is an awful and uneasy feeling - what if something goes wrong and the check is late or the wrong amount or *gulp* doesn't come at all?

Well, many a stay at home mom/dad/whomever primary caregiver know a similar feeling: Living Nap to Nap. And let me tell you, it is no way to live! The kids become greater and greater obstacles to what you really need to be getting done thus planting the seeds of irritation and annoyance, maybe even worst of all, resentment towards your child. No indeed, not a way to live.

In the beginning of Baby's life, say the first six months or so, Baby is so easy to care for and be with. Like a large hand bag you can carry from room to room, in the brief time spans of wakefulness, Baby is often a pleasant observer of your daily routine, whatever it may be. Then Baby becomes mobile, but is still pretty easy to manage. And it is so thrilling when Baby first becomes interactive. A few months later Baby becomes more demanding. The pack-n-play isn't enough anymore and the swing is so dull. Baby wants to explore and needs full supervision. That's when it is easy to slip into the Living Nap to Nap scenario because, really, the only time to get anything done is when Baby is sleeping. But its all good, its even smooth sailing! Baby takes two naps a day, like clock work. OK, it is not as much time as you really wish you could have but it is dependable and manageable. For, oh, maybe another 6 months if you're lucky. Then, Baby, who is now not only walking, but running and climbing on everything dangerous she can find, starts skipping naps, refusing to take them altogether or else going down for shorter periods of time each day. That's when you start freaking out because suddenly the paychecks aren't reliable, they're short or deposited into the wrong account or they just don't come in at all. And your time has already been spent! You have things planned for that naptime, important things to get done, like washing your hair or paying the bills.

Living paycheck to paycheck is a drag but you can get out of that cycle. You can increase income, lower expenses, get creative with your neighbors cast off roosters . . . you can change that scenario. And so can you change the nap to nap cycle. Not by forcing Baby down but by just changing your perspective and there are a number of ways to change it. Here are two specific ideas: 1. Stop getting things done, things will wait. 2. Start letting Baby be more independent while awake and try to get things done with her in the room but playing quietly on her own (LOL).

Personally I am not woman enough for the latter option. Baby can only give me about 4 minute intervals to do anything non-Baby related. Provided I can get my work done in 4 minute intervals, I'm golden. But the reality of it is I just don't try to do anything at all while Baby is awake. Then whenever I happen to get something accomplished its a real boon to my ego. I feel like a super mom who is on top of the world. Like if I get the toilet cleaned (Let me just interject and say that I am not a stickler on cleanliness and used to be fine by cleaning the toilet 3-4 times a month but now I have, in addition to Baby, a 3 year old son who insists on peeing standing up so that toilet needs cleaning every day but if I get to it every third day I am doing good, even though our bathroom smells like the 4/5/6 stop at 42nd street in mid July, but that's a tale for another tell and anyone who isn't a crazy cleaning lady with a little boy knows the story already.) I'm totally psyched. As I mentioned in my aside there, I do have a 3 year old and so I know that a nap-less future is coming but I am not too scared because as she grows older she will become more independent as well and the Living Nap to Nap time will be a distant, bittersweet memory.

And until then I continue through our days trying to keep the house in order without Living Nap to Nap as best as I can. But I must say, Baby is sleeping now and so I think I'll go clean the toilet.

Mistakes in Marriage

Love and marriage: two peas in a pod, like white on rice, tea for two, you for me, tra la la la la laa. They just go together, right? Maybe not always. Recently I received an e-mail request for stories from people who knew they were making a mistake as they walked down the aisle but went ahead with it anyway. These stories are for a book some friend of a friend is putting together. A book about people who knew they were making a mistake but got married anyway. I've sure done things I knew I'd regret - now that I think about it, I remember shoplifting as a teenager and just having a sinking pit in my stomach, my internal dialog screaming, "no! stop! you're going to get caught!" and then, of course, getting caught. But shoplifting lipstick as a 13 year old is not the same type of mistake as committing to stay with one person, love and honor them, cherish them in sickness and health, for the rest of your life. Who walks down that aisle knowing it is a mistake and then what happens to them? kids, home, family pets, all that good stuff? It'll be an interesting book.

It got me to thinking about the mistakes I've made in my marriage. Here's what I came up with (maybe there will be more after another cup of coffee) Being Disrespectful. You know, when people treat those they love the very most with the very least amount of respect. Well, I am guilty of that from time to time. I guess I have new gratitude today that, even though we may not always treat eachother with the respect we deserve (it goes both ways) at least we are both on the same page in wanting to be here, in this marriage, together. I wonder, can you fake that? Those people who married in error, can they fake it til it works? You know, "Fake it til you make it?" Or, like that old tune, "Love the one you're with," and have it work? I guess we'll just have to wait for that book to come out.

Heat + Meat = Food

It's that simple. Everything else is just extra. OK, OK, there is a little more to cooking than just taking raw food and applying heat to it. But that was the thought that changed my approach to the kitchen. The first "real meal" I made was a chicken in the oven of my little apartment in 83rd street on Manhattan's far east side. With great bravery I took a whole chicken, put salt and pepper on it, a sliced orange inside it, and stuck it in the oven until it was done. To test if food is done, simply cut it open and take a look - is it pink? Are the juices reddish in color? It's not fully cooked, which would be OK if you were checking a nice steak, but for a whole chicken you want the juices to be running clear when you slice into it.

In thinking of yesterday's post where I so flippantly encouraged my readers to cook a whole chicken for 2 meals plus stock for soup, it occurred to me some of you may not be comfortable cooking meat. So I want to take the smoke and mirrors away from the cooking process, because really it can be just so simple. My first meal was awesome and all my friends were wildly impressed. It was so much better (and less expensive) to eat that chicken then our normal fare of pizza or diner take-out, which back in those pre-marriage/pre-kiddo days were our basic staples.

So don't be scared, go buy some meat and stick it in the oven. The end result will be good food and a lesson learned. Approaching your first meals in this way will enable you to experience the true flavor of the dish. Heat + Meat = Food.

Economy of Time

Lately my mind and activities have been all awhirl with one theme - budget, budget, budget. Money, money, money. I fed my family for two weeks on what was in the pantry already plus a whopping $11.84 worth of white gold, aka: milk. In thinking about running my household effectively and efficiently I have also realized the importance of running it well. You know, with the ability to partake in life's finer pleasures while still being on a budget. I just hate the word "frugal." To me it connotes cheap polyester knits stretched over hips too big from eating too many tator tots and corn dogs. No, I don't want any part of cheap eating and yet I am on a tight budget. The solution has been to prepare a lot of simple but delicious meals and bake a lot of bread. Cooking from scratch is so much more affordable than buying anything prepared and a ton more nutritious, delicious and safe. Safe, as in, no preservatives, no fillers, no chemicals.

Cooking from scratch is so efficient and delicious it makes one wonder why doesn't everyone cook? Time is an answer. But a false one, I think, because really, with proper planning and preparation cooking wonderful meals from scratch can be done with economy of time, that precious commodity. A girl could write a whole book on the topic - and maybe I will - but in the meantime, my simple advice is - just think forward. Like with the awesome and amazing budget spreadsheet where you do not spend a dime without seeing its impact over the rest of the year, don't cook anything without thinking about the next week's menu. And a week is a lot easier to get your arms around than the whole year.

So, what am I talking about, exactly? Here is an example of what I mean - You're making mashed potatoes for dinner - boil an extra 4 or 5 potatoes and stick them in the fridge. Tomorrow morning for breakfast fry them up, throw in your leftover veggies and a pat of butter and there - wholesome homefries for breakfast. Your family will be dazzled. Or, make a light potato salad for lunch - the cooking is done already so you can have fresh food in a matter of minutes. Another example - Toss a whole chicken in the oven for dinner. Serve the breasts for dinner tonight, pick the dark meat for chicken quesadilla lunch tomorrow and then boil the carcass with some onion, carrot, celery and turnip for stock. The stock is great to keep around for almost every recipe, or just turn it into soup. You are in the kitchen anyway, pre-cook for multiple meals. Everyone is eating healthy food, you are saving money and you've got the time to sit and read this post, or clean something, or play dinosaurs with your kids. See? Economy of time.

Survival Week

This has been Survival Week for our family - an idea I picked up in one of the women's magazines I peruse while waiting online at the grocery store. Since I am too tight to buy them I like to pick the longest check out line, ignore my kids for 5 minutes and read through the catchiest headlines. I saw one promising thousands of dollars worth of grocery savings and picked it up. Among the many tips, I saw an idea called Survival Week where you simply do not go to the grocery store. As items run out, move to more creative food sources in the pantry. Like, that box of Cheerios that has been on the shelf for who knows how long, probably since the little one started first eating solids to baking my own bread. The Cheerios, well, I am glad they are gone and promise not to feed my family stale cereal again. And the bread baking turned out to be totally easy, thanks to the KitchenAid I got for Christmas, and totally delicious and probably more nutritious than the preservative laden breads in the grocery store. We learned a lot this week. We learned that the kids do not need juice and after a day of whining and crying drink water again and even see milk as a treat (in a moment of desperation we also learned that last New Year's unopened sparkling cider, and I mean New Year's Eve 2006, is still good).

Why would I do such a thing? Not grocery shop for, as of today, 13 days? Money, of course. We've been in a tight crunch and I just want to get back on top of the budget. For the weeks leading up to the holidays grocery shopping was getting out of hand. No lists. No menus. Just running in for milk or juice and coming out $80 later - 3 times a week! I needed to break the cycle. And I wanted to get my kids and myself off of some of our bad habits - like juice and deli meats.

This week has jump started my newest money saving plan - buy in bulk once a month and buy necessities once a week. And to bake and make things from scratch more. This last idea is more nutritious and healthy than buying a lot of preprocessed foods, besides being cheaper, because you know exactly what is on the food and that there are no chemicals or other preservatives with who knows what lasting effects for our children. And, it is tastier too.

So, Survival Week? A success and I'll do it again only next time I will have a plan going in (as well as a few bottles of merlot in the pantry) rather than just not having enough money for food shopping without a credit card because heating oil was $3.43 a gallon this week!! But that's another story.

My Awesome Budget Spreadheet

Two years ago I created a budget spreadsheet that I reconcile to my checking account on a weekly basis. We get paid weekly so the spreadhseet is set up with a column for each week of the year. It is really simple - it is the weeks income less the weeks expenses = amount in checking account (hopefully plus) which is then added to the income of the next week from which you take the expenses of that week resulting in the balance in the checking account on the last day of that week, again, hopefully plus . . . but sometimes it is a minus and thats where I can move numbers around. And so on, for the whole year. My budget spreadsheet has enabled us to buy a house. Our budget is so tight but I feel really empowered when I look at my spreadsheet. I can actually see how the menu I plan for my family this week will affect the bottom line in 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. Or, to put it another way, how buying chicken thighs this week instead of chicken breasts will enable me to get my son Thomas the Tank Engine napkins for his birthday in August, instead of plain red ones. Personally I'd like the red ones but not my boy and it's his party, right?