She was never shy, but now, having given birth to two children in front of dozens of people she doesn’t know, it seem unnecessary to cover up. Strips in the family room, next to a pile of clean laundry. The kids and her husband are in the room, but who cares? Those kids came from her; it’s nothing her husband hasn’t seen before.
Across the room, she catches her husband’s eye. He’s grinning a la Cheshire Cat and raises his eyebrows suggestively.
“Oh stop it. This-” she gestures along her body with her hand, an otherwise alluring gesture were it not for her words, “isn’t attractive anymore.”
He doesn’t say a word, just continues to smile and stare. She reaches into the laundry basket, searching for a simple, unembellished black top to go with the comfortable gray pants. She almost doesn’t notice him sidle up behind her. He wraps his arms around her and hugs, rocking back and forth again to make his point.
As he walks away she smiles a little and says “Six years ago you wouldn’t have found this attractive.”
He still hasn’t said a word, but now she dresses with a quiet confidence.
Yep, I’m moving ye olde blogge host, and therefore, this site will be down for 24-48 hours depending on how quickly I can move it over and get it back up and running.
I’m catching up on my Google Reader, and some of you folks are writing some damn good stuff. Since you probably haven’t hacked my Google reader, there’s a chance you aren’t reading what I’m reading. (Though if you peek on the sidebar you CAN read what I’m reading. See that on the bottom right?)
Here’s what I think you’re missing:
Diapers and Wine: I love this blog. This post about her GPS is cracking me up. I nearly spit out my coffee. I’m also dying laughing at her Captain’s Log
Issa’s Crazy World: Issa is a good friend – a great friend. Her recent post about her 8 year old daughter left me with tears streaming down my face.
For a Different Kind of Girl: FADKOG usually posts something funny, quirky or silly – but this is sweet.
Princess Prose: A very well written post about leadership, the interwebs and responsibility and ownership.
Psychmamma: She hardly ever posts, but she’s very passionate about health related issues. Go through her archives while you’re over there, but you should definitely read her post about fighting H1N1 naturally - whether you plan on vaccinating or not.
But Why Mommy: She’s stepping out of her box and wearing some confidence-boosting lipstick. I applaud you, Renee – I always chicken out of red, too!
BERNTHIS.COM: I would totally hire her. Some days, I just can’t do it. But at those rates I hope she doesn’t expect to get reimbursed for travel.
If you asked a group of 10 people whether “honesty is the best policy” you’d probably find that about 8 out of 10 say Hell Yes and give you a lecture about the dangers and treachery of lying, tangled webs and whatnot. I don’t necessarily disagree – I’m quite honest on this blog.
As a general rule in my life, I try to live by this motto: “If you have the balls to ask me, I’ll have the balls to answer you.”
Maybe that’s not a smart motto. And Lord knows I don’t always manage to live up to it – but I try. I’m human, fallible, and it’s all I can do. I have the hardest time being honest with my family – my mother, brother, and sister – because since I was a teenager it was always assumed I was lying. It didn’t matter – I was lying. Sometimes it seems like I might as well – I mean, dammit, I’m going to be accused of lying anyway, right? So yes, sometimes I do lie to my mother, my brother, my sister. I think we all do from time to time. Even beyond the “I’m fine!” response to “How are you?” in the grocery store while you have tears pricking the corners of your eyes, or “I love it!” when you unwrap that birthday present to find an adult-sized bubble-gum pink sweater with a crude unicorn crocheted in the center.
Sometimes it’s just *easier* to lie than to tell the complicated truth. But usually it’s not.
Sometimes, *certain members* of my family would rather hear the lie – because the truth would cause a rift too big to ever cross again. Sometimes the lie is what we need to tell ourselves to get ourselves through the next day.
I’ve thought about honesty a lot and I do try to ensure I am as honest as possible. I don’t know if you can tell from any of my more recent blog posts, but I’ve decided that I can feel safe here – in this space – I mean, might as well go for it right? If the blog is found by someone I don’t want to find it, and they share they with my family… well it’s not like I haven’t been honest. I can at least say that. I won’t lie here. These are my feelings. This is my life as I see it. You don’t like it? Go see something else. Am I right? (Yes, yes I am.)
So. With that said, I was pretty pleased to see that Colleen and then Psychmamma had given me a little bloggity blog award. I don’t usually get these sort of things, or participate in memes, but this one goes along with my theme here on ye olde blogge, so here it is:
There are some rules for this award, but I’m not much for rules (unless I make them) so I’d like to do something a little differently. Normally, the rules are to say 10 honest things about oneself and pass this along to 7 others.
I’d like to challenge you.
I want you to write something completely, 100% brutally honest. If you can’t write it on your blog, but would like to get it up for the world to see, feel free to email me and I’ll post them anonymously here over the next week(or weeks, depending on how popular this is)(or isn’t, you might never see this again!)(or I could make shit up and post it anonymously. but that would sort of go against the essence of this huh?)(ok I won’t make anything up. I’ll leave that to someone funnier. Like Marinka. Hey, Marinka! This is a great idea for your next blog post!)
Write something honest. Post it to your blog. Comments on, comments off, I don’t care, but I want a link to it, dammit. If you don’t have a blog but want to own it, feel free to post it here in the comments. I may end up reposting your comment, so beware.
Hell even if you write it and save it as a draft and tuck it away in a dark, secret folder on your computer never to be opened again, just do it. This is a good exercise. And it’ll help get whatever is on your chest, off your chest.
I have a post started about my struggle with post partum depression that’s been sitting in my drafts folder for months. I am going to finish that post, however long it takes. And I promise you I will post it here as soon as I can.
Meanwhile, I will post 10 honest things about myself:
I hate loud chewers, lip smackers and people who swish the spit around in their mouth while eating. It makes me actually cringe. If I am sitting next to you at dinner and I start furiously digging at my ear with my finger, I am probably seriously annoyed by someone around us. If it’s just the two of us, it’s you. Stop eating. (just kidding on that last bit) (sort of)
I sing Backyardigan’s songs to myself when the kids aren’t around and I like it. One of my favorites is the Volcano Sister’s song, the one at the end where they almost blow up the volcano. That’s awesome.
I joined the Phineas and Ferb Wiki and read all about Dr Doofenshmirtz’s life.
I used to play the saxophone in middle school, but the only thing I remember now is Ode to an Orange.
I still don’t have my degree in anything, and a lot of the time that makes me feel like a gigantic failure.
The scars from my gallbladder surgery really bother me. It’s just three tiny incision points but they still bother me. One more thing about that region of my body that I despise. I even covered them with makeup the last time DaddyGeek and I had sex.
Sometimes I sweep the kitchen and then push all the dust and stuff under the stove instead of putting it in a dustbin and throwing it out.
I regret how little I remember of my life. I just have a bad memory. It’s depressing.
Sometimes I feel like all I do is bitch, and I hate that.
I like to take pictures of my feet when I’m in a random place trying to take pictures to “capture” the moment. I don’t know why. DaddyGeek makes fun of me for it and says I have a foot fetish. I do NOT have a foot fetish.
I like to think that we all have them. Even those among us who seem infallible, important, or otherwise set “above the crowd.” Hell, even the man that the majority of America deemed worthy to act as our President (that’s Obama, for those of you who were living under a rock) has a vice – his BlackBerry. First President ever to have a personal smart phone.
I took a cue from Colleen today and asked my husband what my vices were. Either he doesn’t know me very well or doesn’t understand what a vice is, because first he said “your mother” (ok, he totally presented an argument in which that made sense, but that’s a whole ‘nother post that you don’t want to read I’m sure) and eating at 2am.
So, yeah. Food. If you want to know where I am around 1-3am every single morning, it’s either a) my kitchen, standing by the counter eating whatever I could get my grubby paws on and checking my tweets and email on my phone as it charges or b) sitting on the couch in the dark, eating ice cream out of the carton while checking email and tweets on my phone.
Do you see a pattern? Food and technology. Color me surprised. </ sarcasm>
I’ve stopped buying things like Oreo cookies and chocolate bars and *real* ice cream, not in an effort to be healthier but because I know that I have absolutely no self control and I’ll probably eat myself into my grave if I leave these things in the house. It’s expensive, and yes it’s not good for me but mostly? It’s damn expensive! The food, the new clothes I have to buy and eventually the expensive liposuction and gastro-intestinal surgery I’ll need to keep up my habit.
Let’s not even talk about technology. I’ll admit, we do spend more than the average American family on what my mother calls the newest gadgets or, if she’s in a pissy mood, a total waste of money that you could be saving for a mortgage downpayment. Chalk it up to our age, our generation, and our proclivity for all things technological – that’s how we choose to spend whatever we deem as “extra” money.
Honestly most of what we receive are gifts – at a gift-giving occasion we tell our families exactly what we want and they can coordinate the cash. One big gift. I’d rather that than a bunch of things I might not use So I got a shiny new phone for my last birthday, hubby got a Kindle for his last birthday, he’ll probably get a shiny new phone for Christmas, and maybe me too. Because yes, I got a new phone last year but it’s not the latest greatest as of Christmas and I’d rather have that than shoes, accessories, clothes, money, jewelery or anything else you can think up.
So.
Vices.
You can pencil me down for technology (which is probably somewhere under Greed) and food (hi, Gluttony!) and we’ll call it a day.
—————-
Don’t forget to join in the fun! I know you’ve got a vice. Right? So either post about it and link it up, or go discuss in the comments at the Girl Talk Thursday blog!
It came up on Twitter yesterday, thanks to my darling husband and dear friend, that I can sometimes be a teensy weensy bit foolish. A doofus. A total #fail whale. I promised I’d blog about it because, well, it’s funny, and if I can’t laugh at myself then what can I laugh at?
The Toe Incident
Let me preface this story by saying that I have a horrible fear of all things creepy crawly. I can’t help it. I jump, I scream, I freak. My husband believes he might die in a car crash with me one day if I see a spider in the car because I’ll jerk the wheel into oncoming traffic. Our headline will read “Two Killed in Tragic(ally Funny) Car Crash – Spider in Custody for Involuntary Manslaughter.”
Right.
I don’t remember what day it was, or even what year it was. Suffice to say it was at least 6-7 years ago. I believe I was still living at home. (My memory is terrible, in fact it really bothers me that I can’t remember squat, so the fact that I remember THIS much is a damn miracle) My family (mother, sister, brother) usually congregate in the kitchen; it was almost literally the center of our home growing up. It was a small eat-in kitchen but it had a table and enough chairs for all of us. We would sit, and sometimes we would talk and read magazines and gossip, my mother, my sister and I. Those were some of my favorite times.
One such day, we sat ’round the table just as we normally do. My sister to my left, my mother to my right. The table was likely stacked with mail, magazines and discarded jackets and the like. We each probably had a Diet Coke to sip as we chatted. I sat on the chairs that my mother has recovered countless times (even adult children make big messes) with one foot crossed underneath me and one leg facing forward. I still sit this way often. My feet were bare – a trait inherited from my mother. We love bare feet in our family.
We sat and talked, and it may be that we discussed creepy crawly things and I was on edge. It may be that we were talking about recent TV episodes and I had no reason to be jumpy. However the conversation fell out, I was listening to the gossip when I spied something out of the corner of my left eye.
Me, in my head: OH SHIT. IT’S A BUG.
Me, out loud: [terrified screaming as I nearly leap out of my seat and bash my head on the ceiling cartoon-style]
My sister and my mother are also squeamish – my sister even moreso – and they asked with worried voices, panic creeping in at the edges: “What? What is it?”
Me: Oh. It was just my toe.
At this point I realize that I should have just said it was a spider, because the guffaws, hoots and chuckles coming from either side of me were enough to make me realize I would never, ever live this down. I was almost right. I might have lived it down if it ended there.
Not even five minutes later, I see something out of the corner of my eye:
Me, in my head: OH SHIT. IT’S A BUG.
Me, out loud: [terrified screaming as I nearly leap out of my seat and bash my head on the ceiling cartoon-style]
Me: Oh. It was just my toe. Again.
I expect my urn to have some sort of witty verse – maybe a haiku? – about how I scared myself with my toe. Twice. My own damn toe. TWICE. In the span of five minutes. TWICE.
The Car Incident
Stop rubbing your hands in glee, I can see you. No, I did not crash the car as a result of a spider. This is something entirely different. And, no, this is not the story of the time that I hit a snowplow with my car hard enough to break the plow off of the truck. In May. In New England. (i.e. No Snow.)
A few weeks ago I realized I forgot something in the back of the car. We have a Mazda 5, which is like a Soccer Mom Minivan Lite or something. It fits our family well. I loved this car until it attacked me completely unprovoked. Now, I have to say my feelings are mixed. If my little Mazda 5 could speak, she’d probably remind me that we hurt the ones we love. I’d probably tell her she’s a bitch. But that’s neither here nor there.
To the point.
I went to the back of the car and opened up the hatch-back trunk. It’s a pretty tall hatch back and the way it’s designed it swings way out, but I’m a smart gal, so I know that I need to step back in order for it to keep from clipping me. I successfully sidestep the Indiana-Jones style obstacle and grab whatever I need out of the back. I step back, reach up, and pull down the trunk using the nifty little handle, but I make a critical mistake; in my rush to get back inside (it’s a bit rainy out) I pull it down too quickly and fail to evade the deadly downward path of the door.
Scrrrraaaape.
The door makes contact with the bridge of my nose, scrapes my glasses off my face and continues further down to the tip of my nose until I stumble back in a muddle of pain and hurt feelings. I thought you loved me! I hiss, and bend to pick up my glasses. They’ve landed lens-down on the pavement. They are badly scratched. You whore! I’m angry. My nose is throbbing. I wipe off my glasses but I am too distracted by the huge scratch right in front of my right eye to see clearly.
As you see by the above picture, entered into Evidence on 10/19/2009, I was brutally attacked by my car. I’m pretty sure this means my insurance company needs to pay for my new glasses. And the eye exam. And maybe some contacts. And probably a pair of prescription sunglasses too. And emotional distress.
So. I dare you to beat that. That’s right bitches – gauntlet down.
I am not a crafty person. Have you ever been to Craftastrophe? If not give a click. Go ahead. See those things?
That’s what I’d end up with. But more poorly made, and with a warrant out for my arrest, because my probability of homicide goes up the more glitter, glue, felt, stickers and markers are around.
I made a “Good Job Sticker Chart” for Cupcake to use.
The Good Job Sticker Chart. Note my excited notes about prizes.
It took me a couple of hours. I am not lying. And yes, I know that the potty looks sort of like a sock. Cupcake tells me every day, ok? LAY OFF.
My mother and my sister are very crafty. My mother in particular. (Sidenote: they also love animals, and I’m not so fond. Switched at birth?) They will do any kind of craft be it paper mache or felt, clay or marker, anything.
The kids are lucky if I manage to get out fresh paper and some crayons from time to time.
I think the biggest issue is that I don’t like the mess. My house is by no means clean – but I just get a big ole’ icky feeling when I think of crafts and my carpets. Or my tables. Or my chairs. Or, anything frankly.
I was home alone today with Cupcake and Geeklet (usually I work full time) and I let her paint, but not before laying three trash bags on the floor, a towel on the bench and taping another trash bag to the table top with a stern admonition to not throw any paintbrushes. (The paint is washable. It comes right out. I don’t know what I’m worried about)
Are you crafty? Join in on our Girl Talk Thursday post and let us know what’s going on. I’m looking at you, Undomestic Diva. I heard about your craft room.
About 6 out of the last 7 weekday mornings, the kids have woken up around 7:15am. For the last three years, the kid(s) have always been up by 6:30am so this has been a bit odd – we’re attributing it to the change of seasons.
Well, that and the fact that my kids are trying to make me crazy.
DaddyGeek and I both work, so waking up at 7:15am? Not convenient. We don’t ever set our alarm anymore because the kids were always up before it went off. Now we can’t remember to set it and we wake up when they wake up – and 7:15am is too late! We need to be out the door by 8am!
But we haven’t set our alarm despite morning after morning of late waking because dammit we need some extra sleep. Last week we looked forward to the weekend – we could sleep in! Sort of! It would be amazing.
This is one of those bullet-style random-ass posts that you probably hate. There are some interesting things going on in the blogosphere this week if you’d like something else to read – you can always see what Mommy Melee is doing (she’s posting every day, whether it’s about her new therapy habit or current events) or read a post by Backpacking Dad with his views on the changes by the FTC concerning bloggers. Or you could donate to baby Jaeli, whose family needs your help getting a few extra dollars (or $1,200) together to support her for the next week with screened breastmilk from a milk bank. Can you skip coffee this afternoon and donate a few dollars? Hubby and I are skipping Starbucks on Friday and donated what we could. Please consider helping.
And now onto the random!
I had to stop receiving the Urban Dictionary’s word of the day email a few months back because they introduced me to a two-word phrase that I wish I’d never, ever heard. I can’t even type it here. I had to go take a snapshot of the definition, because if someone finds my blog by searching this phrase, I will cry and curl up into a corner. Do you see that disgusting phrase? Even worse is the example of it in a sentence. ::shudder:: And the worst part is that I totally used to do that, but for some reason calling it that makes me want to curl up and die a little, and I don’t know why. It just doesn’t sit well with me. So now I can’t blow my nose in the shower anymore. Soon I bet they’ll ruin peeing in the shower and sex in the shower. (Oh you know you do it.)
Low carb diets can suck my butt. (But I totally admire @Messponential for sticking to hers)
I sort of regret undressing my website and revealing the geek beneath to everyone (i.e. designing on the live production site) but ah well. I’ll have to make time. It’s nicer to reveal a shiny new site, but I just don’t have the time damnit. Or something. OK that’s not a good excuse. I’m just a failure. {lol}
Someone on Twitter a few weeks ago ranted about how it’s spelled “dammit” and not “damnit” and now I’m self conscious about using either. Note: Spell check agrees that “dammit” is the right spelling. Food for thought, people. You’ll get nothing but quality here.
It has come to my attention in the last weeks that I am pretty oblivious to most of the drama that happens online. I’ve decided I like it that way
Kid Updates, because this is supposedly a “mommy blog” though you wouldn’t know it to read some of my more recent posts. Ahem. Can we spell “risqué
” children?
Geeklet has started walking, crawling, etc. Yay! She’s walking! However, she has not stopped crying all fucking day every day. The pediatrician doesn’t see anything wrong, is defaulting to the “teething” diagnosis. I’m not even home with her and it makes the days hard – just hearing about it and knowing that my mother is going through the constant screaming, plus it’s causing issues with Cupcake – she wants more attention but it’s hard to accomodate that with a screaming baby in your ear. Except she’s not quite a baby anymore, she’s turning into a toddler, but still screaming.
It’s not all bad news, Geeklet also has started to say a few words (!!!). While she refuses to say Mama, we’ve definitely heard Dada, some variation on Thank You, “AGAH!” which means “Again!” and something that sounded like Cupcake’s name. Thus it begins.
Cupcake is doing well overall but we are having some trouble with regressing (note: she has super annoying younger sister, did I mention that already?!) and some more trouble at bedtime. She vomited once because she was sick, maybe also because she was sick the second time (a few days later). Now she’s scared of it. My mother is convinced that she is scared of us – meaning myself and DaddyGeek – because she said something about throwing up, yelling and being scared. Right. So obviously we’re screaming at her before bed and she’s throwing up because she’s upset. She couldn’t be wrong or anything. She’s three. She can’t be confused, or not clear in her words. Right? RIGHT?! But my mother has a tendency to assume it’s us ruining Cupcake’s life by default. We’re obviously fucking her up beyond anything in the history of stuff that has ever been fucked up. < /sarcasm>
Other Updates
DaddyGeek’s birthday was at the end of last week. He is awesome, and though I didn’t write a birthday post, or get him a card, or even manage to make him coffee in the morning, he knows that his gift is coming*.
There are a lot of geeky delicious things happening lately, including Google Wave, dipping my feet into complete website design, new Android stuff to dig through as well as Windows 7 – my new favorite Windows platform – and the up-and-coming Windows Mobile 7 which sounds freaking amazing. Definitely an iPhone / Android competitor, in my geeky opinion.
So. What are you doing this week? I want to hear allll about it.
I'm MommyGeek - married to DaddyGeek, with two soon-to-be-geek daughters, Cupcake (3.5 years old) and Geeklet (15 months). This blog chronicles the life and times of our GeekFam, in addition to serving as an outlet for our other geeky and techie loves. It's all part of the iGeneration profile. Oh, sorry - is our Geek showing?
So I got a shiny new phone for my last birthday, hubby got a Kindle for his last birthday, he’ll probably get a shiny new phone for Christmas, and maybe me too. Because yes, I got a new phone last year but it’s not the latest greatest as of Christmas and I’d rather have that than shoes, accessories, clothes, money, jewelery or anything else you can think up.
