1. You know, sometimes life is to be lived. Other times, it’s to be endured. I mean nobody ever wants to admit it, but there are times when the only thing you can do is grit your teeth and power forward knowing it will get easier soon and you can live again.
2. I am in that place. I have so much going on right now I feel like I’m drowning and it really isn’t in a fun way. Last semester of grad school, writing for 2 websites, super busy in other work, three kids, trying to figure out what to do with my tween, my boy (see #8 below), myself after I graduate. The toddler. Hay fever. Lack of funds.
3. I’m so sorry for not writing much on this blog. I will come back. I WILL RESURFACE. I will write FTM Friday each week, and on Fridays (ok that might be pushing it). Hang with me, ladies and 3 or 4 gentleman. You know I love you.
4. I went on a “press trip” in April to San Antonio through Parenting magazine. I got to stay in a hotel for 2 nights BY MY FUCKING SELF and drive a BMW at high speeds on a wet track. You can read about my trip here. You might get a kick out of it.
5. We’re starting to plan family and friend summer mini-vacation trips. I’m holding on to them for dear life. June 1, people. June 1 and I get my life back (school and grading is over by then).
6. On a super positive note, one week from today I will be at the Crest Theater as a cast member for the “Listen to Your Mother” show. I wish I could express to you how lucky I feel to be a part of this, how genuinely struck I am by the other cast-members, by the power of the stories they’re telling – by their humor and depth.
7. There will be a lot of strength in that room – a lot of heart. A lot of the badassness (dude whatever it’s totally a word) that makes us women. And mothers. And no, we aren’t going to stand up and talk about our birth stories. We’re going to stand up and BLOW SOME MINDS. That, at least, is the plan.
8. I sincerely hope you will join us, and if you do, come and say “hello” to me after the show for goodness’ sake. I’d love to meet you.
9. Speaking of plans, my boy has been officially diagnosed with dyslexia. We’re trying to figure out what to do. You know, once again, it sucks to not be the people with thousands and thousands of extra dollars. Do you know how many programs are available for dyslexic kids if you have 5 or 10 thousand dollars? Do you know how LITTLE is available for people who don’t? God damn it the whole thing makes me sick.
10.  Also, my house. OMYGOD my house. It’s so bad it makes that picture I posted look orderly. Not quite. But almost.

Hold me. It’s almost over.

Anyway, here’s what we’ve been up to…well, the good stuff. xoxoxo

P.S. JUST GOT AN EMAIL: I passed my exam. I got my degree.

Sigh.

Hell yeah I’m proud. That was a long time coming.

YES!

Sticks don’t hurt people…Georgie, on the other hand…

barefoot fishing? it’s simply perfect.

needed this day…I live in a beautiful county.

When the hell did this happen?

the dimples, people. the dimples.

moments like this sure mean a ton to me now…

he’s totally learned to skateboard

to celebrate the fact that the hotel was so nice it had robes, I made duck face and sent this photo to my dad, who was supposed to be my husband. I AM A LOSER.

1. In 11 days I take my exam. That is why you haven’t seen much of me, and you haven’t seen any FTM Friday posts. I apologize for my flakiness. It’s not that the love is missing. It’s that there are only so many times you can neglect real life for the sake of fucking lip balm. Hand salve may be another story.
2. But I will return, lovers. I will. And it will be good. Actually I already know what I’m doing next Friday: face wash. HoldOntoYourSeats.
3.  Anyhoo, my birthday was amazing. As I was kicking and screaming and weeping my way through Victorian literature at Starbucks, shooting death glares at the asshole next to me who wouldn’t stop jabbering on his cellphone (because come on dude, this a public place, you have no right to use it however you see fit! Only as I SEE FIT. Why isn’t the world clear on that by now?), my husband calls me and says “wanna have lunch?” and I’m all “What? Aren’t you at work (an hour or 2 away)?” and he’s all “I got off early.” So he swings by and we eat lunch at a place we’ve been eating at for 13 years.
4. Holy fuck that’s a long time. Then we went to my mom’s and she made me my favorite dinner, the one she’s been making me since I was a little girl. (Yes, I’m 34 and I still go to my mom’s house for my birthday dinner. WHAT?) And just like when I was a little girl, I looked forward to it all day, my mom’s cooking. Fried pork chops, rice, and gravy (that will change your life).
5. Sometimes I can’t believe I’m that person for 3 little people. They think that about my spaghetti.
   Nobody makes it like you, mom. And my heart flips because I get it, and it’s true, and nobody can be my mom making that meal, and nobody will do it just right and nobody will make all of life feel all right, by being her and cooking food. What a love we’ve got.
6. And the day after my bday (you feelin’ the love yet?) the female love of my life and I went to Berkeley and hung out all day, just the two of us. We spent 2 hours eating Indian food and more hours buying crap we don’t need (including about 12,000 things from “Daiso,” the Japanese dollar store). But clearly the best part was her trying on a Fubu jeans onesie. AND ROCKIN’ IT. (photo below.)
7. Anyway so then it was Easter. Wait. Today is Easter. We did virtually nothing today. It was way better than last year. We visited my brother and his family. We did an egg hunt yesterday for an hour, in street clothes. Today I dressed my kids in Easter garb for literally twenty-four minutes, long enough to take some damn pictures and move on.
8. Oh come on. You know you do it…take pictures so you have photographic evidence that all important holidays were celebrated and as a mother, you supported important bonding moments. (So don’t blame me your inner child is all crushed or whatever the hell it is you tell your shrink. We had Easter! We were a good family GODDAMNIT!)
9. Okay there’s something wrong with me. Let’s move on to another subject. If you’re bored, you can read an article I wrote over at Allparenting on Victoria’s Secret and its efforts to EAT OUR YOUNG or, even more depressing, you can read about how I instilled in my oldest child a horrible temper. Yay!
10. While driving home the other day, my 2-year-old informed me that she wanted to “pop some tags.” Yes, as in the Macklemore song “Thrift Shop.” Yes, the one that has about twelve swear words in it. Parenting win? I think soooo…..
11. And, in totally unrelated news, Rocket came bounding into the living room two days ago yelling “The ‘fucking awesome’ song is on!!!!”

So we’re not listening to Macklemore anymore.

I mean goodness, we could have had company over.

“Whatcha know about rockin’ a wolf on your noggin’?”

I need some rest.

Georgie has been wearing a cape and mask for 4 days. So she wins at life.

Boom. Easter. Done.

The word you’re looking for is “HAWT.”

The boy and I went to all-you-can-eat-sushi. It was amazing.

STILL CUTE

She tried guacamole. She loves guacamole.

xoxo,

J

1. I’m not sure if you know this, but Georgia (the 2-year-old) wakes up in the morning, removes her clothing and diaper, launches herself out of the crib and goes about her business. Now, her business used to involve running down the hallway screaming “Mama! You gotta get up!” but it’s evolved, apparently.
2. Today I heard her bedroom close the door behind her all efficiently like she always does, even though she’s like a toy-spewing tornado on meth the rest of the day (Why does she always shut her door? Who the hell knows why? Because toddlers are insane.) and I waited for her to come into my room. I waited and waited and waited, hoping she’d come in at any moment so I didn’t have to remove myself from my bed. After enough minutes passed that I started getting worried, I asked Rocket (Mac was off RUNNING up hills or doing some other insane shit healthy people do) to get up and see what Georgia’s up to (YES, I made my 7-year-old get up to check on the toddler while I laid there and checked my phone…WHAT?). So he comes back a couple minutes later and says “She’s on the potty.”
3. We keep the toddler potty in the living room. Because we keep it classy. So I figure she’s fine and get up like 20 minutes later (don’t hate, Rocket was with her), and when I get into the living room she’s still on the potty, which means she’s been on there for like 40 minutes at this point. We make eye contact and she like read my mind when she answered “I’m just pooping!” and I swear there was an eye roll. I mumbled that she clearly inherited the pooping-for-eternity trait from her father. I probably shouldn’t say those things on the internet. I mean seriously, is there nothing sacred?! (no, no there isn’t)
4. Anyhoo, I’m slightly less traumatized about my exam in 3.5 weeks. It may be because I’ve been studying my British lit like a madwoman, or it’s because I’ve resigned myself and pretty much no longer care. I guess we’ll find out after the exam. Whee! Livin’ on the edge.
5. Speaking of “exams,” Rocket made the announcement, and my heart nearly shattered: “I’m the only one in my class who can’t read.” And his head fell onto his arm, face down on the table, and it’s true, he’s 7 and a half and isn’t reading, and can’t seem to recall many words or letters, and it’s getting a little rough. We’re having him assessed on April 2, just because I want some insight into how to work with him, how to make these scribbles on the page come alive to him.
6. It’s a strange feeling to have this kid who isn’t on the “curve” and you’re stuck between wanting him to be free and confident and young while also wanting him to read, because you value learning, but then again what is learning? And how do we know learning is synonymous with reading and school?  IS IT? What if it isn’t? What if there are other ways? And what if I get him a label of “dyslexic” or whatever and then he’s that forever and his curiosity fades into a vague understanding of his own deficiencies, and he gives up altogether.
7. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It ain’t easy having one of “those” kids.
8. Today I went to a luncheon for my lovely friend who looks better than most people even though she’s 8 months pregnant and I was sitting there cracking up with this group of women, listening to them tell it how it is, uncensored, witty, real. And I thought to myself this is what it’s like hanging out with real women, strong and smart women.
9. It isn’t competitive. It isn’t one-upping. It isn’t female pissing matches shrouded in paper-thin decorum. It’s wild, it’s loud, it’s funny. It’s empowering and nourishing and fucking hysterical.
10. And it revives the woman who’s wondering about her boy, the one who isn’t reading, who can’t remember words 5 minutes after he learns them, because he got up to go to the bathroom and now they’re all gone and he looks at you like “I’m trying.”

And I wonder if he knows the teachers say there’s something wrong, but more importantly I wonder if he knows there’s nothing wrong. Nothing at all. And there never will be.

I knew that today when I was hanging out with these women.

I mean it. I have incredible friends, and it appears the circle is just getting wider.

Here’s what we’ve been up to…

Ava making fun of “duck face” in her new dress

and I wouldn’t trust this guy in the park

or any of these people, to be honest.

well, at least she’ll stay warm

Daisy. Do you know her? She’s a good one.

it’s been 80 degrees all week…

mesh caps and child care – it’s how we roll

after he made the reading comment, I kept him home from school, just to hang out with me

and Laser, who just wants to cuddle

and then at lunch the mother’s heart exploded

my lovely nephew’s 7th birthday party…

Have a great week.

With love,

Janelle

1. I haven’t written one of these “week in review” posts in so long I barely remember how to do it. Seriously it’s been like three weeks. Somehow I think you all have survived, though I, for one, have missed it. Where the hell else am I going to record the trivial events of my life and share misguided, slightly ridiculous musings?
2. So first I think we should address the elephant in the room. Oh yeah, that’s the one, that post I wrote that “got big,” or at least for me. The “dying to live” post. Check it out: before I wrote that post my busiest blog day was 2,500 visits. The day after I wrote that post, 35,000 people came to the blog, and in the days that followed 250,000 more came. TRIP OUT. Let me just say “welcome” to the new people. Thank you for sticking around. We’re glad to have you.
3. The good news is that the post brought a lot of new readers, the bad news is that post brought a whole shit load of crazies who called me all sorts of names all over the internet and accused me of being all sorts of things, including but not limited to: melodramatic, anti-feminist, anti-gay/male/adoptive parent, a whiner, etc., and I was feeling all weird and violated for a minute, like “DUDE. I just wrote about a FEELING. How can a FEELING be attacked?” And I wanted to crawl back into my safe hole with you people. But then I remembered that only about 5% of the feedback was negative, and most of the people who read it were like “thanks for saying it,” and that made me feel like maybe I was of some use to some women, and that’s an amazing feeling.
4. But isn’t it weird how a huge percentage of feedback can be positive, and yet your mind focuses on the negative?! More proof that my brain is unreliable, and quite possibly out to destroy me.
5. In other news, pretty much my whole house smells funky. It’s sort of this weird aroma not totally unlike vomit, though not quite there. Ask me what I’m doing about it.
6. In the last two weeks, my kids have had rotating illnesses – colds, norovirus, ear infections, yay! – but never on the same fucking day. One gets sick, then better, then it moves to the next one. They can’t all be sick on the same day. THAT WOULD BE TOO EASY.
7. On April 13 I’m taking the comprehensive exam for my Master’s program. It’s no big deal, I just have to somehow pull from the recesses of my already struggling brain sufficient information to write 3 essays in 6 hours based on pretty much any text since the beginning of English literature.
8. Okay I’m exaggerating a little. There’s actually a 2-page, single-spaced reading list that I must know. But there’s British literature on it. I don’t know British literature. I ONLY DO AMERICA DAMN IT. Fuck Keats. [I don't mean that. Please don't send me to hell, literary gods. I'm just frustrated. It's not you. It's me.]
9. In short, people, I’m terrified. I can’t fail this exam.
10. On a completely unrelated, actually happy vein, the other positive fallout from the “big blog post” is that I may have a couple opportunities to write for some online magazines, which means you’ll have more places to read me! Try to contain your excitement. No really. Do it. Stop pole dancing. OR DON’T.
11. Anyway at the risk of sounding sentimental, I really want to tell you readers, old and new, how much I appreciate you. I started this blog a couple years ago because I felt like an outsider in the mothering world, and I thought I was this weird island of ineptitude. That feeling has not vanished, because DUH I STILL HAVE KIDS, but at least now I know there’s a whole crap load of mothers just like me – struggling and loving and getting pissed and trying really hard not to destroy the whole gig. You and your brilliant comments, every one of which I read (even if I don’t always have the time to respond), make this ridiculous feat of mothering way, WAY better, and I mean it. I know that if I could hang out with most of you, and it would be like we’ve been friends forever.

Anyway, here’s some Instagrammed glory of our lives. These pics make my life look so hipster-cool-happy.

So please keep in mind while you look at these, MY HOUSE SMELLS LIKE VOMIT.

And I’m doing nothing about it.

Cheers!

We went on a trip and Rocket forgot socks and underwear, but remembered this stuffed dog.

It’s been sunny in California…like 77 degrees…

Don’t worry. It’ll rain this month.

my husband shaved off his beard but is growing a porn-star ‘stache. Yay.

still trying to train this lil bastard

dressing up, making period-appropriate faces…

Seriously, Keats. WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?

And how is that dimple so big?

Have a great week.

Janelle

1. So, school’s back in. I am officially “over it.” Normally, I feel all this excitement in my gut at the prospect of buying pens and highlighters and flags. (no really, I do.) This semester, I feel like I’m signing up for the gradual demise of my soul. Wow. That was dramatic.
2. Even my advising professor was all “You’re ready to be doing something else.”
3. But the MOST FUN THING EVER is that I’m suddenly like 18 again, because I keep hearing That Dreaded Question – and I’m already over that one too: “So, what are you going to do when you graduate?”
4. Only rather than being able to say “going to college!”, I get to stare at them blankly and answer “I dunno, discuss postcolonial theory with my labrador?”
5. I mean shit, if I’m going to feel put-on-the-spot like an 18-year-old, can’t I at least have my flat belly and small ass back? I feel like that’s a fair compromise.
6. Speaking of fat asses, I’ve been eating shit all week. I have lost one pound since I wrote my fat-chick post, so evidently, I SUCK. However, for the past three weeks I’ve been doing the “Couch to 5K” program (it’s an app on my Iphone), which means I’ve been jogging 3 times a week. The husband says I’ve been looking thinner, and my super-trusted friend says that when you first start running you usually gain weight. That may be true, or it’s the shit I’ve been funneling down my throat to drown out my terror of not knowing what I’m going to do when I graduate.
7. Get a job? Go on for my PhD? Try for the PhD and if I don’t get in, get a job? Fuck it all and have another kid and write (AS IF THAT’S POSSIBLE)?
8. I realize you all can’t answer these questions for me, and I realize they’ll all get figured out in time, because, well, is there any other option?
9. Today we watched the 49ers lose the Super Bowl. There are a lot of sad people out on the streets around me right now. I’m not much of a football sports fanatic (um, we don’t even have a television), but I have to admit, growing up within an hour of San Francisco, I’ve always had a heart for the niners and the Giants, and I have an even bigger heart for the damn underdog, which is why I REALLY, REALLY wanted them to pull through. I mean shit they were fightin’!
10. Also, I’m gearing up to write my first “FTM Friday” post (Fuck the Man Friday). I had to go with the more offensive title, mostly because we’ve gotta keep it real on this blog — I mean seriously, what would we do if a bunch of politically correct green mamas landed on this blog, gettin’ all offended and shit? Anyway I’ve been holding off starting the series because I want to be sure all the recipes I’ve been using are the best ones (for example the AMAZING deodorant I was so excited about suddenly starting giving me a nasty rash (BUT ONLY ON ONE ARMPIT!), so now I’m experimenting with other recipes, but I plan on starting the series this week. Also, if any of you are artistically inclined, maybe you could make me a little FTM Friday mascot. I want like a little hippie chick or dude with a shirt on that says “fuck the man.” I have a vision, but no means to execute it (read: talent). Come on, puh-lease?

I’d be happy with something out of Microsoft Paint. Not joking.

Anyway, here’s a few photos from our week (or maybe the last two?).

Love you, people.

xoxo

We’ve been laughing at friends’ houses.

and dancing at friends’ houses

Rocket hung out in San Francisco with his nana.

and rocked his cake-decorating class, with me.

there have been pig tails

And this. Weirdness.

Sometimes you suspect your kids are weird. Other times, you just know it.

Have a good week.

I KNOW I WILL.

Also, if you’re bored on Wednesday night (Feb. 6), come to “Bows & Arrows” in downtown Sacramento at 8pm. I’m “doing a reading.”

Hoping I figure out what that means before 8pm on February 6.

Cheers.

1. If I were a stay-at-home-mom and I knew some self-righteous working mom who thought I did nothing all day, I’d totally knock on her door 3 weeks into winter break, smile and ask “How do ya like me now, bitch?”
2. Cause seriously. This shit’s crazy.
3. WHEN ARE THEY GOING BACK TO SCHOOL?
4. It’s not that we all hate each other. Or maybe it is. No, we just mostly hate each other. I jest. The truth is that 90% percent of the time my kids are annoying the hell out of each other AND me, 5% of the time they’re not annoying each other but definitely annoying me –and the remaining 5% is the time we’re having happy family bonding moments.
5. So as you can see, those odds suck. There is so much yelling in my house. It ain’t right.
6. The thing is, I’m not really working and school doesn’t start again until January 28, so basically I’ve been doing nothing except “homemaking” (I put that it in quotes because seriously, I’m not sure if I’m capable of such a task) since December 10. The good news is I turned over some miracle crafting leaf in the form of my obsession with making body care products. The bad news is my house looks like the woman in charge has an obsession with making body care products, as opposed to, say, cleaning. Or “homemaking.”
7. I haven’t done laundry in nineteen days, but if you need a rosemary mint sugar scrub, I’m your girl.
   
8. I suppose I should do some sort of Christmas-recap-Happy-New-Year’s-reflection-thing, but the truth is I really don’t feel like it. Christmas was a bit of a disappointment, as holidays usually are, and it passed as Christmas usually does, driving around and getting ready and not being at home, with my family, where I want to be. Next year I’m cancelling all commitments on that day. I mean it. I’m out. I just want to sit at home with my husband and kids for a few hours to open gifts and play with them, hang out together and relax and drink coffee and not have to get dressed or drive or be anywhere, until the evening at least. I don’t know why that means so much to me, but it does, and I have only myself to blame for not making it happen, pretty much ever. I seem to cave at the critical moment. I’m a caver. I always think it will be okay and fun and then it’s just too much and it’s stressful. But then by the next year, I forget again. And I get a little sad at the end of the day, because once again I didn’t spend Christmas the way I envisioned. Let’s talk about something else.
9. Like New Year’s. Yes, New Year’s. Now THAT was fun. Some new friends of ours (who I now pretty much see as family) invited us on New Year’s Eve to a house they rented on Lake Tahoe. The day before New Year’s Eve was the day we spent running around thrift stores trying to scrounge together snow gear. Oh yeah. We plan.
10. But we went and it was one of those days that’s just so perfect. Where the weather’s fine and the company’s wonderful and the fire’s burning and the kids are laughing. It was a 5% kind of day, and it set it all right.

Happy New Year to all of you. I fucking love you.

Let’s do big shit this year. Or not.

Cause let’s be honest, we’re already big. We’re huge, particularly in Japan.

Kinduva big deal.

Well to each other, at least. And that must be something, right? Maybe in Japan?

Anyway…snow trip!

my jacket from the 1980s!

steer clear of the yellow, Georgie!

he’s growing his beard back. oh happy day.

definitely a 5% kind of day

1. This week I spent my time doing what I always do the week before Christmas: I bought shit I can barely afford, ran around trying to get every gift on The Ubiquitous List, and tried really hard not to lock my kids in the backyard all day.
2. Since it was raining, I felt like somebody may call CPS, so I didn’t.
3. BUT HOLY SHIT I WANTED TO. (What? What’s that you say? Where’s my Christmas spirit? Um, my Christmas spirit left when my kids lost their freaking minds, about five days after they got out of school and it started raining like FOREVER and there’s nothing to do but run around our too-small house and scream and yell and piss each other off until I rather suddenly boil the fuck over in a fiery cauldron of Christmas spirit). I’m serious. They are really annoying.
4. Speaking of annoying, I’ve decided Christmas music would suck way less if there weren’t so many damn bells involved. All that jingling. Damn.
5. In my own personal quest to annoy people, I’ve been saying “Merry Christmas” on a regular basis to pretty much everybody, mostly because “happy holidays” is a P.C. term. And we all know how I feel about P.C. terms.
6. Also, I don’t think saying “Merry Christmas” means “I wish you a happy day celebrating the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ because I’m assuming everybody is a Christian and if you’re not, well I think you should be.” Rather, I believe it means something more like “I wish you a happy Christmas holiday.” And since it’s a national holiday, presumably a large portion of the population (sans Walmart workers, of course) – whether or not they celebrate Christmas – will have that holiday off work, and may, therefore, deserve to be wished a happy one.
7. Plus, if somebody wishes me a “Happy Chanukah,” I’m not going to be offended – I’m going to think something along the lines of “That person just said something nice to me. That’s nice.” And I’d probably respond “Thanks.” But I really don’t think I’d say to myself “How dare you cast your Jewishness on me!”
8. But of course, I could be wrong. I’ve never actually been the non-Christmas-celebrator having to deal with the onslaught of Christmas each year. Or maybe I just don’t get it. I don’t know; basically when I say “Merry Christmas” I feel like I’m saying something meaningful and authentic. When I say “happy holidays” I feel like I’m saying something meaningless and hollow because I’m afraid I’ll offend somebody. Not that I have anything against “happy holidays.” I mean really, does it fucking matter what we say? The bottom line is that we’re saying something pleasant. Does anybody feel me on this one or am I just an asshole?
9. At risk of losing all street cred, I got inspired by my friend Jo and started making body products (from recipes I found on Pinterest), and, um, well, ahem…I think I’ve found my calling. I made lavender sea salt body scrub, peppermint sugar scrub, peppermint lip balm (!!), healing hand salve, hand lotion, and even SOAPS (Do you know easy it is to buy the goatsmilk soap bars, melt them down, add stuff and feel like freaking SouleMama?). We started out doing it because we were making homemade gifts for people due to money shortages, but now I’m hooked and I think I’ll be doing this forever, until I enter DIY Body Product Rehab. Don’t knock it; it exists.
10. So Mac made applesauce and chutney, and we rolled beeswax candles and stuck it in a basket with the body products and a napkin and a sprig of tree (I copied it entirely off this blog (which also has some of the recipes I used) because I have no crafty ideas of my own (mean that)), and the result was pretty rad, if I may say so myself. Photographic evidence below.

What’s that they say about mothers and need and invention?

Yeah, well, wait til I tell you what we made Rocket for Christmas. I may lose half my readers.

But until then, Merry freaking Christmas!

1. You know what’s weird? Practically every time I go anywhere with a group of mothers I don’t know (GOD HELP US ALL), I end up saying something that offends somebody, at least once. It’s like a disease. The worst part is I think I’m being funny, and yet I get this look like “somebody should kill you in your sleep and give your kids to anybody else in the world.”
2. On a similar note, yesterday at a friend’s baby shower Ava asked me if I would please stop flailing my arms in a particular manner she found offensive. So I ask “Why? Am I embarrassing you?” She responds with a smirk “No, you’re embarrassing yourself.” And she kinda raises her eyebrows like “whatcha gonna say to that?” And of course I had nothing.
3. She’s my best shit-talking student. I’m so proud. Her sarcasm skills are developing so nicely.
4. The bad news is we’re super broke this Christmas. The good news is we’re super broke this Christmas. Allow me to explain: first, it sucks because we can barely afford gifts for our kids. Second, it rocks because we can only afford gifts for our kids. You know what being broke brings: SIMPLICITY. (And, apparently, alliteration. OMG make it stop.)
5. I’m serious. At first I was pretty upset about our bleak financial situation but now I’m kind of okay with it. My friend told me about making body scrubs for people, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t actually do it! (So easy, and so nice. I pinned a bunch of recipes on Pinterest if you’re interested). And there you go. Boom. Everybody’s getting that from me. Simple, people. SIMPLE.
6. That’s the plus side, but I can’t bullshit you. I feel pretty broken down right now.  I was doing okay after I found out the university cut my financial aid (entirely), but when I found out I have to retake a class next semester because it’s “expired,” I pretty much hit a wall of “fuck this” and “get me outta here.” We’re barely making it and I am so tired of cutting it so close, every single month. Ah, whatever. This is such in inane topic I’m boring myself. I made this decision and now I’ve got to finish, but shit. Part of me just wants to drop out of school and get a job, anywhere doing anything, to end this paycheck-to-paycheck thing. I won’t do it, but my LORD, sometimes it’s hard.
7. Do you ever wonder if maybe you’re on the wrong path, because it’s just so hard? Like the “right” path would be easier, or something? Damn. I probably have that exactly wrong.
8. Alright. That’s enough. Enough whining.
9. On Friday night we heard one of the loves of my life, a beautiful friend named Cara Lyn, a cellist, playing chamber music in a quartet in the Bay Area. We were sitting in the very back row (duh, all three kids were with us), and Georgia was standing on my lap. After the first movement, Georgia yells out, in a very clear, audible voice: “AGAIN!” Everybody erupted in smiles and laughs and clapping. It was one of those moments when babies just fix everything.
10. Alright people, tell me I can do this. I can, right?

In the mean time, here’s some pictures from our week. It rained. And since we’re in California, everybody was like “Wait. WHAT IS THIS? It’s as if there’s water, and it’s falling from the SKY?!!”

And they all started driving like drunk ninety-year-olds.

On that happy note, have a great week, all.

xoxo

as Georgie says: “It’s rainings!”

Ava being a very serious baker in her nana’s glasses…

Georgie getting folded up in her chair at the concert.

I think I may be a little late writing this post, except, maybe not. Maybe it’s better to write this a couple days after Black Friday, when the world loses its mind over shit it doesn’t need, and the day before Cyber Monday, when the world does the same, only online.

I would have written it on Thanksgiving, but I was too busy eating, everything. And then of course the day after Thanksgiving was not an option since I was super busy trampling the elderly and knifing people to save 40 bucks on a cell phone at Walmart.

As Melville said: “Ah, humanity.”

(If you can call that shit ‘human.’)

I’m grateful for a lot of things. The nanny, for example (AKA The Gift Descended Upon us From on High via Craigslist). My husband. My kids. Not having cancer. My home. My dogs. Bacon.

The standard stuff.

But you already know that. You gotta be a real asshole with some seriously limited perspective to not be grateful for the fact that some people love you and you aren’t suffering from terminal illness and you have a home and a Labrador with floppy ears and kids that think you’re alright.

Sometimes, of course, I am that real asshole with no perspective (and I whine and moan and cry because something isn’t going my way (OH POOR ME)), but mostly, as many of you know, I realize I’m lucky to have anything in my life, let alone the aforementioned bundles of goodness.

And maybe it’s for that reason that the thing I’m most grateful for, above all else, is the fact that I was once a total and complete failure.

I’m not trying to be cute. I’m not begging for compliments. I’m stating a fact. Four years ago I looked at my life and saw failure, in every direction. As a mother, wife, daughter, employee, friend, citizen of earth.

I tried to pull it off, I really did. But I couldn’t. I failed. One of the definitions of failure is “a state of inability to perform a normal function.” Yes, precisely. That was me.

And the “normal function” I was unable to perform was life.

Why was I a failure? Because I was maladjusted to life. Because I was immature, self-centered and full of fear. Because I relied on MYSELF, somehow not quite realizing I was the reason my life wasn’t working.

And for these reasons, I was a fucking drunk.

But I couldn’t admit it. So I blamed you and you and him and her and this and that until it damn near killed me.

Everybody talks so much about success like it’s the most important thing in life: Yay me! Go me! Look at these successes! And they’re all thankful for the way life has delivered them what they wanted. They’re grateful for having some neatly wrapped package of existence, all snug and comfortable and pretty. And for sure, that’s some good shit. Go team.

Maybe I’m just weird, but in my experience, the only real, lasting good in my life – the only solid perspective, lasting contentment, enduring peace or recurring joy – has been the result of failure, not success. My life changed when the agony of my existence became so thick I was forced to make a decision: change or die.

If there was a glimmer of success visible along any path of my life, I would have held on to that as proof of my own well-being, and I would not have changed. And I probably would have died.

But as it was I saw only disaster, so much so that even I couldn’t deny it, and upon that foundation of malfunction and catastrophe, a life was built, slowly, piece by piece, until it stands right now, firm and bright and beyond anything I could have imagined, and beyond anything success could have offered.

And so I owe it all to failure.

You, the fact that you read this, and the fact that I get to write.

And this life, all of it, a trip to Santa Barbara over Thanksgiving, when the world is celebrating the good, as it shines now, I celebrate the same, and love how it used to flicker dimly, in the dark recesses of a trembling mind, until it became all of this, and freedom.

do you see the pup?

1. I feel like people should stop telling me to clean up my language on my blog. I mean, if I haven’t done it by now, what are the chances I’m ever gonna fucking do it?
2. Speaking of language, Georgie is using some really innovative variations of it. She calls her pajamas her “bananas.” She inserts the article “a” in strange places: “Look at A me,” or, when you ask her how old she is, “A two.” And sometimes, “Go A nigh-nigh.” So that’s not adorable, at all.
3. Do you guys ever listen to NPR on the topic of America? I did today. By the end of the show I came away with three facts: 1. Climate change is coming and we all shall die an Armageddon-like death; 2. The economy is in a state that makes it virtually impossible to address climate change, and therefore we will all soon die an Armageddon-like death; and 3. My best move is probably to build a home out of hay bales and solar panels, in Denmark, and invest in some sort of arsenal to defend my family from the upcoming apocalypse.
4. I realize these things may be true, but they’re scary. Why can’t I just live with my head buried so deep in the sand I’m just SURE we’ve got nothing to worry about? Because that doesn’t help, Janelle.
5. Since I haven’t written this list thing in 2 weeks, I have to tell you about what we did 2 weekends ago. We went to this place in the Sierra foothills called “Apple Hill.” We went there to hang out and get apples. Imagine that. Anyway, we were there for about 10 minutes when it started hailing, then snowing. It was like FREEZING. Ava was in flip-flops. Whatever. She’s ten – not my problem if she makes stupid decisions and her toes freeze off.
6. No really. I’m serious. I am a firm believer in letting kids experience the consequences of their own decisions, particularly when it’s a kid capable of saying things like “Do you know what my teacher did today? She used a malapropism! She said ‘pitcher’ for ‘picture.’” You know what a malapropism is but you can’t figure out how to wear weather-appropriate footwear? I don’t think I can help you.
7. Anyway, so we get there and it snows and the kids start flipping out and playing in it, and we drink hot apple cider and have a snow-ball fight. Then, the yuppies from the San Francisco Bay Area started trying to drive their BMWs up the hill, slipping all over the fucking place, until one of them crashes into a tree and my badass husband had to help them out.
8. That was Sunday two weeks ago. After that I had a week of hell. I’m pretty sure I’m never going to actually graduate. I’ll just have 99% of a Master’s Degree, but not the actual thing. Won’t that be swell?
9. Oh, and a goat was born at the ranch. Have you ever seen a baby goat?! They’re stunningly adorable. Obviously, they brought it in the house.
10. If I told Tyler Durden how much I like the iPhone I recently purchased, he’d probably say “You are not your fucking iPhone.” But then I’d have to respond, “Right, I can see how you might think that…but have you ever actually had an iPhone?”
11. But this past Saturday we had Ava’s Harry Potter birthday party. She turns 11 next week. I’ll get all weepy about that later. I need to tell you about this party first. So the little girl started planning this thing at least 6 months ago. Not kidding. She had it all figured out, down to the FOOD. Everybody who came had a character. She planned the “classes” we would teach. My husband whittled each girl her own wand. My mom and I made a “sorting hat.” We provided them all capes and pins based on the results of the sorting hat (Gryffindor or Ravensclaw!). Mac was Snape; my mom was Professor Trelawney; I was Professor McGonagall. We were all dressed up. I did the sorting hat. My mother the “divinations” class. My sister-in-law was the dude at the store who gives out wands. And Mac was a VERY MEAN Professor Snape, who the kids just couldn’t get enough of.  My mother-in-law made all the food (and I mean ALL of it).

It was an amazing party. Ava said it was the perfect Harry Potter party and it was everything she had hoped for.

I felt like telling her she was everything I’ve ever hoped for, my little Hermione Granger

“Gryffindor!”

the wands Mac carved. best daddy ever?

Mac beams a kid.

and…the goat.

Have a great week, all.

xoxo