The Power of Lounge

It's January in Cleveland.

We have snow up to our eyeballs. (Figuratively speaking, of course, unless you're thirty inches tall.)

The rum balls and Christmas cookies have been eaten, the fat jeans have been reluctantly marshalled, and the fridge has been enthusiastically stocked full of lean meats, fruits, veggies, tofu, and Weight Watcher's yogurt.

The J-dog and V-meister are back in school (fingers crossed for no snow day tomorrow), the Christmas toys have blended into the periphery, and life begins again in ordinary time.

I've really enjoyed myself for these past two weeks I've been AWOL. Christmas was a little less hectic than it's been in past years - the P-Dawg took a week off work, we entertained, visited with family and friends we don't often get to see, and spent our mornings in pajamas playing with toys and tech gadgets.

There are many tidbits I could write about, but none of them seem to warrant an entire blog entry. Either that, or I don't have it in me to try and craft wry posts around the minutiae of our everyday lives just now. Strange, because I tend to get writer's block when I'm feeling low, not happy and content, as I've been.

I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and Eckhart has given me permission to "just be." In my case this apparently does not involve writing blog entries. One thing Tolle writes about which really struck me is the idea that industriousness and creativity go in cycles and that it's perfectly normal to want - and need - to "rest."

And so I'm resting. Not for long, mind you. I find that whenever I write a post about being creatively blocked, the muse does not waste much time in popping in again, the little tease.


J-Dog knows all about the Power of Now.

Where in the World is Rimarama

. . . and why is she neglecting her blog?

There is no compelling reason. We needed time apart, the blog and I. But my hiatus was actually more or less an accident that quickly morphed into a way of life.

It was a languid and delicious way of life, and I am a little loathe to leave it. I'm feeling the itch to write here again, but this time truly without guilt or obligation. It's the only way I can re-enter the fray.

After I finished my big project, I kept meaning to post, but found that I had misplaced my writing groove. Sitting down to write was like trying to start a letter to an old neglected friend, and I didn't know quite how to begin, what to share, what to leave out.

Then we (finally!) moved.

After unpacking, I obsessed a bit about furniture and decorating choices and when that got old, I just meandered about my kingdom in a happy daze, pausing every so often to fluff a pillow here, nab a wayward piece of lint there. Sometimes I would simply roll around on the sun room floor, purring and batting at dust mites.

I invested some time in taking care of myself, eating better, exercising. I lost seven pounds on We1ght Watcher$, which doesn't really sound like that much of a feat, but it's more than five percent of my body weight and makes a considerable dent in a pygmy frame.

I've been trying to lose ten pounds since after the V-meister was born and could never quite get there until I started counting those stupid points. I always thought I was eating fairly well (EggBeaters, anyone?), but what WW taught me is that I can pretty much never have bakery bread or seconds, even if we're just talking about a dadburn piece of boneless, skinless chicken breast that's cooked in olive oil spray. Also, I cannot haz cheezburger.

I hate WW and I love it. Sometimes I resent counting POINTS so much that it makes me want to run around in circles and punch a wall. I have a little POINTS angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, and the two of them are waging a war right in front of my mouth.

But. There is this one pair of jeans that I just couldn't get rid of when purging my closet of Things I Will Never Wear Again In This Lifetime, even though I hadn't been able to zip them even halfway up in years. I hung on to these jeans as a kind of benchmark for what I knew had been a healthy and attractive weight for me, although I was beginning to lose hope that I could ever get there again. And now they fit me, like a glove.

I interviewed a few new pairs of jeans again in the Gap dressing room yesterday evening and while I don't yet have an opening for a pair of size zero Long and Leans, I'm happy to announce that I had to dismiss my old nemesis, Size Six Boot Cut Ankle Length, because they were too big.

I've had a lot of anxiety lately, too, I guess I should say. It has to do with moving here, my conflicting emotions about undeserved bounty, karma, the state of the nation, all that. I'm guessing it's also been triggered by the old North Wind and the information packet we got from the V-meister's school about pandemic/avian bird flu preparedness.

This is the sort of thing that can put me into a tailspin for days, cause me to pick my cuticles ragged, snap at my family in spite of myself, and arrange my books in their built in cases according to size and color.

But here is a little piece of information I'm not sure I've ever shared with you: I have a little voice in my head that dictates my blog posts to me! I can only write when she's around. I call her, "Rimarama," and, frankly, I don't know where the hell she's been.

But lately I've heard her trying to come through and I think she's saying that she feels like writing again. Even though she's getting kind of sick of the cotton candy pink header with its playfully depressing implications, the blog's general tone of insouciance, and also regrets the pseudonym she assigned her son. (She wants to start calling him the little J-Bomb instead).

She's writing this catchup post in hopes that the act of writing itself will engender inspiration.

If not, it's back to the sun room floor.

Still Kickin'

Each day, I have a few very narrow windows of opportunity to do important bidness, which generally falls into one of the following categories:

• blogging
• paid freelance writing/editing assignments
  
• half-assed management of household affairs

And when I say, "narrow windows of opportunity," I'm talking really, really narrow, people. Like something you'd see on a medieval turret, say.

Lately I've been using up all my windows working on a project deadline and scheming ways to get the most bang for my 18 POINTS a day We1ght Watcher$ buck. That's right, I joined the POINTS counters online a week ago, and my life is now consumed - consumed, I say! by POINTS.

It's a twisted little addiction, this We1ght Watcher$ business, perfect for a hyper-vigilant, compulsive personality who derives an ascetic thrill from squeaking in under the 18 POINT wire at the end of a long, hungry, day.

Back when I was on my Tetris kick, I'd see blocks falling out of the sky when I closed my eyes to sleep at night. Now it's all about the POINTS, my friends. I can't look at an animal, vegetable or mineral without guesstimating it's POINTS value. Just the other day, I glanced out the picture window to witness one of our squirrel neighbors munching away with relish on a huge nut, and in my head I was like, "That's a five pointer, betch. I hope you're having celery for lunch."

I've been a little hungry, is what I'm saying, and hunger is not so conducive to good writing. And busy, too, what with the freelance work and all. It seems that I just can't have it all, for crying out loud. I can't be a stay-at-home mom, a paid professional, an online diarist, and a skinnybitch all at once.

Something has got to give and it's the blog, at least for just a few more weeks, while I complete a very important freelance project and lose ten pounds. I can't divulge too much information, but let's just say that the health of American industry is totally dependent upon my cranking out a robust, yet seamless and user friendly piece of technical documentation. You think the future of our great nation is to be determined by the result of the upcoming election, but I'm telling you, people, it's the tech docs.

(Remember "Tina the Tech Writer" from Dilbert that no one ever took seriously? That's me, except I'm on my couch wearing yoga pants and barking out orders in between changing diapers and switching out Dora DVDs.)

So that's that. This post has been a not very seamless or user friendly way of informing you that I'm still kickin,' and I'll be back soon . . .

Special Note to My Plagiarist: I'm onto you like a bad suit, sistah.' Here's fair warning to cease and desist.

Clicktastic

I thought the plunge in my stats last month was due to the quality of the writing here lately, but it turns out that there is an actual blog recession going on.

If you read blogs in a reader or any other kind of feed aggregating service and would like to boost the stats, ego, and, in some cases, ad revenue of the bloggers you read, go over to Motherhood Uncensored and sign yourself up. Then, all you have to do is make sure to click through to the blogs in your reader during the month of August.

Easy peasy and cheap thrills all around.

Brand New Lovah

I hate to break it to all of you Windows users out there, but I do believe the PC is Mac's flatulent and obtuse backwoods cousin, after all.

Now that I've procured meeself a MacBook, I see my old Compaq Presario for the lazy old Sasquatch he really was. So out of shape, he'd break into a burning sweat if I so much as asked him to open a second application, or plum cut out in the middle of bidness with no prior warning, then take a half hour to get it up again reboot.

I always suspected a healthy laptop shouldn't sound like a Medevac helicopter coming in for a rooftop landing, and I was right. I'll bet he smoked Virginia Slim menthols, watched Springer, and ate Ho-Hos on my couch whenever I was out. Good riddance, Compaq Presario! Don't let the door hit your a$$ on the way out.

That's all I did this weekend, was buy a computer. Then use it to check for BlogHer updates on the hour.

Thanks to Guy Kawasaki (can you put me on Alltop?), I was able to view some three thousand photos of Thursday night's Alltop/Kirtsy party via Twitter. Unfortunately, doing flaming Dr. Pepper shots by yourself while looking at photos just isn't the same as actually being there, I'd wager.

I hope I find my Reader full of posts this morning saying what a lame-a$$ time you all had at BlogHer '08 and how you wish you'd just stayed in Cleveland instead.

No, really, it's OK, as long as you paused every few moments to gaze wistfully out a window to say, "If only Rimarama were here!"

As I'm sure you did.

Tou-shay

The P-Dawg and I got on the subject of memes tonight.

P-Dawg: "I think you're pronouncing it wrong. I think it's pronounced, 'Me!Me!'"

Me: "I always thought it was pronounced "mem," like the French word that means "same."

P-Dawg: "I don't think the French even know how to get on the Internet." (You must understand that, back in our dating days, I broke up with the P-Dawg to go live in France for a year. But I don't think he's ever been a fan.)

According to the research I conducted on the world's foremost authority on everything, the word is pronounced "meem" and originates from the Greek, "mimeme" (something imitated).

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My 100th post came and went last week, and it was about puke.

But Miss tagged me for this blogging meme today, which seemed easy and fitting enough in light of my 100 post landmark for me to give it a stab.

How long have you been blogging? Not quite six months.

What inspired you to start a blog and who are your mentors? I discovered that any fool could get a free blog on Blogger, and that was enough to inspire me to foist my thotz upon the world at large. But once I started writing, I realized that I very much enjoyed painting what I see as my quotidian existence in a humorous light. One of the first "journal" type blogs I discovered was, of course, Dooce, soon followed by Suburban Bliss and Oh, the Joys. Of the three, I'm sure it comes as no surprise that OTJ was/is a mentor figure.

Are you trying to make money, or blogging just for fun? Just for fun, but I've entertained the thought of trying to earn a monetary reward. My husband thinks I'm crazy for not slapping up an ad or two. I tell him I could probably find more change in the couch cushions than I could ever make from blogging, but we'll see.

What three things do you love about blogging?

1. Before starting to blog, I was a very private citizen of the Internet, lurking on a few pregnancy and parenting message boards, but never jumping in. I thought I was too private a person to do that. I didn't realize that I would end up feeling so connected to my bloggy friends, and that has been the most rewarding part about it.
2. Stuff I write looks pretty in "published" form.
3. There are people out there who read my posts and leave comments! This makes me infinitely happy.
   

What three things do you struggle with?

1. Feeling as though I "can't keep up."
2. Feelings of inadequacy for posting mainly cotton candy in the face of so much thought provoking and gorgeous prose in the blogging circles I frequent.
3. The occasional fleeting sense that I am back in high school. And I'm wearing headgear.

I think I'll tag MamaGeek for this one. And, of course, anyone else who's interested - this meme is yours for the taking.

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Yes, I've been playing with my banner again. I can't help myself. However, I think this one might be a keeper, at least for awhile.

The J-dog is now healthy and no one else has fallen prey to the puking illness. (I am fully aware that I have just jinxed myself. What is the statute of limitations on this bug's incubation period, anyway?)

Let it Out

When I first started blogging earlier this year, I wrote a very raw post about mothering after a particularly bad day with the kids. The process of putting it on paper was therapeutic in and of itself, but I debated whether or not to publish it. In the end I did because, when all was said and done, I needed some reassurance that I was not the only one who ever "lost it."

Despite the fact that several readers commented on it, I didn't think my honesty was particularly odd. After all, isn't a personal blog meant to air out just this kind of dirty laundry? A way to commiserate with others in similar situations?

Now that I've been blogging for the better half of a year, I've come to realize that posts in which parents "spill the beans," so to speak, about the frustration, loneliness and sometimes naked rage that is parenting, are few and far between. We often hint at misery and weakness, use humor (ahem) to take the edge off the ugly, but we don't often journey into the dark that, I suspect, many of us experience from time to time.

It's understandable. No one wants to be a whiner or to be harshly judged. What if I'm really the only one who's ever done this, ever felt this way? Who wants to read another post about depression? If it's so hard, go get a job - you made the choice to "stay at home."

Finslippy recently posted about a bad episode with her son and asked readers to share their own stories of "parental ineptitude."

If you've ever felt alone as you stumble along this dimly lit corridor of motherhood, go read the one hundred plus comments that readers have left on her post.

They will make you shudder, cry, sigh, laugh out loud, and, finally, (hopefully), deeply exhale.

Honesty.

It does a mother good.

Link Love on the Lam

Guess what I saw at the post office the other day?



"Suspect hovers around the five foot mark, and was last seen wearing a leopard print leotard with crazy stripe leg warmers. Suspect is not armed, but considered dangerous. Distinguishing features include a minuscule post-skin tag removal scar on the inner left nostril and unusually lustrous hair."

Can you freakin' believe it?

I did return those dang library books, I just haven't paid my (greatly discounted) fine yet. Sheesh.

I'm going to go under the radar for awhile until this whole thing blows over, so posting will be light for the next few weeks.

But before I go, I also have some long overdue bling to pass on. The last thing I need is my mug on the front of blogging's Most Wanted list, as well. I am already being tailed by the meme police.

I received this Reflective Blogger award (shaddup!) eons ago from a person who asked to be nameless, and I would like to pass it on to Chani at Thailand Gal, because she is a reflective blogger if there ever was one. Peace, Chani!



Works for Mom bestowed upon me the Community Blogger award and I want to pass it on to Liv at Madness, Madness I Say! Girlfriend is all about the communi-tay and she is also one of those amazing bloggers who responds to every comment left on her posts!


Painted Maypole and Oh, the Joys tickled me pink with the "Blogging that Hits the Mark" award. I would like to launch this award at Heidi of Viking Conquest and at Avery Gray because their blogging is splat-tastic!


Sugarplum's Mom gave me the "You Make Me Smile" award, and I am passing it on to Janet at Three and Holding. I find that, in general, Canadians make me smile.



It has also recently come to my attention that Slouching Mom, who has been called the Meryl Streep of blogging, and who has been nominated for a Blogitzer (among other awards) herself, recently nominated my little old blog for this (thanks, Sarah!):



So far, my blog has FOUR VOTES!!!!

That means I'm only 76 votes away from running neck and neck with the current leader!!! (As the P-dog always says, you have to shoot for the stars if you want to hit the roof.)

But I would be happy just to break into the double-digits by the end of 2008, which is when voting closes. (I think you need to create an account in order to vote, but it is quick and painless, and would make one Lithuanian hobbit diva's entire year. )

Peace and joy, dear readers.

The Family That Blogs Together

Ladles and jellyspoons, (Are there any jellyspoons reading this blog? If yes, Please! Make yourselves at home! There is Lithuanian microbrew in the fridge and some pistachios in my cupboards. However, leave the toilet seat up and die.)

I have an announcement to make. The truth is that, even though I am not drinking the NaBloPoMo Kool-Aid, I have lately been having a heck of a time posting here and reading/commenting as much as I would like.

Reason being: THE P-DOG HAS ENTERED THE BLOGOSPHERE.

That's right, folks. My husband, having carefully observed the actions of his dedicated blogger-wife over the past few months, has decided the time is ripe for him to foist his own two cents upon the world-at-large.

Now, before you get your panties all in a knot, let me just say that the P-Dog is not yet ready to out his baby. He is still busy crafting a backlog of posts, calculating potential Google Ad Sense earnings, and seeking my sage advice on all things blog-related, from rudimentary skills such as the creation of embedded links, to more complicated endeavors, such as why does his blog not come up in Google one whole day after he listed it? And why, pray tell, has his counter only increased by one digit in the past day? And why hasn't anyone left him any comments yet when his blog has been up for a whole dang week?

I'm sure that when the P-Dog's blog is finally unveiled, all of these things will be quickly made right. Because the P-Dog's blog has a smart premise (if you like money) and he is a very smart guy. Even if he does overuse air quotes.

In short, I've been fighting tooth and nail for the laptop lately. Why, I can hardly get online to pay the billz anymore! I've even had to resort to prank calling his cell phone, just to get a couple of comments in edgewise.

I fear there is not room enough in the family Rama for two bloggers.

Thank God the V-meister has been doing her blogging on the (don't tell her it's fake) V-Tech laptop she got as a birthday present.

She seems to be unable to get any of her posts online and cannot, for the life of her, figure out why.


"Wait till you mofos' find out about my blog."

Is It Puking Season Already?

Ever since I got all up on my high horse yesterday about not being a silly old mommyblogger, I’ve been paralyzed with fear about posting anything even remotely kid-related.

Which is why today’s post is brought to you by puke and boogers.

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Today the little J-dog and I arrived to pick up the V-meister from school a little early, and one of the other mothers who has a toddler the J-dog’s age was sitting with her little girl, Haley (not her real name), under a tree a little farther off from where everyone else was waiting.

The J-dog and I ambled over to say hello.

Lulu (not her real name) and I began chatting while the J-dog planted his face in the grass and assumed the “downward dog” position, his customary salutation in response to any stranger’s greeting. After a few moments, though, he became intrigued by the large boulder-type thingy on which Lulu’s little girl was climbing and mustered up the courage to stand upright and face the world.

Never one to resist an opportunity to inflict bodily harm upon himself, the little J-dog made a beeline towards the rock at the exact same moment that Lulu said to me, “Haley is feeling a little under the weather today. She puked all over herself and was running a pretty high fever this morning.”

[Cue Chariots of Fire soundtrack and watch in slo-mo as Rimarama begins her sprint across the expanse of lawn that separates her from the J-dog, who is now only moments away from coming into contact with germs of the yorpus-extremus variety.]

I intercepted the little J-dog and scooped him up out of harm’s way with just nanoseconds to spare. (Never you mind that he himself woke up with a cold this morning and has been blowing booger bubbles left and right all day long. My sanity is already threadbare enough without a member of the Rimarama household contracting the puking illness.)

A few moment of uncomfortable silence ensued between Lulu and me before I nonchalantly stated, “Hey! I’m going to go stand over there by, you know, the healthy kids. Godspeed to ye!”

My superpower of choice would be the ability to protect my children at any and all times from harm of any kind. In the meantime, though, I will settle for being able to go from zero to one hundred in two seconds or less.

(This post is my contribution to Moo'sMoo's Writing Challenge to blog about a superpower you would like to have.)

******************************************************

Regarding yesterday’s post, I am sorry to report that my friend S’s blog seems to have evaporated into thin air and the post to which I linked is nowhere to be found.

It is the first documented case of blog self-destruction.

I am disappointed, to say the least, but I've decided that pursuing the issue is just not worth it.

My Friend S Is Mad at You

I'm editing this to say it's just come to my attention that the link to the post that I'm responding to in this entry is no longer working. You need to read it to understand what I'm talking about, but until it's back up again (let's hope), the gist was that I kind of "sold out" by becoming a "mommyblogger".

I might try to copy it out of my feedreader and link to it from my own blog, but hopefully it will be back up again later in its original form!

************************************************************

You guys are in trouble with my hip, single, city-dwelling friend, S.

(Yeah, you!)

You can read about it in her post here, but I’m warning you, it ain’t pretty. (Although I did get a good chuckle out of the part where I’m the queen of the mommyblogging minions. Me, with my double negative Technorati rating! Pshaw! S, you have yet to meet the queens.)

I read the post several times. My reactions in the order they occurred:

1. Ouch! Have I been insulted?
2. Wah?
3. Uncomfortable squirming giving way to an all-out cringefestival.
4. Whatever happened to my drum set?
5. Oh, yeah, I did totally kick that I-talian dude’s ass!
   
   and finally,
   
   
6. Thanks, S, and you rock, but I very, very respectfully disagree.

In fact, my disagreement is so respectful, that it’s kind of shy about guest-starring in this post. I had to bribe it with a spa gift card and fruit basket.

So here I am with my respectful disagreement, bowing deeply while trying not to spill my peace tea, and having something to say . . .

“Mommyblogger” is a four letter word.

I don’t think most women bloggers with children who may or may not star in their blogs really think of themselves as such. We just happen to be some of the lucky few who can talk about our job (the mothering gig) in a personal blog without getting fired. If you could freely talk about all the crazy shit that goes down at XYZ corporation and get words of advice, sympathy, encouragement, or sometimes a plain old “Ohmahgah, I’m ROTFL” for writing about it, wouldn’t you?

As a “mommyblogger” (cringe, shudder, squirm), you can dish all you want about your job without the threat of a pink slip!

That’s all I’m doing. I have a new job, mommydom, and I write about it. If I had sent in my resume for this mothering gig, nobody would have even granted me an interview. And I sure as hell wouldn’t have gotten the job.

Yet here I am.

It’s hard to have children without them leaving an indelible imprint on your corporal and ephemeral person, but it doesn’t change your essence. I may be waiting in the supermarket checkout line with a cartload of Hamburger Helper and reading The National Enquirer, but I’m still flipping off the biddy with the accordion file of coupons whose holding up mah damn queue.

I’m not in that imaginary band that never played a real gig anymore, but I’m still drumming in my head. Loudly! When we’re not jamming to our Lithuanian choir CD, the J-dog, V-meister and I rock out to Massive Attack. It’s all cool, as long as I turn down the volume for the occasional swear words, WHICH I TOTALLY DO.

Would I still kick that sorry dude’s 6’4 ass today? Probably not. I’m a little older. And wiser. The osteoporsosis is starting to take its toll.

It’s nice to be a part of a blogging community. In the short few months that I’ve been blogging, I’ve gotten a lot from the women whose blogs I read and who read mine. Some of them are mothers, some of them are not. Some of them blog a lot about their kids, some not as frequently. I’m glad we all have different types of blogs. It would be a boring internet, indeed, if everyone had my silly old self-deprecating brand of humor.

I’ve met people through this blog whom I never would have known otherwise, and my life is richer for it. (I love you guys!!!!! Group hug! Group hug!) And the best part? You don’t even have to be a mother to play along.

This business about selling out?

That’s a bunch of bullshit.

S, I want to introduce you to just a smattering of the kick-ass bloggers I read. Read this stuff first, then call them what you will . . .

Boobs, Injuries & Dr. Pepper

Get in the Car!

Queen of Shake-Shake

Laid Off Dad

Where's my Cape?

Motherhood Uncensored

Where Am I Going and Why Am I in this Handbasket?

Here In Idaho

Marmite Breath

Thailand Chani

Madness, Madness I Say!

Slouching Past 40

I left out about ten thousand. I'll link to you all next time, if I haven't in the past.

And "mommy"bloggers, meet my kick-ass MoFo, smart, funny and really very lovable friend, S. She’ll set you up with some top-of-the line stolen purses if you ask nice.

Peace.

Mama's Got a Brand New Job

Gah!

The informal poll I conducted yesterday to determine if I am the only person who can see my own snazzy header font has confirmed my very worst suspicions:

I see dead people imaginary fonts.

But, yes – it appears that you are viewing a craptastic version of my lovely header, so, until I find that couture gown I was talking about, I will be modeling a series of off-the-rack numbers at the top of this page.

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I’ve never been a particularly good financial manager. In fact, merely reading the words I just typed makes my eyes glaze over.

I used to have something I fondly referred to as my “bill bowl.” Into the bill bowl I would toss, unopened, any incoming mail that didn’t have my name and address handwritten on the envelope. When I began to get the feeling, a sixth sense if you will, that a bill was about to come due, I would randomly pluck one from the bowl and pay it.

It was a fine system. In the six or so years during which this method was employed, only one – count it – one bill went to collections.

Then I married the P-dog. The bill bowl was confiscated and I was relieved of the bill paying task forevermore.

Until last week.

It seems that my blogging obsession is starting to cut into the P-Dog’s online bill paying time (I’m told that bills are paid online these days?). Usually, he waits patiently for me to finish reading all of the blogs in cyberspace before he gently suggests that perhaps I should go ahead and take a Tylenol PM and call it a night? To which I calmly reply, as I’ve mentioned before, that he can use the laptop after I’m dead.

Anyway.

The other night, just as I was really getting into this post, the P-Dog calmly deposited a handful of envelopes into my lap.

“What’s this?” I brightly inquired.

“Bills,” said the P-Dog.

“Yo-kay. I’ll be done with the laptop in, oooooh, about fifteen minutes.”

A brief pause.

“You’re payin’ em, Rimster.” (Rimarama is only my nom de clef, guys.)

What followed was an agonizing online bill-pay lesson and marathon during which the phrases, “holy sh*t!”, “OH MY GOD, IS THAT OUR CREDIT CARD BALANCE?”, “There’s more?”, “What is this button for?” and “Ooops” could be heard reverberating through our humble abode.

The P-Dog was especially chafed by the fact that I took it upon myself, during this accounting lesson, to teach him a thing or two about efficiency in internet navigation.

So I have a new household chore I am none too pleased about. And despite my having explained to the P-dog that the assignment is likely to interfere with my ability to do the odd load of laundry every couple of months and to produce the top-notch Stouffer’s frozen cuisine he has lately become accustomed to, he is not yielding.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, those bills aren’t going to pay themselves.

My Other Blog is a Mercedes

Yesterday began with me accidentally pouring EggBeaters into my morning coffee instead of cream.

Several Gah! inducing incidents followed in quick succession:

• A small turdball was discovered on my newly scrubbed bathroom floor.


• The Little V-Meister was left to her own devices for entirely too long and began foraging in my bathroom cabinets. She found some delicious smelling hair products and proceeded to smear them all over tarnation, including her own half-naked self.


• She was half-naked because she had peed her way through the remaining two clean pairs of Dora underwear in her dresser.


• I discovered that the lovely font festooning the masthead of this blog as I see it may not be the same font that you, dear readers, see when you come to visit.
  

This last item is particularly distressing to me. It’s like opening your front door in a house dress and slippers, all the while thinking you are decked out in a Prada gown.

So could you do me a favor and let me know whether or not you see the following header font on my blog?


If you are seeing the house dress version, please excuse it while I’m out shopping for a new gown. It may take awhile, as I am very exacting when it comes to selecting clothes and templates.

A Post In Which I Talk A Lot About Booze

As some of you know, a few days ago, I had a crisis during which I began feeling suffocated by my own damn blog. However, as Janet of Three and Holding so wisely put it, "A blog shouldn't pressure you to write. It's wrong and proves that you are in a dysfunctional relationship."

Janet is the Blog Whisperer!

So, the blog and I spent some time apart and later did a bit of couples counseling over at the Jesuit Retreat House. The bottom line is that the blog has some attachment issues, while I need to stop trying to be everything to everyone, but we are going to pull through. (Oh, and it’s OK to post rubbish every now and again. Which really takes a load off for me, dear readers, because rubbish is what I be postin’ today!)

And now, onto the rubbish . . .

I feel like such a heel for even saying this because it’s not as if I am a single mother doing it alone (How DO you do it? A round of drinks for all the single mothers, please. Put it on my tab. What? Fine, I'll stay late and wash dishes, whatever). My husband is not off fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan or anything like that, but lately he’s been working all the dang time – weekdays, weekends, nights, you name it.

And all the squirrels are making googly eyes at me because I am going nuts.

IT IS NOT HEALTHY TO GO THROUGH LIFE DRAGGING A TODDLER ALONG BY YOUR PANT LEG WHILE ANOTHER ONE IS HANGING LIKE A MONKEY OFF YOUR BACK.

At some point, it becomes necessary to disengage. And that is not always possible when you are the sole adult in charge.

What I have done instead is to:

• Permanently remove the cushions from my couches, creating an Insta Indoor Playground:

• Spend indecent amounts of time in the kids’ section of the local bookstore, sipping caramel latte mocha cappuccino swirls hold the whipped cream please while the little J-dog and V-meister play happily around that saviour of frazzled mothers everywhere, the Thomas the Tank Engine Train Table:

I Can't Believe She Let Me Leave the House Like This

• Ask my mother-in-law to watch the kids for a few hours tomorrow morning so I could (mwaa ha ha ha!) . . .go to church!

Never in my life have I been looking forward to a date with Jesus (here on earth, that is) as much as I am today.

And never have I been more tempted to go to the corner bar instead. Because, in the grand scheme of things, how bad is using your collection plate money to buy a flaming Dr. Pepper shot, anyway?

I will survive!

But I will never tell whether I actually went to church or to O’Reilly’s tavern.

My Blog and Chain is Circling the Drain

Ever since I began writing this blog two months ago, I’ve lived in fear of the day there will be nothing to post about tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

When the blog was born, my friend, V, informed me that if I wished it to survive, I must post faithfully every single day, even if it’s just a picture of my kid sitting on the crapper, or my readers will look elsewhere for their daily Lithuanian OCD drama mama fix. The blog must be clothed, fed, and taken out for walks. It also seems to require nurturing and TLC, even the occasional frappuccino.

It is all too much to bear.

I did not foresee this little blog of mine becoming the living, breathing organism that it seems to have evolved into. It is not at all like the pet rock I thought it would be.

I am half expecting to find it belly-up one of these mornings when I turn on the laptop. I’ll log into the 'ole Blogger account to find a message to the tune of, “We’re sorry. This blog is dead.”

How can anyone live with that kind of pressure?

If I haven’t posted in a day or two, I can hear the blog beckoning as I sit sprawled on the brown chair, watching E! True Hollywood Story and eating candy corn. It croaks, “Turn TV off. Olsen Twins have each other, but blog is lonely. Must come write.”

I try to point my internet browser towards Ebay, but the blog hijacks the controls and I am forced to pay it heed. Why did no one tell me about the old blog and chain?

So.

Two months into my blogreer, and the wellspring of postable musings has run completely dry.

I will go now and make my offering to the patron saint of bloggers so that tomorrow my muse may re-appear.

And hopefully this bone I fed the little sucker today will keep it alive until then.

Blogaholics Anonymous, Anyone?

My name is Rima and I am a blogaholic. So addicted have I become in the past week since discovering this blissful parallel universe of smart, funny women who also dangle precariously on the edges of insanity, that I've let the kids run around in diapers/underwear and Kool-Aid stained T-shirts, watch PBS ad nauseum, and eat Fruit Loops, for God's sake, so I can get my blog fix. How could I have spent almost four long years of lonely, sittin' on the sidelines stay-at-home motherhood before finding this place?

Go ahead and laugh, you blogerati (I looked that term up here) with your RSS feeds (WTF is that?), your chi-chi title bars, your FAQs, your blogrolls to infinity. It's true that I have been living in a cave for the past, um . . . when did this blogging craze start, anyway? I just can't get enough, boomeranging from Suburban Bliss to Breed 'Em And Weep to Dooce as if my life depended on it, which, in a way, it does.

But I fear that this could get out of hand, ladies, (gents?) I mean, the laundry, it is piling up, the dishes, they're a-festering, the kids, they're a mopin' and a-skulkin'. Plus, my tushie's not getting any smaller parked on this here couch morning, noon, and night. Suggestions, anyone?