Woops

I seem to be failing miserably at keeping up my blogging, but I'm living life, so that's a good trade-off.

Nothing new to report. I'm still working on getting my house in tip-top shape. Still trying to get myself in better shape. Slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

I've been spending a lot of time soul-searching. No huge epiphanies yet, but maybe soon.

And I still wish my laundry would do itself.



I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.
-Dana Spiotta-

Saturday Six

Six Things I Like About Myself
(in no particular order)

• My hair. It took me a long time to love the color of my hair, but I do now. And it's the best hair in the whole world because it cooperates with pretty much anything I ask it to do!
• I am a good writer. It may take a few dozen drafts to make it shine, but it's always good enough to keep working on it.
• I'm funny. No seriously, I'm freaking hilarious.
• I'm smart. There are huge gaps in my knowledge, of course, but I have an insatiable desire to learn. I'm always looking for the next thing I want to learn about.
• I'm a good mom. Maybe not every second of every day, but I am always trying to be the best mom for my boys.
• My friends are amazing. And I have to believe that has at least a little bit to do with me. 

You Happy?

No, my darling neglected blog, I have not forgotten you. June has just been a month so full of happenings I haven't had  much time to blog. My "real" writing is going well, however, because I'm keeping a notebook on my person at all time.

That's been the best part of this month so far, focusing again on my writing and making it a priority. I am still trying to figure out how to balance everything. It's so much harder than I realized. The problem is that if I don't make time for myself and the things that are important to me that no one else will. I'm a better mom when I'm doing my own work too.

Recently my three-year-old has started asking me a thought-provoking question:

"You happy, Mama?"

It's a question that always stops me a little short. In theory, I am but in actuality I feel restless and discontent. There isn't enough time, I keep lamenting, to do all the things I need or want to do.

In better news, my continued quest to get my home in order is going really well, although it is currently a complete and total mess - but that's life when you have kids!

June: A Good Person Takes Care of Herself

The month of June is meant to help me become a better person by taking care of myself. To be honest, I don't really know what this entails.

WARNING: This blog is negative.

So what do I do to take care of myself? I need to lose weight, obviously. I need to take time for my art and my writing. It would be nice to pamper myself a little bit.

Here's the thing - I am not a huge fan of myself right now. It recently came to my attention that I am virtually unemployable. I worked hard on my career and education before I had kids, but I've been out of the workforce for so long that I no longer have viable references; there is no one to write me a letter of recommendation; I have no legitimate work experience for the last 6 years.

I know that being a mom is important, but being a stay at home mom was never my dream. I hate not contributing to my family financially. I hate not having an identity outside of being a mama to my boys. And while that is a great and good thing, it is not 100% fulfilling.

So this month will be me figuring out what I need and how to provide it for myself. (While still continuing to take care of my home, of course.)

Big Fat Yikes, Emphasis on the Fat

So the whole Taking Care of My Home thing is going really well. My house is still a mess 50% of the time, but it feels like it's more manageable to clean and organize. I have a few projects that, when they're finished, will make life even better, so that's exciting.

I hope you don't mind, then, if I jump ahead to June's chosen theme: A Good Person Takes Care of Herelf. Since about November I've been noticing my weight more and more. At first it didn't bother me, I have no hang-ups about being chubby.

The last few weeks, however, I've noticed that it's started to get in the way of fun. I get winded, tired, and sweaty WAY easier than I should. Even my "chubby" clothes are starting to get a little too tight. I feel gross.

I am a huge advocate for being happy in your own skin. That being said, I think everyone has a certain weight where they are the most comfortable. I have now passed my "weight comfort zone."

I don't put a lot of stock in scales, but I thought I would weigh myself today, just for fun. I tipped the scales at 190. That is, by far, the heaviest I have ever been. When I weighed myself in October I was at 170. Those extra 20 lbs are making me miserable.

Losing weight is hard. Exercising sucks. But I am 31 years old and I should be able to chase my kids up the stairs without having to stop halfway up for a rest.

Tonight I am going to an adult ballet class. It's been 10 years and 2 pregnancies since I last danced, but I love dancing and I'm hoping that I'll enjoy it enough to keep at it. I think that's the key to exercising - find something you love or that you're good at.

On the eating better side of things, I am still coming up with a plan. TO THE LIBRARY!



Please note: Any tips on getting healthy are more than welcome!

Temper Your Expectations

I hope you weren't expecting me to blog every day. That is just not going to happen. Life is too busy and I'm too disorganized. Maybe as I become a better person I will be more organized and blog more.

But probably not.


It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves. -Henry David Thoreau-

Can I Get a What-What?!

I am still on the quest to get my kitchen as clutter-free and easy-to-clean as possible. I have now found two things to help me in that journey! One is an awesome bread box/cutting board combo that I scored for $9. The other is a work-in-progress that I will reveal in pictures as I go about each step.

My husband and I, darling that he is, decided that the dishes are now his responsibility. I gave him the choice of doing the dishes or doing our two boys' laundry. He chose dishes. That has made the attitude at our house the last 10 days or so 100 times better! I've stopped feeling quite so overwhelmed and he doesn't get annoyed by dishes in the sink.

Seriously, delegation is awesome.

The funny thing is, my husband didn't even realize I was overwhelmed. I assumed he knew; he assumed everything was fine. It wasn't until I actually told him that we both realized things needed to change. Communication for the win!

Sorry for the excessive use of exclamation points, it's just that this project of mine to become a better person is actually working. It's slow and the progress feels infinitesimal at times, but it's been worth it.

Onward, ho!

Saturday Six

Six Reasons I Love My Mom
(in no particular order)

1. She never got upset with me when I showed up late for curfew, although knowing she was sitting on the couch waiting for me made me want to hurry so she could go to bed.
2. She collects "crazy" people and loves them so completely that some of them have become like family.
3. All of my friends used our house as a place of refuge because my mom always made them feel welcome.
4. She taught me to love all the best musicals and old movies.
5. When my dad would go out of town for work she would always let me sleep in her bed and snuggle up to her.
6. She is the snuggliest, lovingest, best-back-scratcher-iest person in the world.

I love you, Balou!

My Son is a Better Person Than I'll Ever Be: A True Story*

My 5-year-old, Dutch, has autism. Every Tuesday he takes a class with kids on the spectrum or with similar sensory issues. Yesterday this happened and it made me cry - in a good way!

A three-year-old named Miles was crying because some of the other kids were being mean to him. His mom went out there to talk to him and Dutch, noticing what was happening, went over to Miles.

"Why are you sad?" Dutch asked. "Can I do anything?"

"Can Dutch help?" Miles's mom asked.

The little boy shrugged.

"Can Dutch be your friend?" she asked.

"My name is Dutch Davis and I'm your new best friend." Dutch took the little boy's hand and watched over him for the rest of the day.

This was not a matter of good parenting. I had little or nothing to do with this. Dutch is just a naturally loving person. He hates people crying if he can help them. I hope someday I can be as good a person as Dutch is.


*This story was re-told using a little creativity as the quotes are not actual quotes, but paraphrasing put into quotes.

A Small Aside

It's been a hectic day. I feel like I've spent the whole day in the car driving from one errand to the next. On the way home from getting my 5-year-old's glasses fixed for the second time today we stopped at a light where a man was panhandling.

His sign said Homeless and Hungry please help. Since we'd been in the car for lunch my 3-year old's cheeseburger was still there, completely untouched. I rolled down the window, gave it to the man, and told him I was sorry I didn't have any money. He took the cheeseburger, told me thank you, and went back to the side of the road.

The rest of the 15 minute car ride home my 5-year-old was asking me questions about the man. Why is he hungry? Where is his car? Is he our friend now? It was such a great opportunity to talk to him about giving what we can, when we can.

It wasn't difficult to do. There was no planning or preparation on my part at all. All I had to do was stick my arm out my car window and give. Simple. Yet my son learned so much from that brief  moment. I'm going to keep looking for moments like those. Even on hectic days.

Saturday Six

Six Things I'm Trying To Do Every Day To Be A Better Person
(in no particular order)

• Saying please and thank you to everyone I come across.
• Smiling at strangers.
• Practicing patience (even while driving).
• Writing.
• Taking time to do my hair and makeup to make me feel good about myself.
• Kissing my kids every day.

Kitchen Cleaning and Deep Thoughts

My life has been in disarray since March, it seems. I think I've been expecting to catch up, but that hasn't happened. So today when I started cleaning out the cabinets in my kitchen, I think it became a metaphor for my life.

I've been reading an interesting book called, A Mom's Guide to Home Organization: Simple Solutions to Control Clutter, Schedules and Stress by Debbie Lillard. As I've been reading it I've taken copious notes (it's a library book and I can't mark it up, unfortunately). It made me realize that my kitchen is the least functioning room in my house. It gets the most casual use, gets dirty the fastest, and takes the longest to clean. Something needs to be done.

So I started making a plan to get rid of the clutter that gathers on the counters and all the junk that winds up laying around. Today, however, I only focused on the cabinets. I went through my spices and, since I'm not much of a cooker, I wasn't surprised to realize a lot of them (like 90%) expired in 2013, although there were a couple that went back all the way to 2010. Yikes.

I went through the medicine and did the same thing. There was a ridiculous amount of empty bottles that had somehow never gotten thrown away and our antacids had expired in 2008. Yikes again.

Canned goods were next, followed by the pantry. Purge, purge, purge. Then I moved all of those things around so I wouldn't waste so much in the future. Our "pantry" is a corner cabinet and stuff seems to get lost in the nooks and crannies of it, so I switched it out with our plates, bowls, and cups. Voila! Suddenly I saw just how many bags of powdered sugar I have (four) and realized that two different things of spaghetti had been opened and half used.

After all of this I sat down and felt a little sad. So much of that stuff was wasted because I never took the time to see what I had. I never checked to see if I had powdered sugar, I just assumed I didn't and went out and  bought more. It seems like I do that a lot, not just in the kitchen.

Like I said, I made a metaphor out of this. And I think it helped me be just a little bit better.

Stay tuned tomorrow for more kitchen excitement, because we are nowhere near done! I plan on going through all my pots and pans, bowls and Pyrex, and try to get my kitchen functioning at a normal level again.

Out of clutter, find simplicity; from discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. -Albert Einstein-

May: A Good Person Takes Care of Her Home

I know what you must be thinking, "Why start with your home?" The answer is simple really - who can concentrate on making themselves a better person when sitting in a big pile of clutter? If I can get my house in order than I think it will make it easier for me to focus on other more important things.

I've never been a good housekeeper. Ever. I tried really hard when I first got married, but it didn't stick. Then I had a baby and life got even more unorganized. Then I had a second baby and moved into a house and now, three years later, there are still boxes that haven't been unpacked!

But where do I start making myself a better housekeeper?

The obvious answer for me was: the library! I checked out three books on home organization and am looking forward to reading them this month.

I'm a lister, if you haven't noticed. So my next step was to make a list of the rooms in my house that need the most TLC. The one that tops the list, and where I plan on starting, is the kitchen. So stay tuned tomorrow when I lay out my plan for cleaning my kitchen, organizing it, making my house a better place, and helping me become a better person.

My idea of superwoman is someone who scrubs her own floors. -Bette Midler-

What I'm Doing and Why

Everyone assumes they're a good person. I always have. Then the other night I couldn't sleep and I began to wonder

What makes someone a good person?

I Googled it. No help really. So I tried looking up

How can I be a better person?

Better, but still not enough. So I decided to make a list of things that will make ME a better person and started a blog to help me track my progress. I narrowed it down to 7 categories:

A Good Person Takes Care Of:

(in no particular order)

• Herself
• Her family
• The environment
• Her friends
• Her community
• Her home
• Her career

So every month for the next seven months I'll pick a category and decide what I need to do to take care of that specific thing. 

For the month of May, starting tomorrow I'll be working on A good person takes care of her home.