Wrapping It Up: 2013 Book Review

First, I apologize as it has been a long time since my last blog.  Usually I feel my words bubbling up into a blog at least once a week, but the only thing I had building up in me this past week was sinus pressure and congestion.  Merry Christmas Rebecca!  Here is a sinus infection and yes, yes I did wrap it in a layer of bronchitis for you.  I have spent a lot of the last week laying my heavy and weary head on the couch, drinking tea until I cannot stand the thought of tea anymore and generally thinking of nothing except how lovely it would be to breathe through both nostrils at the same time.  I am three days into antibiotics and feeling much better and just in time as Bill is now laid up with the same maladies and the kids are surviving on leftover Christmas cookies and video games and have gone a bit feral.  The boy is scratching at the door right now making wolf noises as I am in the room with the new Xbox and told him he can't come in.  Videooooooooooaroooooooooo, I better hurry.

I generally like to keep a list of all the books I have read over the year as I have had the obnoxious goal of reading 100 books a year for a few years now and I need to write them down in order to remember them as well as seeing how close I am to 100.  There was one year I was pretty close and had read a good 75+ books, but this year I was not even close. That full time work really cuts into my reading time, let me tell you.  Even worse, I decided this year to keep my list on my iPad and somehow I deleted my list! Stupid technology! So not only do I have a total number of books read, but I can only remember a handful of them and that is after trolling "The Best Books of 2013" websites.  (Rest assured I am going old school this year and keeping my list handwritten in a notebook.)  

By far two of the best books I read this year belong in Children's Literature category.  The first one is "Wonder" and if you haven't read it yet, you must stop right now and go get it.  It is beautiful, it is heart-wrenching and it will make you cry and feel like a bad and good person all at once.   I oohed and ahhed over this book back in April and a full review can be found here Shameless Plug One.  The second great kids' book I read was "The One and Only Ivan".  I loved this book because it was written from the perspective of Ivan, a silverback gorrila living in too small a cage and his animal friends.  I dare you to read it and ever go to a circus again.  This book was tastefully done and will also make you cry.  I, ahem, also reviewed this book and a further review can be found at Shameless Plug Two.

Actually, looking at my cobbled together list, I see that I spent a lot of time reading and crying this year.  "Me Before You" by Jojo Moyes was by far one of the best books I have read in a long time and one that left me with tears streaming down my face and a runny nose as well.  It is a beautiful love story and will melt the hardest of hearts.  Next up on the Tearjerker Express?  "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green.  The buzz surrounding this book and upcoming movie is legit.  Pick it up and read it and hold onto your heart.  Bill had to hold me after I finished that one, I was a wreck!  John Green is an amazing writer and an author whose books we cannot keep in at the library.  Try him, you will like him.  A third book that haunted me and left me in triumphant tears at the end was "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson.  I listened to this one on CD and I will tell you, it was a little depressing.  This girl's story haunted me and stayed with me each day until I finally drove far enough to reach the end and I cheered and cried a little in my car.  If you have a teenage daughter, read this book because unfortunately, this stuff happens every day.  And if you have a teenage daughter, have her read it as well because she needs to know how important her voice is.

"Code Name Verity" is another Young Adult Book that I read and loved and recommend to girls at school all the time.  Historical Fiction?  Check.  Strong female character? Check.  Can't put it down?  Check.  Surprisingly enough, another book I recommend all the time is "Rot and Ruin".  Dystopia meets zombie apocalypse and samurai swords.  Well-written, good story and both boys and girls like this book and its successors.  Finally in the world of Young Adult, color me impressed with "Allegiant".  Way to end strong and not make the third book a waste of my time and paper as so many third books seem to be.

"Life After Life" tops quite a few of the bestseller lists.  I thought it was good but that there was one or two lives too many...got it, wrap it up already.  "Cuckoo's Calling" I enjoyed.  It was a good detective story written by our beloved and beleaguered JK Rowling.  If you don't go into it expecting Harry Potter you won't be disappointed and the title is not "Harry Potter and the Cuckoo's Calling" so cut the woman some slack!  Finally, "The Son" by Philipp Meyer was outstanding.  It was epic.  It was sweeping.  It was drama and saga and reminded me of The Thornbirds even though there was no dirty priest love.  It was incredible writing throughout a very interesting story and when I was done with it, I wanted more.  

One of the many perks of my new job is that we get Advanced Copies of books that have been yet to be released.  Woohoo for me!  I have brought a lot of them home and only been able to read one or two.  One I had to read because all the girls were reading it and oohing and ahhing over it.  I read it and felt I had to let them all know that if you show up at a 19 year old's apartment at 2am, he is going to want to do more than cuddle.  Honestly.  "Invention of Wings" by Sue Monk Kidd will be out in February.  Read it.  Historical fiction that changes voice each chapter and hits on slavery and women's rights - winner, winner, chicken dinner if you ask me.

Alright, what I can remember of books in 2013 reviewed and wrapped up. If you have any to recommend for me in 2014, send them along!  And for those of you who do not know of my intense hatred of "Little Bee", please do not suggest "Little Bee.  To anyone.  Ever.

Extra, Extra!! Read All About It!

I love getting mail this time of year.  Glossy catalogs, sale circulars and best of all, holiday cards.  Love, love, love to get holiday cards!  I love the pictures of your family and the handwriting that reminds me of notes passed back in 5^th grade.  I enjoy the snapshot family pictures as well as the pictures where the family is so beautiful you cannot look at it too long for fear of being blinded.  (Smith family this means you)  I love the way they look lined up on my counter and explaining who people are when the kids ask.  I am hit or miss when it comes to sending my own cards, so I truly appreciate the people who haven’t crossed me off of their list.  But I have to ask, as I have received nary a one, where has the Christmas newsletter gone?  Do we no longer summarize our year on special holiday paper? 

If video killed the radio star then I think that perhaps Facebook may have killed the holiday newsletter.  Little Johnny got all A’s?  Post!  Hilarious things that came out of his mouth today?  Post!  Great picture?  Silly picture? No picture, just rant?  Post, post, post!  Who wants to wait to the end of the year to brag or opine or whine?  Do it now, do it electronically and let the world see!  I love a Facebook post as much as the next person, but it does make me sad that we are so instantly updated that the need for Christmas newsletters seems to have gone the way of the CD player.

I can’t remember if I have ever sent a newsletter myself.  I know that I sent a Christmas poem one year after SG was born and I was full of post-partum hormones.  We refer to that Christmas as the Christmas that never happened.  You have a baby 14 days before Christmas and tell me how festive you feel.  Ho Ho Ho?  No way.  More like weep and wail and leak and cry.  Good times.  Anyhow, in the spirit of trying to revive Christmas newsletters, I have decided to blog ours.  (This also covers me for not sending cards this year) 

Dear Family and Friends,

We hope that this letter finds you in good spirits and great health.  We have had a busy year at the McMahon household and hope you will forgive Rebecca’s incredibly cheesy way of forwarding our sincere Christmas wishes to you and yours.

2013 brought a lot of change and among the biggest, Bill is now a vegan.  (Militant).  Who would have guessed this?  The man that once consumed a KFC Double Down sandwich despite chest pains and immediate swelling is now champion of the farmyard animals.  His veganism has been the source of much mockery and meat pictures posted to him, yet he remains strong.  Go Bill!  The man drives 100 miles each way to work and as such has become a Prius driver.(Militant).  We think he has logged more miles this year than a cross-country trucker and he has the NPR knowledge to prove it. 

M turned 16 this year and has a social calendar that rivals only the Queen of England’s.  That girl is never home.  She is taking terrible classes like Chemistry, Algebra 2 and Pre AP World History and finds she actually has to read and do homework to get good grades.  She is learning to drive and has Bill to thank for her encouraging her on that.  Rebecca is sticking her head in the sand and pretending this isn’t happening.  M has great taste in music and has increased our knowledge of what is cool.  Thanks M!

SG started middle school this year and it was a rough six weeks compounded with stomach flus and she had a hard start to it.  She has a great group of friends and has recently gotten her legs under her and it is nice to see her smile again.  She has become an expert at giving dead eyes and conveying how much she despises us without saying a word.  She is active in Drama Club and hopes to be involved in cross country (what?!?!?) and basketball next year.

Ahh, the boy.  W loves his after school care so much he is mad no matter what time we get there to pick him up.  He does karate (almost a yellow belt!), gymnastics and piano and tolerates school.  He chose this year to start testing out lying.  It did not go well for him and he spent six weeks with no electronics.  Somehow we all made it through that and he is now happily ensconced in his world of video games.

Rebecca borders on obnoxious with how happy she is with her new job.  She is a Library Assistant at a high school and may have found her calling.  (Note: she changed her actual job title as she finds the real one makes her sad about her life choices)  She is challenged, she is busy and she works with fantastic people all day long.  She has kids who thank her for her sarcasm and snark and feels as though she has truly touched lives.  She is learning to engage in confrontation and finding that she might actually like it.  A lot.

 

Yes, 2013 will go down as a good one in McMahon family history.  We hope that your year has been as good and if it hasn’t, well we are definitely the ones to tell you to hang in there, it will get better.  Hopefully you are thankful for what you have, even if it isn’t exactly what you want.  We hope that you have a restful, peaceful holiday season and are surrounded by people you love and love you.  We wish you one good belly laugh each day and a New Year’s filled with good intentions, but not resolutions.

Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year!  And much, much love

The McMahons

You're So Vain

Recently I have found myself encouraging my preteen to believe that she is beautiful and thin and telling her daily that she is FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.  She is 5'6" and just a little over 100lbs and has been asking me again and again if I think she is fat.  Do I think she is fat?!  I think she is tall and willowy and leggy and gorgeous and fat is not a word that ever comes to mind when I look at her.  However, because she is taller than most girls and boys in her grade and because she is much further along the puberty train, she feels big.  She feels fat.  She feels insecure and inadequate and that kills me.  I look at her and see beauty and youth and vibrancy and she looks at herself and sees big and average and blah.  My stepdaughter does not ever comment on her outward appearance but spends a lot of time straightening her hair each morning and putting her face on before she goes to school.  She also likes to have things.  Things her friends have or things people at school have and feels it painfully when they have things she does not. (this happens often)

I want to blame society.  I want to blame TV and movies and music videos.  I want to blame magazines with their airbrushed visions of perfection.  Page after page of shiny hair, tiny waist, white teeth and tan skin.  I even want to blame Disney for their teeny tiny princesses with their luminescent skin and their perfect hair and ability to sing and dance and sword fight.  I want to blame kids at school and I want to blame the world around us and I want to like every Facebook post that proclaims the world sexist and harming to women.  However, as I began to think about this post, I began to see maybe the problem isn't just with the world around us, but the way I react to the world as well.   

I would tell you that I am not a vain person.  I go out with terrible hair and no makeup more often than I go out with nice hair and makeup.  I wear hand-me-downs and shirts I have owned for years and that were not in style when I bought them. I will use the same purse for years.  Through all seasons.  I don't own a full length mirror because I truly do not care if my shoes actually go with my outfit. I have hosted more than one get together in my pajama pants.  I ignore the fact my eyebrows are growing together in between threadings.  But when soul searching, as I have been, I have to say I am completely vain in one area and that I am completely guilty of showing it to my daughters.  Of telling them that I too believe that I am not good enough for what the world wants.  For not believing myself that I am FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE.  For not practicing what I preach.  

I will say that I am more comfortable in my skin at 40 than I have been in the past.  I am never going to have long legs or thick, lustrous hair and I have made peace with that.  I try to eat right but I also enjoy copious amounts of red wine and chocolate.  My vanity, my Achilles heel when it comes to being at peace with who I am, is my face.  Six years ago we all had a terrible flu. All five of us spent days on the couch burning with fever, shivering with cold, muscles aching and coughing and sneezing and sleeping.  I got the bonus prize of Bell's Palsy at the end of that flu.  I seriously woke up one morning with the right side of my face frozen - my eye that would not open or close, my mouth drooped and lopsided.  We were afraid I had had a stroke.  Once I was diagnosed and was told it would get better with time, we got on with life.  I put on a pirate patch to keep my eye protected and told everyone "Oh well, it's just my face."  I had a hard time eating (go give a dog some peanut butter and watch him eat, it looked like that) and lost weight and said "See, there is a plus side!"  Or when it hurt so much as the nerves regenerated, I would think that was okay because it meant I was healing.  And I did heal and it got better but my face was never back to 100%.  This was recently commented on by my doctor who said "Huh, I guess it never went back to 100% did it?".  Huh, I guess not jackass.

For the most part I just go about my day and my life, but I will admit to being a freak about my face in pictures.  I hate pictures. I try to use as many pictures of me before the BP as I can. I hate the way my right eye droops and the way it seems to be attached to the right side of my mouth.  I hate the way the left side looks happy and the right looks a little less interested.  I hate meeting new people and wondering if my face is doing that Crypt Keeper thing when I smile.  And I have showed my girls this again and again and again.  Take another one, I will plead.  Or "Man I hate that picture!"  The bravado of "It's just my face" replaced with "Ugh, my face."

Maybe owning up to this will help be more patient with the 12 year old who just wants to be like everyone else.  And perhaps I will try to understand that sometimes having things makes us feel better about other areas of ourselves.  Or I will listen to my wonderful husband who sang me a beautiful song about angry mirrors and beauty that made me and all the kids cry while I was walking around like Patchy the Pirate and sad, and I will believe him.  It could be possible that the only one thinking about how weird my face is is me.  Maybe I can show my girls that we all have things about ourselves that we would like to be different.  That we all have insecurities that threaten to overwhelm us or overtake our general air of contentment.  Maybe owning up to them keeps them from owning us.  

But I still blame Disney.

Joy To My World

You know what emotion adults don't experience enough?  Joy.  Oh, we have joy on the days we are married and we are almost crushed by joy on the days our children are born, but day to day joy is hard to maintain in our busy lives.  

You put the dishes away? Hooray! Let's jump for joy!

Dogs feel joy every day.  Heck, they feel joy every ten minutes.  Owner comes home? Joy.  Food in the bowl?  Joy.  Door opened to go outside?  Joy.  What?!  A walk?!?!?  Uncontained joy making it hard to get a leash on due to excessive howling, spinning and merriment.  Well, from Bailey anyway.  Grommit (aka Eeyore) sits sullenly waiting to see if she will be leashed up too.

I am incredibly fortunate that I share my house with a nine year old boy who not only finds joy every day, but infects the rest of us with it.  Life has not been kind to my son and he has had a hard time of it since the day he was born.   Hernia repair and double eye surgery all before age two.  Delayed development due to the fact he couldn't see kept him a baby for a long time but my gosh he was a happy, happy baby.  It took him forever to reach milestones, but along the way, he smiled with his beautiful smile and laughed with a laugh that would just tickle your soul.  He brought us joy before he even brought us words.

School is hard, hard, hard for my boy and while it wears me down for him, he loves to go.  He feels he is very popular and there are cute girls to impress and off he goes each day with his Pokemons tucked under his arm and a smile on his face.  We tell each other our highs and lows each night at dinner and while he has many highs about the day, he rarely has a low.  We often say that God wrapped him in Teflon and the things that would crush the rest of us seem to bounce right off of him. His Teflon does occasionally get pierced and his sadness tears holes in my heart, but he recovers much quicker than I do and he is back to being exuberant and ready to keep going.

Sometimes his joy is misplaced and it is a struggle to get him to see what needs to be done.  He and I have been at loggerheads about homework all year.  "I did that last week" he will say and think he is done.  I will remind him he has to do it every week.  He will say "nuh-uh", and on and on until one of us is ready to pull her hair out.  He also drives his sisters crazy with his non-stop happiness and they either snap at him or let it beat them down and join him.  (I prefer the latter)  The boy with horrific vision who cannot catch a ball to save his life will tell you he is going to play for the NFL when he grows up.  Ouch says my heart.  He doesn't even play flag football because his foray into basketball one season left Bill and I crushed and depleted on the sidelines.  However, if you ask him about it, he was awesome.  And given that he can punt a football 35 yards easy, maybe he will play for the NFL.

We recently put up our Christmas decorations and he was a large help (hee hee) getting the tree up and the lights and decorations on.  Our kids have always liked to lay under the tree and look up at it and no sooner were they done decorating that he was off and running for blankets.  I am sure my daughter feels herself too old and cool to be hanging out under the tree, but she got caught up in his enthusiasm and was not only under there, but reading to him as well.  Enter Mom joy there.  Whose turn is it for the Advent calendar? He knows and informs me first thing every morning.  The boy I have to remind to put socks on each day is barrelling down the stairs and turning the tree lights on every day.  He also rushes in after school and turns them on then.  He is so excited about Christmas and about the tree and its lights, I find that I am happy because he is happy.  One morning this week we had extra time and I laid under the Christmas tree with him and we talked about the day and Pokemon and some video game and I tell you, it really lent an air of peace about my day.  Normally I tune that video game talk out, but I let him run on and on and it wasn't as painful there under the tree.

Best seat in the house.

I am sure this is probably his last year for believing in Santa and I am soaking it up.  He was very concerned wondering if Santa would still come given his bad behavior as of late.  We assured him that continued good behavior would go a long way for him and it was not too late to get off the naughty list.  He seems a little wary but has chosen to believe us.  Worry replaced with joy just a few hours later.  

We are blessed that he is joyful all year round, but I tell you, his joy is almost palpable this time of year.  The trees, the lights, the chocolate and sweets starting to pile up and the nervousness of Santa coming take his joy and turn it into pure magic.  He is so excited about the tree lights, I become excited about the tree lights.  He is laughing about something ridiculous and there is his sister laughing with him.  Dad is not feeling well but is still so caught up in listening to what he has to say because his eyes are shining and he can't get the words out fast enough.  Oh and Christmas morning!  He will not be the first one up, but he will be up in an instant when he hears his sister and will spring from the bed, smile on, feet hitting the floor and running.  He will be laughing and oohing and touching and even before he starts opening, he will be shaking.  All that joy, all that happiness, all that intensity too much to keep inside and he will shake all through opening his presents.  And we will laugh at first and then watch him some more and Bill and I will smile and feel our  hearts grow three sizes and think it is a very merry Christmas indeed. 

Let's Play Pretend

Have you seen this?  This was and will be the actual weather in Austin for last weekend and this week.  High of 38?!?  That is crazy talk and I love it!  High of 56 on Thanksgiving?  That means the oven can be on all day and no one is sweating and wearing shorts.  That is happiness, pure and simple happiness.

Austin, I am not mocking you because I have lived here long enough to go "BRRRR" when faced with anything below 50.  My first winter here I ran around without a coat on because I thought it was so warm and took on an ice storm like it was nothing. The hotel I worked at had me drive two ladies down the tollroad in Dallas through said ice storm to their meeting.  Hotel insurance wouldn't cover their hotel vans going out, but it was perfectly fine for the Buffalo girl to take guests out in her crappy car.  They gave me a giant cookie when I got back and I thought it a perfectly reasonable exchange.   I will admit that I do giggle a little at how Texas plays winter.  The weather people with their somber voices and dramatic music and lead-ins of "Winter 2013".  Protect your plants!  Go wrap your pipes!  Bring the dogs in!  Please, dogs in my neighborhood are treated as good if not better than the kids, so no worries there.  There is the poor young newscaster right out of college doing the live reports bundled up in a puffy, down,  3/4 length coat, a Russian fur hat and scarf up under her nose.  The temperature?  50.  Then the weather man with his dire intonations of possible freezing precipitation, showing us video of snow in counties so far west and north, I think they must be in New Mexico.  My poor Texas children go to bed with visions of snowflakes dancing in their head.  The boy I can't pull out of bed in the morning is running down the stairs at 6:30am on a day off to see if it snowed.

I have seen some great things this week as we all hunker down and play winter.  Kids at school are either dressed to summit Everest or are wearing shorts and pretending they are not cold even as their legs turns pink.  The number of trees decorated along 360 has increased as cooler weather leads us into thinking Christmas. The environmentalist in me cringes with these adorned trees, but the bored commuter in me loves them.

not the best shot, but the only one where I was stuck in traffic.

Another fun thing I saw on my commute this week was a man not only selling firewood on the side of the road but chopping it as well.  Go Paul Bunyan! Is that great marketing or what?!?  We don't have an actual wood burning fireplace and I still wanted to stop and buy logs. (and no, it was not a shirtless young man chopping. He was old and layered up like he was wearing every shirt he owned)

The stores already crowded with the pre-Thanksgiving rush are now inundated with those afraid of being iced in without enough bread or milk or God help us, Deep Eddy Pink Grapefruit vodka.  We can do without a lot for a few days but not that vodka.

I know that there are many of you who are tired of the cold weather already (CG), but I say keep it coming!  We had the most relaxing weekend ever last weekend because we were hunkered down playing winter.  We didn't go anywhere, we didn't do much, we napped, we played some board games and even the kids were content.  The boy laughed so hard playing Apples to Apples that he turned red and couldn't breathe and I soaked up his exuberance and joy.   The oven and stove were on all day and it was still pleasant in the house.  A weekend of comfy pants and sweatshirts, of low expectations and contentment.  I had that rested Thanksgiving feeling a full five days before Thanksgiving!

When my kids tell me they are cold, I absolutely love to tell them "put a sweater on."  My mother must have intoned this ten times a day for 20 years between October and April each year and it gives me great happiness to hear her words come out of my mouth.  Layer up.  Dress for the weather.  Even Bill has been spotted dressing for the weather.  

the message makes me sigh, but the hoodie makes me smile.

I love this playing winter. I say playing because it is cold but we don't have to shovel our way out of the house or change the tires on our cars for snow.  We are not snowed in, iced in or otherwise truly inconvenienced.  We can still get to the store, the bank and our jobs.  I like to wear sweaters to work and not sweat.  I like the way a hot cup of coffee feels in hands that are actually a little cold.  I like that the kids and dogs all want to sit on the same couch and as close to each other as possible.  I do hope it snows at some point this year.  We have been years without snow and it is time for a light dusting to shut down the city.  My kids need to play outside and build a dirty snowman and lay down some snow angels and beam each other with snowballs.  Heck, forget the kids, I need to do that! We could play outside until our noses run and turn red and our wet hands in our cheap gloves go numb and tingle.  We'll stomp the snow off of our feet as we make it inside and gladly hold a cup of something steaming hot in our hands.  We'll sit on the couch together and watch the news to see if there will be more snow and watch the video footage where the camera sets up at the bottom of a hill and watches cars slide down it and take bets on whether they will slide, stop or stop and slide.  We will play games and read books and watch too much TV and be lazy.

Really, the only thing missing from this current cold spell is that silence that comes from a snowfall at night.  The world becomes muffled under a soft blanket of white and you can hear everything around you and nothing at all at the same time.  It is a quiet not heard in our days of rushing and beeping and buzzing and frenzied activities and one I think would do us all a world of good.    We will slow the world down for a day and savor it because it is fleeting.  It will be here and gone and we will be back to tank tops and flip flops in an eye blink.  So don't hate it Austin, embrace it!

It All Comes Down to Butter

Last summer, I did something that inadvertently changed my life.  I brought home an audio book of Michael Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”.  Bill drives two hours each way to get to his office and I thought this would be some interesting listening and act as a pleasant diversion for a few days.  Instead, it made him vegan.  Vegan, as in hold the eggs, no cheese for me, vegan. I have to say that when he first told me he was going to be vegan, I did not think it would last.    Two months in, I changed to hoping it wouldn’t last.  Now he is one year and five months in and I am afraid it is going to last.

I miss my husband cooking with eggs and cheese.  The man makes a blue cheese mac and cheese that will not only stop your heart, it will take your breath away; it is that good.  I swear it was just a few years ago I had to ask him to stop cooking everything with a roux; my wiggly thighs couldn’t take any more buttery beginnings.  We didn’t eat a lot of meat before this, but I find now that because there is never meat in the house, it is all I want to order when we are out.  I used to be very discerning about the meat I ate.  Now I just eat meat.

In an effort to make the most of my time, when I bake, I bake vegan so that both the kids and Bill have something sweet.  I use veggie butter in place of butter, flax seed and water in place of eggs.  When I eat what I have baked, my taste buds scream “WHERE IS THE BUTTER?!?”  “WHY HAVE YOU RUINED CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES?!?!”  Bill insists that they taste great but the man is living on soy and grains and is therefore taste bud compromised.  The kids eat it, but there is a haunted look around their eyes.  

We do eat well and very healthfully.  We tease each other about our meal choices.  For example, if Bill is in a bad mood or says he is tired, I will tell him to eat some meat.  Or because I am always tired, he will say it is because I am loaded down with animal proteins.  Ha ha, we laugh and tease.  Until today.  Today he posted ridiculous menu items he said sounded great for Thanksgiving.  It was from something called a Vegan Guide to a Turkey-less Thanksgiving.  Blasphemy!  You can take away my blue cheese mac and cheese, but you cannot substitute a Lentil Mushroom Loaf for my turkey Bill McMahon.  You cannot.

Thanksgiving is about butter and gravy and turkey and pie.  It is not Veggie Tofu Pot Pie or Tofurkey.  I will not “make the vegetable the star of the show” as your recent post declares.  I will stick that vegetable on the side and drown it in butter, gravy or cream of mushroom soup as the Pilgrims intended.  I want whipping cream in my mashed potatoes and I want to use the leftover whipped cream from the pies in my morning coffee.  I want the first scoop of mashed potatoes with the swimming pool of butter on top.  I definitely do not want to use coconut milk as a substitute for anything as far as the pies go.  No I do not.  I want the house to smell like cooking turkey all day long and into the night.  Thanksgiving is not grains and veggies and health because calories do not count on Thanksgiving.  We eat until we are so full we have to lie down and we blame it on tryptophan – not the 4000 calorie dinner we just ate.  We wake up from a little nap and because our stomachs have lost a bit of their distended bloat, we start on dessert.  And who can eat just one piece of pie?  Later at night, our stomachs empty from being stretched out all day; it is time for a turkey and stuffing sandwich.  (Bread on bread?  What, you say?  Try it, you can thank me later.)  This is Thanksgiving.  I feel like Charlie Brown being handed pretzels and popcorn when you talk about anemic vegetables and soy pressed products instead.

Sigh. It is apparent that we will need to sit down and work out what is non-negotiable so that we can both have a happy holiday.  My list is as follows: TURKEY, gravy, sausage stuffing, real whipped cream and genuine, from the cow, butter on everything.  I don’t know what Bill will put as his non-negotiable but I bet falafel is part of it.  I am not sure the chick pea really has a right to be at Thanksgiving.  However, because I am thankful for my husband and thankful for the right to eat my weight in mashed potatoes, if I get my list, he can have his too.  

Stop Rushing Me!

Enough America.  Enough of your propaganda.  Enough of your ads, your music in the background, your red cups of coffee extolling a season that is not yet here.  Enough.

It is early November.  The weather finally feels like fall.  Halloween is past, but so recently that kids still have their trick-or-treat candy left.  There are still three and a half weeks until Thanksgiving and, believe it or not, 7.5 weeks until Christmas.  You would never know this based on the ads on TV, the circulars in the paper and the bombardment of Christmas in every store.  I don't want to see stores bedecked in red and green. My eyes are still happy with autumnal reds, oranges and yellows.  I know Thanksgiving isn't a big money maker, but do we have to go right from Halloween to Christmas?  It is like reading the first three chapters of a book, skipping the middle and then diving into the final chapter.  Total rip-off.

I was surprised to receive the big toy book from Target before Halloween.  That got tossed without even paging through it because IT IS TOO SOON to start thinking about Christmas.  And yes, I tossed it complete with coupons and $5 gift card inside because you have to use them before Thanksgiving.  I was saddened to see that Starbucks broke out their holiday red cups on November 1st.  Too soon Starbucks, too soon.  Red cups December 1st?  Yes, perfect.  Let's all dream of peppermint mochas, playing Santa and good will towards men.  Red cups on November 1st?  Pressure.  It is not festive and merry when you force it too soon.  We will all be sick of the red before St. Nicholas Day.  (December 6th for those of you who did not grow up in the North).

Bah.  Humbug.

I am not going to buy into the hype.  I am going to eat my kids' candy and I am not going to skip over the next three weeks of thinking about Thanksgiving.  I am going to look forward to a long, long weekend filled with amazing food and time spent together as a family.  We will eat with abandon and wear our comfy pants all day long.  No nice clothes and good manners (except for Bill), just time together, movies, hanging out and relaxing.  Time to reflect, time to give thanks, time to just stop grinding it out each day and time to just breathe.  One year, thanks to my worldly cousin, we ended up having a guest here from another country who had never had Thanksgiving dinner before.  My kids got to explain the history of Thanksgiving (minus the genocide that followed) and he got to eat a Bill McMahon turkey dinner.  It was a beautiful, beautiful, rewarding, soul-enriching day.  Why are we as a nation trying to fast forward through all this?

Last year I got caught up in the hype.  I felt that I had to buy this at this store or this over here or this right now, but financially I couldn't jump fully into my seasonal crazy and that made me stressed.  I was sure Christmas would be ruined and I wouldn't get what we needed.  But let me tell you, Bill and I took a day the week before Christmas and got everything we needed, and cheap!  Forget Black Friday!  Try the mall the week before Christmas - they are giving things away!  The best part was that we took an entire day and we spent it together.  We had coffee and talked, we went to the mall and survived, we thought about our kids and how big they had gotten.  We wondered if William would still shake when he opened his presents.  (He did, but not as much as we hoped.)  It was a calm, wonderful day in the middle of a busy, harried week and I can't wait to do it again.

So please don't let them fool you.  Don't let them take away the actual beauty of Thanksgiving by treating it like it doesn't matter.  It does matter!  Don't ruin the magic of Christmas by buying into it too soon.  Christmas is magical because it only takes place for a short while, not because it is readily available November 1st.  There will be plenty of stuff available in December and leftover stuff haunting the shelves still in January.  Close your eyes to the commercials and skip over the ads in the paper.  Look at the weather and the calendar to decide which holiday is really next.  

I wish I could say I would boycott Starbucks and their red cups for the next month, but that would be silly.  I think I will bring a reusable cup when I go as to not be angered and which I should do anyway.  December 1st, however,  I will take their red cup and I will smile and I will feel the magic of a true Christmas season beginning to sparkle.

A Dull Roar

First of all, I have to say that my library is never a quiet place because, well, I work there. I never hesitate to throw back my head and laugh out loud if moved to do so and luckily for me, my librarian does too.  Secondly, we have at least 150-200 kids in here every morning before the bell rings.  They are waiting at the door for us as early as 7:30 and they trickle in when we open at 8:00 and completely engulf us by 8:45.  Some are checking out books, others are frantically finishing work, most are printing and the rest are here to check in with friends and TALK VERY LOUDLY until the bell rings.  We have classes in and out and moving through here continuously creating movement and flow of the noise.  We also have kids in here during their lunch period.  We used to let them eat in here but because they are kids and therefore slobs, that stopped by the end of the first marking period.  We can still get quite the crowd in here and the cacophony created is amazing.  The noise just surrounds you, it envelops you, it swarms over and under and through you and you get lost in a mindless buzz invading your brain.  And then, every now and then, it goes quiet.  You can hear the scratch of a pen over paper or the printer slowly grinding up for the next page. Or even better, snatches of whispered conversations from the back.  “….I told her I would….”, “He better not cuz…..”.   

A lot of the noise I hear is swearing.  Teenage swearing which is overdone and therefore ineffective for the most part.  I guess as an adult we learn to use it for emphasis or in my case, with beer.   The potty-est mouths of all come from our table of boys playing grown up Pokémon.  Magic? Magik?  However it is spelled, it brings out the longshoremen in these kids.  I actually get to tell people to watch their mouths.   If that isn’t irony, I am not sure what is.

Where can I get one of these?!

Oh, the technology!  Everyone is beeping and buzzing and tweeting and ringing.  They are listening to music so loudly I can hear it when they pass.  Forget Spanish, these kids need to learn ASL because none of them are going to be able to hear after age 40.

When caught in the tornado of noise and movement, conversations get started and end abruptly.  Sometimes we remember to pick the thread back up and continue with it, sometimes we forget.  Today’s involved a mom who came in and asked that we stop checking books out to her son, he is reading too much.  I got interrupted at that point and left thinking what a mean mom she was but apparently he is reading rather than doing any of his homework, so I am glad I picked that conversation thread back up before I started openly condemning her.  We also have coffee in our break room and teachers stream back and forth throughout the day and deposit words of stress or wisdom or “Wait til you hear this!” This definitely adds to the noise and fragmented conversations throughout the day.

This is a different environment from the very quiet library I worked in before and it took me some time to get used to the buzz, the business, the constant movement.  I told a mom today that it probably took me two weeks to stop getting annoyed at being interrupted constantly to realize that those interruptions were really the bulk of my job.    Now those interruptions have names and I know what classes they are taking, what they are reading, if they are having a good day or a bad day.   I get to encourage and admonish from a place called concerned adult rather than mom, and it is fun.  They tell me about their weekends and their classes and their lives and I love it.  One of my interruption's mom grew up in Buffalo!  We now bond over Weber's mustard and Bison chip dip.  I end up taking some of their heartache on, I just can’t help it.  These are good kids and they remind me that being a teenager is hard work in addition to being self-centered and self-absorbed.  And loud.  Really, really loud.

I think that the days of quiet libraries are definitely coming to an end. Hushing librarians and quiet study turning into urban legends.  I sometimes wish it wasn't always so loud, but given the choice over shushed and sterile or dynamic and vibrant, well, bring on da noise! 

Here's a Story...

You know what is a mixed bag?  Step-parenting: all the responsibilities of a parent and none of the control.  I have been doing this gig now for thirteen years and I am still struggling. There are times when I am awesome: cookies for her class, rides to wherever she needs to go, forgotten items run up to school to save the day.  There are also times when, quite frankly, I suck:  not ready for the level of parenting her age requires, being so frustrated by her lack of planning I am angry at her all week or just not wanting to drive her somewhere she needs to go.

 I met Maizy when she was just about to turn three.  She was small, vivacious, and verbose and liked having her Dad to herself.  She will turn sixteen, God help us, this weekend and I find myself thinking of the first birthday I shared with her.  On that third birthday, Bill and I took her to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.  I had no idea what I was in for as far as lights, noise, cracked out kids and primary colors.  Maizy and I bonded as we watched a girl pee right next to the ball pit, shake her leg and go back in.  We were united in horror.  We were also united in sobbing as we left: Maizy because she didn’t want to go and me because it was the most horrible place I had ever been to, I never wanted to go again and this meant I hated kids and never wanted to be a parent but loved this man who had a kid and wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  Bill wisely put us both to bed when we got home and I was pregnant six months later and the whole thing was a moot point. 

Maizy has spent most of her growing up spending one week at her mom’s and the next week at our house.  When people ask how that works, I tell them that it is hard work to share a child.  Think about it, you have two people who had a relationship and had a child, but the relationship did not work for various reasons and now they are confronted with those reasons again and again as they work to raise a child.  Good times.  It is hard work for the kid who is coming back and it is hard work for the kids are there the whole time to adjust.  It is hard work for the parent who is missing her and it is hard work for the parent who is trying to do everything for her the week she is there.  When she was little, she used to come back and touch everything she had left behind as if to say “I’m back”.  Now that she is older, she takes everything with her each week back and forth.  I have tried to talk her into keeping boring things like socks at each house, but even those get shuttled back and forth.  She wrote a story for English once on how she liked having two houses to be at and how she liked the different dynamics of each. However, she has recently told us that she finds it easier to lie when writing anything autobiographical.   Hard work, indeed.

Hard shoes and hair to fill

I wish I had friends who were also stepparents – we could commiserate and help each other through the sticky spots and understand truly what the other was going through.  I don’t though. I know very few real life stepparents.  I still think Carol Brady and Joseph when I think stepparents and that is intimidating.  Carol Brady?  She took on all those boys and never batted an eye, just smiled and drank coffee with Alice in the kitchen.  Joseph?  He raises the human form of God willingly and obediently.  And I make cookies for bake sales.  I remember when Maizy first played soccer and Bill was coaching and I introduced myself to the other moms as her stepmom; they almost recoiled.  Feeling slighted, I thought, just wait.  Law of averages, half of you will be divorced in five years and dealing with your own stepparent situations.  Ha!  I am not always a nice person.

I want Maizy to know I think she is an amazing young woman.  She is independent and smart and so funny.  Like laugh out loud funny.  I want her to know that I think her situation stinks even when I am being indifferent to it.  I want her to know that saying things she doesn’t want to hear is not yelling.  I want her to know she is a part of our family even when she is at her mom’s.  I want to tell her to be as nice to her sister as she is to her brother because when she is not it makes me want to be mean to her.  I want her to know and appreciate how much her Dad has done for her and because of her.  Basically, I want her to know exactly what is in my head and heart and agree with it and think I am fantastic.  However, that will probably not happen until she has a child of her own so until then, if she just knows that I love her and mean well, even if I am “yelling” all the time, that will have to do.

Happy, Happy, Happy

You know, it is not often in life that you get exactly what you want.  Especially after you have kids and your life and your wants and needs come second.  However, yesterday, my 40th birthday was spent and celebrated and lived exactly they way I wanted.

It actually started before my birthday as my new co-workers brought me presents and cake and began my birthday celebration early.  In the two months we have worked together, I have shared a lot with these women, probably over shared, and every day that I work with them and laugh with them and live my life along side them, I see so clearly why all those job interviews before were a bust.  This perfect job was not ready for me yet. 

I woke up feeling no older or different that I had going to bed at age 39.  That was a good start, right?  I wanted to start my day with a hard kettlebell workout and I got it.  I alternately felt young, strong and invincible and then old, feeble and decrepit.  My legs and lungs burned and  I had to lay on the floor when I was done.  That was not stretching, that was complete exhaustion. 

Then there is my amazing husband who took my wishes for a comfortable, easy going birthday party to heart even though he would have much rather cooked a real meal for everyone and made it fancy.  He still spent a lot of the day chopping and preparing but the man is happier with a knife in his hand and vegetables cut to uniform size.  He created atmosphere on our back deck with a tarp and sparkling lights and while I did not appreciate him scaling the trellis of our deck from the second story, I surely appreciated the ambiance when he was done.  I am sad to say he did not join us in the dress code of comfy pants though.  The polite Canadian in him could not wear pajama pants in mixed company.

And the well-wishes!  Texts, emails, phone calls and Facebook prompting my friends to wish me a happy birthday helped make the day feel truly all about me: new friends, girl friends I have known since kindergarten, family all wishing me a happy birthday.  My parents sending a care package of Buffalo goodies for everyone to enjoy: Sahlen's hot dogs, Weber's mustard and Bison chip dip were consumed with gusto.  And then my party where my house and my deck overflowed with the friends who have become my family.  My friends who came to my house in their pajama pants and comfy pants because that is what I wanted.  Friends who really did not think twice when I opened the door clad in my reindeer pajama pants.  Friends who made and wore shirts openly mocking my love of Buffalo and comfy pants.  Friends who appreciate my thriftiness....


Make lemonade?  That is silliness.

As well as friends who know I have no filter...

read who starts the game

 

I have to say that when Bill lit all 40 candles on my cake and I stood there with them ABLAZE and heard twenty plus of the dearest voices I know singing Happy Birthday to me, well, I was overcome. It was all I could do not to ugly cry right there.  Only the thought of someone catching that on film stopped the waterworks before they started because it really would have been full on open-mouthed, no sound sobbing.  In that moment I knew that from now on, every prayer I say has to start with "Dear God, I am sorry for being a sucky whiner for the last ten years because truly you have blessed me in abundance."

Perhaps 40 is all about realizing what you have and being damn grateful for it.  I saw it and heard it and felt it all with intense clarity last night.  When asked how I felt about 40 last night, I could only answer "Exuberant."  Today I would add awed, confident, fulfilled, blessed, content and even excited.  And in the immortal words of Phil Robertson, I would also have to add "Happy, happy, happy."

Wistful Thinking

You know, the longer I am at this full time work thing, the more I see what a sweet deal I had being a stay-at-home-mom.  Of course I didn't appreciate this sweet deal when I was living it. No, I was worried about money or I was bored and a little listless.  I love my job and I see how much I need this interaction and intellectual stimulation every day, but there will always be things I miss about being a SAHM.

1.  Napping.  Oh how I miss a good weekday nap!  Got a bad night sleep?  No worries, a little post-lunch nap will be in order.  Rainy blah kind of day?  Curl up on the couch and sleep some of it away.  Sigh, napping.  Naps are wasted on the Pre-K, let me tell you. 

2.  Coffee/Lunch with Friends.  Those gatherings during the week with my friends where we could talk and catch up and see each other.  Email is a poor substitute for face time and texting is even worse because my fat thumbs constantly misspell things.  My weekends are gone before I get out to see anyone, or if I do, I feel like I am rushing through it.

3.  Shopping during the week.  I used to go to at least three stores to make sure I got the best deal on things.  There were no crowds and I could take my time or rush, depending on the day.  Now there are always crowds, I am stressed because people can't push their cart up the right side of the aisle and if I forget something back in produce, well, we are doing without because there is no way in hell I am swimming upstream to get it.

Not 100% sure, but I think this is our HEB on a Saturday afternoon.

4.  Being up at the kids' schools.  I miss volunteering at my kids' schools.  I miss coming up and chitchatting with the teachers and staff and helping.  I miss seeing my mom friends and hearing the latest and feeling like we are all connected up there.  Right now I feel like the only thing I do to help at school is make sure my kids put on deodorant before they leave. 

5.  Little errands.  You know running the non-essential errands like taking library books back, dropping off the donation stuff before it takes over the laundry room, getting the dogs' nails trimmed.  Right now both dogs are tick-tick-ticking across the floor and it is driving me crazy but by the time I take them to get them trimmed, they might just grow long enough to curl around (like the guy in Guinness Book of World Records) and maybe they will thud rather than tick.  Actually if anyone out there can come to my house and trim their nails, I will make you bread.

6.  Making bread.  How obnoxious was I with my posts of freshly baked bread?  Working friends, how you did not come over and smack me in the face with said bread, I don't know, but thank you for your restraint.  I spent a lot of time baking bread and cookies and muffins and liked to drop extras off on friends' doors like a Baking Fairy. 

This new normal of mine is a frenzied, cluttered place and it makes me a little wistful remembering the calm of earlier days.  Sigh.  Oh well, back to the frenzy.  Besides, Thanksgiving and Winter Break aren't too far away, there will be time for napping then.  

 And I am totally serious about the dog nail/bread swap - let me know.


 





Letter to a Summer Bully

Oh Texas.  Twenty years in and you still disappoint me every September.  I have slowly learned to calibrate my expectations of you.  I know that it will be hot the first day of school as well as the thirtieth day of school.  I know not to rush you with my needs for cooler weather because I only end up making you angry and you act like a hurt child and keep summer going through October.  I know.  But Texas, I forgot that you can be so cruel.  This year you gave me a little tease of autumn on the first calendar day of autumn and I thought this is it!  Sweater weather!  Open windows!  Fall is upon us with all of its glory!  But no. It was just you, playing with strings of my heart, giving us just one cooler day and then BOOM.  Here we are in the high 90's again and all I got was a cold. 

Please Texas.  We had a very nice summer and I thank you for that.  It was not until the end of August that I found myself so weary of sweating and tank tops and heat that I contemplated moving and fantasizing about wearing comfy pants again.  This is usually a June occurrence, so again, thank you.  But please, I need fall.  I need open windows at night and I need the smell of crisp air in the morning.  I need temperatures that dip into the 50's and don't get above 78.  I need the trees that do change color to start changing.  You know you only let them shine a day or two before they dump all over the ground.  I need to see all those resplendent reds, orange and yellows and not just in front of HEB with its anemic pumpkins and sad, wilting mums.  I need to take a walk through leaves and hear the crunch of them beneath my feet and smell the sweet decay that rises up.  Please, I would like my electric bill to go down for a month before the gas bill rises to take its place.  And I would really like to hold a cup of coffee and enjoy the warmth of it spreading through my hands rather than the sweat pouring down my face.

Not to call you out Texas, but Buffalo does fall WAY better than you.  Yep.  I hate to be the one to tell you, but Buffalo, NY has this fall thing down.  Glorious you could call it.  Autumnal splendor some would say.  Cool nights, warmish days.  People up there are reveling in the majestic colors of the trees already.  They are drinking their cider and crunching through their leaves while wearing their cozy clothes and not sweating.  Fall fests up there are enjoyable - a celebration of summer's end and the pause before the onslaught of winter.  Fall fests here are just more kettle corn and hot, sweaty people wondering why they thought calling it Fall Fest would make it seem more like autumn.

Glorious, right?

Oh Texas.  I have tried so hard all these years to explain, please listen this time.  Autumn is just so special to me.  It holds my birthday month, it reminds me of years playing field hockey, or the year I spent making donuts at the cider mill.  Yes, I know my complexion was a mess but that $4/hour was a princely sum.  Fall is football games and crisp nights and huge harvest moons taking up the sky.  It is walks at night and mugs of tea and perhaps a light blanket as you sit on the couch.  It gives you time to prepare for winter.  Not that winter here is especially cold or harsh, but fall is a time to get your crops in, tighten up the house, bake to warm up the kitchen and a time to get your mind right. 

Please Texas.  Please give us some fall before you throw us into winter.  We need that pause between seasons of two extremes.  You are starting to act like a bully Texas, and I just won't put up with it anymore.  Well, I will but I will pout and whine to all who listen and eventually you are going to get a bad name for yourself.  They might stop flying your flag as high and stop making kids pledge their allegiance to you, Texas, in schools.  C'mon Texas.  Do it.  All the cool states are doing it.  What's a little cooler weather between friends?  Bring on the fall Texas and I will open my windows and doors and publicly declare you the best, ever.  I promise.

The F Word

I am looking it straight in the face.  It is out there, it is waiting for me without mercy.  I have watched so many friends fall victim to it this year; one by one they have crossed over, never to return.  Forty.  F-O-R-T-Y.  The ultimate "f" word.

The first person I remember turning Forty is my dad.  My mom rented a big light up sign that said "Happy Birthday Pete, U old fart".  I remember it vividly because our entire front yard was lit up, I was allowed to stay up until my dad got home to see it and because my proper spelling mother substituted "U" for "you".  Right there I learned that Forty was special: it was to be acknowledged loudly, proper spelling and grammar were to be thrown to the wind and you should immediately mock anyone turning Forty.  Valuable life lessons that were a million years away from applying to me, until now.

Me at the time of the "U Old Fart" sign

I have a friend who just turned Forty and being a go-getter, set goals to do something new each month of her 39th year.  She tried new things, went new places, even went back to work as one of her new things.  I admired her but knew better than to try and set something up like that myself.  I like to take the ostrich approach to change and bury my head in the sand until the last possible moment and then let the adrenaline and crisis coping skills take over.  I will admit that Forty is not one to be shunned and it kept showing up in my random thoughts throughout the year.  Ridiculous thoughts such as "did you see that baby....you'll never have a baby again....look how big your kids are..you'll never be seen as a young family again...if you went back to school now, you'd be twice as old as every one else in class....how can you have wrinkles and pimples at the same time....you should learn to knit."  Forty clearly has some issues.

Looking for inspiration, I typed "forty is" into the search engine and the first thing I got back was "Forty is the old age of youth".  Ouch.  I also got "forty is fabulous".  I don't like that one either.  I don't use fabulous to describe people (other than drag queens), places or things so I find it annoying.  "Forty is fearless."  Please.  I worried my way out of the womb and through the last 39 years, that will not be changing any time soon.  Then there was this book title that was something about women turning Forty and coming into their fullness.  Insert gag noise here.  Or Forty is the new twenty.  Is it?  Who says?  And why? 

Uninspired by the results of my internet search, I was forced to finally confront Forty and this is what I have found.  Forty is fit.  I am in much better shape now that I was turning 30.  No, it does not count that I was 5 months pregnant when I turned 30, I am still taking it as a win. Forty is family.  We are in the thick of the crazy years with one kid in high school, one in middle and one in elementary.  We are exhausted and stressed, but we have been blessed in abundance with these three.  Forty is factual.  I have been around, I know some things, I can share this knowledge, but I can still learn new things.  I know that the kid at the grocery store is carding me for my beer purchase because he is new and scared and not because he thinks I am underage.   Thirty year old me would have prided herself on her youthful appearance.  And finally, Forty is feisty because I am feisty and that is how my tens, twenties and thirties have been, so why not?  Forty will not be the old age of anything for me.  Do not go gently into turning Forty!

That said, I do ask that you do not put up a lit sign in my yard for my birthday as my son will quote from it like he quotes commercials and forty will get old very fast.  Or toilet paper my trees because my children will be so embarrassed when I take it down and bring it back in to use.  Forty will be acknowledged, it will be honored and it will be feted, but it really is just a number and we all know I was never very good at math.

For My Mom

Tomorrow is my mom's birthday, she will be turn something between 60 and 70.  As I tell my son, we never press a woman for her exact age or weight.

My mom was born to loving, devout, strict German Catholic parents.  She was one of twelve children, number four down the line.  The guy who wrote the birth order book would have his mind blown trying to say where each of the twelve fit in the rankings he created.  My mother had the misfortune of immediately following my super genius uncle and while she always got good grades, they were not as good as his.  Don't think too poorly of my grandparents, this was a time where children were sat in the corner with dunce hats on in school as well. 

given the awkwardness, I would put her age 12 here

My mom got good grades, graduated and went off to work a variety of crappy full time jobs because my grandfather did not believe women needed a higher education.  Ouch.  She met and married my dad and had my sisters quickly after and settled into being a policeman's wife.  My brother and I followed and after awhile she went back to work, working a variety of crappy jobs because by this time you needed a college degree to get good ones.  But my mother is nothing if not persistent and she found her niche in commercial real estate appraisal and did well.

The older and more hormonal my children get, the more I realize what an amazing mother my mom is.  The venomous looks my daughter gives me now makes me want to call my mom and apologize for my miserable teenage self.  She raised the four of us pretty much on her own as my dad worked a lot of nights and third shifts.  She carted us to various sports practices, plays, band and anything else we were in and she was at almost all of our games, our concerts and events.  We did well in school because she knew we could and it was important to her that we go to college.  I am an excellent speller because she made me look up words in the dictionary rather than telling me how to spell them.  Her inability to go to college really left an ugly wound in my mom's psyche and she raised her girls to think and know that they could do anything.  The world was as much theirs as it was their brother's.

My mom is an excellent baker and she made sure we all knew how to bake.  We did not have a lot of money and the good food (junk food) ran out quickly with four kids, but somehow there were always enough ingredients to put together to make a cake or cookies or something sweet.  My mom is also a good cook...when she follows the recipes and doesn't wing it or add things in she has lying around.  Ask me about the hot dogs, potatoes and peas....or, God help me, hamburger pie.

My mom is a do-er.  If something needs to be done, she is your woman.  Need a pancake breakfast organized?  Mary will do it.  Need a dozen cookies for a bake sale?  She will make you two dozen.  Need an arm or a leg?  She has two and she will gladly give you one.  Even pure exhaustion from caring for my dad going through chemo didn't stop her from taking care of others.  We spent two hours chasing down a wheelchair for a sick friend who needed it.  That is my mom.  Do and help and go until you just can't anymore.  I have had to tell her to stop being a Martha and to just be Mary: to take care of herself, to say no every now and then.

 She is an excellent Grammie and delights in her grandchildren.  She throws them Cheeto parties and lets them paint walls in the basement and make it a clubhouse.

She taught us all how to value family, how to be a part of our community, how to work hard and achieve our goals.  We are confident, mouthy and driven because of her.  We love our kids and expect good things from them because of her.  We are opinionated, purposeful and busy because of her.  I am so grateful for my mom, so proud to be her daughter. I know how much you value college Mom, but I learned more from you about the world than I ever did there.  Now on your birthday, go be Mary - not Martha.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

This past week I have survived the first week of fourth grade, sixth grade, tenth grade and my own work at high school.  My kids did great and while the new middle schooler had a tough week, she left on Friday triumphant having finally conquered her locker.  Whew!  The boy loves going to his after-school care; so much so that he is not happy to see me when I get there to pick him up. This should make me feel good, but it does make me a little mad when I have sat in traffic for an hour trying to get to him.

I have gleaned a lot of knowledge this first week working among so many teenagers.  First, they are not as clean-smelling as I hoped kids of this age would be.  We have two rooms off of the library and when classes are held in there, it smells like PE class after everyone leaves.  I expect this from grade school kids who are totally clueless that the smell they smell is indeed themselves, but it surprised me at high school.  Second, when over 2000 kids attend a school, there is not enough room for them all to eat lunch in the cafeteria.  Even with two lunch periods, kids spill into the hallways, the grounds outside, seniors leave campus and hundreds of kids make their way into the library.  We ask that those who are going to eat to eat up front.  Half of the kids say yes ma’am, sit where we ask them to and smile pleasantly. I LOVE these kids.  The the other half is sneaking food in every time they think I am not looking.  I am always looking and it is a game of “how stupid is the library staff vs. fast-chewing teens” for the next 30 minutes.  Third, pep rallies are not as fun as I remember.  Our student population is large, so they have two pep rallies instead of just one.  There was a dance routine, a cheer routine, the football captains murmured something into a microphone, a school fight song and then everyone was ushered out.  Eh.  Fourth, having school spirit means you can wear jeans and sneakers on game days. I just can’t buy enough spirit wear!

However, the most important thing I have learned this week comes from the teachers.  I was hired with about twenty new teachers this year and when they were introduced during the first staff meeting, it was a like a Who’s Who of American Teachers.  They are credentialed in a million things, they have been working in urban locations with struggling schools, they just flew in from overseas, or they are going to be teaching multiple subjects and coaching.  This is not just the new teachers though, it is all the teachers.  Very rarely does a teacher just teach one subject.  They are teaching Math and heading up the Robotics Department, or they teach English and leading the after school tutoring program or they are splitting time between multiple schools.  Impressed yet? I was, but it goes on.  They are there early or late or skip their lunch period to tutor or even just be available for kids who need help.  They are encouraging kids who don’t get encouragement at home and they are cutting through collegiate tape for those who do.  They are taking kids who won’t go on to college and helping them to identify careers and they are taking special needs kids and teaching them life skills.  It is all very humbling.

This week has opened my eyes to what being a teacher really means.  They are listening when other adults are not and they are intervening when kids need help.  People always comment on how teachers have it easy with their holidays and their summer vacations.  I think they need those in order to save their sanity and come back to do it again next year.  And for those of you who think that your taxes pay teacher’s salaries, that is inane.  Your taxes pay your taxes and teachers pay taxes too, so they could say that they are actually funding their own salaries as well.  And yes, teachers do make good money their first year out of college, but what about ten years later when they are raising a family and have had maybe a 1% increase those past ten years?  Not so much right?

My kids have had decent teachers, good teachers and teachers I would walk across coals for if they asked me because they made such a difference in my kids’ lives.  They have also had teachers who were going through a divorce and distracted, teachers who maybe could have retired a few years ago and teachers who got into teaching without realizing it wasn’t for them.  Poor Bill had more bad teachers than good teachers.  I have railed against certain teachers and how I think they have failed my children without stopping to just appreciate that these teachers were there during the day when I wasn’t.  Perhaps their teaching style did not suit my child, but they took care of them, made sure they were where they were supposed to be and expected things of them.  I didn’t care to remember that they were doing all of this while caring for more kids than their room truly holds and state issued testing breathing down their necks.   

I would like to hope that every teacher my kids get will be a great one, but I know that they won’t all be.  However, even if they are not, I will try to keep in mind all that they do in a day and respect them for that alone and teach my kids to do the same.