I wasn’t missing, we were in the Land of Lights, Elvis, Purple Twinkie, Showgirls, and all sorts of debauchery (none of which we partook in, hee-hee.)
I came home to two big messy stresses that I have to address, but after that I will return to my blog with photos and exciting stories of our amazing adventure!
Ciao.
And I missed everyone, I was without internet for FIVE days!
She paints.
This is DD#2 and #3’s Bedroom that HG turned into a pink, Hawaiian flower paradise while I was getting my toes done with LeLo, napping, and working.
I seemed to come down with a little tummy something-or-other and I was feeling a bit miserable the past 48 hours or so. LeLo and I had a hot date for pedicures, lunch, and shopping and I only mangaged to get through pedicures and a little shopping. Then I went to bed until I was forced to get through five hours of sheer HELL pretending to be nice and happy at my Glamorous Waitressing Job.
Today, a bit better. HG is exhausted from all of her manual and artistic labor so we’re off so I can treat her to dinner. Isn’t she fabulous?
Sigh.
I love that woman.
Today HG and I celebrated our 16 month anniversary. Yes we are still celebrating our anniversary every month, yes we are a little dorky that way. We went to Sushi and I had a wine spritzer in the middle of the day! After that craziness we cleaned our neighbors house because she was getting her gall bladder removed today and we’re nice that way.
Then I made Polenta Lasagna.
Can you stand the excitement?
Today seems like the perfect day to show the Internet our new living room carpet. HG and I installed it last Friday (ourselves.) We ripped out the old carpet, staples, and carpet tack, (ourselves,) and hauled it away. After we cleaned up the sub-floor, we were ready to install the new carpet tiles, made of recycled plastic soda bottles, fully recyclable into itself, (very green, Al Gore would be p-r-o-u-d!)
Here I am, working hard. Looking very butch. 
Here is HG, looking very hot. (Yes, LeLo, she is wearing hair clips.) 
And this is what it looked like four hours later when it was finished. Suffice to say, we were exhausted and sore from all of that butch-labor. Luckily there was beer involved afterward.
The coolest thing about this carpet is if something gets spilled on it, you life up the individual tile, rinse it in the sink, and let it dry. Then you put the tile right back. Mmm, hmm. That’s right. Rinse it in the sink.
Tomorrow is T minus 6 days until HG go on a little holiday. Holiday, holiday, holiday! Woo-hoo.
I won’t tell you where we’re going, but let’s just say it’s somewhere warm, with lots of lights, and Barry Manilow and Purple Twinkie might live there, (but not together, I don’t think…)
Oh, and BTW, the title of this post has absolutely nothing to do with anything. I just coudn’t think of anything and I happened to be singing that song in my head today.
And now y’all will!
I don’t believe in Hell. I believe that you carry your consciousness with you into the next realm of existence. For some people, that very well may be their own little Hell, created just for them, by them.
People who are filled with hate and blame and disdain and intolerance will spend eternity surrounded by hate, blame, disdain and intolerance.
It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Gas in Oregon, $3.41/gallon.
Today, I vowed not to drive. And I haven’t. HG rode her bike everywhere, DD#1 rode her bike to school, the little girls took Mass Transit, (aka, the school bus,) and I carpooled to my Glamorous Waitressing Job with my friend Mindy.
I will have to break down and buy gas tomorrow, but I am quite pleased with myself, as I have cut my consumption nearly in half simply by not driving DD#1 to school, (she has to walk, it’s a nice day, she’ll live I decided,) and by “grouping” my trips together. I generally fill my tank once per week, but this time I will have gone one week and six days before filling.
Yeah me.
Remember when you were a teenager and you would hitch a ride with one of your friends who had a car? Or you were the friend who had the car and you were expected to drive way out of your way to give your friend a ride somewhere? Everytime the passenger would get out of the car, they would (usually) offer you gas money?
That’s something that people grow out of, you know, when you’re not broke all of the time, but seriously… When gas is this expensive, don’t you kind of feel like you should offer “gas money” again?
I almost offered it to Mindy but I was afraid I would look like a complete dork.  A dork who doesn’t drive and makes her kid walk to school. So I thought better of it and didn’t.
It was slow, slow, slow at my Glamorous Waitressing Job but thankfully everyone was nice and on their best behavior. Sunday, however, was crazy busy as it was a major restaurant holiday.
Everyone and their mother was out for dinner.
And when people go out for holidays with their families, they generally tend to drink more and tip less. Yes, that is what happens. I guess people can only handle their families if they are drinking cocktails, so they just order away. And since they figure they’re paying more for their check, they certainly shouldn’t have to tip more, oh no, not them. Sunday’s are notoriously bad tip days anyway and couple (or family) that with a holiday equals 10-15% night. What is lacking in quality is certainly made up for in quantity, so overall it was a decent night money wise, and generally people are nice, because well, they’re all drunk.
It’s a good thing too, because it’s all going into the gas tank tomorrow!
Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I appreciate that holiday for so many reasons, mostly having to do with brunch. Brunch is probably the greatest meal ever invented, it’s just so satisfying on so many levels, especially if there are Mimosa’s involved.
The girls will shower me with cards and projects that they created in school. They are always so proud of the things that they make for me, and I always try to show them that I’m proud of them too.
I am proud of my daughters for the young women that they are and who they are becoming. DD#1 is blossoming into a lovely young woman, turning into a teenager before my eyes, with all of the teenage issues to deal with. Yesterday she found out that she didn’t make the Classic Soccer team that she played on last year. My heart was broken for her, I knew how devastated she was and how much a disappointment like that hurts. She was with her dad when she found out, so I wasn’t able to put my arms around her and hold her and cry with her. I cried many tears of my own, so sad for the loss that she is experiencing, petty as it may seem to some, it was important to her. It was important to me because it was important to her.
HG said that it’s good for her to learn about disappointment, that she needs to know that not everything is going to be handed to her.
XH said that it was a good lesson.
I know that they are both right, and I agree, but I hate seeing my child hurting; knowing how hard she worked and how much she tried to exceed.
It’s a good lesson for me too, I guess. A lesson to let go and let my daughter find a way to deal with her own problem solving, to face embarrassment or confusion and figure it out. A lesson in allowing her to deal with a disappointment with grace like I know she will.
Tomorrow on Mother’s Day, I will feel proud. Proud of my own mother. Proud of HG, who co-mother’s my children with me, proud of my beautiful daughters, and proud of me. I will be a mother for the rest of my life, and I can see my accomplishments before me every day like a reflection in the mirror. I know that I’m not perfect, but I’m also not complacent. I will continue to work hard at being the best mother that I can be forever. The girls and I sometimes learn lessons together, we grow and learn together, change and evolve. Someday they’ll learn similar lessons with their own children, and I will have a chance to honor them,
with a mimosa in hand.
I don’t actually balance my checkbook. I really don’t see a need for it, I rarely write checks, and everything is right there on-line for me to review as needed. I pay my bills on-line and I always have cash due to my Glamorous Waitressing Job.
The kind of balance that I’m talking about is the balance of everyday life, the kind I referenced in my previous post. The balance of being a partner, a mother, an employee, a freelance employee, a housekeeper, a friend, a blogger, a daughter, a sister, a community member, a driver, a cook, a keeper of finances (one who doesn’t balance her checkbook but does successfully pay all of the bills on time and manages the grocery money…) and many other things.
Sometimes it feels like walking a tightrope, and I’m afraid of heights.
Sometimes it overwhelms me, other times I can keep on going, every day, making the best of it all.
Supermom.
No such thing.
I once published an article called “Feminism and the Generation X Stay-at-Home-Mom.” Long name for a short piece, but the main idea was that SAHM’s were exercising their feminist privilege by choosing to be at home with their children and take care of their families. I still believe that, but I also believe that in certain communities, (like the Scary Suburbs in which I live,) there is an unrealistic expectation of a woman/mother’s role in the lives of their children.
The people here are frightening. Really, really frightening and the most frightening thing about the whole thing, is that I used to be just like them.
When I had an “awakening” of my sexuality, I think that I’ve slowly awakened to the rest of it. I look at the women that I see, in the carpool lane, at the sporting events, at school, in the grocery store and I can feel their stress. I can sense their emptiness, I can practically smell their fear.
But other’s don’t see that, they see “Perfect Mother,” and it’s hard to measure up to that. It’s exhausting to even try.
There aren’t enough hours in the day to be able to actually live your own life and live the lives of your children at the same time. There isn’t enough money in the world to give them everything that there is to be had, or wanted. There isn’t enough energy to keep up, it’s not possible. It really isn’t.
It’s about balance.
Balance to be there, to support, to teach, to love, to reveal.
But not helicopter, or rescue, or enable.
Or enable.
Amazing how that co-dependency thing keeps coming up. I wonder how my support group is going?
Well until I actually start that co-dependency group that Google thinks I have, I will just have to live with the fact that I really do the best I can. I get frustrated, I second guess my decisions sometimes, I yell sometimes, (especially when someone, namely DD#2 takes 25 minutes to get her soccer uniform on,) and I rescue and save them when I probably shouldn’t.
I just want to be a good mother, and yes, I do really love my children. Of course I love my children, but more than that I am committed to them. I want to give them the safety and security that I didn’t always feel as a child and sometimes I do too much to make up for that.
HG told me today, through my tears and my feeling of parental insecurity, that if she could be re-born, she would want to be my child. That’s quite a compliment, and I don’t think she was blowing smoke up my ass.
I guess that means I must be doing something, somewhat right.
So I guess I’ll just keep trying.
It hit 80 degrees yesterday in the Portland Metro area.
Gas hit $3.47 a gallon yesterday in the Portland Metro area.
I don’t think I should drive anymore.
$57.00 is what it cost to fill my gas tank the other day. $57.00!
I could buy a pair of shoes for that, or a couple bottles of wine. Or 1/10th of one of the girls soccer fee that I will need to pay.
~~~~~~~~~~
Do any of you rescue your kids? When they call you because they don’t like what’s for lunch, or they forgot their lunch, or they need a cough drop at school, do you drive up to the school and bring it to them?
Do you drive your kids to school, even though it’s only a 1/2 mile walk? In the 70’s and sunny? Because their backpack is heavy?
Am I the only mother who feels incredibly guilt ridden if I don’t do these things? And then I get mad and frustrated because I fear I’m raising three children who have a sense of entitlement and are spoiled.
How much is enough? And why do other mothers seem to do their mothering jobs so flawlessly, often balancing full time jobs and still being there? What am I doing wrong that it sometimes seems so difficult to make it all work?
Do you think I asked enough questions in the most?
Friday we celebrated DD#2’s 10th birthday with a skating party with nine of her friends. HG bought her an iPod shuffle, which she adored and was quite excited about. I’m just wondering how long it will take for her to lose it.
After HG and I had a date, which was lovely and talked until almost 2:00 AM.
Saturday, we took a lot of “naps,” and went to a Cinco de Mayo party, in which we hardly knew anyone. Before we left, a large amount of Thai people came to the party. Apparently if you are friends with a Thai person, and you invite that person to your party, it is understood that he will bring his whole family. That’s good to know. After that party, we stopped in at our neighbors for another party. And then later, some friends dropped by to hot-tub.
Now for the advice part…
If you ever find yourself in a situation where perhaps you consumed a tad too much to drink and hadn’t eaten much that day, DO NOT go into your hot tub. Because you will not be well. Not well at all. You will do and say things that you SHOULDN’T, and your wife will need to help you upstairs to bed.
That is all.
Happy Monday, ciao y’all.
HG is on her way home, fighting her bad cold sickness, driving ten long hours to get back. I’m certainly glad that she’s on her way home, but I must say that I feel a little ambivalent about the whole thing. I suppose because it was so hard on me, her leaving, that I had to get myself to a place that I would be okay. I settled into a routine and ended up being just fine. I feel like I actually did some things for myself while HG was gone.
I read three books. I bought five, and finished three. I hardly have any time for reading anymore and I’m glad that I made myself do something productive instead of sitting in front of the television or shopping on-line the entire time.
I watched The Mormon’s on PBS. So I did watch a little telly, but it was educational telly. (BTW, the three books that I read were all by the same author, who is British so now I feel like I read and write in a British accent and use British words, like telly.)
The DD’s and I cleaned the entire house today. Okay, yes I neglected it a little while HG was gone, because really, I couldn’t be bothered. She’s much more of a neat freak than I am, (which amazes me to say, as I always thought that I was a huge neat freak, but compared to HG, I’m a total slob.)  I paid DD#1 for some of the extra chores that she did, because she’s going to a sleepover/shopping overnight with one of her BFF’s.
I had some lovely visits with friends, both in person and on-line.
I went out and sang Karoke. Good times.
I think I may have lost a little weight. Didn’t feel much like eating or drinking wine. HG and I may have a small habit of having a bit of wine with dinner, which I believe has a few calories. I also haven’t been cooking like I normally do, because we’ve been busy and stuff, plus one night my mom bought us dinner, I had halibut. Low fat, I think.
Overall, it’s been an okay nine days. And yes, I’m going to be happy to see her, even if she is sick. I’ll tuck her in bed and make her some tea and when she’s better, I will expect her to take me out for dinner and wine.