Hello! Ingrates! I Know You're Out There

First off, I know you're reading.
I'm grateful that so many of you are reading.
It truly makes my day.
(You have no idea.)

BUT...

if you're reading,
and I know you are,
how come so few of you are commenting??!?!?!

Do you have nothing to be grateful for?
Is it that difficult to conjure up something good that has come from your day, your week?

If you answered yes to those questions...
...all the more reason to take a frikkin' ride with me on the gratitude train, you fools.

What's with the passive negativity people?
Come on, now...
I know you have appreciation within you.
I have faith in you.

Okay, okay, if you need a little motivation to be positive in these final days of summer, I'll bite.
I get it.

How about if I randomly pick a winner from the commenters who tell me what they are grateful for. I will have my son (or daughter) pick the name out of a hat (or bowl) on Monday, August 17.

You can win either:

1. 70 FREE digital camera prints from snapfish (50 FREE for those of you who are already members)

OR

2. A souvenir from Japan (ain't gonna be no Nikon camera or Nintendo DS - this blog don't make no money yet peeps) but it will be something cool from another part of the world.

Your choice.

So come on, you show me yours (gratitude, that is) and I'll show you mine.

Or, don't comment and that will be your passive way of telling me you hate Give Me The Grateful Life - Mondays, you think it's totally queer, and you'll be thankful on Thanksgiving like everyone else. I'll 86 the sucker, right now.

All aboard!? Good luck.

Give Me The Grateful Life - Monday

Traveling has been a dream of mine since I went to Europe after graduating college. At that point, I hoped one day I could offer my kids an education beyond their classrooms, an opportunity to open their eyes earlier than I did. (Hey, it was 1984 - even Al Gore didn't know the internet was coming.)

Our travels began last summer with a trip to NY, London, and Paris. Despite my kids being awake when they should have been asleep and asleep when they should have been awake, and in spite of their constant whining and complaining, they came back changed, their purview of the world a little broader. For the few months that followed, instead of illustrating footballs, soccer balls, and dogs on his school projects, my son drew pictures of the London Bridge, the Empire State Building, and wrote stories about a really, bad man he learned about in a Paris museum named Hitler.

So, now that I'm past the procrastination and the palpitations of last week (sorry if I left a few of you short of breath), it's time for Give Me The Grateful Life - Monday. Here's what this bitch is showing gratitude for this week...

1. I am grateful that we are embarking on an amazing, family adventure and hopeful we can hold our bladders long enough to skip those "traditional Japanese toilets". Ewwww.
2. I am grateful for (unfat) Deb who is a godsend sent from above Jenn@Juggling life. TY.
3. I am grateful that JCK walked away from a frightening, multiple car collision on Saturday night (and hope that she's still feeling okay).
4. I am grateful that my kids are no longer in camp and we can all sleep in this week.
5. I am grateful for professional carpet cleaners (yes, again).

What are you grateful for? Please tell me in your comments...
(I love that you comment people but this gratitude thing is supposed to benefit everyone . So tell me what your grateful for and we can all be the better for it. Dammit!)

*photo courtesy of pc.org

Please Officer - This Never Would Have Happened Before I Had Kids

It's been a few days since my last post. I've been buried underneath the rubble of my procrastination.

Before kids, there was no rubble. No giant piles of papers to be filed, no mounds of incomplete to-do lists suffocating under the weight of new, incomplete to-do lists.

Before kids, I was organized. So much so that I listed it as a skill on my resume. I never would have waited until the last minute to prepare for a trip to the market, to the dentist, much less to, uh, JAPAN!. We're leaving in less than two weeks and up until two days ago I hadn't given a moments thought to travel requirements, itinerary, anything.

A couple of months ago, on a whim, hubby and I decided that IF we could use airline miles and IF we could find an affordable hotel, we would go to Japan. (We like ignorant spontaneity like that, it's who we are). We got the miles and and the hotels (you'll find out why we got great deals later), so here we are off to convert our hard-earned worthless dollars into Yen for a family vacation. (Hey, it's a bargain compared to the Euro.)

So I've had a few months to meditate on our trip, prepare our schedule, check out the customs so we don't embarrass ourselves by doing something stupid like re-filling our own water glasses while dining out (apparently a Japanese no-no.) But did I prepare at all? Of course not, it's not who I am.

When my hubby and kids ask, "Are we going to see temples in Japan? "Do I have to use chopsticks in Japan?" Do I have to take my shoes off in Japan? " I wanna say "How the f**k should I know? Here's the book, crack open a page if you're so curious." Instead I say, "Oh, isn't this going to be a fun adventure. We're going to be daring world travelers! Yay!"

Then after everyone is asleep, my husband is satisfied (HA!) and blogs are read and written, my heart begins to palpitate and I have difficulty breathing. I decide to check out TripAdvisor.com just for a minute before I go to sleep. Many hours and a succession of mini-panic attacks later, I am sufficiently freaked out. I have journeyed miles on the internet and uncovered massive webs of mind-boggling transit lines, trains needing advance reservations, traffic congestion, unbearable August heat (hence the cheap hotel room), must-see tourist destinations I've never heard of and can't decipher how to get to, and difficulty using foreign credit cards. Wha????

I link over to a U.S. government travel site to escape the confusion and check a few easy things off my list: AC travel adapters, passports, luggage tags, etc. I make sure we have all the travel documents we need and don't carry anything forbidden (hmmm?) so we don't get detained at the airport or arrested and put in a Japanese jail cell (which I'm sure is spic-spanny clean but who wants to bring that souvenir back to the States.) I was hoping to feel better, more in control. Instead the site made things worse by warning me about avian flu, terrorism, earthquakes, monsoons (yes, 'tis the season, again why hotels are so cheap), criminal syndicate activity, pickpockets, and emergency call numbers (but not from a cell phone because the numbers don't work from cell phones). Cell phone!? Apparently we need to rent cell phones because ours won't work in Japan. How? Where? From whom? No iPhone? Whaaaa?

I print pages and pages of must-have information like who to call in case my children are abducted and which restaurant serves the best sushi. I haul ass to get shit done making everyone around me crazy and cursing the day they skimmed their anxiety stones into my zen rock garden of denial.

Ahhhhhh! My simple American mind is imploding. And Japanese. Shit, we have to learn Japanese. What is with these people? They're a modernized culture - don't they speak English?

Okay, okay, I'll stop. At this point you're probably hyperventilating right along with me so I'll spare you and tell you that shortly after my heart failures, I realized that Japan can't possibly be as bad as these websites purport because no one ever comes back from Japan and talks like they've just been to... Hell or... Colombia.

So, I'm going to try to chill out. Boil down my info sleuthing to the essentials because I know that once I get everyone on the plane without detention or arrests....once we settle into our hotel, I will take my pages and pages of essential tourist info, the countless hours of my precious time, and...
...bury them under the new itinerary we're going to get from the hotel concierge.

Before kids I never would have done this. I was so much saner than I am now. Okay, NOT. Just a different kinda crazy. I think this is better.

Sayonara.


P.S. I promise to send pictures. Hopefully, they're not all wet from the monsoon or sweaty from the heat.

P.P.S. If any of you world travelers have been to Tokyo or Kyoto, please, PLEASE, send advice and suggestions. I promise not to go ape shit on your ass.

Making Lemonade Out of Lemons - Sort Of

I'm inundated with household bullshit today. I'm Donna Reed with a MAC. Buried in papers to fill out and checks to write. My ear tethered to a phone stuck on interminable hold made worse by corny, elevator soundtracks.

But I can find a way for even this dull day to not rank as a total loss. I would like to share a few of my delightful, domestic insights with you my bloggy, blogger friends (whether you want me to or not):

1. If you drink four glasses of wine with dinner take an Advil before bed or be prepared to be a total bitch the next day.
   
2. If you are woken in the middle of the night by the piercing shrieks of a cat being attacked by a coyote expect whatever sleep does follow to be riddled with horrifying, Manson-like images.
3. Periodically clean out the center cone thing-y in your washing machine or you'll end up with a two inch thick, five inch long nasty smelling, wet sheet of moldy, lint-y sludge.
4. Don't leave in the garbage the bag that held the fresh fish you cooked for dinner the night before.
5. Never hide a tennis ball from a Labrador puppy behind your six foot fence and on top of your operating air conditioning unit. Where there's a ball, there's a way.

Yes, this is my life. Don't you wish you were me?

Hey, bitches! It's not Monday. I don't have to be grateful today.
Suck it.
(sorry, it's the hangover.)

Give Me The Grateful Life - Monday

Give Me The Grateful Life - Monday was a bit delayed today because, frankly, I am having a hard time finding things to be grateful for.

Nothing is seriously wrong (there's something to be grateful for right there - see how well this works?), I'm just cranky and completely non-productive, after a frustrating, non-restful weekend.

I spent three hours this morning buying groceries, unloading them, and throwing out rotten food to make room for the new food that next week I will throw out to make room for the new, new food.

I spent $200 at Trader Joes. I should have suspected it because people kept passing me, taking stock of the contents in my wagon: three boxes of Mighty Bites cereal, 4 bins of cookies, two trays of frozen hash browns, 5 boxes of Mac and Cheese, and much, much more. More than a few of them made drive-by comments like, "Wow, you must have a big family," "Sure is a lot of food you got there." The checkout guy asked me if all my groceries would last a week.

Here's the thing: I have no idea.

My kids get obsessed with food, like Mighty Bites and TJ's frozen hash browns, so I buy a ton of them just so I don't run out and have to listen to them whine drive back to get more (because TJ's means getting on the freeway which on any day in LA is a risk to my sanity).

But Murphy's Law has it that whenever I do get my shit together enough to think ahead, stock up, be a doting mom to my precious, little kiddies, the damn rugrats decide they don't like those particular goodies anymore and now they "HAVE TO HAVE" something else. Something that I was not clairvoyant enough to have bought. Something I have to get back on the freeway to buy.

The most frustrating thing...when I try to fight back, buy only one or two of their current obsessions, they're eaten within a day and for the rest of the week all I hear is "We don't have ANYTHING to eat."

So we come full circle to me throwing out the rotten food to make way for the new. It's a vicious cycle I tell you, vicious. Particularly for someone who recycles and gives scraps to the dogs just so I can feel good about not wasting it.

So, with that said, I will attempt to come up with the bright side of my past week despite my less than enthusiastic state because isn't that what gratitude journals are for???

1. I am grateful that we have the $$ to spend at Trader Joe's.
2. I am grateful that I have an extra freezer in the garage (however dirty and sticky) to house all the food I bought with all the $$ I spent at Trader Joe's.
3. I am grateful that Peanut has not yet licked the electrical outlets.
4. I am grateful my life is not as dark as Batman: The Dark Knight (and that my voice isn't annoying like his either - WTF?).
   
5. I am grateful for swimming laps in my heated pool which saved me from murdering everyone in my family this weekend.
   

I feel better already. Yup.

What are you grateful for this Monday?

The Danger Zone: My Family Better Get It Together - Or Else

We have a sign posted outside our front door:

Caution: Puppy Enter At Your Own Risk

Okay, we don't really have a sign but it's a damn good idea.

Peanut has become comfortable in our household. She's destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of soccer balls, swim goggles, toilet plungers and telephones.


She's tricked us by cooperating for a few days: turning away from tasty, two-ply, double rolls of Charmin, resisting the temptation to jump onto counters, and keeping herself from kidnapping sweet, young things from the fruit bowl only to leave their 1/2 eaten corpses under the couch to die.

She gets our guards down so we loosen the reins and then...she attacks.

Well, fool us once, Peanut, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on...
everyone in my family except ME.

You see, people, I've had enough.

Enough of Peanut using our family and friends as spring boards and chew toys.
Of watching her push boxes, topple chairs, and leap over gates as she escapes full-proof restraining systems.
Of witnessing her fly over our couch like a chocolate gazelle and slide onto the coffee table like Tom Cruise in Risky Business.

I love you Peanut, but there ain't room in this house for the two of us.
You're just a puppy. This is isn't all your fault.
So, a message to my beloved family.
Shape up or Peanut ships the hell out.

I don't wanna do it. I'm hoping this will light a fire under your asses to ACTUALLY HELP WITH THE DOG LIKE YOU PROMISED.

Oh, you've forgotten those tranquil days of yore? The ones where you took Miss Greta for granted? Complaining about her lack of the fetching gene, her being a "lemon" lab who doesn't run or swim? You longed for a dog with pep, vigor, vitality - you wanted a puppy.

Well, you got what you wished for my lazy, little, loved ones and it ain't all soft fur and puppy-breath kisses, is it? Until now, I've been the one to bear the brunt of your chaotic canine craving but, as of today, I'm stepping aside.

From now on, you will feed her, brush her, train her and play fetch with her BEFORE she starts chewing vitamin bottles and capsizing Mommy's flower vases. You will all do this EVERY DAY (including you, my chronically, absentee husband), not just once in a while when you're feeling generous.

Remember, I was the person who didn't want to disturb the peace.
I was the person happy with just my Greta.
She and I understood each other.
We had a groove thing goin' on.

So, as much as I love Miss Peanut, and I do, it is up to the three of you lunkheads to get your acts together and do what it takes to care for her. And, no, that doesn't mean whining for me to clean up the pencil fragments or pry her out of your ice cream sundaes. It means handle it yourselves.

Leave me out of it.

Or else.

Consider yourselves warned.

Love,
Mom

The Gift: An Open Letter to My Kids

Let's get it out in the open.
Things have been different lately.
It looks like I'm here,
but my mind is somewhere else.
You're acting out.
You're used to having Mommy around,
nursing every wound, making ice cream sundaes,
listening to every run-on sentence steam-rolling through your charged-up, little brains.

I love being that mom to you guys.
I gave up a twenty year career to be that mom.
I wanted to see for myself what I was hearing second-hand from the nanny.
I wanted to see you grow up.
And I have never regretted my choice.
(Ok, temper tantrums and bratty behavior don't count.)

So here's my gift to you.

No, it's not an IPod.
No, it's not a cell phone.
It's a lesson.
Yes, a lesson.
Now, shut up and listen, dammit.

Mommy's grow up, too.
Yes, even mommy's as old as me.
It's one of the cool things about life.
You keep growing and changing until your very last day.
But for adults, growth isn't measured in pounds and inches,
it's more a mental thing.
Like when you think you know all there is to know about math,
only to have your teacher introduce long division.

You see, that trip I took,
that "blogging thing",
jarred something loose.
Something that laid dormant for a long time.

Thinking back, I can recall hints of awakening.
A slight yawn here, an oxygenating stretch there.
But this trip splashed cold water on the face
of my yearning.

My need to be ME.

Not just the me who is your mom.
Me, the writer.
Me, the wife.
Me, the friend.

As an adult, life gets overwhelming.
We get buried underneath the weight of too many priorities.
Like choosing between mint chocolate chip or jamoca almond fudge.

It's easy to do lots of things,
impossible to do any of them well.

To tackle this problem,
I have a solution.
I'm putting myself first.
Yes, ME. FIRST.
At least SOME of the time.

Selfish. Definitely.
Shocking. I bet.
Bad mommy policy. I think not.

You see, if I don't do this now,
I may never do it.
These past few weeks have taught me that,
you can bury your dreams,
hibernate and adapt.
but like a bulb in spring,
your passion will always manage
to push it's way through.

So, aside from teaching you good table manners,
and not to pick your nose in public,
this is one of the most valuable lessons I will hand down to you.

It's good to be selfish.

Not hoarding all the Oreos kind of selfish,
put yourself first kind of selfish.
Because if you don't,
no one else will.

This took me decades to learn,
I'm saving you precious time.
Because before you can say,
"my mommy is soooo old",
you'll be as old as me.

Yes. Really. You will.

I'll try to be patient as you both adjust
to Mommy's new world order.
Just remember,
in the theater that is my life,
you two will forever occupy the front row.
Only now you'll have to make room for me.

Yes. Really. You will.



*photo courtesy of Google Images