A Life Worth Living

I watched a documentary on Wednesday night called Crazy Sexy Cancer. Really I only watched the middle, I had missed the beginning and didn't watch the end because E came to bed and I thought I could tape it when it was on again, so I can see it in its entirety. Bad move on my part because it is not airing again as far as I and Tivo can tell.

It was about a 31 year old single woman who was diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer. She was told it was slow growing, but incurable. Eventually she would die from it. Just for a second, try and imagine that.

I wondered what I would do faced with this knowledge. Would I use my fight or flight instincts? Could I live the rest of my life, however long, with the thought that nobody would want to be my partner in life. Who would want to marry damaged good with an expiration date? Would I look for alternative means to help save my life? Would I ever find peace in knowing that there will be an end, and I have lived my life, however short, the way I wanted.

Faced with your own mortality maybe would get people to do what they always wanted, but put off. Climb a mountain, dive from an airplane, learn to speak another language, tour the world. Soak everything in, so as to try to remember all your sights in eternity.
Why can't we live like that now? As if every day was our last? It is great in theory but that is not who we are, mundane life gets in the way, chores, work, just....life.

No matter how long you live, especially for people who have died so very young, could it ever be enough? Could you have lived enough, experienced enough, touched enough lives? That is what I think the filmmaker was going for, to leave her own legacy, to say "you are not alone" to so many other people out there, to make you think. It certainly made me think about how I want to live my life. It was a fantastic film and I really hope the air it again.

So, I ask you besides spending time with your family, which is obvious, what is one thing you would you do, if you had all the resources, before you die?



I know by your comments on my last post you peeps think I am depressed, I am not, I am just in an extreme lazy period. Akin to Picasso's blue period. I am a true artist at laziness.
If that depression commercial doesn't make you feel well, depressed, I want whatever you are drinking, because no matter how good of a mood I am in, it is depressing as hell!

You are Not Alone

What is it that made women in the fifties clean all day while wearing pearls and skirts (cleaning in skirts!)? Whatever they were on, I need some.
I have been so lazy lately, doing one load of laundry getting everyone dressed and emptying the dishwasher is all I can do on some days. Other days I want to paint the entire house from top to bottom, and I contemplate it but never do anything about it. BTW, my kitchen is a bright green color that I hate and I really want to change it, but to what color? What is a good kitchen color and I don't say yellow, I really don't like yellow paint. It is attached to a beige family room, if that helps.

I am trying to organize things for a garage sale we want to have in late September but I realized I have no idea what I am doing. I am not sure I have ever even been to a garage sale before. I have no idea how to price things.
I should just put everything up on craigslist first, I may even make more money that way, but my digital camera is still broken and I have not been motivated to research or look at any new ones.
Does this post make you feel tired and depressed as it made me writing it? Wow, I am like my very own Cybalta commercial. You know the one, it makes you feel like killing yourself, even the dog in the commercial is depressed and tired of life? Great marketing, the music alone makes you want to call your doctor to get that drug.
Or in my case at least the one that makes you want to clean in your pearls!

All the Colors of the Rainbow at Once

I think one of the hardest things to do as a mom is keep your kids entertained all day. At least it is for me. If I still lived by my family I would have cousins, Aunt and friends to do things with or have playdates.
Instead I have to fill our time with arts & crafts, movies, parks and activities. It is a good thing to get them out and explore things with them, but parks and the animal refuge get old fast. For me and for them.

I am debating today whether to go to a farm or buy more arts & crafts. At this rate we will not be going anywhere because all of a sudden my four year old daughter has started throwing fits and being picky about her clothing. Something up until now that just my son did. Today R wants to wear a too small Halloween long sleeved shirt and rainbow striped shorts. Ugly and ridiculous!

I am at my wit's end with these two picky clothing people. It makes me sick to see all of the clothes they have never worn, because it has a bear on it (gap emblem) it has a collar, or they don't like it. E has strange clothing issues (another post for another day) and I think his SCG (strange clothing genes) seeped into our children.

What is a mom to do?

What Child is This?

Everyone loves Christmas. That is a known fact. I love everything about Christmas, the food, the decorating, the smells, wrapping gifts, family coming together and especially the music. I love Christmas music from church hymnals to Grandma Got Ran Over by a Reindeer. I start listening to Christmas music right after Thanksgiving and stop on January 1st. I even would listen to it in my car in the summer. If I missed it, I listened to it.

Nothing makes E more mad. He hates Christmas music and he is not in love with the fact that I love it so much. He does not know the words to any Christmas music that you would sing in church. That bewilders me.
He knows songs like jingle bells, but instead changes all the words to f*ck instead. Funny the first time you hear it, not funny the 7342 other times.
He loves Christmas in every other way, but the music, it kills him.

Imagine how funny I find it that our children love Christmas music so much that it has been on full rotation for the best 3 days on their Cd player.
At full blast.

That is what he gets for us having to listen to ESPN every day for eternity.

I'll Give you a Order!

Conversation this morning:

E: I think we take the kids out to eat with us too much

Me: Why?

E: because every morning they tell me they would like to "order breakfast"

Me: You may have something there

What's Up With You?

I have busy lately, thinking about all the painting touch ups I want to do, buying products to help my constipation problem, clearing out my sinuses with my trusty Neti pot, trying to entertain my kids and wishing for the humidity to just go away.
So in other words, a whole lot of nothing. More of what is going on with me, will be revealed int he next few weeks but not now.

I forgot to tell you that if you comment on my other blogs during the month of August you are automatically entered to win a $300, 200 or 100 prize. Nice of me to tell you now that August is almost over, but hey, better late then never.
Also I have a few new recipes up over at my recipe blog. I wish I could add my pictures but my digital is really, truly broken now and I have not bought a new one yet.

I hope I have an exciting weekend so I have more things to talk about then my bowels next week. I know you do too!

Keeping My Kids Safe

This story infuriates me. If you are not in the mood to read the article I will sum it up for you. A 45 man, Jack McClellan is a self described pedophile but says he has only hugged underage children in a non-sexual way, has various web sites and been posting nonsexual pictures of children intended to promote the acceptance of pedophiles, and to direct other pedophiles to events and places where children tended to gather. He was run out of Washington State (where he lived with his parents) after the press got hold of him and now has moved to California where there are a lot of amusement parks and fairs.

The thing that kills me is that so far this man has done nothing wrong. They cannot arrest him for posting links to where children will be. While posting pictures of children in sexual situations is a felony, posting them fully clothed in everyday situations is not. Although he says he has never done anything illegal, what we know about pedophiles and the fact most of them cannot be treated and continue to molest children, leads one to believe that he has molested children for years.

Knowing his name, where he lives and what he looks like is a step but what if you read his site where he talked about a little girl he liked, knowing it was your daughter he was talking about? How do you protect children from someone who is free to live where he wants?
What do you think should be done about men like this?

Supergood

E & I don't get out much. Since my mom was with me all weekend she babysat for us so we could get something to eat and see a movie. I see lots of movies, all of them are rated G though. The last movie E & I saw together? Vanilla Sky.
That was why I feel down when E told me the movie tickets cost $19.50. Didn't the last ticket I bought cost $4.50? How do teenagers go out on dates these days?

I am not a fan of movie theaters, I like to lie horizontally to watch anything that is over 58 minutes long. I really wanted to see Superbad though, first because George Michael Bluth is in it and I so miss Arrested Development, secondly because the trailers I have seen online looked great. So, we made the trek to the theater. I have never seen a movie so packed, actually I have the last time I saw a movie that packed was when I saw E.T., I mean people were in the front row like sardines!

It was a great movie, very funny and if you are into sophomoric body jokes and premises like getting laid before school is out, this is for you. If not, stay at home & wait for it to come on Pay Per View like I usually do. Then you can be really comfy and you do not have to pay $10.00 for a popcorn and a drink.
It was nice to get out though, I could get used to the free babysitting thing.

I Wonder What Visa Thinks of These Purchases.

Medicines and remedies consumed by yours truly, already today:

Tums (2 pills)
Citrucel (4 pills)
Magnesium Citrate (1/2 bottle)
Colace (1 pill)
Aloe (3 pills)


I swear I am only 33.

Getting Old

My Mom is here visiting us for a long weekend. It has been great to see her without having to share her with my sister! E is home safe and sound from his big camping trip. This trip made him realize that he is not young anymore and sometimes things that you did when you were in your twenties is not as much fun when you are in your thirties married with kids.
Something I guess we all learn the hard way.

I learned my lesson when I stayed up all night while my sister was having her second child, then drove home in the early morning. My days of staying out all night in NYC then going home to shower and going to work, were long over. It took two days of naps and good night sleeps to get me back in action.
It was a sad realization.
Almost as sad as realizing that some early gray hairs doesn't just mean that those few will hang out, that they will invite every single gray hair they know to a party on your head and they will never, ever leave.

They Make Me Laugh Every Day

Going to the cemetery with my kids used to be easy. They would be asleep in the car and I would park and get out, leave some flowers, tidy up and get back in the car and they would not be the wiser. My, how times have changed.

Yesterday I stopped by the cemetery to "visit" my father and, of course, I had the kids with me. R woke up just as I pulled in and knew exactly where we were, she was the one who picked out the flowers and wanted to carry them to Grandpa. L said he wanted to stay in the car. OK, that was finewith me.

"Don't walk on him" R said to me as I stepped by the gravestone to weed a little. "OK, I will try not to, but you know it doesn't hurt him right R?" I said.
She lovingly placed the flowers and arranged them by the headstone. "Here you go Grandpa" she said.
I immediately started to cry. I never wanted to repeat what I had done with my mother so many years ago. My Mom toting her two young children to the cemetery to visit her father. I could no imagine a world without my dad, never mind my children living in it with no memory of him.

R rushed back to the car, and I walk over, L was crying. "what is wrong?" I asked him. " I want to see how he is doing " L said sweetly as I pulled him out of his car seat. Together I walked with my two small children through the cemetery.
"Hi Grandpa!" L said. "Grandpa, can you hear me?" R said laying on the grass, face down yelling into the ground. This both made me laugh and tear up again.

They are sweet, empathetic children who are naturally interested in the world and how it works, so it is no wonder I have to field questions from strange to how the hell do I answer that. I don't want them to fear death like I did when I was young so E and I are sure to tell them that people and animals die when they are both very old and very sick. A lie I know, but the painful truth of loss will face them soon enough. Neither our dog or my father was old when they died, but I don't want them worrying about themselves or one of us dying.
"what is Grandpa wearing?" "does he had dirt in his mouth?" "is he with god, or buried in the dirt?" "are there worms in the dirt?" "where is heaven" and "how did he get buried" are all questions I was asked yesterday.
Some I knew how to answer, others I didn't. Some made me cry and others made me laugh.
All in all I came to one conclusion: I am not going the cemetery without E anymore.

Books

I have been neglecting this blog, I am fully aware. I have just been busy, not feeling so great, trying to get E ready to go away and just plain tired.
I decided I am going to plan a little getaway for myself in the near future, maybe just alone time.
I deserve it.

When I was asking people for good beach reads I got some great suggestions and I have read a lot of books this summer. If you have any other suggestions I am about done with my reading pile, so send them my way!
I also had someone from http://www.authorsontheweb.com/ contact me and suggest a book she was willing to send me, But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn. Jancee is a girl from NJ who went on to work for Rolling Stone, MTV and Good Morning America. The book tells tales from the famous people she has interviewed to her amazing rock n roll life.
I really enjoyed this book, it was a perfect beach book. If you are looking for a easy read, pick this one up.


I do not accept any monetary compensation for any book reviews that I write.

A Girl And Her Breakdown

E is making his annual trek here to meet with all his granola friends and acquaintances. He would go every year when I first met him with his best friend/roommate and some of his other friends. Since I have never been camping and have no desire to do so, The Fold Fest is not for me. Sitting alone dirty in the woods with E is borderline tolerable, sitting dirty in a field with hundreds of other dirty and smelly people is where I draw the line.
One day I think I will surprise E and his best friend and say I am going with them. They would be so excited. Then E would dread it because he knows me and my tolerance level of dirt.

I can't help but feeling jealous and mad at E for his getaway. E goes away on business no less then 4 times a year. He goes to visit his best friend for a weekend at least twice a year and every other year he goes to Fold Fest (this time he is going 2 years in a a row). In all fairness, I told him he should go and he needs a break, which who doesn't?
When do I get my break? I have never been away from the kids for more then 6 hours in four and a half years. I don't go out on girl's night. I do not have friends here. E suggested when he gets home that I go for a day at the spa. I need my hair cut and highlights touched up but I would feel to guilty to do anything else.
Sometimes I think of going to a hotel by myself and order room service and get a massage, but then I think of all the things I could do with that money. I need to buy new booster car seats for the kids, now I need a new camera, the kids need clothes for the fall as well and E & I.
It is my fault, I should just do it and not allow the guilt to creep in. I deserve it.

So who is in? Who never gets a day off and deserves one? Lets all meet up in a posh hotel and order delicious food and get spa treatments!

Urine

Thank you for all of your camera suggestions, I am surprised nobody has my camera, a Canon A70, which I loved until it died. Now I am not loving it so much.
The only thing I didn't like about my camera is that it was bulky, so now I would love a compact, inexpensive digital.

I have a small garden and I have some tomatoes, basil and mint. I usually plant cucumbers but my neighbor usually has so many that he gives me, I could never eat all of mine. Anyway, the rabbits around my yard have taken to eating my tomatoes whether they have ripened or not. This is a terrible problem and the rabbits I usually love seeing around my yard are going to get it if I ever catch them. To make matters worse they usually don't even eat the whole thing! Bastards!
So, I want to get rid of these pests but I don't want to spray the plants with anything because they are organic plants and a organic garden. My sister suggested using coyote urine, which they sell where she works but I couldn't find anything down here. Then I thought about having E pee around the perimeter of my garden. Surely his pee would deter any small animals from coming close to my garden.

This train of thinking has lead me to the conclusion that I need help.

In Other News, It is Finally Raining Here

I wanted to take a picture of the playroom to give you some insight of what it looks like when I have been to busy to have my kids pick up after themselves, but my digital camera is being very fickle.
It has been acting up for a few days, but now I fear it is gone. Dead. To the big electric store in the sky.
I am sad not only for the pictures I am missing out of, but for my wallet. I really want this, but my budget is more likely to get this. Very sad.

Which digital cameras do you people have, or recommend?

Depends, Anyone?

I wanted to share with you a picture I had taken a few weeks ago on my way to the beach. This is a store front of a surgical store.

Some great mind decided it would be a great idea and really draw customers in with a entire window front of adult diapers. This would not be my store of choice to go and say, pick up a new cane.
So very odd.

Can I Help it That Men are Pervs?

Me: did you see that police office run out of his car to pull me over? He pointed me over? Who has ever heard of that?

E: yeah! What did he say to you?

Me: He said "Is there a reason you are going 48 in a 35?" and I said "no" then he asked "so no medical emergency? no medical reason you would be driving that fast?" again I replied "no" although I wanted to make up an medical excuse like on The Office. I could have said "yes, sir because of my hot dog fingers" or "Yes, I am rushing because of my government created killer nano-robot infection".

E: Uhhhh.
Did you get a ticket?

Me: no.

E: because you are a chick!

Me: yup. I just squeezed my boobs together and leaned into him a little and next thing I know he was telling me to slow down and have a nice day.

E: I can't believe it! Wow. It must be so great to be a girl.

Me: yeah besides the carrying of babies, sometimes two at once, for nine months, cramps, PMS, morning sickness, periods that never leave, catering to small people's every need, cost of bras, .70 to every $1.00 a man makes, embarrassing amount of maternity leave, not being able to pee outside and
stretch marks it is a hoot. The least I can do is not get a ticket once in awhile.

Right ladies?

Weekend Recap

This weekend we have had visitors. My sister and brother in law were going to a concert last night so they asked if my niece (13) and my nephew (12) could come on Saturday and stay until Monday afternoon. We all went to the beach yesterday and we had a great time. the weather was great, the waves were great and my kids had a lot of fun with their big cousins. I even got to go to my favorite ice cream place in the island because how could any day go bad if it ends with ice cream?

When we got home we were all tired and we had to get 6 people bathed and fed. Then it was time for me to participate in a online book club where we got to speak to the author and ask her questions, etc. I will not share the podcast with you because my questions were sophomoric and I had no idea it was going to be on the radio. I probably sound like I am 12. Gag.

Then (as if that is not enough for one day) my daughter's tooth fell out right before bed. You can read about it here. She was so excited but it was slightly overshodowed my my son falling on the ground waaayyy overtired yelling about his teeth will never fall out! We told him if he doesn't quiet down, we will help with that problem! Such drama.

Always drama.

You are All Invited to Dinner!

Thank you all, your prayers worked, E still has a job. We can still eat! Yippee!
To celebrate I went to Starbucks and purchased too much caffeine in the form of an iced coffee.

In other good news, they are building a Carrabbas and a Outback right next to my Target which is about 1 miles from my house. Now, usually I am not a fan of chain restaurants like Macaroni Grill, Chilli's or Fridays but I looove Carrabbas and Outback Steakhouse is the home of the blooming onion and need I say more? My husband is hoping for a Chickies & Petes to open up close to us because now that he no longer works in Philly, he has no excuse to just stop by have a beer and some crab fries with friends.

Really, thank you for caring about my family and sending out well wishes. I do love you peeps.

Again, I Ask.

We really need your help right now. If you are the praying type, or the good vibes type or you like to throw positive *anything* out to the universe, I need your help. As of 10:30 this am, E may be out of a job.
You know the one that pays for a roof over our heads, food and clothes? Oh yeah and if he loses his job he loses his company car.
E is a wreck and so am I, I can't stop crying.

Please, some vibes for us? I would really appreciate it!

Benefibertini Anyone?

Well, I am glad you peeps like my pale white legs. Unfortunately they are still pale, my legs take forever to tan.

I wish I was at the beach today, I took the kids outside to paint this morning and I lasted 15 minutes. It is so hot and humid today and the fact that there is no shade in my backyard until afternoon, made me head for the central air conditioning. Good thing my children are fast painters.

Maybe I could have them do my bathroom and another coat in my bedroom?

I am young (ish) but I have come to a point in my life where I am either in denial of my age or I have no memory. I keep filling out forms or telling people I am 32, not 33. Either way, it is not a good sign. Another reason I know I am old? I now have to take a heaping scoop of Benefiber in my morning and afternoon juice. It is just a glass of prune juice, yet.

Without getting into too much detail, I am past being irregular. I am eating fiber rich foods but I need a boost, something besides my aloe pills.
It is a sad state of affairs.

Summer Time

Here are some pictures from our vacation, for you, because I care. Certainly not because I still haven't written my article that was due yesterday.

Mussels anyone?

My three kids.