Lost And Found

On this morning, the morning after a Very Bad Day, I dream that my ever faithful Mr. Coffee could brew me up a bold cup of Motivation, with a shot of Joy. I would pour myself a big, hot steaming mug full of the concoction, and experience a little something called Productivity and Purpose.

The banal details of my Very Bad Day are not interesting enough to document. I will tell you that the day ended with the Second Grader screaming 'Things would be A LOT BETTER around here if YOU went to work all day and DADDY stayed home!'.

I do appreciate his honesty.

I don't know why, on this particular day, his words stung. But they did.

Maybe he's right.

Maybe my time is up.

I left the corporate world just before The Four Year Old was born, fully intending to return after one year. One Year morphed into Five Years, and here I am, still hanging around this house playing the leading role of Mother.

And feeling lost.

Feeling like something is missing, but I don't know what it is or where to find it.

Do you ever feel this way? Do you ever ask yourself, What am I doing? What am I REALLY doing? And the big Universal question, Is it making me happy?.

I'm beginning to understand what all those experienced mothers warned me about when I started having children. The message was always the same. It was whispered in my ears a thousand different times by a thousand different voices: Don't lose yourself in Motherhood; remember who you are.

I didn't listen then.

But I'm listening now.

The Slow Descent

The first few days of autumn in New England are upon us.

I would wager that for 90% of the population in the Northeast, these crisp, brilliant days are a welcome gift. The first weeks of fall are perhaps the very reason many people choose to live here: cool mornings, striking foliage, apple orchards and pumpkin patches. What's not to like?

Plenty, my friends, plenty. This is the time of year that I like to refer to as The Slow Descent Into Winter.

I'm not fooled by these seemingly beautiful September days. Mother Nature, she likes to pull us into her little web of seduction. But it's all smoke and mirrors, my friends, and I'm too smart to fall for her cute little weather tricks. Why? Because I know what's coming next.

Give me 99 degrees and hair frizzing humidity any day over this daily reminder that the first frost is just around my suburban corner. In a few short weeks, darkness will fall at an unreasonably early hour, neighbors will mysteriously disappear until spring, the crock pot will be overworked, and I will become cranky. Very. Cranky.

I have a theory that anything on the verge of breaking, whether it be a hot water heater, a relationship, a bum knee or a healthy mind, will collapse under the weight of a New England winter.

So we must go into these coming months as strong and prepared as possible. Cracks need to be mended and filled. Snow blowers need to be fueled. Batteries must be checked. Windows should be weather stripped. And while we're at it, our winter psyches could use a little weather stripping, too. Of all things we don't want to break, our minds should be at the top of the list.

I won't lie, winter and I are not friends. Come February, we're not even on speaking terms.

We have nothing in common, winter and I.

Winter likes it dark. I turn towards Big Bright Lights. Winter is energized by freezing temperatures. I'm a big fan of Heat and Hot Water. Winter prefers clouds, snow and ice. Me? I'm a Sun kind of girl.

But worst of all, winter likes to fuck with my head (no matter how carefully I seal up the cracks).

As if the dark and cold weren't enough, winter likes to attack in other unexpected, torturous ways. Such a bully, he is. Winter has been known to engage in a little activity called ice-bombing, leaving us without electricity for five days (what? I didn't write about the ice storm last year? I must have been still curled up in the fetal position trying to KEEP WARM).

I'll be honest, I'm already on edge just thinking about the onslaught of freezing pipes, water main breaks, falling trees and dark days. These are not my finest of times.

So I'm planning and scheming ways to survive.

Here are my options so far in Operation Stay Off Zoloft:

One of these:



It's a light therapy box. Specifically, a Seasonal Affective Disorder Light Box. Something about negative ion therapy...affecting the hypothalamus...light on the retina. Probably I should have paid more attention to all those Neuroscience classes that I showed up hungover for took in college.

In case the light box doesn't work (and who are we kidding, OF. COURSE. IT. WON'T. WORK.), I'm saving up my pennies so that I can replenish my Vitamin D supply here:



And in case THAT doesn't work, I may have to call in the big guns, and opt for a dose of something called The Happiest Place On Earth:




Good God, the things a girl's gotta' do for a little bit of serotonin sunshine.

Vegas, Baby

Tales from the Four Year Old:


Mama! Mama! Is Las Vegas REAL?

Yep, it's a real city, I answer.

Oh, GOOD. I want to GO there!!!

Because Mama? Mama? Las Vegas is SO sparkly!



My God, what are they teaching in preschool these days?

Voices (and not the ones in my head)

The Husband got me a GPS for my birthday.



Farewell to the millions of crumpled up pieces of paper with chicken-scratched directions scrawled on them!

Now I have a little voice in my head the car telling me where to go, eliminating the need for any additional thinking on my part.

Did you know that you can choose between different GPS voices to give you directions? I started out with default Samantha from the U.S.. But Samantha? Not the nicest GPS girl in the world. She barked commands at me, and made me too nervous to drive straight.

MAKE A effing LEFT ON MAIN STREET!

God, Samantha, chill out.

I didn't like Jack from the U.S. or Daniel from England because, I don't know, I was uneasy having a strange guy in the car with me.

I finally settled on Karen from Australia, who instantly felt like a dear, old friend.

In one quahtah of a miile, take raamp, on rahht.

Why, thank you, Karen, don't mind if I do.

I like to have Karen from Australia with me even when I know where I'm going because it's sort of like having Nicole Kidman in the passenger seat. It takes all the restraint I have not to ask her what really went down between her and Tom Cruise. But I'm respecting her privacy because, honestly, it's just nice to have another adult in the car with me.

Plus, she doesn't get mad when I make a wrong turn.

She just recuhlculates.

After a few days of hanging around with Karen from Australia, I got to thinking.

Wouldn't it be nice to personalize GPS voices even further? What if you could choose a voice based on your exact location?

Cruising through the oil refineries of Newark? Here's Vinny from North Jersey:

So, whatchya wanna' do, see, is cut off the pimped up firebird in fronna yous and bang a right at the pizza king.

Touring the deep South? Try Skeeter from Mississippi:

If the good Lord's willin' and the creak don't rise, yer dern near there and that there road is fixin' to come on up there on yer right.

Crossing the border? Let Jose from Tijuana be your guide:

Ooh, maaan, senorita, you missed the turn at the alley next to El Grande Chihuahua. Better drop the chalupa, man, and throw back some tequila.

Can you imagine the possibilities?!?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, I have the best ideas ever.

Future Hoarder?

The Second Grader's bed of crap

The 38th Year: An Inauspicious Beginning

I turned 38 last weekend.

An insignificant year, as birthdays go.

I'm officially in my Late Thirties now. Closer to the big 4-0 than I was a week ago.

We spent the birthday day in Salem, home of the witches, Wiccas, and various other costume-wearing freaks people. The kids, confused, kept asking if we had missed Halloween.

After a full afternoon of museums, pirates and street performers, we decided to stay for dinner at a little brew pub in town. As a general rule, I don't cook on birthdays.

Here's an important part so pay attention (its significance will be apparent later): I ordered water. In other words, I did not order any alcohol.

Strange, I know.

We ate. We left. And Then.

And then, the Second Grader had a full blown head spinning Linda Blair tantrum in the middle of the street. Maybe the witchcrafty demons of Salem invaded his body. We'll never know. But I would have done anything for a nice, young priest to come walking down the street and perform an exorcism for us. It's probably not a coincidence that the location of said tantrum was next to the cemetary and witch trials memorial...

An academy award winner, that one was.

Let's skip ahead to the part where everyone is tucked snuggly, sweetly into bed. Me included.

And Then.

And then, I got that sickly, sweaty, nauseous feeling that one gets when one has eaten something Bad. Very, very Bad.

A long, painful night followed.


But Wait! It Doesn't Stop There!

Because three days later I was immobilized by what I thought was a migraine.

Which morphed into fever, chills, muscle aches and general awfulness.

So here I am, day four of fever and headache. My days have been spent wrapped in wool and enjoying Motrin and Tylenol cocktails. The Husband thinks it's the flu.

Shhhhhhhh.

We can't say that word around here because if anyone strings together those three little letters, I guarantee my kids will be banned from school for seven days.





I have no idea if this post is coherently written or not as my last dose of Motrin is starting to wear off.

Weird Wordless Wednesday: Around The House Edition

I'm beginning a new edition of Wordless Wednesdays, which will feature various oddities that I find around the house.

Which, in Boy Town, is not a difficult task.

Here's what I came across a few days ago:

lego man: DON'T DO IT. TOMORROW WILL BE BETTER!

Caught In A Cross Fire That I Don't Understand

One phone call, one question and you are sent spinning all over again.

You thought you made peace with The Universe.

You thought you were ready to climb down the fire escape and begin again.

And then the phone rings. And the voice is kind and comforting and asks questions you don't necessarily want asked.

But there they are. Out there lingering in the space that makes them real again.

And then your head starts to ache and you do not pass Go, but land directly in Jail without passing Boardwalk or Park Place or any of those other places you'd rather arrive at.

Didn't she know that it would have been much more convenient if she had forgotten? If she had erased you from her Friday morning To Do list?

But she remembered.

And you, after seeing the number on the screen, picked up the ringing phone anyway.

Words carefully exchanged.

"What do you want to do now?" she asks.

And all the thoughts and doubts and mysteries of the Universe collide in your head until they implode into an absurdly irreconcilable mess and nothing makes sense anymore.

I want, I don't want, I know, I don't know, I'm grateful, I'm mad, What's right?, What's wrong?, I'm old, I'm young, What do I want to do now?

They repeat themselves over and over and their voices become louder and louder until finally you get a glimpse of clarity and a few things present themselves as truth:

We want what we can't have even when we're not sure we wanted it in the first place.

And there's a reason for caller ID.

Future Journalist?

First Day of School report from The Second Grader:

"There was a lot of sitting."

Succinct, honest, and approximately three more words of information than I usually get.


Second Day of School report from The Second Grader:

"We didn't sit as much."



I can hardly stand the suspense as I wait for tomorrow's report.

Will there be more sitting? Standing? RUNNING for God's sake?

This kid has got me on the edge of my seat.