A Short List of Shortcomings.

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One thing starting a new year will do is make you realize your shortcomings, and I have a LOT of them. So, because I’m feeling benevolent, I thought I would put them on the internet so everyone else can feel better about themselves. You’re welcome.

I asked Robbie to help me think of things I am bad at, but he just kept shouting “IT’S A TRAP!!” and refusing to answer. So … that was helpful.

Things I Am Very Bad At:

1. Dieting. I like baby carrots, freshly-squeezed juices, and cous cous. But I also like Peanut M&M’s and extra sharp cheddar cheese. I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know that my mother-in-law brought over some Chewy Chips Ahoy Birthday Frosting Filled cookies this week and I can’t be trusted to be alone with them.

2. Remembering passwords or jokes.  Some people, like my Grandpa Tillerson, have a gift for remembering a joke and delivering the punchline. I can do neither of those things. I may have a vague recollection of “a funny joke about a horse,” but that’s all I can remember … which isn’t funny. It is also not funny to really need to access your alternate Gmail account and have to jump through 679 hoops to finally get in because you can’t seem to remember the password. I hate passwords. And secret codes. And special knocks and handshakes. JUST GET TO THE POINT.  JUST SAY HELLO IN PLAIN ENGLISH. I enjoy brevity.

3. Dealing with paperwork. I have approximately 5 tall stacks of papers around my house to show as evidence that I am not the best at dealing with it. I stack it neatly, sure, but then it gets stowed away so my house can be in order. Except that my paperwork (and life in general) is so not in order.

4. Sewing. I’m just bad at it.

5. Crafting. Because basically, I hate glitter. Also, see #4.

6. Cooking meat with bones in it. I’ve never done it. No, not even once. I also can’t eat a drumstick or whatever it is you cavemen people eat. NO THANK YOU. I’ll pass.

7. Being patient with people who take too long to get to the point, like children and sometimes my husband. Just tell me what you want and I’ll tell you if I can deliver it or not. Chances are, the answer is no.

This is in no way an exhaustive list — it’s just what I felt like telling you about. So yes, that totally means I left my worst bad qualities out.

Now if you’ll excuse me, these devil cookies are calling my name.

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THE DEVIL MADE THESE.

Not Vacation.

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Have you ever had a co-worker refer to your maternity leave as “vacation?”

When I worked at State Farm, I had a few comments directed my way that let me know that my extended leave tending to an extremely colicky baby all by myself was considered “vacation time.” When I returned to work, I got the cases no one else wanted, the Christmas Eve shift, AND the New Year’s Eve shift.

Not that I didn’t understand the position of my co-workers, bless their intact penises and vaginas and 8 hours of interrupted sleep, but MAN. That sucked. A lot.

My friend Alice wrote a piece for Babble called 9 Ways To Respond When Co-Workers Call Your Maternity Leave A “Vacation,” and you should totally check it out because it’s hilarious and I’M QUOTED IN IT.

The Gaggle.

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On Sunday, I had one of those experiences that is going to be challenging to explain because it involved me driving to a town 3 hours away to hang out with a gaggle of women who I’d never met in real life.

Yeah, that.

I had more than one person tell me how “brave” it was for me to just hop in the car and GO, not knowing if I was heading into a situation where everyone would be bitchy and obnoxious (and not in a fun, snarky way) and I might end up feeling like an outsider and regret putting myself in the situation. I took a chance, hoping that the connections I’d built with these women over the past year-and-a-half were based on something real, and believing that my gut instincts are always on point.

My instincts were right. The gaggle was amazing.

Maybe it was brave, or maybe it was stupid. Robbie kept tabs on me, but he never asked me not to go. He just lets me be my quirky self, and I love him for it.

This year, I’m forging ahead. I’m making connections. I’m building my “tribe,” as my friend Sarah would say. I don’t care if the members are spread far and wide, because that is what technology is for. I am going to continue to trust my gut even when my mother says, “Is this someone you met ON THE INTERNET?!”

Yes. It is. She’s a lot like me, and she’s fantastic.

This is the picture I sent Robbie when he texted to verify I hadn't been kidnapped.

This is the picture I sent Robbie when he texted to verify I hadn’t been kidnapped.

Almost Home.

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You know you’re with the right man when you have a text message exchange like this one, and the next morning you have this conversation:

Me: Oh my goodness … I just found the text I sent you last night. What does this even say?!

Robbie: It says “Almost home.”

Me: How do you know?

Robbie: (Gives me a look like that was a stupid question.)

Me: Oh.

Real Pants.

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Located at www.someecards.com. Because I don't want to get sued.

Located at http://www.someecards.com. Because I don’t want to get sued.

Yesterday, I invited some people over and I thought, you know, maybe I should put on some real pants.

A lady at the gym asked me today what I mean when I say “real” pants. “Aren’t all pants real?” she asked.

Um … no.

“Real pants” are pants that do not contain any stretchy ingredient such as lycra. They don’t have any give. They must be worn a minimum of 6 hours before they fit comfortably, and you fear washing them because they might shrink.

The final and most important characteristic of real pants is that they contain a button closure and a zipper. That is the part that can really just make life suck. I think you know what I mean.

Pajama pants, yoga pants, leggings, tights and adult-sized onesies: these all qualify as not-real pants. They also happen to be what I have been wearing as pants for the past 2 months as I ate my way through the holidays, so you can imagine my disdain today when I pulled out a pair of real pants today and couldn’t button them.

I sadly pulled my tired, old, not-real pants back on until further notice and resolved to eat less and bitch more. Because hungry people are bitchy, yes?

We’ll try the real-pants thing again in a month.

House Guest.

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of being the “House Guest” over at Housewife Plus, a blog written by a kindred spirit named Sarah. She lives in Maine, her husband builds boats, and she. is. hilarious.

Every Monday, Sarah hosts a House Guest and I was thrilled to hang out over there. She even used the word “y’all” to make me feel at home. Check it out here!

Like what you see? Don’t forget to follow her on Facebook and Twitter! She’s going to be famous one day and you’ll get to say you discovered her when. Just saying.

The Best Of Me.

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Yesterday, during an entirely-too-long road trip to Florence, MS, when Taylor Swift came on the radio and I started belting out the lyrics to “Blank Space,” I realized two things.

1. That song is not about Starbucks.

2. My children know me better than anyone else.

I’m not a shy person, but I’m admittedly prim and proper. It’s not on purpose, it’s just how I was raised — Southern and conservative. Minus the monogramming, because my mom wasn’t into it. I grew up in a church that frowns upon dancing, which means that as a 30-something adult I look like a complete idiot in my Zumba classes. I still haven’t learned how to shake my upper body, but don’t you worry, I’ll keep plugging away at it.

The side of me that my kids see is the side that belts out “YOU KNOW I LOVE THE PLAYERS, AND YOU LOVE THE GAME!” Yeah, I’m off-key, but who cares?

This is the side that makes ridiculous noises, chases them wildly around the house, hops on one foot through the kitchen and slides in socks down the hallway. Their mother is a non-makeuped, disheveled woman in mismatched lounge wear who is always teetering on the edge of insanity, but in a fun way. Unless she’s mad … which is no fun for anyone, because then she is non-makeuped woman in mismatched lounge wear who is parking asses in time out.

I have always worried that my kids get the worst of me because I seem to bumble through life in perpetual exhaustion. Tiredness is the basic truth of motherhood, right after unconditional love. It sucks the wind and the life right out of me and turns me into an impatient, rough-looking “momster” who sighs a lot.

In my non-mom life, I don’t belt out songs in front of other people unless I’ve been drinking, and I don’t dance unless I’m in Zumba. This realization disappoints me, because the side of me that doesn’t give a rat’s ass — that’s the side of me that comes out in my writing — is my best, most interesting side. That girl is a good time, and even my husband rarely sees her.

So maybe the side of me that the kids see really is my best side, even when I have been in pajamas all day, carrying a mug of cold coffee and yelling “FOR THE MILLIONTH TIME, PLEASE STOP TALKING ABOUT YOUR PENIS!”

Maybe the truth is, they don’t always get the worst of me.

Maybe they get the best of me, too.

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#prayforRobbie

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Last night at midnight my husband turned to me and said, “I’m nervous because I’ve never had sex with a 35-year-old before.”

I replied, “Don’t worry, you won’t.”

This is from someecards.com and my cousin Karen posted it on my Facebook wall. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

This is from someecards.com and my cousin Karen posted it on my Facebook wall. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

Just kidding … I didn’t say that. Even though somehow, in a series of strange events I still don’t quite understand, no one woke me up in time and I totally missed Christmas morning.

Oh yes. That. 

All the gifts wrangled, the stockings stuffed, the thought put in, and I didn’t get to see their faces when they saw it. Because I wasn’t there. Because I was asleep.

I was *ENRAGED at my husband, but not enraged enough to ban him from sex with a 35-year-old. I can’t go a year without sex. That’s just ridiculous. But you know what’s not ridiculous? The insane way that I will be wrapping presents from now on.

After I calmed down, I announced that I will henceforth be wrapping things the way Grandma wraps them. Everyone’s eyes widened with fear. Grandma uses a lot of ribbony knots and industrial-strength tape. People need help to open things from Grandma. And so it shall now be in our house, because I shall not ever miss a gift opened again. EVER.

I was freaking out over turning 35 today. I don’t know why. The fear has no logic behind it, aside from the feeling that my life is slipping by and I need to carpe all the diems before it’s too late. I’ve spent much of my life doing things that I’d rather not be doing, which is fine, but there is a time and a place for that and I like to think that at least a portion of it is behind me.

The next 35 years will be spent carpe-ing my diems in whatever way I damn well please, and loving my family, because even though I already have more than enough stories to tell, they just keep giving me more.

You can stop now, people. Seriously.

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*All of my mom friends told the story of How Harmony Missed Christmas to their spouses as a cautionary tale. Apparently a husband started a new hashtag on Twitter called #prayforRobbie. Just thinking about that made me feel much better … spread the word.