Are you gonna eat your tots?

Yowsers! What a week! An old gal pal of mine taught me the definition of a fair-weathered friend by demonstrating that she was one herself. There are worse things but no one enjoys life's little harsh lessons. Speaking of lessons, we found out that my son got into the local charter school. Confused? This would make the third time that I have had to shop for school supplies for the same kid in under a month. I should start charging for my services.

On my way inside his current school, I passed a large window and spotted Greyson sitting in between two girls chatting and sipping on his milk. There are few things more precious than watching your child develop into an individual, especially when they don't know you are looking.

The lunchroom was a low hum of tiny voices sharing interesting facts such as older siblings, favorite cartoons and unique personal talents. Some things never change. Like how nasty and unappetizing the school lunches appear. The lasagna looked like it was about to make a run for it and back into the can it came out of. EXCEPT for the tater tots. No food makes a deeper emotional connection for me than tater tots and Kool-aid. I had to fight the temptation to snatch them off the trays of each kid around me.

Monday begins a new chapter in our back-to-school adventures. I say, bring it on!

What I learned about life from refinishing my front door

I have no idea what possessed me to even take on the arduous task of staining and refinishing my front door. Ok, I'll fess up....$$$ oh, and that my hubby said I couldn't! Over the last year or so, I have made it my mission to tackle DIY projects. Today shrouded in the warm rays of spring, I busted out the sander, paints and a drive to succeed.

My hard work payed off but turned out to be a much larger scale project than I anticipated and just like my door was caked in layers of frustration and resolve. In the end, the door turned out beautifully. I celebrated by downing two beers and stood in the middle of the street to admire my handy work. I was struck by a deeper parallel to refinishing my door and life's little lessons. Here is what I learned:

Lesson # 1 Don't be afraid to step outside your comfort zone of knowledge.


Lesson #2 In order to get to the heart of the problem, you have to entirely scrape away at the old layers.


Lesson # 3 Ask for help.


Lesson # 4 Don't be afraid to start over.


Lesson # 5 When all else fails read the directions.

Now where did I put my happy pill?

Ahhh yes, it's that time of year again when gyms fill up and the world goes back to what it was doing before the holidays. Personally, this past Christmas was one of the most stressful in memory. The cause was related to managing 7 adult bodies and personalities my own included. The final head count was: 7 adults, 2 dogs, and 2 small kids in just 2,200 square feet. Luckily, I have some slivers of moments to which I can cling tenaciously (if need be.) Moments like when my son realized that Santa had arrived and the fun we had hiding a stuffed Elf all over the house for a month. It is truly magical to screw with a five and two-year old's minds.

I am working hard to get my head back into the game. The parenting game, the writing game and the work game. Hell, my blog even took a booster seat in the back. I compare this "swimming up stream" feeling to a situation that took place when I first entered the corporate world. I was working for a company called, PMSI (a story for another day.) and one lady decided to get everyone going on the "Vegetable Soup Diet." For those of you that don't remember this fad, it involved cooking a week's worth of nasty veggie soup and consuming this swill two times a day for two weeks. Can you guess that came next? I bet my IBS folks can. The womens restroom remained stalled out at all hours of the day. Toilets overflowed, and a foul smell that would make even a forensic scientist wretch filled the carpeted hallways. I worked in the call center taking orders from Workers' Comp patients anxious to get their Darvocet and Stadol delivered to their doors. Because I did not subscribe to this diet, I was certainly not going to suffer in the smell.

The pain and distraction from holding my urine proved to be too great and I developed a nasty UTI. I haven't had one this bad or since. The point of this story was to illustrate how hanging on to slivers of good or bad memories relieve tension and can make you laugh your ass off. Which is what I needed just then.

Happy New Years Peeps!