The devil is hiding on Pinterest

I am convinced that the Devil is hiding on Pinterest.  It is for stay at home moms what Glamour Magazine is for well, normal looking, real women all over the world.  Pinterest creates these unrealistic expectations of what moms are supposed to be.  I joined the at home mom gig late in the game so I'm even more disadvantaged than those who have always stayed home with their kids, but even those moms are not likely crafting up a  new living room sofa out of bags of cotton balls, some old t-shirts, a glue gun and Popsicle sticks.  These types of things make those of us who aren't so talented with crafts feel like failures as mothers.  It's not just the over achieving craft projects- it's the recipes too. I've tried these homemade biscuits twice now.  In the Pinterest photo, they are fluffy and golden brown...ingredients and instructions are simple enough so I should be able to nail this right? I mean come on, I used to manage 70 employees and 2 offices when I worked and most days found myself looking for something to do. I should be able to make biscuits.  Well, apparently I can't make biscuits because baked goods don't respond to my management skills.  They looked like sugar cookies and not the fluffy, golden brown ones in the photo.  Epic fail #1.  I'll blame the Cream of Tartar I've had since before my 14 year old son was born.  Attempt #2 included a fresh Cream of Tartar and an easier recipe yet and an assistant- the kid has Home Ec at school so maybe he can bring some skills to the table that I don't posess.  Again, it's a no go.  Although the flavor was much improved, the fluffy, golden brown biscuit from the photo still looked more like a sugar cookie.
Pillsbury Grands it is.  I blame my lack of cooking skills on my own mother who poured my cereal for me until I was 17 and still cuts my meat.  I wish the baking and cooking was the worst of it though.  The other moms are making these fantastic memory quilts of the years of Little League and soccer shirts that belonged to their kids throughout the years or marvelous scrapbooks to record the years of them growing up.  I depend on others to take pictures of my kid- like the school for example.  Each sport he signs up for also sticks me for $45 worth the photos in the form of key chains, buttons, and magnets.  If you visit my home, it looks like a shrine to my son.  Every useable wall space and table top displays a photo of him.  My next Pinterest effort will be to "up cycle" old hockey sticks into picture frames.  I guess it will be a good way to get them to the dump when that project too is a miserable failure.  Today though, today takes the cake as far as the failure to top all failures as a stay home mom.  Most of the other moms I know are up and out the door by 8am doing yoga or Zumba then home to shower and plan some kind of gluten free lunch and make their own greeting cards while French braiding the dog's hair.  Me, I got up at the crack of 9:30am.  I used the water bottle I normally would use to spray the cat when she gets on the table to wet down the parts of my hair that were sticking up.   I applied some additional deododorant since a shower was not in the cards today, washed my face, did what I could with make up in 5 minutes and then got dressed.  This is where the flaw in thinking comes into play.  I broke one of my own very important rules and decided to go out of the house wearing leggings and a shirt that did not cover my butt.  I checked myself out in the full length mirror at the bottom of the stairs and surprisingly, I wasn't horrified.  So, a little lipstick and off I went to my favorite coffee shop, feeling so confident that I even chose the short jacket- also not covering my butt.  I blew into my favorite coffee shop, chatted up some of the other customers and the employees, got my coffee and my little donut and off to my next destination- my doctor appointment.  I arrived home later that afternoon and naturally had to pee like crazy from the giant coffee only to discover that I had been prancing about town WITH MY PANTS ON BACKWARDS! How could this be?  How could I have left my house even after looking in the mirror in a pair of leggings that have this intricate seamwork on the front of the legs and not on the back with my pants on backwards?  Clearly, I have lost my mind.  You know, these Pinterest moms are tie-dying Easter eggs and underwear, knitting a scarf with their arm, making shelving units out of old doors and I can't even get out of the house with my pants on the right way.  Who does that?  My grandpa was 85 years old and had Alzheimer's, and he never went anywhere with his pants on backwards.  I will close this week's blog with a word to other moms who also feel that sense of inadequacy when comparing themselves to other moms- Pinterest has yet to raise a child and we're all doing that in the best ways we know how, and I consider it a good day when nobody gets killed, lost or goes to bed crying.  That, and nothing good comes from leggings...nothing at all.

When Even the Queen Size Bed Gets Too Small...

Some of you don't remember when the Flintstones slept in separate beds and so did Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore even though both were TV married couples.  When I visited my great-grandparents, they too had a bedroom with two twin beds.  I don't know at what point it was determined that married couples had to sleep together.  When I first met my husband, we would snuggle up right next to each other in my full size, post divorce bed, and sleep that way all night long.  Nobody got sweaty, woke up with an arm completely numb or felt the need to roll over 18 times.  Then, we got married and upgraded the full size bed to a queen size size and still felt like we should meet in the middle and hold each other all night long...that was several years ago now.  Fast forward to about a week ago...it was approximately 2am, and I had now been listening to my husband make animal impressions from his nose and mouth for 2 hours.  The moose call was new.  I hadn't heard that one before...it was some mixture of a snore and a puff of air at the same time.  This, accompanied by the gymnastics routine he had been putting on that was enough to make a 65 pound Russian girl jealous was call for the People's elbow right to the middle of the back.  He wakes up from his slumber that was peaceful to only him and looks at me and I say, "if you can't lay there and sleep quietly, I swear to God, I will smother you."  This is a change from the first year we were married of sleeping together when I would have said, "I'm cold, will you snuggle me?".  These days, I stay warm in pink fleece pajamas with cats on them. The root of the problem is that he can't sleep on his back without singing the songs of his people, and I cannot fall asleep in a room that sounds like a logging camp.  If he rolls over onto his shoulder, then he insists on sleeping on top of me causing me to sweat like a beast.  There's also the 3 chihuahuas- they will not sleep next to him for a few reasons 1) fear of getting sucked up in the wind tunnel 2) being crushed when he sticks the landing of his floor routine 3) the sleep farting (which he will go to the grave denying even though I nearly had to give one of the dogs CPR after a sauerkraut meal).  Because they won't sleep by him, they stuff themselves up against me.  You must be thinking "Big deal, how much room can a chihuahua take up? " A 250 pound man and 3 chihuahuas can take up enough room so that you are left hanging onto the seam of the mattress for dear life hoping against hope that a sleep fart doesn't blow you onto the floor.   I had come to the conclusion that perhaps a bigger bed could offer a solution to at least the overcrowding problem we were suffering from, that and some dietary changes.  Off to the furniture store to shop for a king size bed.  I measured it in advance to make sure it would fit in the bedroom so we didn't have another "couch incident".  There was about 7 inches to spare on each side of the bedroom with a bigger bed so that will also be a weight loss incentive. This purchase involved moving and assembling not one, not two, but three beds to three different rooms and hauling two up and down a flight of stairs.  I did what I always do when my husband and I have a project such as this to do together and got the divorce lawyer's number ready along with alerting my son to prepare for the 911 call for the injury that will be inevitable.  Surprisingly enough, neither were needed and all beds ended up in the intended locations.  All people and dogs are sleeping better in my house as a result.

It's only forty they said...the best is yet to come they said...

So, this is my first blog...inspired by many friends who insist that I'm the funniest person they know.  It's not funny really though because these stories are true accounts of shenanigans and foolishness that occur in my life on a regular basis.
I began my forties a year ago...along with the "mid-life crisis" I've heard so much about.  I spontaneously quit my job and insisted we sell our overpriced house by a golf course for a 100 year old "charming piece of small town history".   I was 40 now- time to reflect on my life and my accomplishments...my successes and failures and where I expected to be at this place in my life. I remember when my mom was 40- I was 16.  She looked like a mom, and I did in fact believe that she was too old for a number of things even though she would likely disagree.  Now it's me...40 years old.  Do I look 40?  What does 40 look like anyway?  Elastic waist pants, fuzzy perm and a pastel colored crew neck sweater?  Ugh, the thought of it made me feel sick but the cold hard fact was that I was too old for a handful of things.  Leggings are a great example.  Every morning I drop my son off at school and I see these teenage girls walking into the school wearing black leggings and little flat shoes or Uggs and most of them are not making any effort at all to cover their back ends with a long shirt.  For a second, it crosses my mind to sell my soul to the devil to be 17 again and have a tight little butt like that.   This is not a look that is advisable for women over 40 and if you don't believe me  go hang out at a Walmart on a weekend.  Leggings are not forgiving in any way.  I'd even go so far as to say that they might be holding a grudge.  Every lump, bump or unsightly fat roll will be out there for everyone to see so if you must wear leggings, your shirt better come down to your knees.  Bikinis do not belong on me anymore- I've had a child.  I breastfed that child and my boobs require a tremendous amount of support not to escape.  No bikini top with nothing but strings to tie it together is going to offer that.  Nobody is going to want to see that when the girls get out. I am also too old for loud crowded bars full of kids who just turned 21. They are full of drama, spilling drinks and inevitably one of them with throw up before the night is over.  The last time I went to a bar, one of those twentysomething drunken jackasses threw a quarter at me and when I began to yell at him he said "I just wanted to get your attention so I could tell you you're beautiful and I love your look". My look was jeans and a t-shirt and my response was "it is the ultimate insult to throw money at a woman in an effort to get her attention..."  Oh my God, if I was 23 years old, I would have swooned for a stupid move like that and saved the quarter for our wedding.  At 40, a verbal assault instead and a refusal of the drink he offered to buy to apologize for throwing the quarter.
I'm 41 now. I've had to purchase a pill minder and traded my subscription to Glamour magazine for Good Housekeeping.  My cholesterol is a bigger worry than contracting an STD.  Instead of being a kid, I'm raising one and there are days when I wonder when his parents are going to come and get him and then I remember that's me.