clickmom

all about meat

I have three same age as myself  friends whose mothers all announced the family one day that they were done.  To varying degrees these moms had found themselves care taking and parented out.  They opted out of all or most of the day to day mom tasks leaving the families to fend for themselves.  The effect of their mothers not mothering anymore varied among my three friends, probably to the extent of their mother's not mothering  I think the friend whose mother least mothered was the most affected.   I can identify with the mothers who opted out.  I'd opt out too if I wouldn't be so guilt ridden over possibly extra screwing up my kids.

I'm really frustrated.  I am gearing up to take care of myself in the new year. This means DIET and EXERCISE.  The exercise part is easy because I can get that done when the kids are in school, but the diet part is a challenge since I do not want to prepare the copious amounts of red meat my family desires and which I have not eaten for over a year in attempt to avoid gall bladder surgery.  But the thing is that I am weighing going pretty much meatless in the new year.  I'd just like to take a break from the heavy animal eating.  It isn't a philosophical thing, I am not giving up my sweet cozy fleece lined nomad crossing the frozen tundra boots, it's a health thing.  I feel like I need to give my digestion a break.  I'm feeling kind of crapy lately and I need to do a 180.

Matt came home from college a faux vegan.  He eats mostly vegan food at the food coop he eats in at Hipster U.  On the one hand he asked to go to the gourmet hamburger place for lunch.  On the other hand, he happily okayed the lasagna I offered to make for dinner and at the last minute asked if I could not put meat (despite the fact that my grass fed ground beef was without a doubt a healthier choice than the burger joint mad cow ground beef)  on part of the lasagna that he could eat.  That is an asshole move.  I love my boy, but I wanted to punch his face in when he pulled that.  

I need a family that says "Thank you for this healthy prepared with love food" and eats the food no matter what I put down in front of them, while smiling and showing appreciation.  That is what I need.  I need it today.  I need it now.  I need my children not to have food preferences or desires.  I am not a short order cook.  I do not want to be a short order cook.  Owning a restaurant is my personal nightmare.  The one piece of advice I would give any new mother would be to never let your kids think they have a choice in what you feed them.  Eat it or be hungry.  That is going to be my post New Year MO.  Eat my healthy vegetable based dishes or go without.  I guarantee you the husband will be buying his own dinners on his way home from work.  I don't care.

Last night we ate at a greek restaurant in Manhattan.  (Matt had lamb, I am so reporting him to the Hipster U food coop board!)   There was a girl at the next table whose names rhymes with bamanda brox.  (no google hits!)  She just got out of an Italian prison.  You know who I mean?   She told the waiter she like meat.  She also had red wine.  If I just got out of an italian prison I'd only drink california wine.   I forgot to see what kind she was drinking.  Her table shared a flaming cheese dish.  I was insanely jealous because none of our appetizers got set on fire.  Bamanda looks exactly like she did on TV during the trial, which makes me truly believe in her innocence.  If she wasn't innocent I think she'd be sporting a trampy makeover and galavanting around like a Kardashian being famous for nothing.  I had to text lil sis during the meal.  Her advice?   "Don't say "Go Italia!"  Then the boys and the husband started joking around and talking an exaggerated italian accents like Mario and Luigi.  Too bad I was so full I couldn't slide underneath the table.  I tried to sneak a photo with my phone.  I was in a bad position to do that.  I didn't want her to know I was the kind of idiot I am who sneaks photos in restaurants and doesn't play it all cool as if I spot people from the news sitting atthe next table every day like a typical New Yorker might.  Yeah, I wasn't cool.  I was totally excited.

stuff

I love having my friends over for dinner. I'm going to have to start wearing rubber gloves though.  I usually just have ugly dry cuticles from all the dishwashing but these days the skin on my hands actually hurt.  

I had to replace my 957 pairs of drug store reading glasses with stronger ones.  I figured I'd build my new stronger collection up nice and slow.  I got one pari which seemed so incredibly perfect.  I thought I'd see how long I could hold into it for.  2 days later I found it on the bottom of the stairs both arms completely broken off and possibly even ground into the little mud room rug.  I have my suspicions, and I can barely see a fricking thing in my old weak glasses.

We saw War Horse today.  The elderly couple behind us really made themselves at home.  They brought all kinds of homemade goodies wrapped in the crinkliest paper ever.  They said every thought they had out loud.  But I had to draw the line when the elderly lady half of the couple took a cell phone call during the movie.  Oh yes she did!  I turned in my seat, tried real hard not to look as homicidal I felt, and asked them to stop talking.  They responded appropriately.

I'm still kind of super sad and maybe even outraged at the lack of house decorating that goes on around here.  Maybe it was a Jersey thing?  

the other kind of cold feet

The whole me being tired thing has taken on tremendous proportions.  I'm not sure if it is because of me having a mostly terrible diet since last summer or me being super stressed over the whole move to a new town and be lonely 24 hours a day thing, or something more serious.  I have no chiro back up here.  I did see one chiro for a few weeks when we first moved here, but it was like seeing Barney the dinosaur and I couldn't take that kind of care for one more day.  He really didn't measure up.  The weird thing was he'd come in and start working on me without asking me how I was doing.  Not the level of care I'm used to.  I think after the holiday I have to find a new doctor.  A regular doctor.   I'm sure there is thyroid something going on.  My hair is falling out again.  I thought maybe it was temporary, but it has reached MUST CUT WHAT LITTLE IS LEFT OFF proportions.  Getting kind of thin up there.  Long and thin is a bad combination.  I wish my whole package was getting thin, but the rest of me is moving in the opposite direction.  Also, my feet are so cold 24 hours a day that they hurt.

I love him

I knew Matt would want to spend time with his friends while home on vacation.  Today was the day he wanted to visit his high school friends in stepford.  I got the boys to school and hopped into the car with Matt.  I was nervous that the hour and a half drive would take double due to traffic, but luckily we flew down with out a single slow down.  Having a few minutes to spare before needing to turn around and get back for Josh's school holiday party, I stopped in just to say "Hello" to peanut.  I felt a bit reluctant to say I had just driven an hour and a half to drop my kid off but peanut understood right away.  Peanut caught on that I loved every second of the hour and a half that Matt and I spent chatting while traveling.  Peanut looked at me and said "You love him!"   I would have driven him as far he wanted to go just to spend that time together.  The ride back to new town was easy and without traffic too.  It was also disappointing as all get out.

totally

So, no word from the skanky house buyers about their threatened law suit.  I still think they just tried to ruin our thanksgiving by telling us about the law suit right before.  Also, I think they (wrongly) assumed we would toss some cash their way because we frightened of them or something.  As happy as I am not have heard from them,  I kind a wish we could sue them back though.  I did do a drive-by yesterday when I went back to stepford to have lunch with my babes.  They are definitely doing some work to the house.  I saw a dumpster in the back yard.   Probably the kid's bathrooms.  Also, they put a play set right where our old play set used to be.  I hope that cranky neighbor in the back called the town to complain about theirs being too close to the property line like they did to us.  That would make me laugh.  Welcome to the neighborhood!  Totally.

I've been totally preoccupied with the whole [email protected] application.  TOTALLY.

Is there a holiday coming up?

I was hoping my kids would make the whole consumerist holiday thing easy on me and give me guidance in the form of an email with links.  Josh did, but that was painful because he asked for some serious money wasting crap that I know he is never ever going to use, and Matt and Evan just shrugged me off saying they had everything they needed.  Which is true, don't we all really do have everything we need?  Yes we do.  But we keep buying more junk anyway.  totally wrong.

I am going to get up as soon as I hit publish and begin a massive living area clean up.  I still have stuff in boxes because I 1. don't have any place to put stuff int he new house and 2. I figured I'd see if we can do without certain things so all those boxes are about to go down in the basement where they will be neatly placed on plastic shelving.  If I don't need the stuff for long enough it's getting the heave ho.   This whole drowning in stuff thing I do oh so well is starting to get on my nerves.  totally.

When I was at Kitten's house yesterday I realized why other people's houses are always a thousand times neater than mine is. It's because they don't actually use their living areas.  Kitten's main floor?  Immaculate.  Kitten's basement? Much like my place!  I noticed the same thing at a house we were at for a holiday party last weekend.  Kids are squirreled away in an area that is out of sight.  Too bad I like seeing my own offspring so damned much.  I'll never have a tidy house.  I'm giving up.  Life is too short to fluff couch pillows.  totally.

 

 

still crazy

As the burning knot of pain in my back gradually subsided to the mild stiffness that continues to linger there today, my sinuses not so gradually filled up.  It's head cold number two for me for this winter.   I have to get on the ball with some vitamins or something.

One thing I miss about stepford?  The christmas lights.  People in stepford were decorators.  Here in new town- not so much.  One of my neighbors suggested that we lived in a non christmas celebrating part of town, but I'm not so sure.  I think that the lack of decorating is due to houses being less on top of each other.  Why decorate when no one can be jealous of enjoy it?   Folks around here are big on fences of both the tree/bush kind and the fence kind.  Though I did see broken colored light remnants in the tree bushes besides my own personal new town front porch so I assume the previous owners were decorators.  I wish at least one of my neighbors was one of those all out crazy power sucking light up the night decorators.  I'll have to start making them feel guilty about it for next year.  

The weather has been somewhat unpredictable lately.  It's in the mid 50's right now.  Which is not what one would expect when there was enough snow in October to cancel Halloween.  

I am bothered beyond any reasonable amount of being bothered by all the freakish plastic surgery on television these days.  Especially the eyebrow thing when people get botox and their inner eyebrows look heavy and droopish.  Also, the tight face/loose neck thing.  It all makes em want to run screaming into the streets, especially when one LYING talk show host tells the side show faced guest of the day how great they look.  I sit here talking trash the television.  Don't get me started on it.

I need to get out of the house more.

But in addition to the cold, which I hope is only a cold and not something worse, like bronchitis or another dreaded sinus infection,  I still think I'm a wee bit depressed.  It's kind of a joke how easily I cry these days.  My eyes misted up just writing that.  

I told my neighbor that both Evan and Josh were homebirths the other day.   I knew I'd freak her out so I just chatted right through it and kept on talking.  I thought she was going to faint.  I suspect she is the type who gave birth fully medicated and fully clothed.  Because as soon as she pushed that baby out she went for a run or something.  Speaking of running, I am a bit surprised how many new town mothers walk around in exercise clothes all day long.  I feel like such a slob  when I do that.  But they mostly have the toned bodies of people who don't actually eat solid food and who train with a trainer five times a week between hot yoga classes, so I can't say that they look like total slobs.  They look like athletes in exercise clothes.  The slob thing is just how I feel.  Which is bringing me down because since I threw my back out I've been living in exercise clothes.  The thought of putting stiff jeans on and sitting down in them is unappealing right now.

I'm meeting with my photo teacher to put the finishing touches on my portfolio this weekend and hopefully I will be able to get that [email protected] application in before Matt comes home next week.  That would be AWESOME.  I'll coast through the kid's vacation without a worry at all.  Sweet.  I'm not going to let them sleep all day either.  Nothing drives me crazier than waiting for them to wake up.

this year's card

Remember how my holiday photo was messed up because someone     ~coughevancough~  messed with the settings on my point and shoot?  Well, during my despair (scrolling around my phone for a better selection) I came up with an idea for the extra unused set of mug shot like passport photos we had lying around.  At least they are in focus.  Two of the original mug shots are of famous people.  Points for anyone who recognizes them.  

no hidden cameras

First I'd like to pat myself on the back.  I made my personal best beer can chicken tonight.  Thank you from the bottom of my happy satisfied (stomach)  heart Steven Raichlen.  (Also, overpriced organic chicken from Whole Paycheck)  I love it when it all turns out perfect.

So, life with my bad back has not been fun.  The pain comes in waves and sometimes it gets so intense I think I'm going to pass out.  Then 10 minutes later I think maybe it's leaving me and I'm on the mend.  Curious.  Sleeping is the worst.  I can't be comfortable in bed.  I wake up every time I move a muscle and have to turn (no tossing!) very deliberately.  It isn't restful.   It sucks.  I'm exhausted from the lack of sleep.  Let me paint a one word picture of me exhausted:  TEARS.  That is all you need to know.  I'm either crying tears of exhaustion or laughter tears.  Except this time around the back pain is stepping on the laughter tears.  It's hard to find things funny.  I even stopped laughing my head off over Mindy Kaling's hilarious book which pre-thrown out back had me laughing from the table of contents.

When we moved to new town I found a therapist for Josh.  I really wanted to make sure he was dealing with the whole bullying thing from last year.  I think he's fine but you know I have trouble breaking up with therapists.  He still goes.  Anyway, the therapist has a cute little waiting room and in this cute waiting room she has a coffee maker.  It's the kind of coffee maker that you can choose to make your own individual cup of flavored coffee from.  Needless to say, I have trouble sleeping on Thursday nights, and also, avoid the spicy egg nog flavor.  Ick.  Unless, that is you are a big fan of flavored creamers and then you can mask the coffee taste with something even more artificial than the coffee, which I drink black.

One side effect of this recent overwhelming back pain episode has been the dropsies.  The dropsies could not have worse timing since I can not even come close to doing the bend down after drop pick up.  I so can't bend to pick things up that every morning I've been walking bear bait along my own front yard until she does #2 just so I don't have to bend over and pick it up Then complete the rest our morning walk with my fingers crossed that she doesn't have another one.  I drop a lot while putting on make up.  That isn't so bad because I put on makeup before getting dressed so I can pick skinny things like eye shadow brushes and mascara wands up with my toes.  I have super talented toes.

So anyway, I was freshly brewed coffee binging while Josh was in therapy this afternoon and naturally, I dropped my cup.  Oh yes I did.  I spilled coffee right on the waiting room beige carpet.  I (attempted to) leaped (painfully) out of my chair to (stagger towards the) grab some conveniently placed napkins, dropped them in the area of the coffee spill and stepped on them, fingers crossed that they would soak up the coffee.  Luckily, the waiting room industrial strength synthetic fiber carpet did not stain, except there was a big pile of coffee soaked napkins that needed to magically transport them selves to the trash without requiring me to bend over.  It was Lucille Ball comical.  There was napkin foot sweeping, there was chair sit. lie, lean, almost tip over and end up on the floor, move.  It was ridiculous.  Luckily, no hidden cameras.  I hope.

two reasons to cheer up

Just saw on the news that stepford is under a flood watch.  I can't help but hope that my old house takes another big hit.  We haven't heard from the skank home buyers and I'm hoping it means that they went crawling back into their hole.  It's a little disappointing though because I was really going to sink my teeth into suing them back.

Two good things happened today.  First, I went to the last session of my printmaking class even though I'm not enjoying it and even though I wasn't sure my back would hold out, just to exchange phone numbers with one of the other students, who I have wanted to suggest an out of class get together with since the very first class.  Before I could say anything to her she said we should exchange phone numbers.  I was so happy that she was thinking the same thing.  Yes, I'm a dork.

Then I went to Whole Foods to pick up some food for dinner and I recognized someone and stood in an aisle and chatted!   It was the one mom I met and gushed over picking up her kid from that sleep over party Josh went to last weekend.  It sounds so silly, but I really miss bumping into people I know when I am out and about.  I guess I am more social than I realized.  I was ridiculously happy afterwards.

 

 

embarrassing myself in public as usual

It's been a rough week for me.  I felt a little relieved on Friday when I finally admitted to myself that I am without a doubt depressed.  It's a hard thing to own up to.   I'd rather be a happy go lucky optimist.  The big red flag?  I can't hold back the tears.  I'm just crying my eyes out about 12 times a day.  It's so embarrassing.  That god for sunglasses.   It has nothing to do with my womanly cycle.   I'm so lonely that I feel real physical pain over it.  But I do suspect that my thyroid is on it's yearly autumn downward spiral.  I'm still depressed.  I might end up bald.  The thyroid thing just isn't helping anything.

The other thing I wasn't really admitting to myself is that I have gone and thrown my back out again.  I kept saying "One wrong move and I'm going to be totally bedridden." except I got tired of hearing myself cry out in pain pretty every time I moved.  It hurts so much my heart is sometimes racing. Then I realized that I had actually already thrown out my back. I'm just not 100% incapacitated.  Yet.  Yay me!  Not.

Last night Josh went to a sleep over birthday party.  I'm so thankful my boys have been making friends.  

Evan was hanging out with a coed group of friends and when I told Evan that the husband and I wanted to go to a grown up movie (Descendants.  I loved it.  But I kind of love George, and would see him in anything.  He happened to be named Matt in this movie and that was weird for me)  Evan asked if I could bring him and two of the girls with us.  Hell Yeah!  What better way to spy on your kids?!?  I picked Evan up at one of the mom's house and I think I instantly hit it off with the mom.  She was reading the new Diane Arbus biography, and I happen to be a fan of Diane, so extra plus.  I plan on calling her this week to see if she'd like to meet for coffee.  I was thinking of taking a page out of Peanut's play book and inviting all the moms of Evan's friends over for coffee but I'd have to hide too many still unpacked boxes before having company over so I have set a mid January unpack or hide it goal for myself, and will do a group thing then, but until then I'll try to meet someone (or two) new ladies every week.  Evan's female friends were so adorable.  I am relieved to say that Evan's 14 year old female friends are among the few  girls that look 14 like we used to look when we were 14 and not the new kind of 14 year old girl that looks like a ragged out 21 year old in need of a strong cup of coffee and root touch up.  

I was so happy about the potential of Evan's friend's mom being a potential friend for me that I offered the mother of the birthday boy (the first person to be super nice to me here) to bring coffee (for the exhausted adults) and doughnuts (for the exhausted kids AM sugar buzz)   in the morning.  Something made me want to be the first mom there and get to meet the other moms when they picked up their kids.  Wouldn't you know that in addition to thoroughly enjoying the birthday boy's mom I hit it off like crazy with another mom so much so that I very pathetically announced/pleaded "I'm lonely and I need some friends in new town.  Can I call you and we can hang out?"  She immediately reached for paper and gave me her email and phone numbers.   Thank goodness.  

Now I need to get over this back episode long enough to get myself back to a gym.  I think I heard of one in the next town (close to whole foods, so it's convenient) that might suit me.  I'm checking it out tomorrow.

I'm sure with some human contact, a few good workouts under my belt, a sauna, and some zen time meditating I will feel better in no time. Also, I got another lead on some alternative practitioners.  Maybe even a chiro who does applied kinesiology!  I have to reestablish my support team.  The only thing I haven't found is a weekly housekeeper, and two women today both told me today that they had been stolen from by housekeepers here in new town, so I am doomed for at least another fun filled week of toilet scrubbing.  

PS When we were in utopia for thanksgiving I was thinking about how grandma hadn't messed up my television for a long time and guess what.  My utopian bedroom television inexplicably turned on in the middle of the night and then went totally black the next day.  It's a goner!   I'm thinking Grandma's still around.  Either that or I can destroy electronics with my psychic powers.  If that is so I want my own show on TLC!