The Very Big Village

Our last guest post is from Robbin, and I love this post because it says nice things about me! Just kidding, I'm not that narcissistic. I enjoyed a lovely dinner with Robbin last year, and I love her blog. I'll be back tomorrow, I promise.

Wow - my first guest post.

I am just as nervous as I was when I gave my first talk at a scientific conference. Only I am less worried about what I am going to wear.

Okay, I take that back. I am more nervous. When I give talks at scientific meetings, I have a role to play and a conversational "script" even if it is only in my head. I know what I am talking about. It's my research, and nobody knows it better than I do. It "flows". It's logical.

I blog because I am socially inept. I blog because I am excruciatingly shy. I blog because the degree of anonymity inherent in blogging allows me to stop thinking about how I LOOK to other people and more about what is coming out of my mouth (or fingers). It's funny, I had a woman friend of mine, a Muslim, explain about the wearing of her haircloth and modest clothing. She says she actually found it liberating because she felt it de-emphasized the way she looked and let her "real" self show through.

I got it. I understood.

So when Jodi found out I came to her area regularly on business and suggested we get together for dinner, my first response was "Great!", immediately followed by "Oh, shit."

I was excited because I cherish the online friendships and it's fun to finally put a face with the "voice". And, let's face it, business travel is monotonous and dinner company which isn't expecting me to discuss, well, business, is a rare and welcome change. But despite what I do, I don't invest a lot of money in slick businessware. Chinos or wool pants, business shirts, sweaters and corduroy blazers are the extent of my travel wardrobe. I wear jeans to work. Meeting with sophisticated big-city professional-career-type moms lead to the usual agonizing over clothing-makeup-shoe combinations, trying not to look like an unwashed philistine in the presence of a sleekly coiffed, manicured, coutured lawyer-mom.

I was right about the cute-sleek- well-dressed part. The wonderful surprise was that Jodi was also warm and funny, with a "get-real" attitude toward motherhood that was an enormous relief to a person like myself, who navigates a minefield of overachieving motherhood among those in my professional life. Combined with the fact that she picked out a pretty darn good Indian restaurant (my all-time favorite food), it was a great evening.

Business schedules haven't allowed me a reprisal, but I have enjoyed the text/email/bloggy friendship we have had - trading mom and professional advice on everything from weird viral manifestations to potty training to Thomas the Tank Engine and the finer points of maintaining sanity during children's entertainment [The general concurrence is that ALL theaters should sell adult beverages at the concession area. Particularly before all children's features. God Bless New Orleans.]

And I was grateful to be given the opportunity to remember that we are all people behind the words and the Wordpress/Blogspot themes. That our lives go on beyond what we share. That there is a very big village out there that help me me raise my son and hold my hand - figuratively if not literally - through the times I don't know what the hell I am doing. Best of all, they reassure me that nobody really knows what the hell they are doing in this big experiment called parenthood, but it's all okay because, really? We end up in the same place.

And that I still don't have to worry so much about my clothes.

That has been the very best part of being a blogger.

Guest Rant: I Hate Reading...Logs

Our guest poster today is Devra, another one of the DC Metro Moms, and also friend in a real life. But, long before she was my friend, she helped get me over my guilt about not breastfeeding when we appeared together on Motherhood Uncensored blog talk radio show. Would it really be Jodi's blog without a rant? Of course not. So here I am here to guest rant while Jodi is off on vacation where I'm sure she is hoarding her rants for when she returns. So without further ado, let me rant...

Reading logs. I am going to rant about reading logs. Let me be perfectly clear, I am not against reading books, just the opposite. Hell, I am an author, so obviously reading books is something I want people to do and I do myself. What I am raging against is the idea my children must be required to fill out a weekly reading log for school. My children are readers, my husband and I read to our kids. There is probably more reading going on in our household on a weekly basis than the playing of video games. We live in the kind of house where our kids will sneak a flashlight under their covers to finish a book way after bedtime. My husband and I have had conversations that go like this:

The Huz: "He's up reading. It's midnight. I hate to tell him to stop reading, but it's really getting late."

Me: "Yeah, I know. It's not like he's doing something bad. It's reading after all. But the kid needs his sleep."

The Huz: "Well, I know how it feels when you really are into a book and want to finish it. I'll see how many more pages he's got."

Me:" That works for me, if he has more than 10 pages, we could let him know he can finish in the AM."

The Huz: "Will do."

Look, I realize my kids are not representative of all kids. Not all children are enthusiastic readers, not all kids have access to books at home nor can afford to buy books. Not all parents enjoy reading or read to their children, there are parents who won't/can't get to a library. I get that. Totally. For these kids, reading logs make sense, these kids need the extra push, they may require more direction on what to read, need assistance in learning about the importance of picking up a book and reading independently.

What I am concerned about is my kids already read for pleasure, they already find reading fun, they already are enthusiastic readers. My kids do not need to have their reading monitored by the school. They do not need pizza as an incentive to read. (And it's another rant entirely about how schools use food and candy as rewards in classrooms, I hate that too! Go print this and bring it to your school!)

The reading logs only stress my kids out and create an atmosphere where they no longer see reading as fun, they see it as an assignment. Or even worse, something they need to do in order to get a reward. I am angered they are being influenced by the school system to perform like a circus animal so they can receive an external reward for a skill they already possess and have internalized as something they value. My kids do not need the school to regulate their reading.

In fact, my kids read so much that when we looked at the Summer Reading list, we determined there was no need for our kids to worry about it because they had already read 90% of the books listed!

So what have we done about this? We don't fill out the logs. Are you horrified? Think we are terrible people for bucking the system? For kids like ours, we don't need that system. It's useless to us. But we buck it in a responsible manner. We've been known to send in a note to the teacher letting them know our kids are voracious readers and we will not be logging in their reading. We've even told teachers at our Parent/Teacher conference we aren't going to fill out the log. And you know what? The earth did not open wide and we did not get sucked down into hell. The teacher didn't fail our kid either.

I'll end my rant with clarifying, I believe reading is fundamental. I have the utmost respect for teachers and their desire to promote reading. I just don't believe required reading logs are fundamentally important for every single student from Kindergarten to 12th grade.

What's your read on it?

A Study of Loss & Symmetry

Our guest poster today is Tiffany, who used to write a great blog, jail diet, one of my favorite blog titles ever, but stopped. Tif lives in Chicago. She is an MFA candidate in Performance Art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an arts educator who integrates the practice of non-violence with the Shanti Foundation for Peace. Currently she’s in New York City for the month of August to costume “Lady,” a show off-Broadway in the West Village. She can also be found here.

What does it mean to be lost, if it’s always somewhere?

I washed my favorite pair of black knee socks. While folding the laundry, I had only one of the two. After re-tracing my steps, it was nowhere to be found. Where did it go? Into the mystical sock vacuum where all missing socks go! For over a year I kept it in this one section of my sock drawer: The Sock Lost & Found. And after a year, I finally threw it away in the garbage. Within days after throwing it out, I found the other black knee sock. It seemed to appear out of nowhere. It was, after all, “right here” all the time. But, my year’s worth of holding on to the sock mattered nothing now as now this poor sock, the once missing sock, is now, again, one of a kind-- forever. I figured that throwing this newly found sock away in the garbage would somehow put them, well, in the same place—where they can be together (at least spiritually).

I taught a physical theater workshop for high school students at Northwestern University with my husband about a month ago. At the end of it, I saw one of the girls staring at the floor, navigating it closely with her eyes. She had lost one of her earrings during the final showings and was seeing if she could find it – remembering where she heard it drop near the radiators. I jumped in to help her, but after ten minutes we all gave up. “No big deal,” she said, “I made it myself. I could probably make another one.” I replied to her, “Well, good thing it wasn’t grandma’s heirloom!”

When we got home I noticed that the book I had ordered a month earlier on Amazon had finally come in the mail. It’s a remake of a Japanese craft book about repurposing old socks and gloves to make into children’s toys and quirky eco-gifts. Thumbing through the designs, I realized that somehow the lost earring and the lost or missing glove or sock had come together in the same day, nearly an hour apart from one another.

If something of a pair has been lost, it must be out there somewhere—it doesn’t just disappear. But, where does that item go? What does it mean that it has disappeared to us? And what is the person supposed to do now with only one of something that was once a pair? Why do we tend to hold on to that one object in hope of eventually, someday, finding the missing half of the pair?

It’s socially correct to wear matching earrings, gloves, socks, cufflinks, etc. because wearing the objects in pairs on the body slightly mimics the body. The symmetry of the objects in two mimics the duality of the body; symmetry in the body is longed for as our beauty (supposedly) lies in symmetry.

Sometimes these objects that we lose are precious, and sometimes these objects are quite meaningless. However, I think it’s our human nature to go on a quest to find the other object, to give it purpose, to lessen the bourdon of having to replace the object, and to seek the joy when we (or someone else) finds it. And, oddly, no matter how important the object is to us that we lose of a pair, we are somehow saddened by its loss.

Here is where perhaps you can come in to help me physically explain this act of collecting loss in an abstract, artistic way. In December, I am curating a gallery piece at the Sullivan Gallery in Chicago. While the piece is still in an early phase, I am looking for submissions from people around the world who have held on to an object that is one of a pair, a pair that is now incomplete due to loss. It can be a sock, or something more substantial. I am interested in your personal story of what the object meant to you, how you lost it, and why you held on to it. Also a photo of yourself (maybe even with the object). And, most importantly, the object sent to me in Chicago. These artifacts will be artfully arranged amongst other lost objects for one month. It will be a way for these objects, like my black knee socks, to collectively find peace together.

If you are interested in participating, please send me an email at tif@tifbullard.com and I will contact you with more details.

Potty Talk

Our next guest post is a former DC Metro Mom Nancy, who is also a huge Washington Capitals fan. Her post is about one of my least favorite topics, potty training. Editor's note: I just have to add that this post can not come at a more timely time. Michael has stopped using the potty on vacation. Vacation potty training regression can happen, right? right? During the past several months, our lovely hostess Jodi and I have both been struggling to achieve a common goal: potty training our little ones. Both Michael and Rosie have been fairly successful -- so it looks like our days of Pull-Ups are numbered. Maybe I can finally toss that stinky Diaper Genie. YES!!! It's amazing how intensely you can live and breathe (though most thankfully not taste) the whole potty training experience when you're going through it. Seriously, it got to the point in our house where we were having several conversations about the potty each day: grandparents would call and ask about the potty, day care providers would provide a status of Rosie's toileting habits, and even Mimi (Rosie's big sister) would be giving bathroom pep talks. It's funny that potty talk is pretty much taboo in society -- EXCEPT of course if you have a family member who is learning "to go" on a schedule. Then you're talking about poop, pee-pee, body parts, wiping, and all that fun stuff. (And sometimes you have to congratulate your preschooler enthusiastically on her recent, ahem, success while your coworkers are gathered in your office for that 10 AM meeting. That's always fun.) An interesting side effect of potty training is that I could write a detailed report on practically any restroom in the DC metro area. I've seen all kinds of bathrooms in the past several months, ranging from the best (cleaner than my kitchen on an average Friday morning) to the most deplorable (clogged toilets and unmentionable filth). With a potty training youngster, that old adage rings true: when you gotta go, YOU GOTTA GO. Making liberal use of hand sanitizer and paper towels if needed, of course. (I seriously do think us moms with potty training kids could perform an important public service. Perhaps a review site like Yelp, but with ratings for public restrooms. Ratings factors could include toilet height, stall size -- i.e., whether there's adequate room for those camper-sized strollers, and the presence of those evil auto-flush toilets.) Although all aspects of potty training should be old hat to me by now -- my 6 year old has been potty trained for years -- I forgot the significance of Motivational Underwear until we started working with Rosie. We're not big on character clothing in my household, for the most part. However, we've found that our girls are highly motivated not to have accidents when they're wearing Dora the Explorer or Disney Princess panties. (The downside? The girls LOVE to show off their character panties to random people in the grocery store and post office.) Speaking of that switch to big kid underwear, it's tricky to properly dress your youngster during potty training. No overalls, no long dresses, and no items with tricky fasteners (a.k.a., anything more complex than simple elastic at the waist). I've been tempted to keep her in pajamas all day at times. And without the added bulk of the diaper, all the pants that previously fit Rosie fell to her ankles the first time she wore them with underwear. I had to salvage some size 2T bottoms from the donation pile for the summer -- they're a bit short, but at least she won't be mooning all the other kids at day care. Such a lot of work, this potty training. It's almost enough to make me sentimental for the days of diapers. (Nah. Maybe not.)

Qualities of Great Websites for Children

Today’s guest poster is Leticia from Tech Savvy Mama, Tech Savvy Mama is a site that helps parents find quality technology products for their children and today Leticia shares her tips on what to look for in good websites for children.

I love the internet. I spend a lot of time online….Probably way too much! Before I check myself in to a 12 step program for internet addiction, it is my job to be online. I’m an elementary school Technology Magnet Coordinator by day and Tech Savvy Mama by night. I love the accessibility of everything via the internet. You can find a wealth of information with a few keystrokes and a couple clicks but not all the stuff out there is great. Actually, very little of it even qualifies as good. And when we are trying to find great sites for children to use, it can be even more difficult.

Since my work worlds revolve around technology, I am always being asked about my favorite sites for kids and how I know the good form the bad. On Tech Savvy Mama I have a Website of the Week feature and friends always want to what criteria do I use in selecting websites for my Website of the Week. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when finding great sites for your kids:

Navigation- When evaluating websites, I look for sites that are easy to navigate. This means that the initial page has a user friendly layout. The first page fits on the computer screen and no scrolling is needed to view the entire content. The page is designed so that links to other pages are easy to find. The site doesn’t need to be complicated with moving images, lots of graphics or tons of text. Simple is better.

Age appropriate content- A site must have age appropriate content. For a preschooler who is just beginning to read, there shouldn’t be an overwhelming amount of text that they will need to read in order to navigate the site. Activities and games should be just right for the child and not too difficult.

Minimal ads- There should be few or no ads on sites for children. With an abundance of ads, young children are often enticed by the images such as fast food restaurants logos, favorite television characters, and toys. Children click on the familiar out of curiosity that will lead them away from their game and on to another site. When this occurs, it is nearly impossible for a young child to navigate back to the original website. Not only is the child lost in cyberspace but often ad content can be questionable for preschool age children. In a frenzy of clicking to try to return to the original website, it only takes a few more clicks for a child to accidentally get to inappropriate web content. This isn’t such a concern for older kids because they are able to discern ads from site content whereas little ones can’t.

Spend some time clicking around- Always review websites before letting younger children use them. Make sure the content is appropriate and the site is age appropriate. Also, make sure the site actually exists. Sometimes URLs can be taken over by other sites of questionable content. It is better to be nosy than not in the know about what your kids may be doing online.

For more technology tips, great websites, and technology-related giveaways, visit Leticia at Tech Savvy Mama. Leticia is also the City Editor for Being Savvy Washington DC where she puts an educational twist on fun activities for 2-6 year olds in the DC Metro area and contributes to DC Metro Moms.

Why Can't She Just Watch TV

Today's guest post is from Sarah. (By the way, that is my girls name if we ever have another baby and it's a girl. So not happening, by the way.) She wrote her own intro because I found myself crazy busy this week and unable to do anything but stress about vacation. Oh, and Sarah, Michael does the exact same thing you describe in this post. I’ve never been really good at concisely introducing myself while providing some type of insight into my interests, hobbies, and personality. I always hated that part of the first days of school or the early days of a new job. I’d start to sweat, turn red, and look for the nearest exit. What is there really to say? I’m a 30 year old SAHM to two children. Our daughter is 3 and our son is 1. I love being home with them even though there are times I wonder what I have gotten myself into. Before kids entered the picture I was a high school English teacher for 5 years. I doubt that when I do return to work someday it will be as a teacher. There are a variety of reasons for that, none of which I’ll bore you with now. In the little time I actually get to myself I like to read, exercise, play my guitar, and of course blog. So thanks to Jodi for giving me the chance to do so on her great blog! My daughter loves books and loves to read and for that I am thankful. I think that one of the greatest gifts to give a child is a love of reading. That being said, I am thoroughly exhausted from reading to her so much. If she could have it he way, we would read all day long, every day. We can never just read five or six books; those five or six books become thirty to forty books. I’m not exaggerating either. It would be one thing if I could barrel through them, but it takes forever to get through a book because of the barrage of questions that go along with it. I know that for this I should be glad. It’s a sign that she is engaged and more importantly the beginning of critical thinking skills. She asks questions, makes connections and comparisons, and relates what happens in the books to her own personal experiences. As a former English teacher I truly couldn’t be more proud. It was like pulling teeth at times to get high school students to master these skills. But I swear I read 3 words and then the questions and observations and connections start. I cannot even finish a sentence. It’s stop and go the entire time. While it’s cute and precious it is also tiring and frustrating. My husband and I are voracious readers and I am thrilled that our daughter seems to be following in our footsteps in that regard. I feel like a bad mom when she asks me to read to her and inside I’m screaming to myself, "No, I don’t want to flippin’ read. I read to you all damn day long. I want a break from the stupid books." However, outwardly I smile, act excited and say, "Sure, I’d love to read to you."

Legacy

Our first guest post is from Shannon. She is struggling with something I struggle with a lot, being out in blogging, and when to stop putting effort into destructive relationships. This post is heartbreakingly honest. Jodifur’s invite to guest post on her blog couldn’t have come at a better time. Yesterday while driving around I was going on in my mind about all the shit I wish I could write about. I started forming a post where I talked about how often times I regret going public with my blog. While, it is true I love the direct attention of people knowing I wrote that witty post over there, I hate the boundaries it has set. There is some shit going on in my family lately that I’m just dying to write about. However because my family reads it, and I am in no mood to start world war 76809934er in my family I just keep my mouth shut. Last night I logged into Twitter to see Jodifur offering a chance to guest post and the exact thought that went through my mind was, “Oh you bet your sweet ass I’m going to blog over there, and watch the fuck out because Shannon has some shit to say.” The second thing I did was ask if I was allowed to cuss, because honestly I don’t think I could write a family post with out calling at least one person a mother fucker if you know what I mean. With out further ado, here is my guest post. Every family has a legacy. When I was younger I always imagined my legacy. It involved diamonds and pearls and fancy laughs tossed over my shoulder at high end dinner parties. We would have big gracious family parties where I would cook and everyone would kick back with a drink in their hand chatting idly away at how I should be the next Emeril. Instead my legacy is alcoholic, abusive, asshole relatives. The drinking is there, but instead of being relaxed it’s massive drunken arguments. You know the kind only two alcoholics can have at once. Or, even better the kind between an alcoholic and a sober person. There is no fun chatter at the table. Instead there are strained conversations, and the pressure of different family members avoiding others. There is no happiness, only strain. In my family nothing is simple. For as long as I can remember my grandfather has played favorites. He has two kids and it seems he can only love one at a time. When he makes the choice as to who he is loving this year the other kid and their respective family might as well fall of the earth. This year my mom is the kid on his shit list. And while I personally spent a good 5 years on his shit list all by myself in recent years I’ve actually been the shining star in his life. I’ve been the one to defend him endlessly. I’ve been the one to go see him, call him and email him. I’ve been the one to love him unconditionally. I guess, it’s because I was always taught to love with out conditions. In fact, I gave my son my grandpas name. For a while after beginning his most recent fight with my mom he made attempts to separate that from me. He attempted to pretend he still loved me. At my cousins daughters birthday when we all showed up he ignored my mom but hugged me and chatted lightly with me. We went to lunch and two weeks ago I took Brandon to visit him for a hair cut. That is why Saturday when he didn’t show up at my sons birthday party with the excuse that he didn’t want to see my mom, it’s safe to say I LOST MY SHIT. He said he couldn’t come because he wanted to avoid confrontation with my mom, yet he attended my cousins daughters birthday just a few months ago. I guess my mistake was forgetting that my cousin belonged to the child my grandpa isn’t mad at this month. Either way I’m mad. While some people in my family choose to say this is normal, that he does this every year and that it will blow over I’ve begun to wonder, “at what point is saving family really worth it?” I stood in my garage last night and talked to my husband about this. He responded with such things as, “Oh, things will be fine again soon.”, or “Brandon was to young to know he wasn’t at his party maybe you should wait to get mad till he misses an older party,” To which I responded, “why should I ever give him that chance, why should I ever let Brandon know his great grandpa chose not to come simply because he was angry at one of the attendees?” That’s what this post is about. I’ve always said you should save family. You should fix it at all costs. You should never keep family from your kids because the more people that love them the better. But lately I’ve looked back at my own childhood and remembered all the times my grandpa wasn’t at my party. All the times I had to agonize over guest lists and seating arrangements because my grandpa wasn’t speaking to this person, and my uncle and my mom were fighting and my grandma wasn’t sitting next to my grandpas new wife with all of her fucking diamonds and gold. Jesus just planning the guest list for Brandons third birthday took four months on it’s own. I went back and forth between only inviting people with kids, to only inviting people with kids and close friends, to inviting everyone and then sitting back and watch the cat fights. In the end I invited all but two family members. Now I wonder, where do I go from here? I am mad at my grandpa. My grandma also didn’t attend because she is having beefs with my mom, her son, my grandpa and his wife and basically the whole world in her eyes is wrong. While I love both of these people my gut reaction is to say FUCK OFF ONE STRIKE AND YOUR OUT. The truth is, there have been many small strikes in the last 3 years but this is the biggest of them all. This time they sent my mommy radar up and they have now brought out the mother hen in me. The one who says, NO! YOU WILL NOT FUCK OVER MY KIDS LIKE YOU DID WITH ME! The mom in me is saying that I’m never going to give these people the chance to fuck with my kids minds. They won’t get a chance to leave my kids wondering if they are on the love or hate list this week. Am I over reacting? Is family really always worth saving? Am I supposed to let my kids heart get broken like mine has so many times over the last 26 years? Am I supposed to give these people a chance to get mad at my kid over nothing and stop speaking to them for 5 years? My mom and I may have been the family whipping boy over the years but that is one legacy I don’t want to pass down to my kids. And, if I do decide to go the, “fuck you get out of my life route,” how do I go about telling them? Do I write a letter, make a phone call or just stop contacting them all together? I mean honestly, how do you tell someone, sorry but you’ve screwed me over one to many times? Does your family have a legacy like mine? Are you destined to be fucked over yearly? Were you raised being told, “oh this is just how family is”? At what point do you stand up for your own kids and break the chain? Will I regret this later? I don’t know what to do here but I feel like it’s time for a change. Time for a really big change. It’s time to stand up for my kids the way my family has never stood up for me. What do I do?

You Can’t Do That On Television

For our last guest poster, we have the ever hysterical Kristin of who is always Full of Snark. And she is talking about on of my favorite topics, TV. I'm back tomorrow, I promise.

Every time one of my fellow bloggers asks about guest posts, I am always one of the first people to be all “pick me, choose me, love me.” Oh wait, that was Meredith Grey.

But I always am totally eager to do it because….well, I’m not sure why. I would already be writing a post for that day on my own site and those people get enough of my inane drivel. Why would I subject others to it as well?

Basically, I’m a shameless famewhore, that’s why. Plus, I love Jodifur and we’re so internet BFFs. We have bonded many a time over our love of American Idol and our hatred of plants.

So I decided, since she was nice enough to let me take over her site for a day, that I would write an ode to reality television. And how I am lured by its glowing television glow week in and week out.

But I’m not a poet. And I’m not even sure what an Ode entails. And I’m sure it has something to do with iambic pentameter or some poetry nonsense, but the fact is I don’t even remember how many syllables are in each line of a Haiku.

Instead, I figured I would talk about what it would be like to be on one of these reality programs. Because we all know we’ve thought about how we’d kick ass on Amazing Race, or would totally fall in love on The Bachelor or how we would like to make out with Simon on American Idol. What? Oh, just me then.

So I have picked three reality television shows that I would like to be on – The Bachelor, The Mole and Rock of Love with Bret Michaels. And I will tell you exactly how my experience would go if I were to be lucky enough to not have to work and could give up weeks at a time to pimp my famewhore self out on national television.

The Bachelor

Let’s face it, I’m 30, I’m single and I live alone with my two cats. Why shouldn’t I be on The Bachelor? I ask you, who wouldn’t want to date me? Clearly I’m quite a catch.

There are a few things that could go wrong. One, I do not own any dresses with sequins, and I’m sure that would deny me a rose. Two, those bitches are all size zero. I am not. Three, what happens if I make it to the final three and forgo my individual room and go to the fantasy suite with The Bachelor? How could you ever face your co-workers and your family? They will know you are a SLUT.

In reality, I wouldn’t make it past the first episode. Two words – free booze. I’d be a drunken, slurry mess by the time the first rose ceremony rolled around.

The Mole

I never watched this show until this current season and that was mostly because Jodi was all “watch The Mole! It is teh awesome! Even without Anderson Cooper!” And that was all it took for me to watch. Plus it is summer and there is not much else on.

The first time I watched it, I was unsure about the plot. Basically one person is the mole and is sabotaging everyone else. Or something. I still get confused when they reveal who the fake ghosts and mummies are on Scooby Doo, so I’m going to be blown away by whoever the mole is, come the end of the show. I just hope there is a mask involved and Velma and Fred are there.

In reality if I was on this show, since I’m not the best secret keeper in the world, all it would take would be one drunken night with all of the contestants and I’d slurringly shout “I’m the MOLE, bitches!” And then giggle and pass out in my vat of wine.

Rock of Love

Who would NOT want to be on this show? And I’m not talking about going on to make out with Bret Michaels and his nasty thinning hair and collection of hideous bandanas. I vomited in my mouth a little just typing that. I’m talking about DRAMA. To the millionth degree!

Although, I’d be in trouble the first night when Bret takes sexy photos of you for your tour badge. Because I’d flash my granny panties and full-length Spanx sucking in all the fat rolls and the sexiness would be gone and I’d be booted before my first can of celebratory Bret’s Brew.

And I’d be OK with it because there’s no need to have to show up all those skanks with my pole sliding-down abilities. Straight from the playground to VH1. Wheee!

Oh wait, that’s not what they use that pole for?

And now you see why I’m a watcher. Not a doer.

Because my own readers are sick of hearing about him

And now, one of my favorite, favorite bloggers, Jennifer from She Likes Purple. I've gushed over her plenty of times on this blog, but I'll let you all see why. And Happy July 4th. Or America's Birthday Party, as my nephew calls it.

Whenever I’m asked to guest post, I immediately get excited. And then, after that brief moment of excitement, I panic. Because, um, what the hell do I talk about that will interest people who don’t know me? Let’s see, I could talk about how Robin is annoying me lately on General Hospital (for anyone who watches, does she seem to say the exact same irritating thing EVERY SINGLE DAY or is that just me?). Or, I could talk about how hardwood floors need to be swiffered on a daily basis so the dustbunnies don’t reach unbelievable sizes, and, yeah, I don’t swiffer every day or even every other day so let me know before you stop by our house, okay? There’s also the constant fall-back topic of my dog (she can open the backdoor on her own now!) but talking about my dog doesn’t even interest my own mother, and she’s morally obligated to listen to me. So, what now?

How about I first tell you a little about me and then you can tell me a little about you. We can see if we’d like to take this friendship past Jodifur’s fun little corner of the Internet and onto our own respective blogs—well, that is if you have a blog, and if you don’t, you really should get one as it’s amazing how much laundry you can put off with one.

I’m a twenty-six year old who lives in Texas (a suburb nestled between Dallas and Fort Worth) with my husband, Mike, and dog, Molly. I don’t clean much and I don’t cook much but I do make sure all the bills are paid on time. I also let my husband watch horribly boring Discovery Channel shows, so I’m bringing something to the table. I work in publishing. I spend a lot of time in Target. I like to read but sometimes it’s Pride & Prejudice and more often it’s US Weekly. I also feel a lot of pressure when I’m the passenger in a car that is driving through a fast-food place. I feel that if I don’t know what I want AS SOON AS THEY DO they’ll order without me. So, without fail, when the driver pulls up to the order screen I’ll yell out, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANT YET.” And I usually get a look back as if to say, “Um, okay. We’re not beating the clock here, you know?” But I can’t help it. The pressure!

So, are we friends yet? Not so much?

Let me move along to something that just occurred to me then. This exact day last year my husband I returned from our honeymoon—ten days in St. John, the US Virgin Islands. This makes me rather nostalgic and blue and also sad that suntans don’t last a full year because it would have been great if I could have kept that Virgin Island color for longer than five days upon returning to Texas. But other than all that it reminds me how that trip was easily—hands-down—the best vacation I’ve ever been on. There were copious amounts of drinking, lounging on beaches, eating quite a lot and, mostly, enjoying the views.

In St. John, you drive on the left side of the road even though it is indeed a U.S. territory for historical reasons I would probably know if I had listened even once when my husband was explaining the island to me. (Instead I was thinking about my next raspberry colada.) Anyway, it’s also an extremely hilly island and you really can’t get around (safely, at least) without a four-wheel drive vehicle. We rented a Jeep for the trip and Mike maneuvered all of the insane curves and hills on the left-hand side of the road. And, also, there were animals just meandering around the island at all times—goats and donkeys and cows—so his task of driving and my task of, say, pointing out the cutest goat of the bunch weren’t exactly equal.

Now, let me back up just a bit. I had absolutely no reservations about marrying my husband. I was ready. I was calm. I was thrilled. The day of our wedding, I couldn’t have been surer, more at ease, happier than I was when I walked down the aisle. It’s one of those perfect moments you hope for in life, and I’ll never forget it. But after we got married, I began to freak out just a bit because, well, forever is kind of a long time and why hadn’t I thought of that before!? And apparently a marriage license does not force your spouse to clean up after themselves no matter how badly you wish it did. So there was a brief amount of time I thought, “Hmm, well what did I go and do?”

We waited a month before we went on our honeymoon because we had a lot of gifts to play with after the wedding. So a month into our marriage, while in a Jeep on St. John, on one of those insanely curvy, steep roads (where traffic is on the wrong side of the road, remember), I looked over at my husband and realized that marriage was going to work out just fine. I had chosen someone who would take the wheel when I really wanted to ride shotgun and who would let me take charge in other areas (example: colada drinking and shoe purchasing).

I’m a solid year in now and I still feel the same way. He does what he can to make my ride smoother and I try to do the same for him. It’s more than I could ever have asked for.

Although would it KILL him to fold a load of laundry? JUST ONE?

Recovering from Recovery

Today's Guest post is Shannon from CharmingBitch. I've already reached my quota of nice things to say about someone in my perfect post award post, so just read her amazingly honest and insightful post. So. My sister is addicted to crack. She has been to rehab three times in the last year and each time it has taken a bigger piece of my soul, my heart and my serenity. I have continued without hesitation to give freely all of the above in addition to relinquishing my time, energy, money and the sanctity of my home and marriage. I say none of that for kudos or back-pats; I say it because it's true. And truly draining. But nonetheless, I thought like so many others who have a loved one mired in addiction, I well and honestly believed that if I just kept giving, kept wanting, kept encouraging and kept supporting that I could somehow influence her decision to use. Newsflash: You can't make someone smoke crack and conversely you can't make someone not smoke crack. Or drink. Or gamble. Or over-spend or any number of other compulsive life-altering behaviors. It's their decision to use, their decision to quit. Over the course of the last year I have found myself in family counseling, at separate times, with my sister, my husband and my brother in law. The issues that led my husband and I to counseling were obviously somewhat organic to our relationship and the loss of our son but my sister was a recurring substantive issue, as well. D firmly believed that after the first go-round in rehab that our dues were paid and we needed to retreat to allow the situation to either resolve or implode. We took some measures of self preservation such as moving across the bridge from Vancouver to Portland, just to get some physical distance (previously we were 1 mile apart). But I couldn't walk away, not from my sister. Not even from her douche-bag husband. I mean, we were essentially in couples counseling, my brother in law and I, in a concerted effort to figure out how to run a family and raise their kids in the best environment. I could barely stand counseling with my husband who I love like butter and to open myself up in that way with my brother in law was really pushing the limit of my patience and his too because well, fuck. Who wants to be as vulnerable as a therapeutic setting forces with someone you can only just barely tolerate? But we did it, we all did it and endured the second inpatient treatment with a minimum of bloodshed. My sister again came home and again in short order relapsed again. This was after our shot at counseling together wherein she blamed me for every single thing that ever went wrong in her life. She would listen to not word about her treatment of me or how her actions effected me, no. It was all about how I was horrible as a sister, as a human being. Soon after, no surprise, brother in law agreed and I was cut off from them and the kids. No surprise this corresponded exactly with the time my parents moved here. Typical addict behavior - cut out the one who calls you on your bullshit as soon as a fresh mark is available. So fast forward to more and worsening relapses. And please keep in mind that when I say relapse I don't mean she would sneak out for an hour and go use. No, she preferred to take off instead for days at a time. It was horrifying enough conveying these absences when my parents were still safely 3000 miles away; it was devastating to watch their hearts break up close and in person. I can't even think about those achingly long days for the kids when mommy was missing in action. Going forward, my brother in law had to go to California to bury his father. The day he came home, my dad broke both of his ankles (and subsequently had heart failure during surgery and was in a coma for almost five weeks). The first week of our dad being hospitalized, my sister again took off. Weeks later, she did the same again. This time from the hospital where our dad was leaving her three kids behind, again. Deep breath. That day will go down in my heart, forever, as one of the very worst in all of our lives. And so it goes, third verse same as the first. Detox followed by inpatient rehab but this time brother in law insists on a ninety day stay and speaks of restraining orders, custody orders, her doing time in a sober living facility before having access to the kids again. We don't argue, don't pressure, we just listen and assure him we support whatever decision he makes for his family regardless if the final outcome meant my sister wasn't necessarily part of his family day to day. Detaching with love is what they call it recovery, let him make up his own mind and determine his future. Meantime, I had already quit my job so of course the next logical step was to give up my apartment (my husband and I were or actually are living separately due to other issues) to be available to take care of the kids while brother in law worked. And so I did. Because once he gave the green-light that he wasn't going to abscond with the kids to get away from the insanity, we began planning The Summer of Awesome for the kids. I say ''we'' because I made no plans without consulting him and keeping us on the same page. Because even to a douche-bag, I was willing to give that much courtesy (and mistakenly believed it would be returned). Except how he spent the entire time my sister was in rehab telling her that I didn't want her to get better, didn't want her to come home and I wanted her to go away forever. Words that never, ever no matter how fucked the situation was would ever cross my lips; I was in this to win this from the first day she admitted there was a problem. And when the 30 days were up, he not only brought her back home, he took her out overnight for a mini-vacation the first night rather than bringing her straight home to their kids. Apparently, three stays in rehab earns you a free night on the coast (Seaside OR). Who knew? None of the plans for the kids mattered (impossible to follow through with because her last go-round ended with her van being wrecked and impounded so with a one-car family multiple camps and play-dates aren't feasible), none of the plans for anyone mattered because they had each other and that's is all that mattered. Again. But see above, you can't make someone use, you can't make someone get sober and you absolutely can't make someone understand your investment and sacrifice if it's not of any meaning to them so I have nobody but myself to blame for getting so involved. Which leads me to again detaching with love but this time for my own sake and serenity, not someone, anyone else's. It burns me in a visceral way to allow my sister and especially her kids to become just some people I used to know (and will always love) but at the same time, it's a relief to know I can honestly say I did everything I could do and the outcome was both unfortunate and out of my hands. Recovery is hard but recovering from recovery, again, has proven to be the hardest habit to break.