Pulitzer and Hurst they think they got us, do they got us?

Last weekend the hubby and I ditched the children and went to Chicago for the weekend.  I kept calling us ballers because we lead such a jet setting life.  I don't really know what "ballers" means, but I don't care.

The idea started with my cousin Jeff who is brilliant at planning things.  Many of the cousins are big fans of the movie Newsies.  I like to think I am the biggest fan of us all.

Yes, that is Christian Bale dancing in the middle of this picture.  Yes, he is currently embarrassed of this movie.  Don't worry, when I am the host of the Tonight show he will come on, and we will discuss it, and then we will recreate this song and dance together.

What?  You have never heard of Newsies and you have never seen it?  Then how are we friends?  I am surprised you get any of my references.  I guess opposites attract and I will let this slide.

Anyway, they have created stage show based on the movie, and it is currently playing in Chicago where my cousin Jeff lives.  He had the great idea that we should all go for a visit to see it.  Brilliant.  About 17 of us decided to go visit Jeff and Jeffrey and they were the best hosts ever.

It is not that big of a deal to drive to Chicago from Ann Arbor.  It should take about 5 hours.  It is a HUGE deal for me to drive IN Chicago.  The last time I drove in Chicago I almost killed us because I had to get donuts.  It is my new policy not to drive in any city that has magnificent public transportation.  The last time we went to Chicago, we took the train.  That was moderately successful, but not at all baller.  This time the coach seats on the train were sold out and the first class on the train was the same price as flying.  Flying is much more baller, so we did that.  I was very impressed with our jet set life style until the reality of the tiny little plane got in my way.  It was still nice and quick to fly there, but the tiny little plane barely had room for the hubby to walk to his seat.  I have never been so thankful to be small.

My cousin Megan got us a great deal on hotel rooms, so that was very baller.  It kind of makes it more baller that we only stayed one night.  You have to be baller to fly somewhere, stay one night, and then fly home.  The downside to staying one night is that Jeff planned a bunch of fun things that took place before we got there.  I was a little bummed to miss them.

We had a pre-show dinner/party at Jeff and Jeffrey's.  It was perfect.  This was the real reason to go.  On my own, I would never plan to go to a stage show in another state, but throw in a ton of cousin fun and I am in every time.  It was fun to learn that many of the cousins felt the same way.  Some of the cousins are a bit younger than me, and therefore hadn't even seen the movie.  I never would have known based on their enthusiasm.  They totally had me faked out until they confessed.  After dinner, Jeff took amazing care of us.  He got all 19 of us out of the building, hailed us all cabs, threw all of us country mice into the cabs, and told the cabby where to take us.  The theater was beautiful.  The show was great.  I was worried that there would be a problem with me and the play.  I like the movie SO much, and Christian Bale is not in the stage production.  I wondered how it could ever live up to my expectations.  Luckily, they changed the plot just enough to make it like it was Newsies 2.0 and not a remake of the movie.  I needed to sing along with many of the songs, but no one minded.

Afterwards, Jeff took us to Downtown, located Downtown to do some karaoke.  Where did you go?  Downtown.  But what is the place?  Downtown.  These wonderful jokes kept me busy the whole walk there.  I was the first person brave enough to do karaoke.  It is good that I went first, because I did a terrible job, and everyone else did an awesome job.  Had I seen their awesomeness first, I wouldn't have gone at all.  The karaoke guy looked like Wolfman Jack and decided to ask me a lot about my life before I started singing.  He wondered how on earth I managed to work in an office.  he gave it a go for a short time but couldn't tolerate it.  He probably said this because I looked so rock and roll just like him.  He knew that both of us were very baller.

I told a fella at the office about my wonderful weekend, and he was shocked that a cousin weekend was considered a fun thing.  What are your thoughts?  Cousins = nonstop fun?  or Cousins=lame potluck?

Did you attend any of your high school reunions?

If you were in my graduating class at Grand Blanc High School the answer is NO!.  Almost 10 years ago, a reunion was planned.  It was expensive.  There wasn't enough interest, and it was cancelled.

A few days ago, I was innocently sitting at my desk at work, minding my own business, when one of my younger coworkers asked if I had ever been to a high school reunion.  He had just received an email about his 10 year reunion.  I was super smug.  No way did I go to a reunion.  I polled the other people that sit in our row, and most of them had not attended one.  However, one woman did go to India to attend hers and she really enjoyed it.  I didn't think about it too much more after that...until the next day.

The next day I got an invite to a Facebook group that is dedicated to planning my 20 year high school reunion.  This is a problem because there is no way I am old enough to go to a 20 year reunion of anything.  I am just barely over 20 years old myself.  Even though this is obviously a mistake, I looked into the group.  It totally sucked me in.  There were all kinds of names that I kind of recognized.  There were other names of friends I haven't talked to in a while.  They were all talking about planning the event and all the options we have.  I started thinking about how I would go and how much fun it would be...and then it hit me.  Ten years ago, I didn't even consider going to the reunion.  All of a sudden, I am totally considering it.  I am somehow a totally different person now.  I am not saying I will definitely go, but it is already a huge deal that I am considering it.  

I have done some research on reunions.  I can remember seeing at least two movies about high school reunions.

These movies seem to equate high school reunions with judging the current status of the people you went to high school with and being worried about them judging you.  So I decided to be introspective about it.  Am I worried that people will not think I am thin enough, or successful enough or pretty enough?   I don't think so.  I also don't feel like I am way more thin and successful and pretty than I was in high school and therefore I don't have to go to the reunion to show them how much better I am now.  There is the plus side of going and getting to see good friends that I haven't seen in a long time.  There is the negative side of going and making awkward small talk with people that I barely remember, but have some slight impression of the person they were 20 years ago.  Would it be better if I thought of those people as strangers, and just made new impressions of them?  What if I start talking to some stranger, then realize they are someone I thought was a total jerk in High School?  What if they are totally nice now?  Do the jerks change after high school?

My sister did go to her 10 year reunion.  She said that the best part was near the end when she finally started talking to the people she didn't already know.  I like that idea.  It would be a great opportunity to meet new people.  However, I am not as outgoing as my sister, and the meeting new people part might be difficult.

If I go, I think I might NEED to get some sort of Romy and Michelle dress.  Would that be too meta?

So, I am polling again.  Who went to their reunion?  Was it fun?  Did you enjoy it?  Did you wear a crazy dress or hair style?  Did the jerks seem less jerkish?

None of your beeeeeeswax!!

When did it get rude to tell people that something was none of their business?  When I was a kid, it seems like I said this all the time.  I said it so often that I had an alternate phrase, "None of your beeswax," that I would use if I was tired of using the original phrase.


Recently, a casual acquaintance came up to me and asked me if I was increasing the size of my family.  It is possible that she was asking if we were in the market for a puppy, or about to open our home to foster children, but I am pretty sure she was saying that I looked fat and was wondering if I was pregnant.  I just answered, "no."  I am a little fat.  I know this.  Some days I work on doing something about it, some days I eat donuts.  It is something that I am not too worried about, but the pregnancy question is a great way for people to point it out.  For the record, this is ALWAYS rude.  In fact, a friend of mine spotted another friend of mine at the office.  Friend 1 is 99% sure that  friend 2 is pregnant.  If friend 2 is pregnant, I couldn't be happier or more excited, but I don't think I can send an email to her to congratulate her because even if she is pregnant, that would suggest that she looks fat enough to be pregnant and that would be rude.  I will wait until she tells me, makes it facebook official, or I see a baby. 


After the first rude question, the casual acquaintance asked how old the baby is and whether or not we were planning to stop at three children.  Well, just so everyone knows, the baby is one year old and yes, I currently plan on only having three children, but you can't ask someone that question, especially if they currently have a one year old.  Right now I am just relieved to occasionally get a full night sleep.  Maybe when I am better rested I will want to have ten more kids.  Generally, the answer to this question should have been, "None of your beeswax!"  Why does she need to know my family plan?  Why did I feel the need to tell her?  What if this was a hurtful question?  This is the type of thing that could be very sensitive to people.  What if I change my mind?  Do I have to call her up and let her know that the plan has changed?


Anyway, as much as I was annoyed by this woman, I am more annoyed at myself.  She was probably just trying to make conversation.  She doesn't know me that well, and when I am running after three adorable children, that is the most obvious topic to discuss.  I am sure I have asked questions that are too intrusive.  Sometimes it is because I am not being thoughtful.  Often it is because it seems like an innocent question to me, but is something that causes a lot of struggle for the other person.  Any question about dating, or a job, or a house, or a car, or a mutual friend could be sensitive in the wrong situation.  If all those topics are off limits, what in the world is left to talk about.  I can't just talk about the weather and TV all the time.  Even then, what if a snow storm killed your grandma or what if you almost got your big break on my new favorite TV show?  That woman was not the problem, my answer was the problem.  I think the solution should be that it is totally ok to tell someone that topics are none of their business.  I think I will try to say it nicely, and if they continue to pry, I will break out "none of your beeeeeeswax!"  I think that this will cause people to assume a lot of stuff about me.  It might also make me seem more mysterious.  But I think I might like that better than telling people private details of my life. 


How do you think this will work out?  Do you think I will start losing a lot of casual acquaintances?

Kris Kross will make you...

Until I worked with an intern this summer, I never realized how "generational" I am.  She loved to point out our generational differences.  She has gone back to school, but she left a generational impact on me.  I notice the differences between age groups a little bit more.

One example is the guy who sits across from me at work.  He is about 10 years younger than I am and generally that doesn't make much of a generational impact.  He gets most of my references.  One reference he didn't get was a reference to Kris Kross.  I asked a friend who is about 10 years older than I am, and she was also not familiar with Kris Kross.  In both cases, I tried to explain to them that Kris Kross is a child rap duo from back in the day.  Both kids were named Kris and they rapped about Mack Daddy and Daddy Mack.  At this point both people started to look at me like I was a little crazy.  When I explained that the kids also wore their clothes backwards, I started to agree that this was a weird thing to reference.

When I mentioned Kris Kross to coworkers with in a 5 year age range of myself, each person started rapping different lines from the song.

As a parent, it is my job to pass on my generational references to my children so that they can talk to adults.  I have not passed on references to Kris Kross yet, but some parents in my area are doing a much better job of it. 

Yesterday I chaperoned a field trip to the Leslie Science center.  It was a lovely field trip and overall a success.  However, before we left I was given one task and I think I messed it up.  I had to take a group of 4 kids to the bathroom that was down the hall.  There were three energetic girls and one very calm boy.  The girls went into the bathroom and I could hear them talking and yelling the whole time.  As we walked back to the class, they were still being a little rowdy and the teacher nabbed up two of them and made them go with her.  As I looked at the girl left with me, I realized her pants were on backwards.  These were not flowy pants or sweat pants that could be easily turned around.  They were skinny jeans that were tucked into her super high top sneakers with purple sparkles.  They were on backwards, the fly was undone, and the button was buttoned.  How did she do this?  At first I thought she must have done it in the bathroom, but there was no way she could have gotten her pants and purple glittery shoes totally off and back on and buttoned up backwards.  I think she came to school like that.  Once I figured it out, I told the little girl, but she did not seem to mind.  Her pants were sagging in the back the rest of the field trip.  I guess that is what happens when you wear tight pants backwards.  Her baggy underpants were hanging out the whole time.  I can only assume that the girl's parents were trying to teach her about Kris Kross.  The best way to teach a kid is to have them experience something for themselves, and I think this is what was going on yesterday.

What do you think I should put on my list of important pop culture tidbits to make sure my kids know?

This one is a fashion blog - I might be out of control

I have heard a lot about outfits that moms wear when they drop off their kids.  I always find it funny, but it never really meant anything to my life.  I have only dropped off my son at school on the first day.  I knew I was going to do it and I planned an outfit that looked very put together so I would impress the teacher and the other moms.  OK, I didn't impress them, but I looked like a normal adult and I looked like a respectable mom.  Usually my husband takes Chazzy Chazz to school.

Today I worked from home because the sweet little Dessy Dess was sick through the night.  Working from home causes interesting outfit choices.  Probably no one is going to see you, so you don't want to waste any of your good work clothes.  I decided to go with a shirt I just recently purchased online.  I am trying to figure out if I like the fit and whether or not it is work appropriate.  Then I realized that all my pants were in the laundry.  I did manage to find my tye dye flowy pants.  Turns out, these two go together perfectly.

My presence this morning seemed to slow down the rest of the family.  The hubby didn't think that he could get Chazzy Chazz to school on time so he asked me to take him.  I agreed, then looked at my outfit.  The selected outfit is not the kind of thing you wear when you are trying to look like a normal adult/mom.  Since I have heard all the stories about dropping kids off at school, I figured I could just stay in the car.

 

No.  I couldn't stay in the car.  The boy is spoiled rotten and his dad walks him into the building, so he wanted me to do the same thing.  Not only that, but we were 10 minutes early and he wanted to get out of the car and wait at the door to the school.  I did it.  While I was waiting, I figured if I was going to look like crazy mom, I might as well embrace it.  Chazzy chazz found some stepping stones and we turned them into a game of hopscotch and he and I took turns hopping back and forth on them.

It made me remember that I am crazy mom.  I have to dress almost normal for work.  It has gradually steered me towards dressing more and more normally in my every day life (well, relatively normal) because no one wants to have two full wardrobes. After I got over the original nervousness of looking crazy in front of the principal, I felt so free.  I still don't think I can wear the tye dye pants to work, but I think the shirt might make it now.

btw, I had to take the picture standing on the toilet to really make my point.  I am sorry it is a bathroom selfie, but I couldn't think of another way to share my awesome look.

I don't want to go back to the college years.

Friday evening the hubby and I went out.  We went to dinner and to the Michigan Theater to see a comedian.  Because of the timing and location of our adventures, this put us right in the middle of campus on a Friday evening.  We were oddly involved in Friday night college social life.  We weren't REALLY involved (no one asked us into the frat party), but it was like we were right on the fringe looking in.  I was a nerd and I went to a small commuter school for college, so I never had the college experience that movies like animal house are made of.  The kids we saw were trying to have the movie college experience.

First, we had to take a shortcut through the fraternity sorority district.  There were oodles of girls walking around.  All the girls were wearing dresses that were generally the same style and cut.  They were all EXACTLY the same length (slightly above mid thigh), but in different prints.  They were all wearing their hair the same way and they were all wearing high heel shoes.  I can only assume they were all going to some sort of sorority or fraternity event.  There was one girl who was wearing the same style dress, but it was slightly longer.  Right BELOW mid thigh.  I think she is not getting into the sorority.  I imagine they will yell at her that they can't let her in if they can't even see her lady parts.  What is she trying to hide...manly parts?

Next we went to dinner at the five guys on campus.  I wanted to go mongo, but we didn't have enough time.  As a side note, the five guys on campus is filthy.  The patrons seem to confuse it for that steak place that used to let you throw peanut shells on the ground but then they went out of business.  I actually saw a guy pushing all his peanut shells onto the floor.  Anyway, I noticed that all the college girls at five guys had put a lot of effort into their casual hanging out appearance, but many of them looked kind of worse after all that effort.  It made me realize that they don't make movies like Old School, Animal House, Back to School, or PCU about women, because college is not the highlight of their whole life.  I did really enjoy college, but I don't want to go back and do it again, even if it was more of the movie version of college.  This made me think that they should make a female version of Old School.  I have it all figured out.

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Other than those few changes, just use the exact same script but replace fraternity with sorority.  I can see the box office gold now.  Movie making friends, feel free to put this idea into action.  I don't need any compensation, I just want to see the movie.

Eventually we did get to the theater.  That is when I realized that maybe I am just too old to go out.  I was a little grumpy because other people were sitting a little too close to me.  Then I got a little grumpier because people were laughing too loud and I couldn't hear all the jokes.  When I listen to comedy through Pandora in my car I never have that problem.  The last straw was the guy next to me chewing chaw.  I don't know much about chaw, but I saw him scoop a bunch of brown stuff out of a tin with his finger.  He put it in his mouth.  I started gagging.  It smelled super strongly of peppermint as if I was chawing it myself.  Then, for the rest of the performance he slowly spit it into a cup.  How does one get started on such a habit.  Gross.  Is it a totally different habit than smoking?  Does one save it for a time when you are inside and not allowed to smoke?  Do you pick it up to try to quit smoking?  I wish he would have been smoking, that would have been much less gross.

Man o man I am happy to be old.

This one is a fashion blog - Old Man Shorts

Before I distribute more of my excellent fashion advice, I have a few other tidbits of advice:

• Don't google "old man shorts".  You will find LOTS of pictures of mens' butt cheeks on display.
• Don't google "shorts" at all because you will see way too many butt cheeks of all kinds.
• I have decided to share a picture of my shorts without me in them because if I share a picture of me in the shorts you might be too distracted by how awesome I look.

When I was young, I wore short shorts.  Not this short:

But still pretty short.  I am a short person, and short shorts don't look that skanky on me.  It is a gift.  However, now I am an adult and a mother and I shouldn't be looking skanky at all, so I have switched over to old man shorts.  They are awesome and you should switch over to them also.

You can find old man shorts in the men's section.  This works out nicely because the most beautiful ones will be on clearance because men don't actually want to wear beautiful shorts.  They are cut nicely, as most men's pants are.  They give you the size in inches, and since most women's clothes are not sized that way, there is no size drama associated with them.  A tiny downside is that if you find really beautiful ones, you have to wear solid shirts with them.  This is similar to the trouble with flowy pants, but this is a downside I am willing to put up with, or just wear patterned shirts and look a little crazy.  Another downside is that it is a little harder to look bootilicious, but that is kind of the point.  There is little risk that the pockets will hang below the hem of the shorts.  They have nice pockets because all men's pants have nice pockets.  Overall, these shorts rule and women's shorts drool.  I declare that old man shorts are much more flattering that grandma/mom shorts and are more hygienic than booty short shorts.

What kind of shorts are your favorite?

The fun mom!

 

I have been thinking that I want to be a fun mom.  It is great to be the cuddle mom and the making dinner mom and the put you in time out mom, but I also want to be fun mom.  Don't get me wrong, I love being the cuddle mom, but the kids probably won't remember times like this:

 

This summer, I have been gradually increasing my fun percentage with limited success.  It started out when Chazz said that he wanted to play soccer in the back yard.  Sure I was wearing flip flops and sure I was holding the baby, but I said yes anyway.  The whole family was in the back yard playing soccer and it was all fun and games until the baby got hit with the ball (she didn't get hurt).  Fun mom failure 1.

 

Just this weekend we decided it was time for Chazz to learn to ride his bike without training wheels.  At first I sat with the baby and watched the efforts.  It was really hot outside and eventually the heat started getting to my husband.  It took me forever to learn to ride my bike, but that struggle allowed me to teach my little sister to ride her bike in 5 minutes.  I decided that I could help Chazz learn to ride his bike.  I traded the chair and baby to the hubby and decided to take over bike duty.  Chazz fell many times during my help and during daddy's time helping.  But he only got hurt while I was helping.  He handled it well, but did decide he was done trying for the day.  Fun mom failure 2.

 

 

My favorite fun mom moment was over the 4th of July.  We always go "camping" at my Aunt's farm on the 4th of July.  We love it.  They have a lake and a super cool high dive.  The high dive is kind of a rite of passage.  Chazz decided he was ready to jump off of it, but he wanted me to go with him.  We climbed up onto the high dive and he insisted that I jump first.  I looked down at all my cousins in the water.  They yelled up wondering if this was my first time ever.  NO!  I had jumped off of the high dive lots of times...when I was a kid.  I knew from those experiences that the hardest part was just deciding to jump, so I did it.  I didn't want Chazz to think it was scary.

Of course I was successful with the jump!  I am obviously a pro at being a fun mom!  However, I guess I didn't make it look quite as easy as I though because Chazz decided he wasn't ready.  He decided to climb down from the high dive instead.  Even though he didn't jump, I am going to take this one as a fun mom win.  I think he will remember this for a while and remember how his mom was amazing enough to jump for him.

 

Any pointers or ideas for fun mom implementation?  I just remembered, I think the waterslide was a fun mom win, I didn't get stuck or anything.  What other activities should we try?

This one is a fashion blog - Flowy Pants

Leggings were or are all the rage.  I like leggings, but I don't have much room for them in my every day wardrobe.  I have already lived through one legging rage.  It was at that time that learned the rules of leggings.  There is mostly only one rule.  They are not pants.  They should be worn under something else that covers your butt so that people behind you can't see a fart bubble or something else.  My favorite way to wear leggings last time was to wear them under an oversized purple flannel shirt.  I looked SO cool.

 

The opposite of leggings is flowy pants.  Somehow I am finding these harder to wear.  I love them.  I love that they come in bold patterns and colors.  However, I am finding it very hard to figure out what kind of shirt to wear with them.  I googled flowy pants and found some examples.

 



 

Ummm, this look is not going to work for me, but I do love the pink flowers.

 

This one is not going to work for me either, but this is what I imagine I look like wearing flowy pants.

 



 

My friend left me this one on facebook, I think it might be getting closer to something I can actually wear.  I started out trying to wear a solid colored shirt.  This ended up looking a lot like pajamas.  While I was wearing my pajama look, I saw another woman walk by and she was wearing her flowy pants with her shirt tucked in.  Tucked in shirts are one of the big Catherine fashion no nos.  That might work if you have an itty bitty waist, but that is NOT my shape. 

 

I have decided to go with patterned shirts that are similar in color but not in pattern.  This is a little bit of a clown look.  I often don't follow traditional fashion rules, but I still feel I look good when I am out and about.  With this clown look, it took me a little more to get used to.  I kind of felt like people were looking at me funny.

 

However, I do have a very cool flowy pant dance that I do, and it made me realize I made the right fasion choice.

That movie with the killer trees - Topic for the podcast?

My husband listens to a lot of podcasts.  Also, we think that we are hilarious when we talk to eachother and whenever we think we are especially funny, we think that topic should be added to our podcast.  Of course, we don't actually have a podcast.  And, if we tried to record a podcast, I am sure we wouldn't remember any of our great topics.  Here is the conversation from today.

Me:  You know that M. Night Shyamalan movie about the trees that kill people?  I never saw it, but I think that the movie should end up that people with allergies are immune to the killer tree pollen.  The poison pollen would get stuck in all the snot.

Hubby: Oh so the trees killed with chemical warfare, not with very slow stabbing?

Me:  Yes.

Hubby:  I bet they didn't kill Marty Casey from Rock Star: INXS because he had that song about living with the trees.

Me:  No, I bet they killed him because he was into tree rape.  His song was about living IN a tree.

Hubby:  Only the most radical trees thought that.

Me:  I bet all the trees wanted to go after the people who did the songs about cutting down the trees and putting them in a tree museum.

Hubby:  Yeah, trees don't get irony.

Me:  And they don't like bad music.

Hubby:  And they wanted a cut of that tree museum entry fee.  The trees are not selfish, they understand there is overhead.  There is maintenance on the parking lot that replaced the trees.

Me:  Then there is the installation of the parking lot outside the tree museum and the tree museum curator.

Hubby:  We should discuss this in the podcast.

If you were a guest on our podcast, how would you elaborate on this topic?  Maybe you actually saw the movie or know the name of it?

Alien Nail Polish

These are not my feet.





I do enjoy a good pedicure, but I am very cheap so I rarely get one.  However, on the few occasions that I have gotten one, I have paid very close attention so that I can replicate the technique at home.  I have learned that you must layer the nail polish with 1 clear layer, 2 color layers, then another clear layer.  Piece of cake.

Being sandal season, I have recently done my toe nails in silver using the 1-2-1 technique.  One morning when I woke up, the piggie who doesn't get roast beef, was naked.  The nail polish wasn't just chipped, it was gone.  Later in the day I found the nail polish, in tact, on the floor.  I figured this was a freak occurence and I just repainted the poor piggy.  When I was in middle school, I was way into painting my fingernails and adding jewels to them.  When you do this, you have to use a lot of coats of clear polish in order to get the jewel not to fall off.  When I would do this, I could peal off a sheet of polish from a nail if I was careful, but it was a lot of effort. 

A few days after the touch up, I woke up and found the piggy that goes to market WAS NAKED!  The same thing had happened.  It wasn't chipped, the polish was completely gone and I found it in one peice on the floor.

So, what do we think is happening? 

• It might be alien nail polish.  It might be like the green goo that promotes healing on Marvel-Agents of shield. 
• I thought that maybe someone was removing the nail polish in the middle of the night, but finding it as a little nail polish sheet on the floor would be hard to do.
• Maybe I am a very violent sleeper and I kick the polish right off?

Very Strange.  What do you think?

To quote the butthole surfers...

..."you never know just how you look through other people's eyes."

This morning I was shaving my legs using conditioner (#TMITuesday).  Sometimes I use conditioner, sometimes I don't, it depends on what is in the most supply in the shower.  However, using conditioner reminded me of a few conversations from my past.  One conversation was with one of my cousins and she told me that she always uses conditioner, because when we were young I told her that was the best way to shave your legs.  I do not remember telling her that.  However, I do remember when a different cousin told me the same thing.  This got me thinking, that I remember things that people tell me way better than I remember things I tell other people.  In my mind, I am a leg shaving information gatherer, but in the mind of others, I am a leg shaving information giver.

You have a lot of time to think while you are shaving your legs.  For a while I thought that maybe I do lots of little good things for/to people and I just don't remember them.  Then I started to worry that maybe I do a lot of bad things for/to people and I don't remember them.

I am not a person who thinks that everything I do is nice, but I TRY to be nice to everyone.  There are times that I have been mean and many of those times stick out to me and cause guilt whenever I think of them.  There are times when you are mean for a reason, like a jerk woman just asked if you are pregnant, but then there are reasons you are just mean on accident for no reason.  I still cringe at the thought of the time in kindergarten I told the shy girl she couldn't follow me around because she wasn't my friend.  There is the way we used to hide from and run from certain cousins just because we decided they were the one that was "bad" that day.  Then there was the time in middle school where a kid I knew from a summer program said hi to me and I just walked away because I didn't know what to say.  There are countless others that I can't list here because you would think much less of me. 

Anyway, the question is, are there tons of other times that I have been perceived as unreasonably mean and I just don't remember them?  OR, do mean things stick in my head easier than nice things?  The topic of  how other people perceive you has come up a lot recently in conversation with friends.  That is when I realized that it is hilarious to say, "To quote butthole surfers...".  For those of you that don't know, The Butthole Surfers are a band and their most famous song has "you never know just how you look through other people's eyes" in the chorus.  I think in general, when talking with friends, we decided that our friends see us better than we see ourselves.  Is that because we are insecure about ourselves?  Or is that because our friends are nice and assume the best of us? I wonder how casual acquaintances see me.  Of course, it has long been my motto that it is none of my business what other people think about me.  I would go crazy if I was trying to make every one think well of me.

What are your thoughts about this?  Are all people hard on themselves?  Do you think some people are just smug and always think they are great?  I like to think that I have pretty high self confidence.  To quote Ahbed from Community, "I have self esteem pouring out my ass."  But, even with all my confidence, I still have a lot that I am insecure about.

I've fallen and I can't get up!

Yesterday I was working from home because my husband had to go to training for work and he wouldn't be around to help our boy get on and off the school bus.  This should not be a dangerous venture, but I managed to make it so.

Around lunch time I decided to go to T-Smell and that reminded me that I hadn't started dinner.  We were supposed to have roast in the crock pot and I figured that even if I started it at 11, there would be enough time for it to cook.  I am a little on the short side, and my husband is a little on the tall side.  This means that he puts away a lot of stuff on the top shelf and I can't reach it without standing on something, normally a chair.  This was the case with the crock pot.  I climbed up on the standard climbing chair and wrestled with the crock pot to get it down.  All of a sudden I was laying on the floor.  My lower back hurt and my legs hurt and I was sure that I would be stuck there until someone came home to find me.  I was screaming and wishing that I had one of those med alert necklaces.  It didn't help that my book club is reading a book where an elderly woman fell down and couldn't get up and was left laying on the cold floor for hours.  I was sure that would be me.  After I calmed down a little, I realized I could at least roll over and crawl around.  I was still screaming but managed to crawl towards my phone.  It wasn't long before I realized that I could get up.  I could walk around, but, my foot still hurt.

It turns out I am a giant crybaby.  I was in total panic mode off and on for a while after that.  Since I could get around, I figured I didn't need to call 911.  After making myself some lunch, I decided to return a call from my mom, and as soon as I heard her voice I started my freaking out again.  My poor mom, she didn't even know who was calling her.  My mom called and sent my sister over.  My Mother in law dropped by for something else and both of them took good care of me.

I picked up my sweet boy from the bus stop and he was cute as he helped me out of the car.  He insisted I had to tell daddy.

My sister is a darling, she came and watched the kids as we went to urgent care after the hubby got home from work.  Urgent care is probably not a very pleasant place to work.  It took all evening, but they looked at it, gave me an xray, and wheeled me out to the car after putting a splint on my foot and telling me to get crutches.  The most surprising thing to me was the xray machine.  I never got an xray before.  I pictured it looking like this:

 

In reality, it is a table and the xray machine comes down from the ceiling.  Who knew?  I feel that old timey cartoons had been fooling me for years.

This is mostly a sob story blog.  Poor Catherine, she hurt herself.  But as I look back at the sobbing mess I was, it becomes kind of funny.  I picture myself getting one of the med-alert necklaces and wearing it everywhere even though I am only 36 years old.  I also wonder what would have happened if the kids were here.  It would have been super bad if I was holding the baby when I fell.  So, lesson number 1, don't climb up on stuff while holding the baby.  But if I was not holding her, I think it would have gone better.  I like to think that I wouldn't have freaked out if the kids were here.  I wouldn't have wanted to scare them.  Lesson number 2, being a mom makes me a stronger person.  Lesson number 3, crutches are not as much fun as they look.

Have you learned any good lessons lately that you want to share?  Did you already know what xray machines look like?  Am I the only one that was fooled?

Check out my balls

 

I took a glass blowing class on Saturday and it was lovely.  I have always wanted to be a glass blower, but it isn't really something you can set up in your basement.  I saw this class at Baron Glassworks of Ypsilanti advertised in the Rec and Ed book, so I signed up.  I realize now that my idea of fun is very different than it used to be.  The class was more interesting than fun, and that is ok with me.  There were 8 people in the class and there were two teachers.  There was no way they were going to allow us to insert the metal rod into the burning hot glory hole (that is what they call the furnace where you reheat the glass) without a teacher assisting us.  This meant that there was way more watching than there was actually making things.  Some of the people made really beautiful things.  Mine are just average, but some of them were beautiful.  My turn was toward the end, and by then the poor instructors were exhausted.  I wanted my second piece to be a drinking glass.  I was torn over whether I should make a drinking glass or a paperweight.  I have a bajillion drinking glasses and they have to be tough to survive at our house.  I have always loved looking at glass paperweights, but decided against it because my papers are rarely flying all over.  It was a mistake, but maybe having two beautiful garden gazing balls (as my dad calls them) will distract from how bad I am at gardening.  When you work in the hot glass arts, you refer to this as "reading the glass."  All the best artists do it.  Sometimes the glass just doesn't want to be formed into what you want as your end result and all the best artists can read the glass and turn it into something better.

As much as I enjoyed the class, there was one big distraction.  One of the other students was getting on all my nerves.  In the picture above, she is right behind the instructor.  I had one where you could actually see her, but the hubby thought it was inappropriate to put up a photo of her on the internet.  Instead, I will describe her in such great detail that you will recognize her if you see her around town.  If you do see her around town, ask her if she is pregnant.

This woman walked into the glass studio like she owned the place.  She was VERY vocal.  She let us all know that she is also a glass artist (she is an artist, but she does science as her day job.  I wonder if it is like when my son does science by dissolving candy in a cup of water) with her own studio in her house (craft room).  She does stained glass and fused glass (when the teacher asked her about it, she didn't know many technical details about fused glass.  I think she mostly takes scraps of stained glass and melts them in her microwave).  She only wears dresses and they are always sleeveless because she wears sweaters (this was fun because it was about 40 degrees in the studio if you weren't working with the glass).  She is very athletic which is why she has two bad shoulders and a bad leg and therefore had to sit down in one of the very few chairs.  She had her badly dyed black hair up in a messy ponytail with a flower barret in the front.

Why do I find this woman SO obnoxious?  Is it because I secretly want to be her?  I want to be an artist.  I want to have room in my house for a studio.  I want to have a distinct fashion that labels me an artist whereever I go.  I sometimes want to be friendly.  No, I don't want to be this woman.  I can't stand her.  I will have to be an eclectic friendly athletic artist with a studio and somehow still be the opposite of this woman.

As we watched the students make their glasswork, this bleepity bleep bleep "artist" looked at me and said, "wow!  Are you pregnant?"  People who live in a civilized society should never ask this question.  Women who also carry their excess weight in their midsection should also never ask this question.  However, I know it happens.  Had that been all she said, I wouldn't have even paid attention.  I responded, "no, I just had a baby."  She should have apologized, instead she said, "Are you pregnant?  Wow, you must have JUST had that baby."  After that, I punched her in the lady parts...emotionally.  She still wouldn't stop.  Then she exclaimed, "wow, you are still a really new mom."  I am never rude to people.  I can count on one hand the number of times in my life that I have been rude to someone's face and I regret all of them.  At this point, I decided I could be rude to this person.  I wish I would have been more rude, all I did was look at her and then turn away and ignore her while I was watching the other students.  After that she started talking to one of the guys in the class.  He was really friendly and she thanked him for being so friendly, "Thank you for being so nice.  I like to be friendly and I like to learn things.  It is so nice to meet someone so friendly."  I would like to say that is when I turned around and told her off while I jump kicked her in the face, but I didn't do that.

So, as usual when I wish I came up with a really good response to something, I thought about it all weekend.  It is none of her business if I am pregnant or not.  I didn't need to tell her that I just had a baby.  Lets work on some new responses, here is what I have so far:

• Why?  Are you?  Are we preggo buddies?
• Why do you ask?  Do you think I look fat in this outfit?
• I can't tell you because you look like the kind of person that would try to cut a fetus out of someone.

Oh, and sorry to be misleading with the title of this blog.  You can't really check out my balls because I didn't get them back yet.  They are still in the kiln.  I will post a picture when I get them back.

The second time I have ever wanted to get in a fight with another mother

Saturday night was party night and much partying ensued.  HOWEVER, before the partying I almost had to beat up another mom.

The party was in Clarkston and my folks live in Grand Blanc, so the plan was to meet my parents at Halo Burger, one of my favorite restaurants, to hand over the children.  We went to the one with the giant play structure, also known as the one that is NOT personality plus.  It started out great.  We ran into my cousin Mike and his family.  They are a delight.  I got a delicious cheesburger and Cherry Coke.  I managed to nab a dinosaur shaped chicken nugget (they like to call them drummies) from one of the kids.  The kids love to play in the giant play structure and that allowed me plenty of time to chat with my cousins and my parents.

After the kids were in the play structure for a while, I heard a nice pretty mom say that one of the kids in the play structure was sick and throwing up.  An ugly big nosed blond mom started screaming at the top of her lungs, "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWW!  WHERE IS HER MOM?  WHO'S KID IS SHE?  EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW!  THAT IS SO GROSS!"  Then she started gagging.  After the first mom who was nice and pretty mentioned that someone was sick, I looked and found that it was my lovely, beautiful, sweet, smart, two year old daughter that was sick up at the top level of the play structure.  She was puking right through the cargo net section that you are supposed to climb through.  It was pretty gross, but there was no need to gag.  Without notifying the loud, ugly, obnoxious, blond mom, I climbed up into the play structure.  Finally my short stature was good for something besides being adorable.  I was able to wiggle up to the top.  I tried to call my sweet little darling towards me, but she was too scared.  I had to climb through the tube to get her.  As I crawled through the structure it started to move really weird.  I was very sure that I was breaking it and that we would both fall through.  Luckily, I was able to get my little sweetheart and bring her back down.

After we got out of the play structure, the terrible mom was making snide remarks and what not. I made sure not to look at her...not because I was embarrassed, but because I was afraid I would leap at her and punch her in the face.  I was fuming all the way to the party.  Luckily, getting back together with great friends that I hadn't seen in a while was wonderful, and my rage subsided.  Unluckily for my mom, my sweet little darling puked the whole time we were gone.

The first time I wanted to beat up another mom was the day I had to take my sweet darling out of the movie Brave because she was crying and a mom yelled at us that she was going to get security to escort us out.  It was dark that day, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was the same evil woman.

Happy Valentines Day

I took Friday February 14th as a vacation day from work.

 

I know what you are thinking.  TMI Catherine, we don't want to know about how you had so many romantic plans for Valentines day that you couldn't fit them into one evening so you had to take the whole day.

 

No no no, it was not about being romantic, it was to help out with my son's kindergarten party at school.

 

Every weekday I get up around 6am and I drag myself into the shower.  I am always incredibly jealouse of my sleeping husband who manages to take up the whole bed and all the blankets as soon as I get up.  He gets to sleep in about an hour later than I do and it makes me almost hate him.  Friday I got to sleep in and it was my dream come true...at first.  Originally, I planned to spend the whole day at my son's school.  The teacher had planned a day long party that included counting to 100, pancakes, and wearing pajamas to school.  They were scheduled to do some valentine crafts and the teacher was looking for moms to help out.  Being the daughter of the perfect home room mother, I volunteered to help out all day and I volunteered to bring a few valentine crafts because I didn't want to get stuck with some impossible craft like the glitter fiasco of the Christmas class party.

 

The day before, we were notified that the teacher had been put on administrative leave.  That afternoon the school secretary called me to discuss the party.  She had heard that I was in charge of it.  She explained to me that the kids couldn't have a day long party with the sub because there was a lot of curriculum they had to cover.  IT WASN'T MY IDEA TO HAVE A DAY LONG PARTY!!  I was just trying to help.  Anyway, I agreed that it would be fine if they just had a little party in the afternoon and I could come in then.  Oh, also I accidentally hung up on the school secretary the first 3 times she called me because there is something wrong with my phone.  EMBARRASSING!

 

Because I no longer had to go into school right when it started, it made sense that I would take the girls to daycare and let my husband go to work a little bit early after dropping our son off at the bus stop.  This is what made me realize that my husband is a saint and I will no longer envy his extra hour of sleep.  Normally the hubby has to have the 5 year old ready for school, the 2 year old and the baby ready for daycare, and everyone into the car so they can be to the bus stop by 8:20.  It was hard enough for me to help get the 5 year old out the door in time, but the girls were impossible.  After breakfast the 2 year old was covered in chocolate (don't judge me about her having chocolate for breakfast) and the baby was crying because she was hungry.  Once I was done cleaning the chocolate face and feeding the baby a bottle, the 2 year old wanted to sit on the potty.  I never want to discourage her from using the potty, but I know she just wants to sit there so she can play her video game.  While she was on the potty (she didn't actually GO), I realized I had peanut butter all over my shirt.  Anyway, We didn't get out the door until almost 10:00.  I don't know how my husband does it.  He is magic.

 

Once I had the house to myself, I could think about the craft I was bringing to school.  My mom is a craft master, but it always bothered me that when she would do crafts for kids, she would practically do the whole thing for them ahead of time.  This would make me so mad because I was the kind of kid who wanted to tweak the project a little to make it my own.  Anyway, now that I am a mother, I understand a little bit more why she used to do that.  I had 3 projects in mind because I wasn't sure how much time there would be.  Most of them involved cutting things out and putting stickers on them.  There was the heart paper airplane, the heart made out of hands, and the heart with a cut out heart in the middle.  I was a little nervous that these might be too simple and boring.  I was so naive. 

 



 

 

 

When I got to the school, I quickly realized that there would only be time for one project.  I decided to go with the hand heart because that was the cleverest one.  That was a bad choice.  I had samples and I thought I explained it well.  I should have known I had made a mistake when the substitute teacher pointed out that they were not all good at cutting.  In my defense, 3 or 4 kids did figure out what I was trying to tell them and managed to make a heart out of their hands and put stickers on it.  As a giant point against me, my own son sat down on the floor crying because he didn't know what he was supposed to do.  Most of the kids managed to cut out something and put stickers on it even if it didn't resemble their hands or a heart.  Thank goodness I didn't decide to go with my original idea of a guitar made out of hearts or anything that requires glue.

 

Overall, I would say that this party experience was better than the Christmas party experience.  When we got home my son successfully completed all three of the projects I had prepared.  I think he was just a little overwhelmed.  Now, the only mystery left is to figure out why the teacher is on "Administrative Leave".  I really like the long term "guest teacher", but my curiosity about the original teacher is very strong.  Does "Administrative leave" mean waiting to be fired?  What are some reasons that teachers would be put on such a leave?

Let the hockey begin

I have been to a lot of college hockey games.  My inlaws have season tickets, and there are a lot of games that happen during the week that are hard for them to get to.  I enjoy watching hockey live. Even if you are not paying attention to the game, there is a beauty to watching the players skate around.  They are very fluid and look like dancers.  I like all the crazy things that the crowd chants.  I like that the crowd dances during zamboni time.  I like that they always let my son ride the zamboni.  I like that they used to feature my son on their website.

Click on the picture if you can't see the boy.

Through attending these games, I have noticed that the percentage of red heads in the crowd, is much greater than the percentage of red heads in the general population.  My hypothesis is that red heads love hockey.  So far this has been supported by the fact that my read headed son and daughter also love going to the games.  This might be the reason that we do hockey now.

My son declared that he is going to be a Michigan hockey player for his job when he grows up.  I am not going to burst his bubble and tell him that they don't get paid.  He told me that since this is going to be his job, he needed to start hockey lessons.  I signed him up.

I am dumb.  I signed him up for hockey lessons, not learn to skate lessons.  Learn to skate lessons are cheaper and require less equipment.  They also help you to be successful in hockey lessons.  My husband noticed this and intended to take the boy to as many open skates as possible to get him ready for hockey.  We were a little thwarted in this attempt by a foot of snow, record low temperatures, a case of the pukes, and a broken zamboni.  He managed to practice a little, but he has not conquered the skill.

Today was the first hockey lesson.  I was really worried it would turn into 3 year old soccer.  When we tried 3 year old soccer, the boy ran out onto the field once, saw that some of the other kids knew what they were doing, then cried for the remainder of the season.

Things started out great.  He went with daddy to get all his gear on and went right onto the ice.  They gathered all of the kids to the center of the ice.  It was so cute.  Then they told the kids to skate to the other side of the rink.  This separated the skaters from the non skaters.  But I will brag that my boy was the best non skater.  He could stand like a champ and could even move really slowly.  One of the other non skaters fell to his knees and couldn't get up, so he started shuffling on his knees to the other side of the ice.  He was moving faster than my boy, so my boy dropped to his knees as well to keep up.  Through all this he was not discouraged.  Once they figured out who could skate and who couldn't, the coaches worked with the kids on their skills.

The coach working with my boy was confused about what equipment was required and yelled to us that we needed to get him some knee pads immediately and brought the boy off the ice.  We got the knee pads, but it was too late.  The boy thought he was in trouble and the tears started.  They lasted for 45 minutes as he refused to go back on the ice.  We tried everything, and about 10 minutes before the class was over, we lifted him up, dumped him on the ice, and shut the door behind him.  This resulted in him sitting and crying on the ice instead.  The lady in charge of the program had been working with us the whole time, and with one minute left of class, she got him to stand up and start shooting at the goal.  He loved it.  Even after the class was over, she kept him out there for about 15 minutes and now we have a boy who can't wait to go back next week.  His skating got amazingly better in just the short time he was out there.

I have taken the children to many events, and at each of the events there is a different level of parent interaction.  Sometimes no one talks to you, sometimes you run into someone friendly.  But let me tell you, hockey has the FRIENDLIEST people ever.  Multiple people offered me knee pads when the boy was taken off the ice.  One man rushed after my husband to stop him from buying any at the expensive store.  All the coaches came by to try to talk the boy back onto the ice.  The lady in charge spent over an hour coaxing the boy back onto the ice and eventually got him to enjoy it.  The nice mom with the cool purple highlight, sat by me and we traded stories about how our boys couldn't skate.  Hers was trying to escape, but mine was causing so much of a commotion by the door, that he was blocked.  When I told her how stubborn mine was, she said hers was too, and then said that even though it was frustrating, she was glad because it would help him later in life.  That is what I always try to tell myself as well.  These people were so friendly and inclusive.  I am very impressed.  Maybe I understand a little bit how people become hockey moms.

Are you some sort of sport or activity mom?  Does it take over your whole life?  Is there anything I need to be on the look out for?