What Makes A Housewife Desperate?

If You Give a Mom a Project

Published on 2009-12-29 13:53:00

This post is inspired by the children's book, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie," and my good friend, Catherine Denton, who always said this would make a good post.If you give a mom a project during Christmas break, she will pick the bedroom closet. She will pull everything out of it first thing in the morning while the kids are watching TV in order to organize it.After she gets the closet empty, the kids will start to ask for breakfast, so she will head to kitchen in her pajamas to pour them a bow

Revelations at 2 AM

Published on 2009-12-09 04:03:00

It's 2 a.m. and I am awakened by the involuntary conjugating of Spanish verbs in my head.hice, hiciste, hicio, hicamos...I wish I could say the conjugations were correct, but at 2 a.m. it's hard to tell. It's really more of a mixture of stems and roots floating around up there. Also, at 2 a.m. it is difficult to make your verb tenses agree, even in English, hence the reason I used the present tense in the first sentence above and the past tense in the third.But enough about grammar. I can't slee

Weighing In

Published on 2009-11-22 14:05:00

“What happened to your neck?” my friend asked. “Did a vampire bite you?” She was referencing the embarrassing itchy rash on my neck that was looking worse instead of better. “Ha, ha,” I said, casually pulling my unusually fluffy hair down around my neck. “I think it’s poison ivy, but it’s not going away.”She smiled. “So, that’s why your hair is so big today.” That’s the bad thing about good friends. Nothing gets past them.After about two weeks of treating my “p

Published on 2009-11-17 11:42:00

"Please Come Back to Blogging" was the title of the email. At first glance I thought perhaps a publisher had stumbled across my poor neglected blog and was going to offer me a ridiculously fantasical amount of money if I would only grace the blogging world with my uber-important cyber-presence. Acclaim. Recognition. Fame.But no.It was my best friend, which in terms of publishing, translates to something equivalent to my mother. She loves everything I do."And I'm following you," she wrote. "See?

The Problem With Princesses

Published on 2009-01-16 09:06:00

I'll tell you a secret. I've always wanted to dress up like a princess. As a child I wore dresses to play outside in the dirt. And when all my friends were buying Guess jeans in middle school, I still preferred a skirt. Then there were formals and proms and the ultimate...my wedding. I chose puffy sleeves and skirts with lace and roses and all the romantic touches so important to my inner princess. But alas, I grew up, and this new, less romantic, less idealistic person rejects anything even rem

Changing of the Guard

Published on 2008-08-05 12:58:00

Today I left my children.I left them for nearly seven hours. And from the looks of things, I will leave them five days a week for the next ten months. I left them at a school.Of course this doesn't sound so dramatic if you don't know I have homeschooled them for five years and neither of them - ages nine and six - have ever been to school before.After a harrowing school year here at home last year while trying to juggle mine and hubby's continuing educations and the kids' educations and hubby's

Chasing Lovely

Published on 2008-07-15 08:09:00

"Oh my god, did you see that woman in the gingham swimsuit?" My friend and I are sitting in the kiddie pool at the water park watching our little ones. What started out as a conversation about suits we like has become a critique of the bodies filling the swimsuits and I am becoming uncomfortable. She is three months pregnant and looks more svelte than I. I suck in my stomach a little to try to shrink the roll around my middle and simply say, "Yeah, I don't really like that suit." A woman in what

Phantastic Phourth

Published on 2008-07-07 20:59:00

So, whadja do on the fourth? Cookout? Fireworks? Sweltering heat? More of the same?What did I do? Well, nothing much, really. I only sat in an air-conditioned theatre and watched a live performance of the longest running Broadway show in history.The Phantom of the Opera.(Cue driving organ theme.)In the eighth grade I had the soundtrack memorized, never even knowing what the show was or was about. Two years ago when the movie came out, I bought the DVD out of sheer curiosity. It was then that I f

Alone In My Mind

Published on 2008-06-26 02:38:00

“Mama, what are these called?” my three-year-old holds up the crunchy cellophane cereal bag, almost as long as she is tall.I look up from my book – my third in three weeks – and give her a succinctly sufficient answer. “Crisp Rice.” It is a dark, rainy June morning and I have just started reading a new book with perfectly brewed, perfectly sweetened coffee in my bright yellow sunshine coffee cup at the kitchen table. It is a lazy summer Monday that feels like an autumn Saturday. Just

Rock N Roll

Published on 2008-04-15 22:15:00

There's an obnoxious squeaking in my ears.Two weeks ago we celebrated Brother's ninth Birthday. A couple of days before the party a friend calls me on her way home from birthday present shopping."Okay," she says. "First of all, tell me thank you.""Thank you?" I'm nervous."I found the coolest present for Brother with lots and lots of tiny pieces," she gushes. My knuckles tighten on the phone. "But I knew you would kill me if I got it, so I got something else." Ah, good friend. It's always great t

How To Know It Is Past Your Child's Bedtime

Published on 2008-03-30 20:30:00

When you ask them to put away their shoes and put on their pajamas they dissolve into tears and shriek, "WHY DO YOU MAKE ME WORK LIKE CINDERELLA?????!!!!!!"In the event this happens to you, you will know, without a doubt, that said child has been pushed past the appropriate limit for being awake and you should drop kick, (ahem), I mean, deposit them as quickly as possible in the nearest sleeping recepticle.

Published on 2008-03-28 21:57:00

Mrs. Ashley died today.I know to most of you that means nothing, and really, in my day to day, it doesn't mean much. My life has not been altered. I sit here in my house, typing on this keyboard, listening to the dishwasher run and I have no reason to believe that I will not get up tomorrow morning and do the same things again.Mrs. Ashley was my teacher in the second grade; my first teacher at a new school. She was small and freckled, with dark shiny hair cut like Dorothy Hamill. She was kin

And the Lord Taketh Away...

Published on 2008-03-03 20:48:00

I'm a big meanie.Since implementing the new Clothes In the Hamper rule, the floor in my hall has stayed remarkably clothes-free. Well, when it's not overflowing, anyway. In fact, Sister has been The Enforcer, stuffing any stragglers she finds lurking around the outside of the hamper back in their proper place.Amazing.Since that rule worked so well, I thought I'd apply a slightly different version of the same rule to their rooms. I took a tip from my blogging friend, Kelli, and told them whatever

Blast From the Past

Published on 2008-02-27 05:24:00

More than a week since I last posted. Pitiful, I know. But in my defense I had a couple of blogs started and Blogger lost them.Lost them.Like they were saved as drafts and then "poof"! Vanished into thin air.So today, we're going back in time, to one of my very favorite posts. I came across it the other day and it made me laugh. It was so not funny at the time, but thank goodness I can laugh about it now.Kind of like Blogger losing my blogs. Not funny now, but maybe later.Or not.Oh yeah, I

Review: Deceptively Delicious

Published on 2008-02-19 07:39:00

Okay, if you have those dream children that eat every bite put in front of them, move on. You are a perfect parent and I suck in comparison to you and I don't wanna hear about it. But if you, like me, have kids that balk at most vegetables and routinely ask, "How many bites do I have to eat?" then you may be interested in what I have to say.A little more than a week ago I found Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious, on sale at Barnes and Noble. I was intrigued. She proposes that she

Published on 2008-02-14 08:34:00

Ooooooo, you're gonna be so jealous when you see what I got for Valentine's Day!Lookie!It's the cutest little digital camcorder EVER! Now I can record earth-shattering events like this:Imagine what this means for my BLOG!!And it has zero fat, zero calories, zero carbs so it won't make my butt bigger...unless I record my butt...which will add ten pounds...but we won't talk about that.I did not even ask for this. Didn't even know it existed. And my hubby - the world's best gift giver - surprised m

Hey! Did I Tell You?

Published on 2008-02-13 20:13:00

I got an 86 on my first College Algebra exam.Applause. Applause.Of course, I was a wee bit disappointed it wasn't an A, but the semester is young...

Mystery Solved

Published on 2008-02-13 17:44:00

Every now and then I stop to ponder some of life's greatest mysteries, such as: StonehengeCrop Circles Why my family cannot put their dirty clothes in the basket.Seriously. Note the pink basket inside the closet. Note how empty it is. Note the incredibly large pile of dirty clothes on the floor directly IN FRONT OF the basket, even TOUCHING it. In fact, the clothes on the upmost top of the pile could easily topple over inside the basket with a good stiff breeze. New rule:Any clothing found

Memoirs Of An Addict

Published on 2008-02-12 14:00:00

Coffee is my drug of choice.I'm not in denial. I fully embrace the fact that I am an addict. I don't even hold the conviction that I should quit.I'm a full-blown junkie.One to two cups every morning. Two sugars and a splash of milk.This morning, I shuffled to the kitchen, as I do every morning, to get the crack a-cookin'. I'd had an especially difficult night with Baby, who has some kind of yucky respiratory thing going on. She was up and down all night coughing and blowing her nose while I kept

Lamenting Algebra...Again

Published on 2008-02-05 21:10:00

It's down to the wire now. After two semesters of non-credit preporatory Algebra classes, I am finally in College Algebra. After this semester, I will wash my hands of math classes and will be the bonafide ownder of a...Drum roll, please...Associates of Liberal Arts degree.Then it's on to the Big Kids College for the B.A.But for the next twelve weeks I will be sweating through Algebra yet again. Only this time, it counts. Whatever I make goes straight to my transcript.Yikes.Tomorrow morning

Wanted: Grandparents (or anyone else willing to babysit for free)

Published on 2008-02-02 20:52:00

I have the sweetest little neighbor lady across the street. Ms. Cindy's husband died about five years ago and we try to look out for her. Ms. Cindy has a daughter my age and two grandsons that love to play over here when they come visit grandma...which is every weekend.Now, I love Ms. Cindy. I love her daughter. And I love her dear little grandsons. But I have to admit, I feel a tinge of jealousy every weekend when her daughter drops off those little boys and leaves them to spend the night

Published on 2008-01-31 17:42:00

Brother is 8, about to turn 9. Since he learned to ride his bike, we have given him more freedom to ride down the street about half a dozen houses to where he has two friends right across the street from each other. Their names are Camden and Marcus. Today we got lots and lots of snow and made a special trip to the store for galoshes and gloves. As soon as we got home, Brother was itching to throw on the new galoshes and have a rip-roarin' snowball fight with his buddies. He caught me heaving in

Published on 2008-01-29 21:39:00

Do you ever find things like this in your laundry? Do you ever ponder ponder what on earth happened to it?Then do you fold it neatly and tuck it right back in with the others?I did.

Music Appreciation

Published on 2008-01-28 07:36:00

When teaching Music Appreciation at the Superhouse, we are sure to expose our children to all the classics: The Doobie Brothers, Van Halen, Toto, Lynard Skynard and ZZ Top. On this particular evening, Hubby had put on "Sweet Home Alabama" and our kids released their inner rock stars. Is there anything more adorable than a toddler in a pink tutu playing air guitar?

Published on 2008-01-22 22:27:00

Tell me, parents, is the Christmas honeymoon over? Are your children wandering around bored with the umpteen million presents they received - nay, BEGGED FOR - for the holidays? Has the very gift for which they would have sold their souls lost its luster and lay forgotten at the bottom of the toy box?Well, have I got a tip for you.Tell your children to clean their rooms. My kids can be walking around, underfoot, telling me they're bored and pining for something to do. I send them to their roo