It's not what you think. No. Really. This is not me kissing up to one Missus Ree Drummond. Yes it is. I'm sure Madame Superstar of the Blogging World is perfectly lovely. No really, I've heard from people who've heard that she totes is.
Let me just say now, I can't cook worth a darn. Don't WANT to cook worth a darn (because, um, that would mean I'd HAVE to cook). Say the word ranch, and I break out in a heat rash. And the term "Marlboro Man" gives me the heebie jeebies. For the longest time, I have to admit it -- great writer, fantastic photog, but I didn't get what all the fuss was about.
For one of the most rewarding acts out there, collecting for charity can get awfully depressing. You're ignored. You're brushed off. And then you're ignored some more.
But I'll take the cold shoulder any day over a character I'll call the "Hold, I Gotta Go Clean Out My Closet" Guy.
Well, it's over. The giveaway for the Doodle Bear, the cool new stuffed animal from Fisher-Price that you can actually, gasp, WASH after your kids color all over it, ended last night. And now for the good news:
Continuing the flow of getting old Inside Outs from the newspaper up on here! Enjoy one from October 2010!
It's a credit to the cause that you can't help seeing pink everywhere in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
But it's a credit to the most unlikely of places that I can type those words today, and expect to see them in print in Tuesday's edition of the Democrat.
America, I have seen heaven for geeky kids, and it comes courtesy of the folks at LEGO. Picture it. Cars 2 trailer with Mater, Lightning McQueen and the gang . . . LEGO-ized.
Continuing the flow of getting old Inside Outs from the newspaper up on here! Enjoy one from January!
There ought to be a special section in the baby book for the real markers in a parent's life. First day of kindergarten compares little, I've learned, to their first snow day.
Last Friday was the real test of my mettle. And as I'm here to type about it, you may have guessed: it came, we saw it, and we survived.
There are movies your kid begs you to go see. Then there are the movies you drag the kid to. I'm not sure which category Gnomeo & Juliet falls into, to be honest.
Confession time. I'm a gnome-whore. The creepy little buggers crack me up. I blame Gilmore Girls, specifically the episode when "Pierpont," the gnome in Babette's (Sally Struthers) garden goes missing. When the kid came out of the womb with that pointy head that comes from an, ahem, natural birth, and they plunked a cute lil' pink hat on her, she looked JUST like a gnome. Hubs named her Pierpont. Hey, it was all outta love!
Still playing catch-up on old newspaper columns. Here's one from Nov. 2010.
Add this to the reasons to live in Sullivan County: if you're a parade junkie, you can get a good fix several times a year.
Trust me. I'm club president of parade aficionados anonymous.
I drag my family out in the heat of a June day or the cold of a November night. Like the postal service, there's nothing that can keep me from my duties.
Continuing the flow of getting old Inside Outs from the newspaper up on here! Enjoy one from February!
Ever wondered how vital the Internet has become in our society? Ask the Egyptians. When the government shut down the Internet access last week not only for Egyptian citizens but for those of us on the outside trying to reach into Egypt, the world was forced to speculate what might be going on inside a troubled country.
Americans were left worrying about loved ones living in or visiting the African country.
And Sullivan County residents were left saying "See? We told you! It's 2011. People can't live without the Internet."
More catch-up . . . getting old Inside Out columns from the newspaper onto the blog. Enjoy one from December 2010.
It's an odd feeling being a stranger in your own hometown. This November marked nine years since I talked my Southern husband into moving to Yankeeland so I could take a job in the one place I'd known all my life.
There are some who revel in power outages. It's a chance to play at being a pioneer, testing their ingenuity at making a life without the convenience of modern technology. That pioneers didn't look at it as ingenuity so much as every day life doesn't seem to bother them.
I am not one of those people.
I accept the blackouts as a factor of living in a world with trees and not wanting to see my utility bills skyrocket to cover the cost of burying the lines. But I'm not going to pull out my Laura Ingalls bonnet anytime soon.
File this under things that make me feel old. This year marks 35 years since Hello Kitty came to America (37 since the cute cat with the big bow was born in Japan). Yeah. Old. No wonder I can't remember where I left my keys.
And to drive that little bit home, the kitschy creature we all wanted splashed on our Trapper Keepers (fourth grade flashback!!) is still a hot commodity for the kindergarten set. Which includes my 5 1/2-year-old. Only problem?
More catch up on Inside Outs from the paper! Enjoy another one from February.
America has a lot to be thankful for. Sliced bread. The polio vaccine. Lady Gaga.
I'm grateful. Really. I am. I don't have to use my bread knife to make the 5-year-old's lunch every night. Time saved = time for two more pages of the bedtime story. It's a miracle of modern parenting.
Most of the time, I hate stuffed animals. There. I said it. I'm like the person who bypasses cute little bunnies and steals lollipops from babies, but I hate those suckers.
OK, MOST of those suckers. Because the thing is, with an almost 6-year-old in the house, I am inundated with those fluffy little things that you can't wash. Really. Surface wash only? Manufacturers, are you nuts? This is for a CHILD. And I can't WASH the thing?
Rant done. Kind of. Because I have some good news and SOME BETTER NEWS.
There are parents who believe that musical tastes should stay in the Baby Einstein's Mozart and the nonsense rhymes realm for as long as possible.
In case you wondered, I am not one of those parents. So next time you're feeling guilty that your kid actually knows the words to a song that WON'T play on Radio Disney, I offer your moment of zen . . .
It's a reporter's job to keep to the sidelines of a story, to check their emotions at the door and just write the news. A hard job at any time, it becomes harder still when a story reaches inside of you and starts kicking you straight in the gut.
Such was this Sunday's emotional gathering in the middle of Jeffersonville, a flash mob for Kara Passante, a town turned pink to power a mom's fight against breast cancer on Mother's Day.
Quick, tell me which of these reasons for having my kid are true: Because my husband wanted one. Because I wanted one. Because they brought all the '80s toys back, and I needed a good excuse to buy them. Because I would still rather run something that tastes like bubblegum over my teeth in the morning, but that's not appropriate when you're approaching 30?
OF COURSE it's the first two. Uh huh. You keep thinking that.
And while you're at it, confession time. I AM approaching 30, and I still think that mint stuff tastes like . . . a word my 5 1/2-year-old is supposed to pretend she doesn't hear out of my mouth. So I'm not dumb enough to go through 13 hours of labor on pitocin for the world's worst reason (what, do I look like Katie Holmes?), but I've been known to sneak a dab of something marked "junior" onto my brush in the morning.
Kids across America came running home from school last month hopping from foot to foot, barely able to contain their excitement. Spring! It's here! The calendar says so!
And in places like Maryland and California, the calendar is right. But we don't live in Maryland or California.
We live in a place where a good parent is the one who knows it's just tempting fate to put the winter wear away before June. And by away we mean the front hall closet, where it can be pulled out at a moment's notice.
On the eve of Mother's Day, Facebook has filled with pictures of people's moms, blogs been loaded down with odes to mom. But it isn't the love professed for a mother that seems to stand out. It's the admission from kids who now have kids of their own that, yes, Mom, we get it. We GET what we put you through. As my parents tell me -- often -- grandchildren are a grandparent's best revenge.
And so today, I have a confession to make. I am parenting a 5-year-old teenager. And I love her MORE than a fat kid loves cake.
The pluses of spring are many. The Yankees in the Bronx. The peepers in the brook. The entertainment value in watching your lovely spouse try to remember how to start the lawnmower for the first time in six months.
But I'm going to break it to all of you out dancing in the spring rain this week. You can't put a positive spin on the springtime ritual known as "the tick check."
I had it all planned. I'd taken a half day at my day job. I'd lined up with the parents at the school to pick up my daughter, and I'd hightailed it to Liberty just in time to enter the firehouse for the St. Baldrick's event where I would not only be shaving my head to fight children's cancer but taking pictures for the Democrat to help spread awareness for the cause. So I put my camera together. Flash on top, strap wrapped around my hand, lens cap off, and hit the shutter.
It was innocent enough as far as Facebook Questions go. What is the one thing in life you can't imagine living without out. That's easy.
Books.
I have them piled on my bedside table. Nestled in the rack beside the toilet (yes, folks, I admit it, I'm a read and pooper). Shoved in the crack between the armrest and the cushion of the couch. And of course there's that spare always at the ready below the seat of my car.
Books indeed.
But I'd only just typed the "s" when I could feel the tightness moving upward from my stomach into my chest, like a fist pushing up, eager to get out. Did I just say my books came before my child? What kind of mother was I?
So the pollen count is rising, I sat in my living room listening to the sputtering of my husband trying to remember how the lawnmower starts, and my kid tracked mud through the entire house because "I'll wash my feet off in the tub" sounded better in her head than "I'll listen to Mom and wipe my feet at the door."
In other words? April's over, and it was a doozy. You may have heard a J. Crew Creative Director named Jenna Lyons did the unthinkable and actually hung out with her own kid and did something fun with him . . . aka painted his toenails pink? The hew and cry made me rant a bit over on The Stir -- hey, that's why they pay me!
I lasted almost two months, but in the end I caved. This weekend I fell in lust and love all at once, overcome with a heady mix of emotions that carried me away the way Calgon always promised . . . and never delivered.
I realized I had to add one of these because people let their minds run away with them sometimes. Wait, where was I?
The reviews I put up on this site are NOT paid for by any company. They come from my little ol' head. Some of the products I found myself - on the 'net, at the store, or from other moms. Some were sent my way by publicists. Usually they didn't fit the mold of another project I was working on, but I thought they were so cool I couldn't help sharing!
As for what happens to the products I didn't care for - you'll never know! Because I won't write about them on here. So if you see it, I liked it. 'Nuff said!
