Posted on by Wise Sass

Slacky McSlackerton here

Hi, it’s me. Remember me? I used to try to post a couple times a week but lately not so much and I feel badly about it. There is life happening here, you see. And life takes precedence over blogging. It must otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to blog about, right? 
It’s after midnight on a school/work night and I’m going to have to make this brief. And full of pics. Instagram, to be more specific. Because I can’t find my real camera again. For reals. I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S WRONG WITH ME. *sigh* Moving on. 
So these things have been happening:
We had a mini-twister hit our backyard. It was the weirdest thing. Knocked one tree down, and lifted and twisted a small tree nearly off its stump. And killed a duck. Sad. So this is the big tree that fell:
It leaned like that for a week before we got a tree service out to chop it down. For mucho moolah, might I add. Grr. But they left the rounds for us so we can use them as firewood next year. Can I just say that’s some pretty dang expensive firewood?
Since the weather has finally started to get Spring/Summer-like we’ve also been doing a lot of work in the yard. We’ve planted a few plants and have just been cleaning up some of the beds. I love that my kids get involved now so much more than they used to. I took this 2 days ago and the light was just perfect (you can see our oldest sweeping on the right):
We’ve also had a lot of this going on:
But this Saturday was the first time he actually made it home during a game so it was monumental. He has batted last in his previous two games, but on yesterday’s game he batted first. He’s doing great and getting better each game/practice we have:
I love that pic. Great light. But, because of that light I developed a sunburn. Unexpected and weird. I was wearing a cap and v-neck t-shirt so I have half a face sunburn and v-shaped redness on my chest. Weird. (I won’t torture you with that pic.)
After that game was over yesterday the rest of the weekend was about getting ready for my sister’s visit. My (step)sister from Australia, to be more specific.
She’s awesome. I first met her in ’98 and I’ve seen her maybe 2 or 3 times since then. The funny thing is, she went to my high school 5 years ahead of me but I never knew her. I didn’t meet her until after her mom & my dad had been together for quite some time because she had moved to Australia. She met an Aussie in SLO in the early 90’s and followed him back to AU and stayed. I like her a lot and we get along great. I wish I had known her a long time ago. Not that I wish my parents had split earlier than they did, but it would have been cool to have an older sister like her. She has a pretty awesome husband and two kids as well. Every time the kids speak I think they are going to sound like Americans and then they sound totally Australian and it’s too freakin’ cute.
So, interesting side note, my sister worked at the Australia Zoo with The Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, and his wife, Terri. Terri is an American – she’s from Oregon – and she and my sister became friends. My sister has always been an animal NUT and the Zoo was an ideal place for her to work. Don’t believe me? BAM!:
That’s my sister feeding Harriet – a 166 year old tortoise.
So the cool thing about their visit tonight is that our husbands never met before and we hadn’t met their son (though my sister and her daughter were here a couple years ago). I was excited.

I got up Sunday morning and did a few things in the yard and then started the food prep for 10 of us. We were going to BBQ, but my husband has had performances (he’s an actor) both afternoons this weekend so a lot of the prep was left in my hands and it was a LOT of freakin’ work. I started the food prep about noon and didn’t finish until 4 pm. At which point I still needed to clean the house and shower before they got here at 6:30. I started to PANIC. Then I died. No, not really. Just felt like I might.

Food prep consisted of marinating both chicken & beef for kebabs, cutting up and marinating all the vegetables, making a greek spinach, feta & pasta salad with a homemade dressing, making a fruit salad and strawberry cheese fruit dip, and making cookies. 4 flippin’ hours, people, with nary a break – except to make lunch for the kids and occasionally play referee to their bickering:
But, thankfully, it all turned out lovely and oh so yummy:
And my boys got to play with their Australian boy cousin for the first time – as only boys do:
Once the wrestling stopped we got the older girl cousin to sit down with the stinky boys and we clicked a few pics of them:
Love it! Love them. Great night with fun people. Now I’m utterly exhausted and apparently I have to go to work tomorrow. Really? Because I feel like I’ve been working all bloody weekend. I guess it’s not the same. 
Off to la-la-land for me. G’day, mate!
Posted on by Wise Sass · 11 Comments

I have a couple things I need to get off my chest

You would think that would be a clever euphemism for reduction of my boobages but, no, I’m not talking about those things. Those are still somewhat valuable (though not nearly as useful as they used to be – but that’s another post for another day).
Last week I found myself upset. It’s to do with this whole blogging thing. So I stepped away from it for a few days to get perspective. It helped, and I’ll tell you why shortly. Bear with me – I need to tell this in order or ya’ll want to strangle me by the end. 
(By the way, the “ya’ll” is Joni’s fault entirely. Or my Okie ancestry. One of the two.)
Okay, so if you’ve been here before you know that I started blogging just a few months ago and I’m kinda haphazard about when I do it and what I post. That’s just me and the way I am. It has to fit into my life; I’m not going to make my life fit around it. 
Early last week I had some time to really start poking around other blogs and see what other mom bloggers were doing. I started following some of them on Twitter and going to their blogs and all that. What you may or may not know is there are amateur mom bloggers (ahem, me) and then there are professional mom bloggers (like the gold standard, The Pioneer Woman). Let me tell you, some of those ladies are hardcore. They get paid for what they do and they compete and, to the crux of the story, they can be extremely catty. I’m not referring to the Pioneer Woman here; I think she has a “rise above it” attitude even though there is a hate site out there about her too.
Apparently there was some issue last week and Twitter was, forgive me, all “atwitter” about it. I kept seeing these cryptic posts about being mean and making fun of someone and how it was hurting the mom blogging community. Then I read this tweet by one of those professional types:

It’s just easy to forget that twitter is like a high school cafeteria. Even if you’re not at the table you hear what people say about you.

And then I was like, oh, yeah, yuck. 
Caveat: I am in no way, no how, ever going to be on par with those professional bloggers. That’s not my intention. Seriously though, who would want that? Who would ever want to feel like they are in high school again? To get criticized and mocked and made to feel worthless. UGH. Also, I KNOW adult woman cattiness. I’ve experienced it. It’s not pretty and it’s hurtful. 
So, quite honestly, I was like yeah, I’m just going to cool it for awhile. Not that I was comparing myself to them because I SO wasn’t; I just didn’t want anything to do with it. It left a bad taste in my mouth if you know what I mean. 
So I hung out with family and friends over the weekend. I went on a date with my husband. I had wine at a friend’s house. I cleaned out a room in my house. I baked cookies. I kissed my kids A LOT. (Oh, I also got iPhone 4 so, you know, I was busy. Plants vs. Zombies, Instagram, etc). It was a nice weekend.
Back to work today and I was asked twice why I hadn’t updated my blog. It’s been like 6 days and apparently I have at least TWO readers who were jonesin’ for an update. And that felt good. And that made me think that yeah, that crap happens over THERE, with those other bloggers who are so successful that people make hate sites about them and have whole password-protected forums just to diss on them – but that’s like another world from over HERE where I am. (Run-on sentence be damned. I never said I was perfect). 
If I ever get to the point where I have haters then I’ll know I’m successful. ‘Til then I’m happy. If one person wants to read what I have to say then I.Am.Happy.
So that brings me to the other item I need to get off my chest:
Both of the people who asked me about my blog today are lurkers. One of them literally IM’d me and said, “Can you post something new on your blog so I can stalk it?” 
Well, thanks for coming out of the closet on that but – DUDE – leave a comment, wouldja? 
OY. I THRIVE on comments. And I answer them. So, just do it. You can even tell me anonymously how awesome I am. I won’t mind. Honest.
In closing, I just want to say that I love all two of you. Just don’t ever make a hate site about me or I’ll kick your ass. 

Hasta pasta! Mwah!

Posted on by Wise Sass · 3 Comments

What in the H – E – double hockey sticks is wrong with me??

I can’t get any freakin’ work done! I don’t wanna. 
I don’t wanna pay the bills.
I don’t wanna work on the stinkin’ IEP paperwork. Seriously, kill.me.now. 
I don’t wanna wash the dishes or fold the laundry.
I don’t wanna do my work work. Even when I’m at work. Cuz, you know, I’m kinda over this whole working for living thing. I wanna be home with my babies – see. (Who aren’t babies, but they’re MY babies so, whatever).
I wanna write. I wanna be creative. I wanna bake stuff. 
I wanna read blogs and play on Twitter all day and marvel at all the awesome women out there. Can’t I get paid (an exorbitant amount) to do that? Why not?
It’s 8 pm – do you think the kids have noticed they haven’t had dinner yet? I don’t hear yelling, screaming, or painful starvation moans. In any case, I need to get my freakin’ arse off the internets and do something productive. 
SO THERE. 
BYE. 
(I’ll be back – don’t worry. I knew you were worrried). 

P.S. I CAN say hell. See? Hell. But H – E – double hockey sticks is more fun, don’t you agree?

Posted on by Wise Sass

Why isn’t it Friday?

I have seriously lived a week in 2 days. Now, I consciously know that it isn’t Friday yet, but I just feel it should be considering everything that’s gone on the last few days. But then I thought, “At least it’s Wednesday. Only 2 more days.” Dude, it’s Tuesday. TUESDAY. 3 more days. 3. 
See, the problem is my work. It’s different this week and that throws me off. We have 2 clients visiting. One from Brasil (as he tells me to spell it) and the other from Argentina. The one from Argentina doesn’t speak great English and, I think, understands even less. Fun. The one from Brasil speaks Portuguese, English fairly well (except for the occasional, “uh, uh, how you say _____”), and some Spanish. Today I spent 6 hours talking. Like non-stop. Tomorrow we have another half day, at least, with them. 
The thing is, it’s just constantly being with them, entertaining, socializing, being positive and blah, blah, blah. My people bucket gets too full. We spent hours out to dinner last night. Tonight I had to go to a school function for Bubba. My people bucket has runneth-the-hell-over.
Buenos noches amigos. Hasta mañana!

Posted on by Wise Sass · 4 Comments

The best you that you can be

Every day when I drop my oldest at school I tell him, “Remember, be the best Poohbear you can be today, ok?”

To his credit he doesn’t sigh or roll his eyes (maybe 8 (almost 9) is too young for that), but he says, “Okay Mom! Love you!” and bounds out of the car with nary another thought for me or the message I’m trying to impart.

As I drive away, I often think about all the good things I want for him (to be honest, I often think of Starbucks and how conveniently located it is to his school as well).

What does that mean – be the best you that you can be? Let’s think about that for a minute.

Does it mean to be kind, understanding and attentive to others? Yes, obviously.

Does it mean to listen and learn and be present (in all senses of the word) to what happens during the course of the day? Yes, absolutely.

That’s what I want for him – my clever, cute, quirky son.

If I turn that around and put the focus on myself – what does that mean for me? My expectations for myself extend far beyond the expectations I have for my son.

Am I being the best Stef – mom, wife, woman – that I can be? The answer is a resounding NO.

These are the steps I think I need to take to get there. Bear in mind this list may be revised. Often.

  1. Health. I need to work on my health. I don’t know if I am brave enough to go into more detail than that, here – yet – but I need the strength, the confidence, the determination, support and encouragement to do it. Please. I’m starting already – baby steps.
  2. Outlook. Positivity. Glass half full-ness. Looking on the bright side. Finding the silver lining. Because, when it comes down to it, does bitching about something help? At all? The negativity weighs me down and I’m not having it anymore. Dunzo.
  3. Self-awareness and positive personal growth. Focusing on the me-ness. Really knowing who I am – what makes me tick, sets me off, calms me down, etc. What I excel at and what I suck at. Then embracing the me-ness and the stuff I love about me. This blog is going a long way towards that goal.
  4. Love. Give it all, to everyone, in abundant boundless bundles. To my family, to my friends, to strangers. I don’t know anything, any situation, any problem – ANYTHING – that isn’t improved with a little love and a big, open heart.

So that’s it. For now. That’s my challenge to myself.

Tomorrow, when you check your face in the mirror – at home, driving to work, or in a passing car window reflection – just pause for a second and ask yourself, “Am I being the best me that I can be?” I hope the answer is yes; if not, make your own list and get on with it, sister!

Posted on by Wise Sass · 2 Comments

I want to be alone

Sometimes. It’s nice. And now I know I have a good reason for it.
I follow The Frisky on Facebook (warning: some of their posts can be R-rated) and today they posted about the power of being ALONE. I read the post today and I was like, yeah, right on!! This just feeds everything I’ve been saying for months – a room of one’s own, time to think, time to focus and be introspective. This is all so important for our mental well-being – and now there’s a study backing up that theory. (Not that it was my theory – just the natural progression of my personal evolution). 
In an effort to reduce all this clicking, here’s the full text of that post:

When I was 13, I started locking myself in my lair and writing angsty poetry, which caused people (especially my parents) to assume that I was a lonely, depressed, misanthropic hermit. As it turns out, I was spending some very necessary and healthy time alone. A new study at Harvard University found that spending time alone is crucial for us to have fully-developed personalities. Sufficient quality time with numero uno has been linked to improved focus, memory, creativity, mood, and even better social skills when we finally emerge from our caves.

Why? Because other people take up a lot of space in our minds. Not only that, but they cloud our judgement. Being alone helps us engage in the process of high-level reflection and introspection. It helps us figure out what we really think about stuff. Double the need for solitude if you are highly creative, a prophet like Jesus, or a genius like Beethoven (or fancy yourself a writer). Anyone? Anyone?

Anyhow, I’m sold. Always have been. So what’s the problem? We have cultural stigma about solitude. A study done a few years back at the University of Massachusetts found that people actually feel good, more often than not, when they’re alone. But somehow, somewhere, solitude and loneliness became synonymous. Especially for teens who researchers found tend to sequester themselves when they feel crappy but emerge from isolation feeling slightly less crappy. Yeah, adolescence is tough. I guess that explains why my mom was always knocking on my door telling me to come out. If only I could have said to her, “I am forming my personality through meta-cognition” instead of shouting, “Go away!” and turning up Simon and Garfunkel’s “I Am A Rock.”

The post was inspired by an article in the Boston Globe, here. Warning – it’s long. Check out this quote from the article: 

Solitude has long been linked with creativity, spirituality, and intellectual might. The leaders of the world’s great religions — Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, Moses — all had crucial revelations during periods of solitude. The poet James Russell Lowell identified solitude as “needful to the imagination;” in the 1988 book “Solitude: A Return to the Self,” the British psychiatrist Anthony Storr invoked Beethoven, Kafka, and Newton as examples of solitary genius.

And there’s this little gem as well:

Teenagers, especially, whose personalities have not yet fully formed, have been shown to benefit from time spent apart from others, in part because it allows for a kind of introspection — and freedom from self-consciousness — that strengthens their sense of identity.

Hell yeah! I’m behind this 100%! I’m no expert, but I can only imagine that teenage minds are still forming the abilities to inductively and deductively reason. The more opportunity they get to exercise their minds naturally can only be a good thing, IMHO.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 5 Comments

A half-baked idea is okay as long as it’s in the oven.

Do I shirk my duties and dive into the blog thoughts swirling around in my head? I could literally write volumes right now if given the proper time and space to sit and think it all through. 
Alas, that’s not even an option! Too much freakin’ work.
I got home from my trip very late on Friday night, or extremely early Saturday morning – depending on your point of view. I was delayed an extra 6 hours in the Denver airport after sprinting to my gate only to find out I missed my connection. Also, I DON’T SPRINT. I don’t even jog. Seriously. I think I almost died. But then I had to spend 6 more hours there and I truly knew what death was.
Oh.My.Goodness.Was.I.Bored.
Spotty internet connection and limited charging capabilities meant I couldn’t stay online or watch a movie to bide the time. I read some but I was completely distracted. Too many people hustling and bustling all over the place.
Saturday morning I woke up stiff and sore. I sort of decided then and there to take the rest of the weekend off. We celebrated the hubby’s 41 years young, I hung out with the boys and caught up on some of my Tivo’d stuff. 
Back to the grind today and, wow, do I have a lot to do. Plus, at home, there’s so much kid STUFF to deal with – Invention Convention, dentist appointments, IEP appointments, Katie Beckett Applications, laundry, lunch money, etc. I feel like I might never come up for air.
When I do, indeed, come up for air then I hope to put together some great blog posts around what I’ve been reading. I’m absolutely loving Elizabeth Gilbert’s Committed. I seriously want to take a highlighter and go back through and mark all the poignant passages. In fact, I think I may do just that.
If you are married you should read this book. If you are thinking about getting married you should read this book. If you are divorced you should read this book. If you at any point in your life plan to live in a committed relationship you should read this book. No lie. 
The thing is – it’s all the stuff we learn after 10-15 years of marriage. It’s the distance and experience. The plain ‘ole knowledge we don’t have when we are all in L.O.V.E. and dying to get married RIGHT.THIS.MINUTE. 
It’s the things our mothers (some of them) or our grandmothers (a lot of them) went through and thought about and dealt with without actually giving it a name. They just lived it. Sucked it up and dealt with it. It’s the angst wives go through – the sacrifices, challenges, juggling we all do and learn to deal with some way, some how. It’s all about finding that happy medium for us “modern” wives.

More to come.

Posted on by Wise Sass · 4 Comments

Don’t forget your doubt

I have a story for you.

(I love to tell stories. They are the patchwork of our life-quilts).

As you read here, I have insecurities. Those insecurities are a big part of why I haven’t shared this blog with a wide audience. I’m testing the overall response, but I’m also finding my blog voice (if you know what I mean). I want to see what value, what information, what anecdotes (that are relevant), that I can share with an audience. Will I be funny/witty or serious/educational? I hope to be somewhere in between.

I’m slightly introspective. Perhaps you can’t tell.

Here’s the story part. My boss and I are sort of friends. As much as bosses/employees can be that are male/female without any hanky-panky going on.

To be clear: no hanky or panky occurs – at all – ever.

I had not mentioned my blog to him. It’s something I normally would have mentioned but I felt odd about it.

One of my boss’s favorite activities is to psychoanalyze why people do and say the things they do. He’s a student of human nature and figuring out what makes people tick is something he and I both think about and enjoy. (Woe to our co-workers, right? Ha! Not really – we’re more theoretical.)

He was recently gone on a trip and we were really busy immediately before and after that so we hadn’t had a chance to just chat in a while. Last week I went into his office and he said, “tell me a story.”

So, I told him.

I told him I started this blog last year and how I felt about it. I told him about Joni’s blog and how it had influenced me (good and bad) and I told him about connecting with Joni and the blog she wrote on sisterhood.

So my boss said to me, “Why are you so nervous about this? You’re telling me this very hesitantly. Why?” Why, indeed?

Well, because I don’t want to be judged! I am trying to get over that though. I mean, part of blogging is being real, right? Putting yourself out there – telling stories – and hoping they resonate with other people. I need to be brave and stop worrying about being judged. I’m trying.

In the end my boss was very encouraging. He pushed me to keep doing it and to really think about an overall message. What I want to convey. What’s the point to my stories. Confound the man. (Let’s see: empowerment, honesty, sisterhood? I’m thinking along these lines. Work in progress. Moving on.)

The next day when my boss came in to work he sent me the following lyrics to an Avett Brothers’ song, Weight of Lies:

I once heard the worst thing
A man could do is draw a hungry crowd
Tell everyone his name in pride and confidence
But leave out his doubt

He said he had been thinking about how Joni’s blog made me feel and then what Joni had written about in regard to sisterhood. He said he went back and listened to this song and the words clicked.

We should show our insecurities as well as our strengths. Be real. We can’t create an emotional connection through shared experiences without admitting our insecurities and our doubts. Everybody has them and that is where we have the power to bond.

So this is my promise to you: I will always be real.

(And I’ll work on being brave too).

Posted on by Wise Sass · 1 Comment

Stef’s Random Thoughts

  • Dude, it totally snowed yesterday! Finally. We haven’t had snow since the first week of December – even when the rest of the U.S. was snowed in. Just enough on the ground this morning to make everything look a little prettier, a little brighter, and enough to make the commute interesting. 
  • I am actively making an effort to leave the office by 6 pm every night. I did last night, and was rewarded with this gorgeous sunset on the snowy foothills:
 
  • Last night I finally sat down and filled out the 15 page assessment called a SIB-R (Scales of Independent Behavior-Revised) for Jamie. The purpose of the SIB-R is to assess adaptive and maladaptive behavior to determine need for assistance. The school psychologist will provide his own assessment and, from those and the diagnoses we have received from doctors, we will officially change Jamie’s status from developmentally delayed to Autistic & ADHD. This could potentially change the amount of resources he receives from the school district, and it has an influence on his ability to be included in various other state & federal programs for “disabled” kids. (I hate that label). The challenge for these types of assessments is to grade your own child as bad as you possibly can. Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt that they can do something on their own. If you think they may struggle doing something for themselves then you must grade them low. It goes against everything that we, as parents, hope for our children – they they CAN do things and that if they did it once they can do it again. It’s not fun to spend an hour thinking of your child in this derogatory context. 
  • On a more cheerful note – tonight I start packing for a trip! This trip will be good because I’m combining work AND pleasure. First, bright and early Saturday I’m flying to Boston to spend 3 nights with my BFF. We are spending the first night in Boston at a hotel and going out with friends. Woo-hoo! Then going to her house in New Hampshire until Tuesday morning when I fly down to Washington, D.C. My company has a office just outside of Washington that I travel to a couple times a year. While there I have plans to get together with two more friends and hang out with the co-workers at that office. Fun stuff! I’ll be exhausted on the flight home but it should be a busy & fun week.
  • The day after I get home is my husband’s birthday. What to do, what to do. I know I need to take him shopping for his gift (he has requested sunglasses) but I should think of something else. He likes a big to-do. Hmmm. I’ll probably make cake balls, at least.
  • Is it too early to start looking forward to our annual summer vacation in July??
Posted on by Wise Sass · 6 Comments

Pity party, table for 1

On Friday I was very happy to spend some time just being a mom, see my post here: My warring dualities. Then I took yesterday off and wrote a blog, had lunch with my hubby and picked up my kids from school again. The kids were happy, I was happy, and the hubby was happy. I thought about how much happier we all were and I’ve come to a decision.
I WANT TO BE A STAY AT HOME MOM. 
(The louder I say it the more likely it will come true, right? One more time. )
I WANT TO BE A STAY AT HOME MOM.
Or a work part-time from home mom. I’m happy to pick up a little income here and there as I can. 
I want to take care my my kids, my husband and my house. I want to get my home life in order. I want to have the time and energy to focus on just those things for a while. I need it. My family needs it. 
I would be a good SAHM. I would have a routine. Certain days I would clean house. Certain days I would do laundry. I would make time to exercise every day. I would turn the music up LOUD and not worry about anybody seeing me work out.
I would write on this blog more, and possibly write something else. I would pay bills, clean, clean, clean, and work on projects like the closets or washing all the windows. I would run all the errands I don’t have time to do now, and do the grocery shopping too.
I want to be there for my son EVERY TIME he needs me in class. Both of them, really, but in particular for my Autistic guy. When he has a bad start to his day I want the freedom to be there with him as long as he needs me. I want to pick him up from school so I get the low-down from his teachers every day. 
I would be an advocate for my son and for Autism education and support in my state. 
Every day after school I would talk to my boys. I would give them an after school snack, talk about their day with them, and get them started on homework. I would start dinner while we talk so that we can eat dinner early and get a walk before bath and bedtime.
Yes, I do know that to a certain extent I am idealizing being a stay at home mom, but I also know that whatever came up I would be able to deal with it. I’m a good multi-tasker and I can make adjustments on the fly. I know it’s a lot of work. I know it.
I’m gone from my house and family 10 hours a day and it’s not working for me right now. I need more of the kids in my daily life. I need more “me” in my daily life. I want to write. I want to be the best mom and person I can be. I need a change in my life – my career and my health demand it – and I think this could be it.
I WANT TO BE A STAY AT HOME MOM. 

P.S. Now that I have made this decision if someone could please hire my husband at an exorbitant salary so that I can make my SAHM dreams come true I would be ever so grateful.