We Interrupt this Regularly Scheduled Program for Some Real Stuff

I was driving home from the grocery store on Monday afternoon.  It was beautifully sunny.  75 degrees.  The sky was bright blue.  I had a gorgeous view of the San Gabriel Mountains.  My kids had the day off of school, so it felt a little bit like a holiday.

I preface with this so that you know that my head does actually understand and acknowledge that my life isn't at all bad.

But as I was looking around at my surroundings, I got that feeling.  That suffocating, terrifying feeling that you get (or at least I get) when you're dreaming, and you know you are dreaming, but you can't quite wake up.  The dream doesn't even have to be a bad one.  It's just that idea that you've entered an alternate reality and you know you aren't really supposed to be there, but you can't leave.

That's how I'm feeling about living here these days.

I see endless years stretched out before me of living too far from family and friends.  Endless years of things costing too much and there never.ever being a parking place.  Endless years of traffic and lines.  Ad nauseum.

I have this great friend.  She's funny and honest and she sends the best texts.  She has this blog that I would direct you to, except she never posts on it anymore.

By the way, I don't believe for one minute that she doesn't write anymore, I just think she's like, "Why should I let you all read this great stuff on my blog for free?  I'm gonna write it in private, publish a book, and then make a million dollars."  Anyway, that better be what she's doing.

She also has great perspective.  So I fired this text off to her on Monday afternoon:

I always thought I was motivated by food.  But I keep telling myself that as soon as I get the kitchen cleaned up, I can make chocolate chip cookies.  I've been telling myself this for 2 hours.  And the kitchen is still a disaster!!  

She responds back with this:

It's Facebook.  Time suck.  Might be of the devil.  Possibly the actual anti-Christ.

Remember how I said she was honest?

I honestly don't know how long I sat in front of my computer Monday morning checking and re-checking Facebook, Twitter, and email.  I'm glad there's not some kind of a timer that sends automated texts to my husband--Social Media Addiction Alert:  Your wife has just spent six hours on Facebook.  You might want to stage an intervention or make her get a job.  But suffice it to say that I probably could have washed, dried, and folded several loads of laundry run on the "whitest whites/deep clean with steam" setting.

And I'm like:

Gee.  What makes you think I'm on Facebook too much? :o)

Hmm.  What does clue her in to these things?  Maybe the five status updates in two hours?  Maybe the little green dot next to my name that shows I'm "online, like all the time?"  I used to know how to hide that, but I've forgotten.  Maybe the fact that I like and comment on just about everything everyone posts.

And there's just something about her brutal honesty that makes me feel safe to respond in kind:

Confession:  I spend too much time on Facebook because I am afraid people are going  to forget me and replace me with new friends.  Not that very deep down, I have the emotional maturity of a pre-teen seventh grader.  If I like every single thing you post on Facebook, you may think I'm a crazy stalker, but you sure as heck won't forget me.

I know I need to get a life.  Here in California.  I need to look on the bright side and count my blessings and make lists of all of the great things about this place until I can honestly say that traffic and never being able to find a parking spot.ever is a small price to pay.  I probably do need to get a job or volunteer or do something besides sit in front of my computer all day.

I need to make friends here so I can stalk them and give my poor Kansas ones a well-deserved break.

I certainly need to get off of the computer, clean the kitchen and maybe even make a grocery list.  And then I can finally make those chocolate-chip cookies.

It would be good to have a snack this afternoon in case I get hungry while trying to find a place to park my car at Costco.

Signs of Old Age

Better Half turns forty on Saturday.  I've already been there.  Done that.  Forty-one's arrival gets closer every day.

We will have been married twenty years in September.

And we are ROCKING this old married couple thing, let me tell you.  If there was an Advanced Placement Old Married Couple class, we'd absolutely be in it.

We're in bed by nine almost every night.  We're up by five every morning.  Our ideal "date night" involves sweats, slippers, and old episodes of The West Wing on Netflix.

And we have conversations like this:

Better Half (holding out a pair of socks this morning):  Case, are these black?

Me:  Yep.

Better Half (holding out another pair):  So, what color are these, then?

Me:  Those are also black.

Better Half:  I thought so, but I wasn't sure.

Me:  Yeah, because there are like

Both of us At. The. Exact. Same. Time:  Fifty Shades of Black!

I am trying to decide if I am more disturbed by the fact that we creepy finished each other's thought before we'd even had our first cup of coffee, or by the fact that we used such a pathetic pop culture reference.

When In Rome

Now that I'm rocking this new career of "trophy wife," my biggest morning decisions revolve around whether to do the LA Times Crossword before or after I check the San Diego Zoo PandaCam, and what to wear for my 5 minute appearance out in public every morning when I drop the kids off at school.

I've always been a "When in Rome" kind of girl.

I want to fit in, blend in, look like a native.  My self-esteem is too fragile to buck the current clothing trends and fads.

It is why I have finally traded most of my boot cut jeans (which actually looked half-way decent on me) for "skinny" jeans (which do N.O.T, not, make ANYONE look skinny, by the way), and why I wore empire smocked shirts five years ago when that was a thing, even though they totally made me look like I was pregnant. Since I spent the entire decade of my twenties being pregnant or recovering from it, I swore I'd never voluntarily look that way again.  But women's fashion can be a harsh taskmaster.

So now I live in Southern California.  And in the few short months I've been here, I've learned some stuff. Like how to blend in and look like you've lived here in SoCal suburbia all of your life when you drop your kid off at school.

First step is always to check the weather.

Brrr! Winter.  And WINDY!  

Item 1:  A hat.  Because you lose like a bazillion percent of your body heat out of your head.  And it's kind of a long walk from that parking lot to the school. 

Item 2:  A scarf.  Partly because it keeps your neck warm, but mostly I think because scarves are a thing now.   Apparently you can wear one with anything.  Jacket, long sleeves, short sleeves, bathing suit, whatever you're wearing will look so much better with a scarf.

Item 3:  A jacket or a coat.  Of course.  Because it's winter.  And the wind chill caused by that gale blowing in at 2 mph is breezy for sure!  It's best if your jacket is down-filled with this label on it somewhere.  Totally the best brand for protecting one from these harsh elements.  But you could probably make do with something from Columbia.  As long as you also have a nice-looking scarf!

Item 4:  Boots.  Boots are apparently also a thing and likely have a whole lot to do with the resurrection of my nemesis that is skinny jeans.  I am ashamed to admit that I have worn these things more in the past two months than I did the ENTIRE two years I owned them in Kansas.  

Item 5:  Gloves, for sure.  Or, since wearing them makes using one's touchscreen difficult, it is considered an acceptable alternative to wrap one's hands around a steaming cup of this.

Item 6:  Sunglasses.  Always sunglasses. This one, I actually get. Because 8 am is Too. Early. for eye makeup. Honestly, had I worn these more when I was younger, I might not have that indention between my eyebrows that gives the impression that I am permanently teed off. 

So much for worrying that our winter wear would just sit, unused and taking up precious space out here. 

  

Let's Talk Food

Okay, so Better Half and I are doing Whole30.  

In a nutshell, Whole30 isn't a diet or even a lifestyle change.  It doesn't cost any money, or involve any crazy supplements or replacements that say they're "natural," but were processed in a plant and come in a jar and are wicked expensive.  It's basically eating lean meat proteins, lots of veggies, some fruit, and some healthy fats and oils for 30 days to rewire and repair your digestive system and the hormones that control it.  To "undo" all of the damage that's been done by the way a typical American eats.

Casey's top recommended read from 2013?  It Starts with Food by Dallas and Melissa Hartwig.  Not even kidding.  

This was the first book to explain to me why I can and will eat an entire box of Oreos in one sitting and that the fact that I can and will isn't a character defect.

Anyway, we've been talking about doing this together for a couple of months.  And we landed on January.  We figured..."After the holidays."  "After traveling."  

So we set a date to start--Monday, Jan. 6.

Now the program recommends that you PLAN to start this.  You know...clear ALL of the tempting, bad for you, junk out of your cupboards, and get rid of it.  Plan meals, grocery shop, stock a pantry...

Yeah, right.

Problem #1--I have three teenaged children.  No breakfast cereal in the cabinets for 30 days will equal rebellion and mutiny.  Ditto to no milk in the fridge.

Problem #2--Over break, I bought two bags of FairTrade certified chocolate chips at a college classmate's fair trade store.  With Christmas money.  It's stinking hard to find FairTrade chocolate and it's NOT cheap.  There's NO WAY those were going in the trash.  Or even to the neighbor's house.  I"m not that nice.

Problem #3--Try as I might, preparing for things ahead of time just isn't in my nature.  I do my best work in the 11th hour.  I've been rewarded for procrastination too many times to change my ways now.

This brought us to the morning of Day 1.  

Bleary-eyed, I headed downstairs to see what could possibly be put together for breakfast.  (It is important to note that we returned home from a 15 day vacation on Saturday.  This was the following Monday.  And no one had been to the grocery store.)  

Day 1 Breakfast was not promising.  

Fried eggs and a microwaved bag of frozen mixed veggies.  Not even kidding.  It looked something like this:

Actually, it looked exactly like this, minus the vegetables.  Sadly, the vegetables were even less photogenic than the eggs.

It's no wonder Better Half left for work feeling dubious that we would last a DAY, let alone 30.

Enter my new sister-in-law, Susan.  The state of New York declared her legally part of our family when she and my brother got married this past August.  I claimed her long before that.  Anyhoo...

She and Nathan ALSO decided to Whole30 during the month of January.  But she was rocking it a little bit differently that I was.

Like this:

And this:

And this:

And, well, I'm just a teensy bit competitive.  So after that horrible breakfast, and Susan's Facebook posts, I decided to step up my game. 

I rid my house of anything that was going to tempt me to cheat, (breakfast cereal and boxed macaroni and cheese just aren't a temptation for me, so Better Half and I get to maintain the illusion with our kids that we're in charge for a little bit longer) EXCEPT for those chocolate chips, which I stashed in my deep-freeze.  I have plans for them the MINUTE we're done with our 30 days.  :)

And I made a menu, and a grocery list, and went to the store.  

Mealtimes improved.  

Here's what I learned/noticed from this whole business:

1.  Healthy food won't kill you.  

2.  It tastes really good.  

3.  Even kids will eat it. (A note on feeding kids:  I don't have picky children.  I honestly don't know if this is because we've always had an  "A little or a lot?"... "No worries.  If you don't like the dinner option, perhaps you'll like the breakfast one in the morning," approach to mealtimes, or if I just got lucky.)  But our kids have eaten absolutely everything I've made and declared it "make again" or "Hella good."  (Fun Fact:  "Hella" is some sort of Bay Area expression that means "very" or "a lot." Somehow, it has worked its way into my Southern California son's vocabulary. Which I am "hella" excited about.  Not even.)

4.  There is a reason most of these healthy food epiphanies come out of places like California, Texas, and Florida.  Healthy, fresh, food is CHEAP here.  And accessible.  I can buy two pounds of fresh green beans for $0.99.  A bag of frozen is over $1.00.  My sister-in-law had to do a lot more legwork to find stuff in the winter in Brooklyn.  So unless you live in a place of perpetual spring and summer, know that attempting something like this will be dicey in the winter and much easier in spring and summer.

5.  It's nice to have a partner in crime.  Or several.  If for no other reason than conversations like this:

or so you can send "You SUCK" texts to your brother when he drinks a beer and eats a cheeseburger in front of his wife (Solidarity, Sister!), or so you have someone to call up and say, "Do you think I can substitute toasted almond flour for breadcrumbs and omit the Parmesan in my copycat recipe for Unforked's amazing "Hail the Kale" salad? (Thanks, Amanda!!)

We stayed strong.  All of us.  Or most of us. :o)  Which brings me to...

6.  One of the purposes of this whole things is to "Slay the Sugar Demon"--reset how your body craves those over-the-top, factory-produced, sweets.  Yeah.  This particular part of the program hasn't worked on me.  At. All.  I am certain that I need to hire an Exorcist for my sugar demon.  I would happily eat a plate of brownies right now if my sheer competitiveness and legalism wasn't kicking in to get me to the finish line.

7.  Eating out sucks when doing something like this.  Eating socially at all is dicey.  Better Half and I have been SO lucky.  We've had three house guests during the past 24 days and they have all been FANTASTIC sports about Whole30.  They've eaten everything and even told us it was good (see #1).  I've made more meals at home in one continuous streak than I think I have in my entire. married. life.  I'm kind of proud of that.  And really tired of it.  :)

8.  Except for the Sugar Demon thing (and some things are just bigger than home fixes and require professionals), we have experienced all of the health benefits that were promised.  We sleep better. We have less aches and pains. Our workouts are better.  Slowly, we are starting to crave healthy, good food.  

9.  There is something to this "gluten is really bad for you" thing.  The only intentional "cheating" I've done was to take Communion at church on Sunday.  A communion wafer tinier than the size of my fingernail.  Three hours later, I had an unbelievable headache and felt like I was going to be sick.  Not even kidding.  When I add foods back in to my diet, foods with gluten will not be on the list.

10.  My jeans have more room.  Better Half's jeans have more room.  And our recycling bin has more room.  This is largely due to the fact that egg cartons, (which we now buy in massive numbers) take up way less room than wine bottles.  

Complete honesty here?  Super looking forward to a wine bottle or two in the recycle bin, and a dark chocolate wrapper or two in the trash can come February!

In other and completely unrelated news--

I got my hair trimmed and colored on Tuesday.  Conversation after school.

J:  Wow, Mom!  Your hair looks really good!

Corb:  Oh. You got your hair cut?  I just figured you fixed it differently today.

Me:  Didn't you notice the color difference?

Corb:  Well, yeah.  But I just figured you washed it or something.

Sigh.

Dear J,

 First of all, please let me say that you have the most amazing brothers.  Before you roll your eyes, hear me out.  I know they pick on you, make fun of you, and push your buttons.  I know they frustrate you.  But they have some good qualities, too.  They're smart, funny, and loyal.  And they love you fiercely.  If they ever thought you were hurt or in danger, they'd mobilize quickly.  I already feel sorry for the boy who breaks your heart someday.  I hope he never comes in contact with your brothers.

Having said all of that, your dad and I owe you an apology.  You can save this and take it to your therapist some day as proof that we take full blame for any long-term damage our error in judgment has caused.

I am so sorry that when making our list of "must" and "like to have" things for this house, "pool," and "two living spaces" and "good schools" made the list, but "J having her own bathroom so she doesn't have to share with two teenaged boys" didn't even come up.

That was a grievous error on our part--brought to my attention when I cleaned said bathroom for the first time probably since we moved in four months ago.

Okay--to the reader(s) of this blog who are now feeling a tightening in their throats and are heading toward their nearest bathrooms--calm down.  Take deep breaths.  The bathroom has been cleaned since we've been here.  Many times.  Just not by me.  I don't use it and I have three children whose ages are in the double-digits.  They are more than capable of cleaning a bathroom.

J--I know that you clean it mostly.  You are now one of my heroes.  Occasionally, one of your siblings will.  Most recently, one of your brothers got the job. Last Monday, in fact.  A "reward" for leaving his Starbucks cup next to the sink in there for a week.

But yesterday, I decided to clean it.  I figured, it was just cleaned last Monday.  How bad could it be?

The Universe--or possibly my sons--anticipated that thought and took it as a personal challenge.

I walked in and IMMEDIATELY had to open a window to air out the smell of--well, "feet" would be the nicest body part with which to compare the odor to.

Remember...this thing was cleaned a week ago.  A WEEK.  And I inspected it after it was cleaned.  This travesty occurred in less than seven days' time.

Laundry and dirty towels littered the floor.  The counter was covered with toothpaste tubes, bottles, lotions, hairbrushes, empty toilet paper tubes (still shaking my head over that one, since a trash can sits in PLAIN SIGHT) and stuff I can't  and don't want to identify.

I felt the need for a Silkwood decontamination shower (I know that you are too young to understand the Silkwood reference, dear daughter, but that's one of the beautiful things about the Internet.  Just Google it.  :o) ) after scrubbing out the tub.

And don't even get me STARTED on the toilet.  I'll spare you except to say that I have used Port-a-Potties that were cleaner.  No one should have to say that about a toilet in their own home, let alone use one.  Ever.

Anyway, again. My profound apologies.  I cannot believe that you shower and get ready for school in there every single day.  And I now understand why you ask to use my bathroom on a regular basis.  And the ongoing answer is yes.  Feel free.

If it makes you feel any better, I have two future daughters-in-law who, at this rate, are going to hate me with a seething, red-hot passion.

And the bathroom will be yours, and yours alone in four years.  Which probably seems like a terribly long time to you, but will go by very quickly.

In the meantime, I'll put your dad on the task of keeping better tabs on what it looks like in there.  :o)

I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me,

XOXO,

Mom

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

I stole this idea from my cousin, Jill.

I had every intention of posting here on a regular basis.

Now that we've moved.  Now that I'm not working.  I thought that it would be easy.  But it hasn't been.

I've sat down at this computer lots of times and looked at the blank screen with absolutely no inspiration.

None.

I thought I'd want to blog about the house.  The transition.  I thought I'd want to complain about the loneliness.  The frustrations.  The homesickness.  But I haven't.  Not that I haven't felt all of those things.  I have.

But mostly I've just been taking my kids to school, running errands, doing laundry, picking my kids up from school and running them to activities, fixing meals, helping with homework.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.  It's been a great gig.  And a lovely respite from the last six years.  But it hasn't felt blog-worthy.  Any of it.

But stuff has happened here.  My life is different than it was in August or even October (when I posted last), yet I haven't been able to muster up the creative juices to blog on any of it.

So here's a quick low-down on what's been going on with us.  The good, the bad, and the ugly.

On Moving to Southern California:
The Good--Better half really likes his job.  The entire family likes living near the mountains and the ocean.  The weather is unbelievable.  Baseball can be played year-round.  Kids have found friends and activities.
The Bad--We miss our friends back in Kansas.  It's REALLY far and REALLY expensive to get back there.  Baseball can be played year-round.  :o)  I've loved baseball ever since my boys have been old enough to play it AND know which direction to run the bases.  But I wonder if I like it better when I get to miss it for a few months.
The Ugly--The loneliness.  And I feel loneliest in crowds.  At church.  At meetings.  At baseball games.  Where there are lots of people around and they all know each other, but they don't know me and I don't know them.  My children tell me I am WAY too interested in the personal lives of the morning talk show hosts on our local radio station, and I've got my computer set on the San Diego Zoo Pandacam for company.

On Our New House:
The Good--It's a great house.  Really.  I love that the bedrooms are all upstairs and the kids have their own bathroom.  I love that there is plenty of space for people to come visit (so come visit!).  It's beautifully landscaped.
The Bad--It could use a kitchen remodel.  Corb got a splinter in his foot from the horrible wood floor.  Not even kidding.
The Ugly--Utilities.  I about croaked.  I called the electric company and the water people thinking they'd made a huge mistake.  They laughed at me.

On Public Schools Here:
The Good--THEY. TEACH. WRITING!!!  As in, J just wrote a 3 page argumentative paper on the advantages of school uniforms in public school.  In sixth grade.  N is doing a HUGE paper on a problem in an African country and how to help solve it.  Since this is the first year that they are switching to Common Core, California is not administering most state assessment tests this year.  The teachers.  My kids have really good teachers.  I pretty much like them all.
The Bad--No money.  These schools constantly tell everyone that they have no money.  This is very likely true, as the state of California has no money.  Every school here thinks that you only have one child and that one child goes to their school.  So the Middle School thinks nothing of having an early morning practice that will render it impossible to get your High Schooler to school on time without Hermione Granger's Time Turner.
The Ugly--"donations."  Every extra-curricular activity and many curricular ones require "donations."  I know.  Those two words--require and donation--don't really go together.  But they do here.  I just love seeing on mass email reminders that "donations" for band ($150 for a year) or baseball ($175) for 5 games are "past due."  Cracks me up.  When it doesn't make me see red.  Entitlement is another "ugly" here.  The things that kids think they need, or worse, that their parents think they need.  I think that will be a constant battle to fight.

On Being a Stay at Home Mom:
The Good--I love feeling like I have time for my kids.  I'm not rushing to get them/take them/watch them so that I can cross something off of my list and move on to the next thing.
The Bad--I'm sure I'm not getting as much done around the house as I should be. I waste lots of time.
The Ugly--Most things are a lot more expensive here.

On Company:
The Good--People actually come visit us!  Our good friends two hours north have come several times.  They EVEN spent Thanksgiving with us.  Mik has been out.  Julie and Soph came.  My sister was here just last week, and we're supposed to have some visitors this weekend.  I love having people here.
The Bad--They leave.  And it always seems like the time they're here goes by way too fast!
The Ugly--Me, with tears pouring down my face in the airport parking lot after they leave.

On Marathon Training:
The Good--You couldn't ask for a better place to run.  The weather is almost always perfect.  It's got great hills.
The Bad--Surprisingly, it's been kind of hard to find time to fit it in.  That, plus minor injuries.
The Ugly--I'm worried that I'm severely behind and March 9 is either going to be the worst day of my life or my last or possibly both.

On Doing Whole30 With Better Half:
The Good--The food.  The food is normally really good.  Everything I've made, the kids and Better Half have requested I make again.  I feel better.  I don't have headaches in the morning.  I'm sleeping better.  And we're over half-way done! :o)
The Bad--Except for three times, I have cooked Every. Single. Meal. we've eaten since the morning of Jan. 6.  I'm not sure when the last time was that I've cooked so regularly.  Maybe never.  I've discovered that I don't like to cook all that much.  And I despise clean up.  So I've resorted to eating bizarre things.  My post-workout "meal" today was tuna fish out of a can and pumpkin out of a can.
The Ugly--The jar of no-bake cookies sitting on the counter that J made yesterday.

So that's it.  What we've been up to over the last few months.  Hopefully we will have something super-interesting or highly entertaining to write about very soon!

ARggh!

Okay.

 So I have a child who doesn't hate to read, but she's not as addicted to the printed word as I am.

She is, however, REALLY PICKY about what she wants to read.

Enter the AR (Accelerated Reader) program.

If you aren't familiar with the AR program, here's a brief synopsis off of their EIGHT PAGE parent guide that pretty much says it all--
AR is a computer program that helps teachers and librarians manage and monitor children’s independent reading practice. 

So the way this works is, my kid took some test to determine the AR level of books she is capable of reading. She has to choose books at that level, and then take tests over them.  The longer or harder the book, the more points the kid gets for passing the tests.

Let me interject here.  Teachers and schools LOVE AR.  Hey.  I'm a teacher.  I can understand why.  The computer and the child does all of the work.  All a teacher has to do is assign a certain number of AR points to be earned by a certain date and make it part of the kid's grade.  Easy.  Peasy.  Kids are reading. At their level.  Reading comprehension is getting checked (sort of).  Teacher is free to do other things.  Like teach Common Core (don't EVEN get me started).

Back to my very picky reader.

We were in Costco yesterday.  (This always means a trip down the book aisle.  Even if I was just there the day before.)  And my daughter found a book she wanted to read.

I'm not proud of what happened next.

Instead of telling her how excited I was that she found a book she was looking forward to enjoying, I pulled out my phone and plugged the title into the AR bookfinder.  Yep.  I suck.

Well, so does AR, because apparently the book she was so interested in reading isn't AR approved.

And it gets worse.  I hesitated.  Hesitated, Dear Reader.  Apparently she needs 23 or something AR points by Halloween.  She has 10.  I considered not buying her a book she wants to read, because there are books that she NEEDS to read so she can get points for her GRADE.

She's eleven.  Eleven.

I totally get a book list in Jr. High.  Or High School.  We should not graduate students who haven't been exposed to Shakespeare, or Mark Twain, or Ancient Greek epic poetry.

I even understand book lists for "Accelerated Readers."

My older son LOVED AR, by the way.  But he was a voracious reader anyway.  He tests well.  And there was a contest at school.  He's a wee bit competitive.  AND his teacher gave him two-liters of Mountain Dew for getting AR points.  (Yeah.  Don't get me started on that one, either.)

My daughter is an average reader right now.  This is okay with me. She reads on grade level.  She occasionally picks up a book and reads for pleasure.  But right now, it's not her #1 favorite thing to do.  I firmly believe that if we continue to encourage reading and find ways to be delighted by books, she will eventually catch the reading bug.

Luckily, I got my head back in the game.  I put the book in the cart.  I put my worry about my daughter's grade in Language Arts aside.  And I reminded myself that my approach is going to go much further toward creating a lifelong love of reading than AR EVER can.

Stupid AR.

Author's note:  BOTH of my kids told me point blank that they regularly take tests over books they read years ago, or that we listened to on tape, or that I read to them.

Fabulous.

I guess I need to ramp up the lessons on honesty and integrity while promoting a lifetime love of reading.