Welcome to the New Normal!


Hello from a safe distance!  It has been some time since I have posted anything here.  In fact it's been 2 years!  My last post was about my sons 14th birthday.  He just turned 16 last week!  So where have I been?  Truth be told, I have been having 2 very difficult years.  Frankly, I didn't have a whole lot of funny, happy material to write about.  Sometimes life is hard and our stories are not ours to tell. 

There have been some technical issues as well.  My laptop, and only computer, has a couple broken keys on its keyboard.  Namely the left Shift key and the backspace key.  Try typing without those! Aside from the space-bar they  are probably the 2 most commonly used keys on the whole keyboard.  I have recently upgraded to a regular keyboard that I have plugged into my laptop.  All the letters have worn off many of the keys, so I kinda have to guess what I'm typing, an oh yeah, it's missing THE FRICKIN SPACE-BAR, but hey, still an upgrade.  And it was free. 

It's not like I can just whip over to Best Buy and get this fixed. Anyway, thanks to numerous prompts from my throngs of fans (that's you friends and family), I am back at the keyboard, such as it is.

Like so many of you I am housebound at present and off of work, and while financial pressures mount and fears rise over contracting Coronavirus, I am trying to maintain a positive head space.  Here are a few things I have been doing to keep my spirits up::::;;;;;;;  (LOL!  Looks like to colon/semi colon key is all crusty and sticking!)

Spirits.  That's right, good ol' booze.  Have some fun in your liquor cabinet!  Don't just grab a beer.  Root around in the fridge and create a new, signature quarantine cocktail. 

Presenting . . . 

Crazy Michy's signature Quaren-cocktail!

I had to dig deep for this one.  The juice of the 2 last withering oranges in my fridge, the last of my emergency box of white wine, and a large spoonful of canned cranberry sauce that I bought 5 years ago for Christmas dinner but never used, garnished with a real frozen cranberry from a bag of fossilized cranberries I bought 3 years ago to make homemade cranberry sauce, but also never used.

I will try this later and let you know how it turned out.  It's bit early in the day yet!

Secondly, I am trying to make sure that I get dressed in real clothes every day.  I might not get out of bed until noon, but when I do I throw on jeans and a t-shirt. No makeup.  I'm not crazy! However, now is a great time to focus on proper skincare.  Same for hair care.  There is really no need to get out the heat styling tools.  Messy bun here I come!  I am actually laughing out loud right now at the thought of my messy bun.  Here are some imaged that spring to mind when the average girl puts her hair up in a messy bun:

This is literally all the hair on my head, in a messy bun.

It's not much of a bun, but it sure is a mess!

Thirdly, Michy's got hobbies. Yes, they are old ladies hobbies, but they keep me busy, and productive.  Ever wanted to learn to knit? Play an instrument? Paint?  Now's the time.  YouTube has tutorial videos for everything.  Want a tutorial video about how to make a tutorial video?  They've got one. Now that-the weather is warming up there is no reason not to get that yard in shape.  I think it is especially beneficial to get kids and teenagers in the hobby game.  Video games, tv and digital devices are NOT hobbies.  Hobbies involve creating and working with your hands.  There should be something to show at the end of all your work. Feeling productive is always a good feeling.

Staying in contact with people.  Not texting and posting.  Really telephone or video call people. Being seen and heard is so much more fulfilling than texting and posting.  Having a real conversation with a real person can be a life saver, literally, for some people, and yet so few people reach out and pick up the phone.  I probably spend 2 hours a day talking to people on the phone or on video chat.  My favorite app right now is HouseParty.  It's a video party where people can join up and chat and play games and just have a good time interacting with real people.  Just remember to put on clothes!

Get outside!  A walk a day keeps the depression  away.  Get outside and get your vitamin D.  Just make sure to give passersby a wide berth.  They could be disease ridden death bombs just waiting for a chance to sneeze on you.

So there you have it.  Just a few of the ways I am trying to stay positive during this very difficult time.  I would love to see your messy buns and Quaren-cocktails!

Until next time, peace out!

Michy

Alex's Birth Story

My baby turned 14 this past week.  I cannot believe it.  It feels like just yesterday that he was running around the house in his socks and underwear, grinning like a little fool.  Oh, wait.  That was yesterday.  I guess some things never change.

Last summer I marked Will's birthday by sharing his birth story, so I feel it is only fair to do the same for his big brother.  Alex was my first child.  I had no idea what I was getting into.  You think you're all prepared, and you've got a plan all worked out.  Ha!  We did all our pre-natal classes like good little parents to be.  I had taken all my vitamins and eaten not too horribly.  We even had a birth plan.  All of this was for naught.  When the big event finally arrived we used nothing that we learned in our pre-natal classes, and our birth plan went right out the window somewhere around the 800th hour of labor.

It was a lovely day in early April of 2004 when my husband and I went into the OB's office for an ultrasound.  Our little bundle of joy was overdue and the doctor wanted to check and make sure he was ok.  Everything looked good, but she said she thought he might be a bit small, and she wanted to get him out sooner rather than later.  She looked at us and said, "So, you wanna have a baby today"?

We were not expecting this, but heck yeah we wanted to have a baby today!  Shortly thereafter we reported to the labor and delivery ward so I could be induced.  Without going into too much detail, they began the 'inducement procedure'.  Then I was tucked into a bed and we waited.  And waited.  And waited.

And waited.

I swear I didn't feel even the tiniest contraction until about noon the next day!  I was really excited when I started to feel them.  Sharp little cramps that lasted a couple of seconds.  Progress!  That excitement disappeared very quickly.  By dinnertime I was in agony.

Now, in my birth plan (ha!), I had said I did not want an epidural.  I have a thing about getting needles in my spine.  No siree that was not for me.  Drugs though?  Yes please!  The nurses brought me all kinds of pain killing goodies all of which did jack squat to relive my pain.  I recall being in bed on my hands and knees, with my ass in the air and my face buried in a pillow, trying to stretch out and relive some of the pain in my back, when a shift change occurred and a new doctor came in to introduce himself.  I looked back at him and said "Hi. I'm Michelle, and this is my butt".  I was in labor for so long I think we went through 3 shift changes.

Now, in prenatal classes there are a lot of things that are mentioned, but not in great depth.  A shining example of this is the 'mucus plug'.  Yes, I remember them mentioning it. They said that one of the steps of the labor process was losing your mucus plug.  What I do not remember is anyone telling me that at some point in the labor and delivery process a hundred and fifty gallons of disgusting, slimy, crotch loogie was going to come oozing out of my body.  If you think it sounds disgusting, you should have lived it!!

At this point I had been in labor for a very long time.  I was sweaty and gross and greasy and slimy.  I looked like absolute crap.  Lucky for me our room at the hospital had a Jacuzzi bath tub.  I decided to climb in to see if it would help relive some of my pain. It didn't.  I was soon back in bed.  Things just were not moving along and so one of the doctors decided to break my water.  Yes that hadn't happened yet.   I was really looking forward to the big ker-woosh.  I was retaining so much water I thought I'd create a tidal wave when my water finally broke.  I was looking forward to trying for a record.  A nurse arrived with a special pokey stick and, just like everything else in the hospital, shoved it up my wazoo.  No ker-woosh. 

"Whats  going on"? I asked.

"Oh", she said," Your water has already broken".

What??!!!!  Apparnetly my water has broken during a particulary painful contration in the jacuzzi and I never even noticed.  To this day I feel I was robbed.  When Alex finally made his grand entry into the world he had a tiny red dot on the top of his head from where the nurse had poked him.

Somewhere around 9pm on the second night, I gave up on the narcotics.  They didn't work at all and they were making me nauseous.  I finally agreed to get an epidural.  I had been terrified of this procedure.  I was panicking the whole time the anesthesiologist was prepping for the task.  I braced myself to feel the hot sting of a humongous needed entering my spine, when the anesthesiologist stood up and said, "all done".  I felt like the biggest ass.  I had suffered for hours for nothing.

Another thing they don't teach you in prenatal classes, there is no dignity in giving birth.  None.  Honestly, by this point in my pregnancy I had been poked and prodded and swabbed and stuck so many times, it had just become part of the routine. By 9:30 that night I was feeling smooth, watching my contractions on the monitors instead of feeling them, trying to catch a little nap, thinking the worst was over when in comes the doctor followed by like seven medical students. 

"Hi Mrs. Lambert", he says.  "As you know this is a teaching hospital and these are our medical students. Would you mind if they all practiced checking your cervix"?

Well, at this point I was absolutely blissed out on narcotics and an epidural and like, every other person in the hospital had seen my snapper anyway, so hey, why not.  Join the party.  Seriously, I think even the janitor gotta peek.

Somewhere around the middle of the night it was time to push.  I pushed a lot.  Unfortunately it didn't really do anything and the residual pain drugs in my system caused me to puke after each push.  The push/puke cycle went on for a long time apparently.  To me it felt like maybe I'd been pushing for half an hour.  My husband tells me it was much, much longer than that.  Poor Alex just couldn't get his head out of my super tight vagina.  (Yeah you heard me).

After some time of pushing and puking I started to get a really bad pain in my hip.  I have no idea why.  I think Alex's head my have been squishing a nerve somewhere.  The epidural did nothing to ease this new pain and it was excruciating.  Now I was freaking out.  After what felt like two hours, but was probably twenty minutes the doctors decided to perform a c-section. The entire way to the OR I was wailing in pain.  My poor husband must have been freaking out, but I was a little too busy to pay him much attention.  In the OR a new anesthesiologist gave me a spinal and all the pain just vanished.  It was glorious.

The doctors decided they wanted me to try and push one more time before they started. I pushed.  Hard.  And then I puked all over about a hundred thousand dollars worth of sophisticated medical equipment and they gave up.

I had a very interesting reaction to the spinal.  It turned me into an absolute blabber mouth.  The minute I was pain free I could not shut up.  I was a jabbering fool.  I started off profusely apologizing for barfing all over their nice operating room, then I chatted up the anesthesiologist and the nurse and my husband who looked super cute in his hospital scrubs, and sometime during all that chattering I noticed a funny smell.

Sniff, sniff.  "Does anyone smell that"?
The doctor and the nurse, who were on either side of me, looked at me.
Sniff, sniff.  "Smells like something's burning".
I was worried that maybe my barf had caused a piece of equipment to short out and we were gonna have a fire in the operating room.
The doctor and nurse looked at each other, and then back at me, and I could tell they were struggling with what to say.  They looked extremely uncomfortable with my question.  Then it hit me.  I was so numb, I hadn't realized they had begun the actual operation.  The smell was actually my burning flesh as they cauterized the incision they had just made.  Oopsies!
"Ohhhhhh", I said.  "It's me that's burning! Oh.  Sorry.  Continue".  And they did.

5 minutes and a bunch of yanking later and they held up the most adorable little baby I had ever seen.  I just soaked him in.  He was little and pink and slimy and I said, "Huh.  So that's what you look like".

And then he was ours.  You think you're ready to be a mom.  You've done all the classes, you've decorated the room and baby proofed the house and you've got six years worth of baby clothes in the closet, but when they hand you your actual, real, live, squiggly, squishy baby, you realize just how unprepared you are.  Seems we figured it out though.  Our boy has changed so much in 14 years.  He's got muscles and hair and his voice, oh my God his voice is so low!  But other things never change.  He still wants to be picked up, (in the car that is).  He still loves footsie pajamas and he still loves bubble baths.  And most importantly, he still loves his mommy.

Happy Birthday Alex!!

Peace out!

Michy

What's My Age Again?

Ah youth!  That fleeting time when we all work our hardest to shine our brightest.  When we're full of energy and pep, before the piss and vinegar seeps in.

Our lives follow a pretty standard line as we age.  We start as babies, completely dependent on our parents for food, clothing, shelter and love. 

Then we become little children. We still rely on our parents for food, clothing, shelter and love, but start hating any food our parents present us with that doesn’t end with ‘nuggets’. 

Then we become pre-teens.  We still rely on our parents for food, clothing, shelter and love, but the food they give us is ‘crap’ and "if you think I'm wearing that, you can forget it"! 

Then we become teenagers. We still rely on our parents for food, clothing, shelter and love but, "I’m not eating that” and “Screw this. I'll just buy my own clothes! and I hate you mom!  You're ruining my life”! 

To, finally, adulthood when we move out of our parents warm, clean house and into some crappy apartment that we can barely afford, with some roommates we can't stand and live off Mr. Noodles and KD and dive for bargains on clothes at the Goodwill ‘cause we can't afford shit and never appreciated how good we had it.

Ah growing up!  Such a journey!

There are a few important milestones on this journey to adulthood.  Getting your drivers license, going to college and of course, reaching the legal drinking age.  For some odd reason, when you are in the 19-30 age span, not being recognized as being of legal age is seen as a gross insult. 

“OMG!  Do I look under 19 to you! This is unbelievable”!  

Then suddenly, after age 30 or so, when someone asks to see your id it’s all, 

“OMG!  Do I look under 19 to you! This is unbelievable”! 

The oldest I was asked for id, (so far), was at age 41.  I was at the liquor store trying to by a little sumthin’sumthin’ on Christmas Eve.  The cashier, a rather unhappy women in her 50’s, requested my id.  Well hot diggity!  Yes you can see my id!  I pulled out my wallet, but God help me I could not extract my drivers licence from the little plastic window.  As I wrestled with my id a long line started forming behind me.  It was Christmas Eve after all.  

I looked at her a little distressed and said, “It just won’t come out.  Can’t you just look at it through the plastic window"?  Apparently not.  After about 5 minutes of struggling under the glare of my fellow shoppers my husband finally came wondering up to ask what was taking so long.  The cashier took one look at him and started to think she may have made a mistake.  It’s not like he looks ancient or anything, but he definitely looks over 19!  Despite the husband, the wedding ring and the tattoos I have, she still proceeded to jam her finger into my wallets id holder and molest my card.  I have no idea what she was trying to feel for, but eventually she started to ring up my wine.  

I asked her, “Are you checking everybody today”?  

"No" she said, that would take all day.

“Ya hear that honey”, I said elbowing him in the ribs, “They’re not checking everyone's id today”.  

Proof positive I am aging well, at least on the outside.  Truth be told if I ever lose the extra 70 pounds I’m carrying around with me, my face is gonna deflate and I’ll look like a Shar Pei puppy.  It’s nice to know there’s one benefit to being overweight!

Time marches on. We find jobs, meet someone special, start our own families and just when we’re hitting our stride and things are coming together we realize that we are middle aged.  Our children are teenagers. We have paunches and high blood pressure.  We need mammograms and colonoscopies.  We have to watch our cholesterol and get reading glasses.  Egad! When did this happen!  Watching my son play hockey now is taking my life into my own hands.  I can’t get too excited.  I’m entering my heart attack years!

And whereas it is incredible to be mistaken for 18 when your 41, being mistaken for 42 when you’re 41 is like a nail in your coffin and you hear every, single hit of the hammer. 

A friend of mine recently shared that she was asked if she was her 13-year-old son’s grandmother.  GRANDMOTHER!!!  I can sympathize.

Exhibit A

I was 38 years old working at an office here in Ottawa.  During a group lunch a bunch of us on staff were sitting around the conference table eating and gabbing, and the topic of conversation turned to movies and music.  Turned out my boss and I had very similar likes when it came to movies from the 90’s.  She turned to me and asked, “How old are you anyway”?

“38” I replied.

“Oh my God”! she says, “Really?  I never knew you were that young!”.

Mouths were gaping around the table. So, she was like 40, so if she thought I was older than her, just how old did she think I was!

“Uh, come again”?

Well, it’s just that your children are so much older than mine.  You must have had them when you were really young”.

“Wha . . . we . . .wa . . . I was a married woman”!  I sputtered out indignantly. 

Fortunately other people around the table quickly veered the conversation in another direction, but that was the first time I was ever mistaken for being older than I am.  I'm not gonna lie, it stung a bit.

It wouldn’t be the last though. 

Exhibit B

I was asked for id at a Target store in the US trying to purchase some booze.  I posted about the request on Facebook.  “Ha! Got id’ at Target today”!  One of my 'friends' asked, “Was it for the senior's discount”?  Hilarious.

Exhibit C

My husband and I were out last year with my best friend and her boyfriend.  We had a great dinner and were looking forward to a great night at the comedy club my friends boyfriend owns, but it turns out the joke was on me.  Just to be clear, I was looking fabulous that night. It was date night after all. At the end of the evening the 19ish year old waitress came over to give us our bills.  She started chatting up my friend,

“Oh my Gosh!  How are you?!”  Cue the hair flipping.

“I’m good!  How are you”? Flip, flip.

“Oh my God, I’m great”! Flip, flip. “Did you enjoy the show”? Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip.

“Yeah, it was great” Flip.

“So, who is this?” she asked, flipping her hair at me and my husband.  “Is this your parents”? 

Ma and Pa Lambert?

I remember thinking, “she didn’t just say ‘parents’".  I must have misheard. But as I looked over at my bestie, and saw her mouth gaping open in shock, I knew I must have heard correctly.

This dumb ass waitress thought I was my best friend’s mother.  Her Mother!!  I wish I could convey in writing the shrill hysterics I felt.  We are the same age.  I am exactly one week older than her.  I wanted to grab that waitress by her long flippy hair and choke her with it!  And we had already tipped her!

So, there you have it.  It happens to the best of us.  Age creeps up when we’re not looking and one day we turn around too quickly, and she bitch slaps us in the face. All we can do is keep on keepin' on.  And moisturize.  

Peace out!

Michy

Total Humiliation. Period.

If you have been reading this blog for a while you will know that I exhibit a stunning ability to publicly embarrass myself.  I can strike at any time, in front of any person.  It could be the pastor at church, the guy pumping the septic tank, my kid’s teacher, it doesn’t matter.  Every meeting is an opportunity for disaster.  There’s only one group of people, with whom I have never had to worry about embarrassing myself.  My children.

My two sons, aged 13 and 11 have seen me at my worst since the day they were born.  Bloated, pimply, bra-less, with my hair spazzing all over the place, they've walked in on me in the bathroom, seen me burp and fart.  They’re used to it.  They don’t bat an eye.  If any other person saw me like that I’d die, but with them?  Meh, whatever. 

I really thought they were a safe haven for my pride. That I could not possibly face embarrassment in front of them.  I was so wrong. 

A little background if you please.  We live in the country.  We are not attached to municipal services and have our own septic system.  In a previous humiliating incident, (please see The Great Septic System Debacle posted on November 23, 2015), I was schooled in all of the things that can and cannot be flushed down into my delicate septic system by the very handsome Septic Steve.

"I'm here to service your system Mrs. Lambert"

Number one among the non-flushables are tampons.  They cause serious problems with the system, clogging it up and throwing everything out of whack.

In an effort to avoid any further humiliation in front of Septic Steve, I have treated that system like a newborn babe.  Nothing goes down the toilet that isn’t on the strict, pre-approved list.  This has been a good policy.  The system has been humming along with no issues for two and a half years now. 

This dedication to proper septic maintenance has however created a new sub-genre of problems, the most pressing being how to deal with the non-flushables particularly the aforementioned tampons.

FYI

Now normally this would be a non-issue.  You throw yucky things into the garbage can and go about your day.  We have a trash can in our bathroom with a swing-top lid that does the job nicely.  Throw two dogs into the mix though and we suddenly require a more foolproof plan. 

 Devil Dog                        Demon Spawn

In an effort to keep my pups from foraging for goodies in the bathroom trash I keep the door closed, especially if we are going out and nobody will be home to keep the little fur demons in check.  Apparently though, no one else in the house is aware of this common-sense action as a few times I have come home to find used tissues and toilet paper rolls chewed up all over the floor.

Thus was the case this week, when we returned home from a family outing to the movies.  The boys ran into the house ahead of me, and I had just barely gotten my boots off when I heard, “Hey Mom!  The dogs dragged your tampons all over the floor.  It’s really gross!”

Oh. My. Gad. 

I bolted up the stairs to find, all over the kitchen, living room and dining room floor, about 20 disgusting, USED tampons in varying states of being gnawed on by my dogs.  My face turned the crimson red of, well, you know.  My two boys stood there with their arms crossed over their chests, shaking their heads at me like this was my fault.  Like they had to suffer this disgusting and dirty indignation because of me.  My husband yelled up from the basement, “You’re gross!  Isn’t Mom gross?"  Thanks for the support dear. 

I was mortified.  These are my children!  Boys no less!  Of course they know about girls and periods and stuff.  They learn about it in school and I have explained it all to them as well. But I mean really, they don’t need to see it with their own eyes!  I ran around in a panic yelling, “Don’t look, don’t look", while trying to pick them all up as if that would somehow preserve their innocence.

Now, I come from a softer generation.  When I was a teenager, we did not discuss our periods outside of the hushed confines of the school change room.  The mere idea that a clean, wrapped rouge tampon or pad might fall out of your school bag in front of a boy was an incomprehensible horror to which the only reasonable response would be to cut your hair, change your name and move to another province.

I didn’t even buy my own period products until I was living on my own in college.  My mom bought them.  They just regularly showed up in the bathroom cupboard.

When I was in 8^th grade, one of my classmates asked a couple of us gals to accompany her off school grounds so she could go to the drugstore over the lunch hour.  We were half way there when she told us she needed to buy tampons.  The rest of the girls and I just about died. 

“No way!”

“You’re gonna buy what!?”

 “I would never!”

We lived in a very small town.  In my mind going into the tiny drugstore and buying tampons was akin to taking out an add in the county newspaper and announcing to everyone that you had you period!

She looked at us like we were a bunch of weirdos and replied, “Well, if you’re not gonna buy them who will?"  

In my mind I was thinking, “My Mom duh”.  We all watched wide eyed as she took a box of Tampax up to the counter, handed them to the teenage boy behind the till and paid for them.  The rest of us stood there in awe of her courage and bravery.  Stacey, wherever you are, you were an inspiration!

Now whereas periods were a no-go subject when I was a teen, nowadays, at least among the girls my sons know, periods are no big deal.  And this is not a bad thing.  It shouldn’t be a big deal.  But I was still more than a little taken back when my son, then in the sixth grade, asked me one day if I knew what Shark Week was.

“Yes” I said. “It’s a week of shark documentaries that they show on the Discovery Channel.  Your Dad and I watch it every year”.  Duh.

“No Mom”, he says grinning, “Shark Week.”, (in finger quotes), wink, wink.

Oh my God.  I was incredulous! “Is that what the girls are calling their period now!!!??"  He laughed and said, “yeah”.

Now, my brain split in two here.  Part of me was thinking, “Oh my God that is brilliant!”  The other half was thinking, “Oh my God!!  The girls in your class talk to you about their periods!!"  I just couldn’t fathom it.

So, even though it wasn’t my fault, and periods are nothing to be ashamed of and perfectly natural, and the fact that my boys seemed pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, I was doubly horrified when about 10 minutes after the initial discovery my son yelled out, “Mom!  You missed one! It’s on the couch!”  Juh-hay-zus.

A couple of days passed and I was still smarting a bit from the embarrassment but had for the most part managed to blot the incident from my brain.  I was sitting on the sofa reading a book, thinking, this will all soon be a distant memory.  I‘m sure everyone else has already forgotten.  I had just taken a sip of tea when my youngest pipes up very nonchalantly,

“Oh, by the way Mom, the dog ate one of your dirty tampons and pooped it out in the driveway”.

Cue the spit take.  “Whhaaaaaattttt?”

“Yeah, Alex and I found it while we were playing basketball.  We called it, (wait for it), a Tampoop”.

I stared at him gape jawed for 15 full seconds before I burst out laughing so hard I thought I would explode.  God I love my kids.  Only they could make me appreciate the absolute absurdity of this situation. 

So, the takeaway here is that a) I no longer have any pride whatsoever, b) periods are normal and nothing to be embarrassed about for either boys or girls and c) all sweet, loving dogs have an inner demon inside who likes to lay bare your most private bits and shit them out in the driveway for all to see.

 Let me know in the comments if your dog has every caused you such egregious embarrassment and remember, at least this didn't happen to you!

Peace out!

Michy 

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!!

Hey Crazy Michy Readers.  Welcome to 2018!  January 1st is a fresh start for many.  I generally give myself two official fresh starts each year.  January 1st, and whatever day in September the first day of school lands on.  Then there's the monthly fresh start where I deep clean my house and promise myself that it will stay clean this time.  Then there is the bi-weekly fresh start, where I re-start my healthy eating plan because I've binged on ice cream and McDonald's again.  And finally there is my daily fresh start, where I remind myself that yesterdays crappy day is but a memory and today, well, today will be different.

You know what the benefit of so many fresh starts is?  It means I never need to dwell on the past.  Did I let my healthy eating slide yesterday?  No matter, today is a new day.  Did I lose my shit yesterday, scream at my kids and send them to school with cookies and a cheese stick for lunch?  C'est la vie.  Today is a fresh new day.  Did I upload a blog post where I misspelled yesterday, 'yeasterday' twenty two times?  Not yet.  But if I do, there's always tomorrow.

2017 was a pretty good year.  I made some new friends, took an actual vacation and started writing a lot more.  While I haven't dropped that extra 70 pounds I'm dragging around, I did learn a lot more about what I can apply to my everyday life to help me with that goal.

I got to see my kids grow up another year.  Oh my gad it is ridiculous how fast they grow!!  My thirteen year old decided to lace up his skates and join a hockey team for the first time.  This is a pretty big deal around these parts.  All the kids on his team have been playing since they were toddlers.  Age 8 is deemed really late to start playing.  He was determined though, and with the support of a great team and coaches he has just blossomed.  Ok.  I know he won't like me using the word 'blossomed', because he's a thirteen year old boy, but I can't think of a better word!  I am so proud of him, I get teary eyed just thinking about it!

My eleven year old has added tap and ballet to his dance resume.  I am so proud of the fact that he is pursuing his love of dance without worrying about what other kids will think.  He really doesn't care.  It's beautiful.  He has an amazing crew of other boys that he dances with and they all give each other the support and push they need to succeed at what they love.  I cannot wait for his 2018 competition season to start so I can scream myself hoarse cheering for him!

My husband and some friends started a new company together in 2017.  I am confident that they will make a success of it.  I would love to see 2018 be the year they blow up, (in a good way)!  And not just because I don't want to end up living in my camper, but because when my husband gets excited about successes at work, he has the most amazing, huge smile, and I'd love to see that!

So, 2018.  What's on the agenda?  I have made a few new years resolutions;

1.  Start cooking more meals at home.

My family has a staggering dining out bill.  In a month it can vary between $800.00 and $1000.00.  That is INSANE!!  Nowadays it costs $100.00 or more for a family of four to eat at a sit down restaurant and over $40.00 for drive through fast food.  This has to stop.  I need to cook at home more.  That means I have to make sure I have a plan and the proper groceries.  And, an emergency box of KD on hand for when Dad has to cook the kids dinner.  A 99 cent box of KD is better than $40.00 worth of McDonald's any day. 

2.  Get out and enjoy winter.

I tend to hibernate during the winter season.  My favorite winter activity involves my fireplace, some wine and a good book.  This is not likely to change, however, I am open to the possibility that winter isn't all that bad.  A sunny winter day is actually lovely.  No, this does not mean I'm going to take up down hill skiing, (see my first ever blog post for reasons), or swooshy jogging, (also know as cross country skiing), or bobsledding, (no one wants to see me in one of those suits). 

I find the act of chopping firewood on a winter day, both relaxing and invigorating.  A walk with my dogs on a sunny winter day is really nice.  I love breathing in the scent of cold, fresh air and wood smoke.  I might even lace up my skates and hit the rink with my boys.  That's a little more my speed.  The key here is to enjoy winter, and not consider it a burden that I must endure for 5 months of the year.

3.  Write more.

I want to carve out time to write, both my blog and a novel I'm working on.  I need a set amount of time every week dedicated solely to this task.  Life gets in the way so easily.  Right now, my brain keeps interrupting me with nagging thoughts about all the other things I should be doing.  Shut up brain!  Writing is a wonderful creative outlet.  I absolutely love doing it and I am determined to make it a higher priority.

4. Improve my flexibility.

Not to brag, but I used to be quite limber.  Not anymore.  Now I can barely touch my toes.  This is gonna change.  Lucky me I have a very flexible dancer in the house.  My goal is to spend 20 minutes a day stretching out the kinks with the help of my son.  Hopefully this will help reduce a lot of my general stiffness and soreness. 

5.  Be more mindful.

I want to slow down, be more aware and be more present.  Remember my busy brain, yeah, it can shut the hell up for a while.  I want to train my brain to focus on enjoying the here and now and not to stray to worrying about the future, or all the other little things that need to be taken care of.  This is not an easy task.  Our brains are very vocal little nuisances. But a little time each day spent actively focusing on the present and mentally telling your brain to shut up, will help train your brain to be more focused and settled.  Now doesn't that sound nice?

So, I think that's enough, don't you?  I'm not gonna scale Everest or swim the Ganges, I'm just gonna work on being a happier, healthier, more bendy version of me.

Let me know what changes or goals you have for the new year in the comments section. and please feel free to share this post with your friends!

Peace out,

Michy

Zippy

Ain't she purdy!

Zippy is my car.  I do not believe in cars with no names.  They are like people with no souls.  It's weird.  A car with no name is incomplete, like a cake with no frosting.  Also, cars and trucks, are feminine.  You cannot name an automobile Frank, or Eugene.  It's just not right.  I say this despite having dubbed our old minivan 'Van Wilder'.  That name never did sit quite right with me.

Zippy is a salsa red 2014 Chevy Sonic.  She is named Zippy because she is the perfect car for me to zip around town in.  Driving her is a pleasure!  She has good giddy-up and go and she can fit into even the smallest of parking spaces.  Whereas my husband has to circle a parking lot 5 times to find a double space big enough to park his enormous Silverado, I can squeeze into even cramped spaces with room to spare.

I have yet to find anything that I cannot fit into my car.  The largest load she carried was two ninety six gallon rolling trash cans.  If my writing career doesn't take off, I know I'll have plenty of space if I need to live in my car!

Believe it or not, there was a time when I almost didn't choose Zippy.  I simply could not get over her one terrible flaw.  Yes!  She does have one.  I remember my husband and the dealer trying to talk me into Zippy, extolling all her amazing features, her terrific fuel economy, her back up camera, her safety features and especially her large video screen and high tech computer system.  Talk about barking up the wrong tree with that one!  Now, I'm a simple gal.  I don't need a lot of bells and whistles, but I just could not get past Zippy's most aggravating design flaw.  The cup holder is in an absolutely shit position.

Seriously??

I'm short.  Very short.  Like 5'1".  I have to pull the drivers seat forward all the way, just so I can reach the pedals.    In Zippy, the cup holders are in the back of the center console, not the front.  This means that when I am driving, the cup holder is behind me.  Right behind my right hip.  Just imagine trying to drive and having to contort your arm and elbow every time you want a sip of tea and then trying to return your cup to the cup holder by feel, because you don't want to take your eyes off the road for the sake of a sip of tea and accidentally crash the car and kill your whole family!  Chevy, if you're reading this, I noticed that the latest model of Sonic still has the cup holders in this crappy position!

I thought this issue was so annoying that I was totally gonna walk away from Zippy.  It wasn't until the salesman uttered the magic words that I changed my mind.  Two little words that I had been dying to hear since my very first car, an eleven year old, rickety 1987 Toyota Corolla I got 20 years ago.  "Heated seats".  SOLD!

I'm also not so hot on her licence plate number.  It starts with BVFR.  Yes  Beaver.  I'm driving a Beaver Mobile.  Terrific for my street cred.  It's just one step away from Quentin Tarantino's Pussy Wagon!

Even though I love my car and use it every single day, and I have given it a sweet little name, I must admit to a shameful secret.  Zippy has a much less pleasant nickname which unfortunately suits her almost as much as her Zippy moniker.  Her nickname is, The Mobile Garbage Can.  There is on average so much trash in my car I would be mortified to let anyone in.  It looks like Hoarders, Car Edition.  There are coats, sweaters, mitts, hats, socks and just about every other article of clothing my kids manage to strip off in transit.  There is junk mail that gets picked up at the mailbox but never brought into the house.  There are empty soda cans and bottles in every cup holder, door crevice and seat pocket and piled up on the floor, and there is enough fast food trash to fill one of those 96 gallon trash cans.  It is so embarrassing.  I probably have enough french fries in my floor mats to open my own McDonald's.  My change tray, (which in my opinion is located right where the cup holder should be), is overflowing with parking lot stubs and McDonald's Monopoly game stickers.

I got an Uber the other day.  The guys car was immaculate.  "You don't have kids, do you"? I asked.  "Nope" he said.  Yeah, no crushed up Cheerios in his seats.  I can't blame this on the kids though.  My car was a mess before they were ever born, but hey certainly don't help!

Here's the funny thing though.  I have set up Zippy to be the tidiest car ever!  I have a great over the seat storage thingy that's filled with little pockets to hold things up off the floor.  It's currently empty except for a little roll of garbage bags for my over the seat garbage can, which is currently overflowing with dirty tissues.  I had a nice, neat box of tissues for the kids to use in the car, but it is currently crushed and wet and mashed into the floor mat under the pop cans with the old french fries.  It has been replaced by a lovely roll of toilet paper that is smooshed into place in the passenger corner of the front dashboard.  Nice.  Nothing says sophisticated, modern woman like a roll of ass wipe in your front window.

I bought a lovely car air freshener from Bath and Body Works that plugs into my air vent and blows lovely smells into the cabin while we're driving.  I'm sure if we could smell it over the aroma of wet mittens and fast food remains, it would smell lovely.

I cleaned Zippy out yesterday.  She's all clean and tidy now, vacuumed and spiffy with a fresh air freshener to boot. I even dusted off my Spock and Captain Kirk bobble heads and replaced the toilet paper for a fresh box of tissues. 

I'd like to say that she will stay clean and tidy, but after 20 some years of vehicle ownership I have little hope of that being the truth.

If I had to think about what the contents of my car say about me it would be this; I have good intentions, I am a nerd, and in the grand scheme of life and all the things I care about and devote my time to, a clean car isn't something I'm gonna stress over.

So get out there before it gets too frigid and give your car a little love!

Let me know in the comments what's in your car?  Does it have a name?

Peace!

Michy