Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

     Hey Big guy! Hope you and the Mrs are doing well, and that you're all ready to get your butt in that sleigh and bring joy and happiness to the entire world in a few weeks. Here's my list this year. Shouldn't be too hard for you, thought I'd keep it simple.

1. I won't ask for a million dollars. That would be greedy. I only ask that you add up our monthly bills, plus a bit of a cushion of course, and give me double that amount each month. I reeeeally don't want to work anymore. Oh, and could you deliver that weekly? Just send a reindeer to bring it or something.

2. Forever's worth of a meal planning list, that will keep my low carb fiance and picky as hell 9 year old happy. I don't mind doing the shopping or cooking the meal, just tell me what to make. And if "I don't care" is on there even ONE time I'm turning the fireplace up.

3. Could you have the elves whip me up some sort of a magic pill or drink or potion or something, with their elf magic, that will make me quit smoking? Without feeling itchy and twitchy and bitchy indefinitely, and without getting fat or killing people. Please.

4. While they're at it, I need a clone too. So someone can do homework and dishes and drive to dance. And I can nap.

5. A nap.

7. ALL THE SHOES From Iron Fist.

8. My next tattoo.

9. Boobs. Large B/small C please.

10. An unending supply of smart, witty and entertaining shit to share on my blog and my facebook, these people deserve to be entertained dammit. 

11. A new president. One who isn't a complete moron and doesn't fuck shit up like its his job.

12. Oh, and world peace and the end to hunger and poverty a world where intelligence is idolized more than photoshop "beauty."

     Thanks dude. What? Of course I've been good enough to get all this stuff! I mean, yea I called the lady in Walmart an asshole - but I didn't hit her! And she was an asshole! I got the "Worst mom ever award" this year - that should count for something! And, and, and - I have more than 250 likes on my facebook page! What? No, The Fiance doesn't know about the page. Nope. Not the blog either. Its not dishonest. I'm just a private person... Yes, I ate BabyDoll's Halloween candy, but only the Butterfingers... All right! Enough. Damn.

PS - I need a new vacuum cleaner, too. All the fucking Orbeez you brought last year broke mine.

30 fucking Sucks. And it Rocks!

I turned 30 this past March.  20 was hard for me. The thought of not being a teenager sent me into a state of panic for some reason. But 30? Eh. It was just kinda like “Really? I’m fucking 30 already? Wow.” Little did I know, 30 means change. Big change. Some things about 30 seriously suck, but others are pretty amazing. Here’s my take on it, based on my experience, and that of many others in my life.

Why 30 Sucks: You absolutely cannot understand at least half of the shit that teenagers say

                My little sister said to me today “Oh em gee! It was totes adorbs! I could, like, legit, DIE!” What in the actual fuck does any of that even mean? Seriously? I’m pretty sure that I just looked at her the same way a puppy looks at you when you tell him that peeing on the rug is bad. You know; eyes wide, brow furrowed, head tilting further and further to the side and a blank stare.

Why 30 Rocks: You absolutely cannot understand at least half of the shit that teenagers say

                Which means that you cannot talk like them; therefore cannot sound as completely fucking brain dead as they do. I told my sister that I was going to record her and one day play that recording back for her children. So that they can hear how ridiculous mommy used to sound. I fully intend to follow through on that threat. As a side note; if you are over 30 and you do use words like “totes” and “legit.” Please stop. You sound like a dumbass.

Why 30 Sucks: You ARE the old people in the bar

                In my late teens and early 20’s (what? I had a fake ID. Arrest me.) my friends and I would go to the bar and be completely bummed if it was full of “old people.” It was always a group of 30 somethings drinking, dancing and being loud. We would leave and go somewhere with a younger crowd. I really don’t know why, maybe we thought that “old” was contagious.

Why 30 Rocks: You ARE the old people in the bar

                Now that I look back on it, I realize that the “old people” were having so much more fun than us! Drinking? Dancing? Being loud? Yes, please. Now that I am 30, I’m not too cool to have fun anymore. I’m with my friends and having a blast – I don’t care how I look. I’m not spending the whole night being self conscious, wondering if my hair and makeup are still perfect, waiting in stupid long bathroom lines just to check and see if my hair and makeup are still perfect. I don’t care. Hell, my hair is probably thrown up in a messy bun, and my makeup is likely either yesterday’s or nonexistent. And it is so much better that way!

Why 30 Sucks: Your shit starts falling apart

                For real. In the past year and a half, I have: Been under the care of a neurologist for unidentifiable, sudden and debilitating headaches. Had a miscarriage. Had my ulcers flare up. Gotten a hemorrhoid, for no apparent reason. Bled, for 6 straight weeks. Had emergency hernia surgery. Had a Pap come back with abnormal cells. And somehow damaged my rotator cuff. 30 has not been my best year, and it seems to be similar for a lot of others.

Why 30 Rocks: You start to appreciate the shit that’s not falling apart

                I essentially survived on Diet Coke and Newports during most of my teens and 20s. I ate very little, and when I did it was junk. I was constantly working, partying, going, and doing. I never stopped for, oh, I don’t know, sleep! And I felt fine, so there was no reason to stop. Until suddenly I didn’t feel fine and there was a reason. I’ve since started taking better care of myself. I eat, regularly and healthy. I actually sleep. I exercise. And you know what? I don’t just feel fine anymore. I feel better, good, and even fabulous sometimes. As long as I’m not in the middle of my shit falling apart. And not only do I actually feel good, I acknowledge it, appreciate it, and work to keep it that way.

Why 30 Sucks: You have a bedtime

                Before 30 I could function just fine on a regular 3 or 4 hour a night sleeping schedule. No problem. Since 30; no fucking chance. If I don’t get at least 6 hours I pay dearly for it the next day. And so does everyone else lucky enough to be in my general vicinity. And if you want me awake and alert any later than 11 pm, there had better be something super fucking exciting going on, and I had better have taken a nap that afternoon.

Why 30 Rocks: You have a bedtime

                When I was younger, it did not matter how tired I was when I hit the pillow, I would toss and turn for hours before falling asleep. And even then I’d get up a handful of times throughout the night. Now? I’m out within minutes of hitting the pillow. And I stay out! I don’t care if it is because I’m fucking old – it’s awesome. And, I’m old enough to use the “oh, that’s too late for me” excuse to get me out of doing shit I don’t want to do. Past my bedtime, bitches!

Why 30 Sucks: You didn’t have instant access to music  

                We had to go to an actual store and buy a cassette tape when it came out. Or, we had to sit by our boom box all day, listening to the radio, waiting for that song to come on. Then record it and hope the DJ didn’t fuck it all up by talking over the ending. We had to rewind said tape when we wanted to listen to it again. We didn’t get to click something on a screen and own the song immediately. We couldn’t carry thousands of songs with us wherever we went, only as many tapes as we could fit into a bag that we had to lug around with our walkman. Such bullshit!

Why 30 Rocks: You had ACTUAL MUSIC

                That song we sat by the radio waiting to record? It was worth waiting for. It wasn’t garbage. Y’all can keep your Bieber and your One Direction shit. I’m pretty sure we win this one.

Why 30 Sucks: You had to grow up without Google, smartphones, or social media

                We had to look shit up if we wanted to know it. In a library that we had to physically go to. In an actual book that we had to find via use of the ever frustrating card catalogue. Now, you can just whip out your phone and Google that shit. And if we wanted to know where people were, what they were doing, or what was going on in the world? We had to actually go out into the world, and make actual contact with actual people. We got fucking robbed.

Why 30 Rocks: You got to grow up without Google, smartphones, or social media

1. We have brains. We know how to use them. We can figure shit out. 2. We weren’t ALWAYS connected; it was way easier to get away with stuff. 3. We got to do all of our stupid shit before it could be instantly captured by pic or video and immediately uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and/or Instagram to be forever immortalized on the internets. Forever. We did our dumb shit, and now it’s done and gone and you likely can’t prove it was us. Again – we win!

30 sucks you guys, but it’s pretty fucking awesome, too!

I Don't Have Time

 

"I don’t have time."

How often do we hear that expression? How often do we use it? I’m willing to bet pretty damn regularly.

               “I’d love to get in better shape, but I just don’t have the time.”

               “I wish my family could sit down and eat dinner together, but there just isn’t time.”

               “I love to write, read, paint, whatever, I just don’t have the time to do it.”

               And my least favorite – one that I actually heard today and spurred this blog post “I would love to do fun things with my kids, but I just don’t have the time.”

               Now here’s where I piss everyone off. Are you ready? I call bullshit. Yep. Bull. Shit. We do have time, these things are just not important enough to us. Now before you run and unlike the facebook page and vow to never again read this blog – hear me out. I know what I’m talking about here.

               Five years ago I was freshly divorced, living in a 2 room duplex, working 55 hours a week and attending college full time. Oh, and I also had a 3 year old that spent only 1 night a week at her daddy’s house. I was lucky that I worked as a preschool teacher and the center allowed me to bring BabyDoll with me. They docked my minimum wage pay accordingly, but they let me. I was also lucky that my mom was able to watch my daughter during the times that I had to go into school. But, working 55 hours a week, taking 16 credit hours in college (complete with massive amounts of homework), and raising a 3 year old on my own? Yea. I know what it means to “not have time.”

               I had a very “spirited” 3 year old, you guys. She told me right off that this arrangement was flat out not working for her. She demanded Mommy Time.

               Obviously, my first response was “I’d love to BabyDoll, but I just don’t have time.” I explained to her that we were together all day at daycare, and then after, once we were home; we ate dinner together, I gave her a bath and put her to bed. All kinds of Mommy Time, right? Nope. Not “busy Mommy Time,’ she demanded. “Just you and me Mommy Time!”

               Fuck. School, work, homework, day to day cooking and cleaning bullshit, and now THIS! How was I supposed to do it all?

               Very simply, as it turns out. I just had to decide what was really important. This was a need that my daughter had and it was up to me to do whatever I had to do in order to meet it for her. So I did.

              

               Saturday mornings, from the time we woke up until whenever her father came to get her (usually 2 or 3 or whenever the fuck he felt like it), BabyDoll got her Mommy Time. I didn’t make any other plans. I didn’t try to catch up on homework, housework, or sleep. I didn’t answer the phone or turn on the computer. We colored, painted, watched movies, had tea parties. I spent that time with my baby, doing whatever she wanted to do.

               Saturday was the only day that I didn’t have work or class, the only day that I had to get stuff done. So some things had to go, or be put off. The house wasn’t sparkling clean, I had to stay up later to get all the homework done, and I had to squeeze the weekly grocery shopping in on a lunch break during the week. So what? I was doing what was important, what really mattered.

               Would it have been easier to have put her off with a “we don’t have time” excuse? Absolutely. Would I have gotten more sleep, had a neater house, and been less rushed during the week? For sure. But my daughter in 9 now. She doesn’t remember if the house was a mess or if mommy was tired. She does remember our Saturday morning Mommy Time though. She still talks about it frequently.

               It comes down to what’s really important. And it should be what’s really important to us and not to everyone else. I feel like in today’s double income, google that shit, instant gratification kind of world, we really are super busy. Always. And we have become quite content with automatically responding with “I don’t have time.” But should we? Or are we actually costing ourselves?

               Maybe you work long hours because you need the money. But do you really need the money? Do you really need to drive the high dollar car, deck the family out in the brand name clothes and “keep up with the Joneses?” Or would your family be better off having you around, as opposed to ALL THE THINGS. Would you be better off to say “fuck all that” and cut back on some of the stuff, cut out some of the stuff, and be where it really matters, when it really matters? It comes down to what is more important.

               Or maybe you really do have to work all of those hours because if you don’t, bills don’t get paid. I know how that works, I’m not that far removed from when it was a choice between paying the electric bill or eating some weeks. I get it. But what is it that gets the rest of your time? Are you spending it where you should be? Doing what is really important to you? Or should you be spending more of it on your family, your spouse, yourself?

               I will never forget a little one that I taught in that daycare center. We will call her Marissa. She was a pretty little blonde haired, blue eyed, angel. She was 2 years old. And she spent just as much time in that center as I did. Marissa was the first one I let in the door every morning and she was the last one that I hugged goodbye every night. Her parents were married. They both drove luxury cars, and always seemed to have a new one. They both wore stupid expensive designer clothes, so did Marissa for that matter, though I highly doubt that she gave a shit. And they both dropped their precious daughter off every morning, or picked her up every night, without ever hanging up their fucking cell phones. Ever. I often wondered why they even had her, when their things, their image, were obviously more important to them than their daughter was. At least that’s what they told her every time they couldn’t be bothered to put down the phone, to take a second for her after not seeing her all day.

              

               That’s really what we’re doing. When we say “I don’t have time,” we are actually saying “What I currently fill my time with is more important to me than whatever you’re talking about right now.” And if you take a good, hard, honest look and that statement is true? Well then you're all set! If its not, perhaps its time to look harder at what you're doing.

               My “important” changes on the regular. Usually, I make the time to cook dinner from scratch, because its important to me that my family is healthy and taken care of. Sometimes, though, I take short cuts, or buy premade, because I need that few extra minutes to write, to read, or to just to be.

               If what we’re doing actually is more important than what we “don’t have time for,” then we’re doing great. But if it isn’t, if we wish we could do something, would really love to do something, then maybe we need to take a look at it all, and honestly decide what is more important. To us. And I mean honestly, with no excuses and no guilt. We need to get real with ourselves and cut the bullshit and the excuses. I promise, we would all be much happier of we spent our time doing what really matters to us, as opposed to what we think should be.