20 Years.

I’m in the midst of planning our twentieth reunion. 

From high school.

As in, I graduated from high school twenty years ago. 

Two thoughts permeate my brain.  One, how is that even possible?  Two, my best friend is a hoarder.

So, I should tell you that one of my very best friends moved back to Ohio this summer.  She has lived in Florida for my entire marriage and almost all of the time I have been with Dave.  She has seen my kids grow up through pictures and visits twice a year.  I still sometimes forget that she is here permanently.  It is weird and wonderful to have her a three minute drive away.  It’s bizarre to be able to call her and ask her to come over in the middle of the week.   When we do get together, it feels a little like vacation Natalie, home for just a minute.  Let’s pack everything all into one week of shopping and dinner out and fun!  Woooo! 

Dave just keeps saying, “Well, you DO have a lot of time to make up,” and sending me on my way.  I think he secretly loves it because Natalie tells him all kinds of stories about Fun Michelle.  That is what we call me, in the late nineties.  Fun Michelle are the stories my children won’t hear until they are old and planning their own 20th reunions.  Hopefully.

While we’re on the subject, most of our reunion planning meetings go like this,

HOW is it possible that we have been out of high school for twenty years?

It can’t be twenty years.  Don’t you feel like we’re supposed to still be twenty-two?

Maybe late twenties, max.

Do you think so and so will come to the reunion?  I wonder what ever happened to so and so.

Remember when so and so did that thing in high school that was hilarious?

Remember when you dated so and so?  Ahhhahahaha! 

Well at least I didn’t date so and so!

We were such idiots.

SUCH idiots.

We didn’t get anything done!

Totally, but I laughed so hard, my face hurts.

Worth it.

We also have the added bonus of Natalie memorabilia.  Now, I have a box of stuff from grade school and high school and college.  You throw in your senior pictures, some old grade cards that your mom saved, and a year book or two, right?  Pretty typical?  I feel like a lot of people have that box.

Natalie takes it to another level. 

She has receipts from a store where we used to work, with the cashiers’ names circled.  Did we really need to know that you bought a salad and cheese from Julie in 1993?  Probably not.  How about ticket stubs from movies she went to with names scribbled on the back… it’s important to remember that you, Jay, and Abby went to see Jurassic Park, twenty some years ago.  Have I mentioned every award and certificate she was ever given?  There is a folder full, people.

Oh, I can already hear her yelling at me while she’s reading this.  She’ll tell me it’s not fair if I don’t tell you that her parents just moved and so they went through everything that was packed away there.  She will protest that she was just keeping all of this for our twentieth reunion.  For this very occasion.  She will try to convince you, THAT was the reason she had two copies of everything from our prom program to our commencement announcement.

I maintain that the ticket stubs speak for themselves.  And I am going to wear this 1994 vintage broomball beauty, pinned to my sweater…

Just so you all know, Nat is the best sport in the universe and gave her blessing for this post.  By blessing, I mean, she sighed and told me that she was going to tell you all that we’re only friends because she let me cheat off her in pre-calculus class our junior year. 

Clearly, math is NOT my forte, but choosing best friends is.

Triple Shot.

I don’t know about you, but I believe the Universe works in mysterious ways.  It can bring two people together.  It can gently remind us things aren’t the way they should be.  And then, there is the big old slap in the face.

I don’t really do subtle, so this is usually the form that the Universe takes when speaking to me.

Monday, I texted Dave and asked him {again} to help me figure out the espresso machine.  It isn’t that I am an idiot really, but you all know I am spoiled, the Davester usually makes it for me.  Plus, he doesn’t like it when I break his stuff.  He called me and walked me through grinding the beans with his fancy pants grinder and making a double shot.  I whipped up a cup of hot cocoa {extra marshmallows} for Finnegan and an afternoon vanilla mocha for myself and then, I posted this on Twitter:

Yesterday, I hit my afternoon slump and decided that it was a triple shot kind of day.  I started whipping it up, the smugness permeating the vanilla latte.  Oh yeah.  I don’t need your help any more, Sucka.

Everything was coming up Millhouse. 

Until I tried to remove the thingy with the espresso powder in it.  {That, I think, is the technical term?}  It was stuck.

Shoot.  Do I call Dave? 

No way.

I push it, at which point the thing EXPLODES with a bang, shooting the still hot espresso powder everywhere.  It was on the floor, on the counter, on the tops of drawers, all over the machine, all over me.  It blew the metal basket holding the powder straight across the room and the plastic grate with it.  Finn came running from the other room when he heard the boom. 

Someone {Jess} really should have told me that Twitter has a direct line to the Universe, I might not have signed up for this.

Apparently, Dave says, you need to wait five minutes for the pressure to subside and/or release the top thingy {also the technical term} so the pressurized steam can escape and NOT blow all over the kitchen. 

Which is WHY, Michelle, it was ‘stuck’ and not opening.

Thanks, Universe, I’ve got that now.  Loud and freaking clear.

And just to drive home the message a teeny bit more…  I cleaned off the counters of the insane amount of espresso powder {so VERY much powder everywhere} and bent down to clean it off the floor when riiiiiiip, a hole right in the butt of my beloved monkey pajamas.  Ok, ok, they are 10 years old and the flannel is so worn it is almost see through, but REALLY Universe?  Really?  The monkey pajamas?

I was going to take a picture of my butt, but Finn {rightly} said, “Mom, no one needs to see that.”

Drinking that triple shot of karma right now, Universe.  Thanks.  Thanks a freaking lot.

If you want to see what I say to piss the Universe off next, follow me on twitter  @SoWondSoMarv

Thirty-Five.

This is what thirty-five looks like.  {It is also what 29 weeks pregnant looks like.} 

I thought it would feel somehow older, more mature at the very least.  Thirty-five seemed ancient when I was eighteen. 

I now realize how incredibly stupid I was at age eighteen and it amuses me.

 

This is probably the most content I’ve ever been in my life. 

I am happy, really happy. 

And that, my friends, is saying a lot.

I know just who I am as a person.  And I like that girl woman.  All of her.

Part of the plan for me, it’s the journey… at twenty-five or even thirty, I still hadn’t figured that out.  I wanted to know where I would end up, where I would go to college, who I would end up with, what I would be doing, what my life would be like, would I have kids, and on and on.  I wish I hadn’t wished away some of those years for the next step because the next step, it’s coming {it really is and it always does} so enjoy the step you’re on while you’ve got it.  I’m ok now with learning what the next fifty years will bring as it comes.  

Right now, I am here, right in the moment.  There is my Davester and a marriage {and a friendship} that I only could have imagined.  Finn, my funny little partner in crime and the sweet baby girl on the way.  Monty Poodle and Dexter, this family wouldn’t be complete without them.  There is my incredibly supportive family who has seen me through all thirty-five years, hugs me tightly and still loves me despite my teen years.  There are friends old and new, who make me laugh and lift me up.   And there are all of you who keep me endlessly entertained and who I love talking to daily.

Right here, is thirty-five. 

It feels good.

I’ve Always Wanted to be One of the Boxcar Children.

When I was a kid, I used to make my sister Lyndsey and my cousin John play like we were poor and had to fend for ourselves.  My Meme had an old heater in the basement that looks like a stove, it was usually the basis for our house… either that, or we’d make the area behind the bar our ‘house’ and I’d cram them both onto the shelves underneath it like they were bunk beds.  Good times.  Sometimes we let John be our younger brother and sometimes we’d strong-arm him into to being our dog.  We would wear old towels… you know, for warmth.  And to eat?  We’d catch fish in the form of old wooden clothes pins that we would throw on the floor and use the shuffle board sticks as fishing poles.  It was endless entertainment. 

Oh sure, they went along with me because I was the oldest, but I have to think, they probably thought I was fucking nuts when we had tons of real toys to play with and yet, there we were huddled around a fake campfire pretending to be freezing.

How did it start?  The Boxcar Children, of course.  It was a story about four kids who were orphaned and to stay together, they run away and just happened to find an abandoned train car in the forest to live in.  They furnish their ‘house’ by using stuff that is thrown out at the dump and forage for food, able to barely scrape by because Henry the oldest, did odd jobs to make a few cents.  They even take in an old dog as their pet and name him Watch because duh, he’s a good watch dog and protects the kids.  It was all quite dreamy to a second grader.

Why am I bringing this up now?  The snowpacalypse is descending upon us and dude, we’re prepped just in case the power goes out and we have to live like the Boxcar Children for a day or two.  It’s not the foot of snow I’m worried about, it’s the possibility of an ice storm.  And so far, it’s like our weather people have a snow boner and don’t know what the fuck to do with it.  We just don’t know what we’re going to end up with and so, I prepare.  It’s what I do.

“Ahhh the good old days when people died of Polio & got eaten by wild buffalo on the prairie.”  -my husband on being without power in a winter storm

Dave, of course, does not find the scenario of living like the Boxcar Children nearly as dreamy as I do.  It’s like he enjoys ruining my childhood fantasies, but totally wants me to still fulfill his adult fantasies.  FAIR?  I think not.

If you’ve ever been trapped with a three year old anywhere without food, a drink, or entertainment, you’ll know there is just no hell like it.  Add in a healthy dose of negative degree weather and a husband who’s going to have to snow blow up to a foot of snow off of 120 feet of driveway and you have yourself a recipe for disaster.  So, I’ll be the alarmist crazy person, I’m not one of those assholes taking my chances in the name of bravado.  No way. The reality is, if we do lose power it really will suck, but we won’t be completely screwed. We have a full fridge, a gas fireplace in the living room for heat, a power converter in the car if we need to charge cell phones {or computers for movie viewing}, we have a battery powered lantern and flashlights, and a full propane tank on the grill for cooking.  We’re also probably in the minority here, but dude we’ve still got a landline. 

My sister?  She’s coming to stay at my house with the promise of a full pot of Meme’s Beef Stew, biscuits, and many many years of playing like we were poor under her belt.  We’ve got Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on dvd and a full Netflix queue… along with hot chocolate and laughing and pointing at Dave snow blowing out the window for our entertainment.

And if the power does go out?  She knows there will be old towels to wear and a watch dog named Monty to keep her feet warm. 

How is the weather where you are?

Positive.

Joy.  Lots and lots of joy.  We are expecting July 4. 

I took this photo on October 22.  That is a long time to keep quiet for a loudmouth like me.  Especially since we have been waiting and trying, and trying and waiting for what seems like forever.  The day the magical plus sign would appear.  And to my secret keepers?  You will never realize how amazingly wonderful your support has been these last 16 weeks.  Thank you.

So now, we patiently await our cute little bean.  

Maybe You Think I Am Who I'm Not?

I am fantastic at a few things.

• I can cook.  I don't use Cream of XYZ to make sauces or canned vegetables and I don't follow recipes, but people like coming to dinner.  Often.  I can even bake, though not nearly as well as I cook. 
• I can throw a party.  It is something I love, whether it's a small playdate lunch, drinking on our front porch, or a wedding for 300.  I won't do it professionally though because it's not fun when I am not emotionally invested in the guest of honor or when they are an asshat and I still have to deal with them. 
• Quitting smoking.  It took me 57 tries to get it right, but it's been 4+ years smoke free.  It is a great source of pride for me.
• Honesty.  Don't ask me things because  I will tell you the truth whether that is the answer you're looking for or not.  To avoid being pissed at me giving an answer you don't want to hear?  Don't ask.  And almost everytime you ask me if you're too needy, spending stupidly, dating emotionally unavailable and/or people too young for you, being stalker-esque or being rude, I will likely answer yes... but, you probably already knew that before you asked. 
• Marrying well.  I most assuredly chose a man better than myself & who works so insanely hard for his family that I feel like a slacker most of the time.  The dude liked me and I tried to pawn him off for 6 months.  It turns out that he perservered, won me over, then took pity on me and decided to spend the next 75 years by my side. 
• Appreciating what I have and who I am.

I am good-ish at a few things.

• Voicing my opinion, though I very much need to work on listening before I open my mouth.
• Being a mom.  Finn is {mostly} normal and doesn't {often} fight with his friends, he's surprisingly well adjusted for a three year old.  He was pooping on the potty a month before turing two and peeing on the potty without accident a month after turning two. That is despite people that ran their mouth non-stop to anyone that would listen that SURELY it was an anomoly and he would regress.  I do want to tear my hair out when he is insane and I'm not always good with the consistency and I'm not one of those parents that has every minute of every day planned out.  Unless by planned out I mean staying in our pjs all day reading books & playing cars.  He is kind to his pets, he loves to read, he is a snuggler, and amazes me daily.  Oh, and one more thing... some days he thinks he is Lightening McQueen.  So, um, there is that.
• Money.  Our cars are paid off, our mortgage is purposefully well below our means, & I understand the value of compound interest, so we won't be eating dog food in our 80s.  I'm impulsive though and don't always think before I buy.  There is always room for improvement and we need to get back budgeting.
• Travel despite dragging along the man who is, without a doubt, an international incident waiting to happen.  I didn't add myself to the fantastic category here because I'm super awful at the navigation part.  But international incident man makes up for my serious lack of knowing where the fuck I am and steers us in the right direction.  {See why marrying well is in the fantastic category?}

Things that will elude me for the rest of my life because I suck.

• Cleaning.  Organizing.  Paperwork.  I get on top of this stuff and then get woefully behind.  On top, behind, on top, behind... sounds good if we're talking about sex, not so much if you're talking about laundry mountains and piles of mail.  Don't get me wrong, if you come to my house it will be clean, unless you show up unexpectedly or are in the "inner sanctum" and I let you see it when a tornado has hit.
• Dieting/Exercise.  I am not a size 2, nor will I ever be, but I will tell you how cute you are if you're a size 2 {and very much mean it} and then eat a cheeseburger and be ok with that.
• I swear.  Like a sailor sometimes most days.  I'm not even sure why because I have a decent vocabulary aside from the four letter variety.
• Sleep.  I am in bed WAY too late on a regular basis & I nap when Finn does.  Often.   
• Wearing clothes other than pj pants, yoga pants, or colors other than black.  And while we're at it, I'll throw in a side of "I wear Crocs and love them," to add to your reading pleasure.  They are hideous, yes, but they are comfortable.

Your turn to tell me who YOU are...  Whether it's your first visit or your hundredth, I'd love to hear one thing you're fantastic at, one thing you're pretty good at, and one thing you aren't so good with.

There is Nothing Random About Kindness. A Giveaway.

Saturday, April 17th, it's my birthday.  Yep, just a week from now, I will be a year older.

There will be lots of giving, but not to me. 

To others.

Will you give me a gift & do a random {or not so random} act of kindness?

It's so easy.  You can tell someone how they have changed your life or how much you love them. You can rake your neighbor's lawn or help them clean out their garden. You can have coffee with a friend or buy lunch for a stranger. You can leave change in a vending machine for someone else to find or pay the toll of the car behind you. You can tell someone how pretty they look or make a donation to your favorite organization. Help a family that has been in the news lately or send a letter of thanks to your favorite teacher. You can drop off flowers to a nursing home or take balloons to a hospital.

You can just start with a smile.

And I would love it if you would share it with me via email, or text, or blog, or a comment, or homing pigeon, or phone call, or facebook message, or fax, or smoke signal, or a telegram.  I would even settle for morse code as long as someone can translate the dots and dashes for me.

I am doing thirty-four of them, one for each year I have been here.  I couldn't be more excited.

And then we are going to celebrate with a party because let's face it, I have the most drunk cake loving best peeps in the world.

Robyn, the brains behind Mix Mingle Glow, brought the inspiration.  For that, I am extremely thankful.

Where do you come in? 

Aside from the hope that you will do a random act of kindness for someone else, one of you will be the recipient of the first act of kindness I get to deliver Saturday morning when this all begins. 

Let me tell you, thanks to some fabulous women, this first gift I get to give is going to be so much fun.  Becki at Whippy Cake has whipped up a little something.  Meg at Green Leaf Boutique has come up with a bauble or two to share with you.  And a jar of Vanilla Bean Sea Salt of your very own so you can make some Sea Salt Chocolate Covered Oreos and see what all of the fuss is about.  Many, many more fun things are just awaiting the recipient of this box.  I am so excited to send this out I can hardly stand it.  I can't tell you any more because birthday gifts should be a surprise, right?  More than $100 worth of the most fun things are wrapped up and ready for your house.
  
It shall henceforth be refered to as the Big Ass Box of Fun Stuff.

So, how do you make sure it's your name I announce Saturday morning?

Leave a comment.  That's all.  You can introduce yourself, or tell me a joke, or tell me what random act of kindness you're going to do this week.  You can recite a poem, or tell me your favorite item from Whippy Cake or Green Leaf Boutique, or tell me how you heard about my blog.  Anything will do and anyone may enter, even if this is your first visit here.  You have until 11:59 pm on Friday, April 16.

I will even throw in two bonus entries.   If you blog this, or put it on your Facebook page, or tweet it, or simply email it to your friends you can get one additional entry.  For another, subscribe to {So Wonderful, So Marvelous} via RSS or email.... look over there in my sidebar and just click.  Be sure to leave a second {or third} separate comment telling me what you did & a link.

So there you have it.  Stop back on Saturday morning to see who the Big Ass Box of Fun Stuff will be going home with and stories of what acts of kindness people are spreading.

I hope you'll join me in doing something wonderful for someone else this week. 

It's amazing what a little kindness can do.

{Full disclosure, I did not receive any product or payment in exchange for these goodies, they were given for me to pass along to someone special when they heard about this project.  Because they are awesome.}

Birthday Wishes

THIS is what I want for my birthday in April.  Well, this and a Cricut Expression machine, but mostly this.  I am going to make it happen.  The ideas are already swirling.  AND my birthday is a Saturday this year.  Fate, no?

I might ask for your help.

Who is in?

I Miss My Plastic Charm Necklace.

Once, when Lyndsey and I were little, she shoved American cheese into my Strawberry Shortcake Blow Kiss doll.  You have no idea what I am talking about?  Strawberry Shortcake had baby dolls that, when you squeezed them, would blow fruit scented air into your face.  It was our favorite activity while dancing around in our Wonder Woman underoos watching Saturday morning cartoons.  I believe these days, they call it huffing, but whatevs. We had Lemon Meringue and Strawberry.  And Lyndsey had shoved the american cheese into her mouth which put the end to the strawberry scented goodness until one day, the cheese dried out enough to be dislodged just so.  When we pushed on her belly, she shot cheese out of her mouth at such a great speed that I'm pretty sure Rainbow Brite and Christina Marie were scared.  Christina Marie was my Cabbage Patch... she had a normal name because she was one of the first edition, procured by some miracle the Christmas I was seven  by my Meme from a friend of hers in New York.  Don't tell anyone, but she still lives in my house.

Lynds and I were children of the eighties.  We walked to the drugstore to buy giant flourescent pink triangle earrings.  We wore jelly shoes until our feet blistered.  We had every color of embroidery floss imaginable and would spend hours making friendship bracelets.  That was after the beaded friendship pin craze had died off a bit.  The Christmas that I was in sixth grade, my aunt took me to the Limited to buy an Outback Red shirt, I was in seventh heaven.  It was just about as awesome as my friends renting a white limo for my thirteenth birthday.  We rode around and drank two liters of soda.  How cool can you get?

My aunt also worked for Apple and got a IIe for us.  My mom probably had a $400 phone bill every month in 1987 when we were introduced to Prodigy by my Uncle Jim.  "Mom, we can meet someone in Oklahoma or Maine or New Hampshire!  You just use the phone line!  It is sooooo cool."  It lived in our bedroom, that we somehow convinced my mother to let us paint with bright white walls and black trim.  I can't even fathom the kind of "cool mom" factor it takes to let your pre-teens paint that hideousness with your blessing. 

Of course, it wasn't all Funshine & Cheer Bears, there were bad things too.  It is still the bane of my existance that I lost the tape of Lyndsey falling on her butt captured on my PXL-2000.  I was sure that was my ticket to Bob Sagett and his Funny Videos.  We ran out of cake mix & light bulbs burnt out of our Easy Bake Ovens.  My cousin John had all of his action figures stolen right out of the back of my Meme's Pacer in the parking lot of the grocery store.  And we do have photographic evidence of me only wearing pink and white, mostly flashdance-esque sweatshirts, for about two years of my life.  And the shoulder pads, the shoulder pads.  Who would let a fourth grader wear a turquoise blazer with shoulder pads to school?  That's right.  My mother. 

And the charm necklace.  Ohhhhh the sweet sweet plastic charm necklace.  Filled with clip on charms like a baby bottle, a tennis racket, and an abacus, because in 1985, you never knew when you might need a miniature plastic abacus.  To do your counting of Hello Kitty items or Garbage Pail Kid cards or ummm whatever?  If I had that pink plastic goodness today, I would be forced to wear it AND pretend I was putting on the plastic lipstick charm, the awesomeness was just that powerful.  There is no point in denying it.

This post is really for my awesome friend Merrily, who introduced me to this book, modeled by the gorgeous Christina Marie herself...

It's a book, it's a Trapper, there are images of smelly stickers, it's totally RAD.  I read this and laughed hysterically.  And now, I'm passing it on to one of you.  {Full disclosure, I totally paid for this sucker & already read it.} Leave a comment with YOUR favorite and thing about the eighties.  I will choose a winner on Friday, February 5.

Gotta go.  Digrassi Junior High is on and my crimper is done heating up. 

{UPDATE:  Thank you to all the entries!  The winner, chosen very democratically by writing everyone's name on paper and having Finnegan choose one, is GEORGIE!  Congrats!  I need your address to get your book to you!}

{My} Favorite Blogs: aka Pure Fabulousness I Think You Should Know About

You know I am convinced that I have adult ADD and I really feel that my Google Reader illustrates that wonderfully.  It is chock full of everything from crafty women, to moms with whom I can commiserate, to party planners who are unbelievable, to personal finance bloggers, to home renovators, to humor blogs, to fashionistas, and EVERYTHING in between.  I tend to lean toward the bloggers who lift me up.  There are some I can't wait to read every morning and some that post infrequently, but that I still light up when they do.  Some might be new for you and some may be old, but all are fabulous.

Here are my faves:

Zakary aka ZDub at Raising Colorado is quite possibly the funniest blogger masquerading as a normal mom I have ever met.  Well... as normal a mom as you can be with a manly first name and having to raise your children in the wild.  Ok, she doesn't really live in the wild, but dude she has unidentifiable animals AND bears in her backyard.  I almost always feel compelled to click over and comment on her posts, they are that freaking hilarious.  You will fall in love with this woman. 

Joy at Big Time Fancy - Oh my, I don't even know where to begin.  She is hilarious, and raunchy, and used to sleep with half the world and never felt the need to apologize for it.  Now she is in love, and less raunchy, and deserves all of the happiness in the world.  I found BTF years ago and she was actually one of the few strangers who was invited to my blog when it was private.  I can not tell you how much she reminds me of myself 10 years ago.  Read her entire archives.  It will delight and amuse, I promise.


Rachel at One Pretty Thing finds the coolest stuff ever.  Seriously, I can't even imagine how much time and energy she devotes to finding the most interesting parties, before & afters, printables, crafty stuff, DIY projects and basically anything awesome on the web.  You will want to visit daily just to be inspired and delighted.  She posts daily and each roundup is better than the next.  The woman has an unyielding supply of awesomeness in her arsenal.  She's also incredibly friendly, approachable, and sweet to chat with via email even though she's like the popular girl in school, everyone wants to be her friend!  


Megan at Whatever - Meg rocks.  She is creative and fun and just when you want to hate her because of her amazing house {the kitchen Meg, the kitchen!} she turns around and posts something so sweet and nice that you have to love her.  She also very clearly has a laundry problem {we can't all be perfect}, and with all of those gorgeous kiddos, Waffle the wonder dog and all of that time spent being creative, I would too!


Courtney at Two Straight Lines - Courtney is the ultimate crafty Mama.  Everything about her blog is calm & creative & wonderfully imaginative.  She allowed her son Elliot to have a fantastic lemonade stand and her little Lucie is near Finn's age.  She also lives in an unbelievable house and makes time to do things like sew oh, 14 geese costumes for her son's class without a hitch.


Kim at Today's Creative Blog - yeah, ok everyone in the blog world knows Kim, because her blog is GENIUS.  I mean really really, I want to kick my own ass for not thinking of this.  She first finds and then blogs about the most creative women of the web.  I can not tell you how many people she has 'introduced' to me through TCB.


You will spend approximately 928940 hours perusing Brooklyn Limestone.  I have been reading since it used to be called Adventures in Renovating a Brooklyn Limestone and now is A Brooklyn Limestone in Progress because their renovations are largely complete.  If you're not in the mood for home renovation photos that make you drool over your laptop, perhaps you'd like to check out all of the insane travel they get to do?  She also creates the best, most creative invitations I have ever seen.  If you have spent any time here, you know my love of stationery so yeah, this compliment is saying a lot.


Casey at Moosh in Indy is genuine.  She is amazingly talented and a little fucked up and a lot wonderful.  Some days, you will want to pat her on the back and cringe in the same post.  Some days you will just sit in awe of her mad photography skills.  She oozes strength as she very candidly shares her struggle with depression and infertility and the worst home buying experience I have ever heard of.  Oh, and this is not the blog of a whiner, she is raw, she is honest, and she overcomes.


And my Bloggy BFF Ashley over at Sugar Britches, of course.  She had me at hello.  Well not really hello, but she let me call her Ash and that's about the same as hello.  Right?

 

Well, there you have my very tippy top favorites and there are easily about 20 more I could add.  I would love to hear about YOUR favorites too. 

And if I haven't told you lately, thanks for reading!

On Blogging.

Did you know that when your Google Reader hits 1,000 items, it no longer lists the actual number of items, it just gives you the shameful, glaring 1,000+ items until you once again hit 999 items? I don't even know how many I read, but I deleted 964 items because I just couldn't take it anymore. I figure if any of you had anything that earth shattering to say the last 5 or 6ish days that I was only sporadically checking Reader, it would just have been C&P'd and highlighted on a few of my other blog reads. It amazes me some days how viral social media can be. Oh sure, I have my favorites that I always {mostly} check, but for the rest of you, you're just not that important. I get it, I'm not that important to thousands of other bloggers either. I'm ok with that. You should be too.

A lot these days, I feel like people are forgetting what the deal is with their own blog. You see... I write mainly to preserve my sanity. For days that I feel like Wonder Woman and can conquer the world and for days that I feel like a jackass and for days that I feel like a shitty parent. All of them. I look to other women who stay home, who are able to balance a career and family, single girls who embody the person I was 10 years ago, people who create amazing things, who are more stylish, less bitchy, and on those days that I need it, who bring a voice of reality and a gut check into my living room. What are your reasons?

Maybe it's because I'm not looking at this blog as a business, and it really is ok with me if you do, but I'm becoming more and more annoyed with daily giveaways of products you probably wouldn't even buy, really shitty jokes that I don't think are funny, lying to readers about who you are as a person, misrepresenting how successful you are and feeling marketed to. Be honest with your intentions and I'm good with that. If I am going to the Google Blog, I am pretty sure they're going to talk about Google, that much I'm ok with. And it's not just the marketing thing, it's someone regarding me like a commodity rather than a person, being genuinely not happy down right bitchy towards someone else getting something they wanted, lying/embellishing and printing it as fact, and/or being a full on creep. {Please say it more like creeeheeep in a singsongy way in your head to really get the full effect.} There has to be a point that you just have to bloggy break up with peeps that are not doing it for you. Right?

So why is it so hard? There has only really been one person that I've bloggy broken up with before because she was an asshole in the way she spouted off things I don't believe in, right after she lamented on why her reader numbers were down and berated a commenter for posting their opinion that she openly solicited. Mostly she was rude & I didn't so much feel bad about that one. I do feel bad that otherwise fabulous writers are consistently not writing decent content because they're worrying about numbers or ratings or being successful. It's annoying. And for the sake of everything holy, be who you are because fake doesn't do it for me and truly, don't you watch enough movies to know that the fake ones always get exposed for who they are in some horribly obvious way?

Where was I? Oh yes, my rant, which I am now totally done with.

Just one more thing... I promise you that I'm going to attempt not to be douchey, I'm going to occasionally {that means a lot probably} swear because I do in real life and it's something I'd like to change, but at 33... I mean 27, probably won't. My genius posts, the ones I am really proud of, are sporadic at best.  I will likely make you ill talking about my amazing son because he is awesome, mostly not by anything Dave or I've done, but we like to take credit anyway. I might be funny, I might be sappy, and some days I will just post that I am alive. Because I'm a blogger, and that's how I roll. HA, see there?  I would totally NOT say that in real life.  Oh, and since we're being honest here, I totally got out of bed with my sleeping husband to write this in the middle of the night because it was bugging me to write a post in my head since I knew I would forget it, but by the magic of bloggerland it's POOF 8:00 am because I didn't want you to know I am one of those lunatic write in the middle of the night writers who ramble n' stuff. 

Happy Thursday.  Fill me in on the goings on with you since, uh, you sort of accidentally on purpose got deleted from my Reader.  Oh, and for crying out loud people who haven't said hi before, say hi so I can check out your blog too, don't you want to be on my future Reader-overload list?

How I Skipped 67% of My 27th Year.

Now before you judge, just remember you love me and come read me regularly and normally I totally have my shit together{ish} except that one time, but anyway I really did skip 67% of my 27th year and I've decided that I want it back.  I think I deserve it back.  Don't you?  Oh, and also, I swear in this post.  Kind of a lot.  It is pretty necessary when you see what I did.

Let me start from the beginning.  A few years ago, we're sitting at my Meme's house for Christmas and my Aunt Sue asks me something about my age and I tell her something about how I was ok with turning thirty in two years.  How I'm ok with 28 and being in the twilight of my twenties.  Here is {my best recollection of} the conversation that followed:

Dave:  You're not 28.

Michelle:  Yes, I am.

Dave:  No, you're not.

Michelle:  Dumbass, I'm pretty sure I know how old I am!

Dave:  Well, you don't.  You're 27.

Michelle:  Dave, I know how old I am.  I am 28.

Dave:  Yeah, well, except you're 27.

Michelle:  You are fucking crazy!  I am 28! 

Dave:  No, you're not.  You're 27.

Michelle:  Meme!  Where is your calculator so I can show him.

Dave:  Yeah, go get the calculator. 

Michelle:  I will!  *Runs in the kitchen and furiously punches in 2003 - 1976*  27 Crap.  I had to have typed it in wrong.  *Punch punch punch 2003 - 1976*  Still 27.  Fuck.  I am 27.

Dave:  You're 27, aren't you?

Michelle:  Yeah.  But, I've been telling people I'm 28 since my birthday!  EIGHT MONTHS, I've been telling people I am 28.  That's like the whole year!

Dave:  But now you can tell people that you're 27.


So that's what I did.  Just told everyone for the rest of the year, the whole 4 months I had left, that I was 27.  But, I had to punch the date into the calculator tonight because I thought, oh crap, am I turning 35 next year?  {I'm not, I'm turning 34.}  Typing the date in reminded me that I still missed EIGHT months of my 27th year.  So, here is what I propose... I think I should be able to tell people for the next eight months that I am 27.  I mean, ok, so I am not a spring chicken and I'm not getting any younger, if I am going to take it back, now is the time.  After all, a 27 year old who is fifty is just pathetic.

Think about it, for eight months, my husband could have a younger woman.  I could be younger than all most of my friends.  I would be in my TWENTIES!  Plus, plus, aaaaaand plus!  What do you think of my master plan?

Happy Monday!  Oh, and if you haven't done so, get your butt over to my little giveaway and ENTER!  The drawing is tomorrow.

Balance.

Hello, my name is Michelle, and I am a perfectionist and a control freak and constantly spread myself too thin attempting to help everyone all the time.  I have never been good at balance, at juggling, at accomplishing what I need to do in a way that is not detremental to my sanity.  Ever.  As much as it pains me to admit it, I just can't do it all, though I'd like to sure give it a try.  I love to do things for other people, to lend a hand, to help a friend, to be a shoulder to cry on, to kiss tears away, to be an amazing wife, to be the cheerleader, to be a fun great mom, to help my sisters, to be a coherent {after reading this post you'll know that's bullshit} writer, to welcome new friends, and on and on and on.  Ummmm, it is however, exhausting.  I think the entire month of June I was running on caffeine and adreneline.

I am pretty sure though, that I've massively given the wrong opinion to my friends who think I have everything  together all the time.  No one does.  When I posted THIS, a very dear, amazing friend whom I love to death, sent me an email that said, "Stuff like that reminds me that you're a little bit human and don't completely have your stuff together as well as you carry it out."  Well, I am pretty sure if I had three kids to run around after and another one on the way, I wouldn't be able to function nearly as well as you do, so let's call it even.  I don't ever want my friends to feel like that though, like I'm not human and have all my shit together all the time.  That I don't bitch about things and have bad days and drop the ball.  The truth is, it is almost crippling to admit that sometimes I'm just a fuck up like everyone else.  I forget to renew my EXPIRED drivers license for {almost} 6 months, I feed my child pizza for breakfast, and I am pretty sure my husband would agree that it would be great if I could actually make dinner more than twice a week because our budget sucks when we get takeaway five nights a week.  

Another friend and I were having a conversation this week about babies and she very pointedly asked me if I realized that I very likely wouldn't have another Finnegan.  You mean all babies don't walk at eight and a half months, talk by age one, & potty train themselves before they are two?  It isn't always easy though having a child that does things quickly people.  He figured out the child safety locks in 20 minutes... the ones that took Dave 45 minutes to install.  He is extremely sensitive and I have to reason with him all of the time and discuss things and yesterday he had a meltdown for an hour because he didn't want to get himself dressed.  An hour.  I almost lost my shit 47 times in those 60 minutes as my sister will attest.  Tonight, he sprinkled parmesan cheese all over the kitchen and himself because he loves "sprinkle!  sprinkle!"  Yep.  Not always sunshine and roses.

Things internally have been screwy for me lately.  I wasn't kidding when I talked about feeling like I had adult ADD.  I have so much going on that I don't have time to myself to get centered, to feel at peace, to rest, or to do the 8.5 million other things I want to accomplish.  I hate feeling like my connection is gone, it screws with the person I am and affects everything.  In fact, I just spent 25 minutes looking for an old conversation on Facebook to illustrate my point even further about how my friends view me before giving up and relizing, it's just not that fucking important.  {If you're keeping track that is two F Bombs in one blog post.} I didn't shower today or get out of my pjs until 3:35 in the afternoon.  I just don't want to waste my time bitching about it or being negative about it, but know this, I am not always together.  I am human and you, or you, or even you over there who is a little stalkery again, aren't the only one that doesn't have it all together.

Why am I unloading all of this?  Simple.  I had a conversation last night that pointed out immediately that the person I am inside isn't always the person that the world is seeing, re-affirmed my need for rest, and aside from the obvious conversation we were having told me in no uncertain terms {your blocks SPFF} that I wasn't as in tune with things as I needed to be.  There were good things, but it was unsettling, those pieces that just weren't there and of course, hearing the obvious.  Things that I already had been telling myself about needing to slow down, needing to say no, needing to sleep, needing to just rest my thoughts seemed like glaring declarations of how far I've gotten off course when someone else, a perfect stranger, said them out loud.  I feel blessed to have had Georgie bring her to me just when I needed it most with this post and that she was kind enough, generous enough, to share her talent with me.

It was enlightening and fun and emotional.  We talked about so much, that I wished now that I had recorded the conversation.  The things I didn't understand, I wrote down after we got off the phone because maybe 6 months from now they will make sense and some already do this morning.  After we got through the reading, we talked for a few minutes.  She admitted that I was one of the hardest readings she has done in awhile, but didn't make me feel bad about it.  She is so calming and fun to talk to that I could imagine us staying in touch.  So, let's be friends Sassy Pants Freckle Face, ok??  I'm even alright not twitching too much with the fact that you hate most democrats, it makes you a little imperfect.

Have you ever had a reading?  Do you think it is a bunch of spiritual mumbo jumbo?  Do you believe in the universe guiding you through certain situations?  Do you think there are people who are intuatively gifted?  Are you skeptical?  Are you open to the possibility?  If you'd be interested in your own reading, please head over to her blog and leave a comment or send her an email and let her know that Michelle recommended that you do one yourself.  Do it quickly before she fills up!  And leave me a comment telling me how it went.

Oh, and even though I'm not perfect, I am still fabulous, no?