It’s two days and counting until I will be back to an empty nest.
As I sit here on a Friday night at 11:20 PM with my hot date asleep since 9 PM on the easy chair across from me, I contemplate how this exciting pace of life will slow down when my son returns to college.
Yes, I know that those of you with screaming toddlers, sticky with the remains of the day’s meals, full of endless requests instead of the meals they are now wearing while inspecting your underwear drawer just as you are trying to go to the bathroom, can’t understand my sudden onset of gloom.
I don’t either. Then I start to think…
It’s back to school on Sunday and the two daughters are too busy at work to be able to come with us so the send off will be with just Mom and Dad. I will look forward our dinner out that we will enjoy out before our trip to Walmart to replenish his supplies and deplete our cash.
Hmm. Who will walk the dog now? Who can I ask to empty the dishwasher? Who will bring in the groceries in the freezing weather?
The answer to those questions is posting her regrets on her blog. (Now, younger moms, can you at least understand some of my sentiments now? I thought so.)
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“Talk may be cheap but intelligent conversation is very expensive these days. Ask anyone with a kid in college.”
We leave our tree up for an extended period, usually taking it down after the Epiphany.
Did you know that the true end to the Christmas season is February 2 or Candlemas Day? ( I think that’s how Groundhod Day started. The little guy was just coming out of his hole to get rid of his tree that he’d just taken down.)
So Sunday night, I kept smelling this funny smell. Kind of a burned and musty smell. The men in the house couldn’t smell a thing but that is because they are genetically programed to smell only hops and barley from birth.
Of course I blamed my son first. After inspection, I let him off the hook but was still nagged by that lingering odor.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was my Christmas tree. Never has this happened before, but it was turning brown in places so I suppose it’s possible.
It’s gone now and so is the odor. The kids’ pile of gifts under the tree still remains. They are as bad as I am at wanting the season to last forever.
Either that or they are as physically lazy as I am.
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“Nothing irritates me more than chronic laziness in others. Mind you, it’s only mental sloth I object to. Physical sloth can be heavenly.” ~ Elizabeth Hurley
Tomorrow is my mother-in-laws 90th birthday. Tomorrow my daughter takes a big test that she is dreading. Tomorrow is the last day of eating holiday food and drinking wine without exercising. If not, tomorrow might be the last day I will be able to fit into my jeans.
I don’t know if it’s good or bad fortune but we got some free tickets to the Bills game on Sunday. The weather is supposed to be terrible (no comment on how the team has been playing this season) but I am hoping to catch a glimpse of Peyton Manning on the sidelines. That would be a thrill. No illusions here. With the getup I have planned to keep me warm in the 20 degree temps (all of it size 14) I will look like an Eskimo gone bad. The days of looking cute and freezing my patootie off are long gone. Perhaps some of that blubber will help keep me warm. I like to think positive.
Messed up today and overslept when I was supposed to be a Eucharistic Minister at church. It probably works out because I probably can’t fit into any of my dress pants right now anyway. I need a week or so of eating like a normal person before I start looking like I could quality for The Biggest Loser. I would never make it on the show. I have no drama in my life. Other than the annual 5 pound weight increase I experience, I am a very happy person, and if Jillian started to yell at me, I would probably start to laugh at her and really tick her off.
Had an unexpected New Year’s Eve party at our house. You will never know how hard I worked all that day getting my nieces and nephews to clean my house for me. It was exhausting to have to think of all the various ways to motivate them to scrub, polish and dust. It took about all of my creative abilities and I had none left for the projects I have been putting off for the last four days. Thankfully chocolate fudge and Pinot Noir are know stimulants for the flow of creative juices and I have one more party tomorrow so that I can replenish myself.
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“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” ~ Albert Einstein
Yes, my husband and I have turned a lot of stomachs this past couple of days. With just simple things, like asking for him to scratch my back or suggesting we go out for a nice romantic dinner. Apparently this is way too sexual for the kids to handle and they can only cry out with disgust to such benign interchanges between a couple married for 29 years, who don’t exactly exude hotness from every pore. It’s not like I suggested we have sex on the table or anything. Geez. I have addressed this in my First Times Greeting Card available for a laugh here. Enjoy.
So then we get this issue of Cosmo in the mail addressed to my daughter and what the heck, the thing is full of tacky sex talk and kiddish (and I mean fourth grade) discussion of a female person’s body parts. Come on – we can’t say vagina on the cover but we can say hoo ha? Give me a break. Cosmo magazine used to be a tad more sophisticated. I think that it is now downright stupid. My guess is that they need readership (badly) to be able to sell ads to their clients because for $5 a year, my daughter got this stupid one year subscription, which they then sent to two addresses. What joy for me to read about getting a healthy and happy hoo ha at this late stage in my life. And I read the article. I learned nothing really, as it was just a bunch of hoopla about a hoo ha. Another guess? Putting hoo ha on a cover sells more magazines.
And I think Amanda Bynes, featured on the cover, got a lip plumping job. And by lips, I mean the ones on her face. (See diagram in the article on hoo ha.)
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“Violence and smut are of course everywhere on the airwaves. You cannot turn on your television without seeing them, although sometimes you have to hunt around.” ~ Dave Barry
I was looking forward to the Christmas holidays as I thought it would be nice to have my son home for five weeks. He’s been home for two days but not really. Gone the first day visiting his girlfriend for the whole day, came back to eat, and now away at his friend’s house overnight. It’s a my version of “Home Alone”. Funny thing is that I am getting used to it.
It’s kind of like when you have a traveling husband. When he’s gone, you miss him and harbor just a tad bit of resentment that you have to do everything yourself, but when he gets home, somehow he seems to be in your way. When he is home he does get to taste what you’ve got cooking (ah, hem) and then he’s off on his next trip and the whole sequence begins again. I did get used to this domestic roller coaster. After about 20 years. Then, just at that particular time, he decided to change jobs.
However, my son was home for dinner. I won’t be serving any leftovers – for about five weeks. I will be going grocery shopping. Tomorrow.
I am supposed to get up early and go to Sam’s Club with my girlfriend so I will be able to stock up on edibles. I am also going to scout out to see if there are any items in the lawn and garden section of interest, especially a replacement Mega Station. I hate getting up early but she is treating me to breakfast. The thought of food at any time of the day does motivate me. Well, I should qualify that. It doesn’t motivate me to exercise at any time.
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“As a child my family’s menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it.” ~Buddy Hackett
Last year, at 2 a.m. Christmas morning when I was wrapping gifts and using rubber cement and electric tape because I ran out of tape, I swore that I would be more prepared next year.
Fast forward to week two of Advent 2009. I am done shopping and about 1/3 of the way done wrapping gifts. Now I am scared. What happens when I have all my gifts done? I don’t think I will be able to handle this uncharacteristic calm. It’s putting me on edge. I might have to break down and bake cookies or something. Just what do organized people do when they are on time, or even early with task completion? It feels wrong.
I miss my old friends Panic and Dazed, my own personal elves that helped me get ready for Christmas morning. I don’t know if the Holidays will be the same without that old adrenaline high.
But I am not telling my kids about this. I plan on acting all panicky, otherwise they will ask me to help them do their shopping, errand running or wrapping. I have been practicing looking dazed and overwhelmed and faking breathlessness in front of the mirror. I am using the old I Love Lucy episodes I got last Christmas for inspiration. (Method acting.)
See how this preparation thing is getting to me?
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“Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations.” ~ Jane Austen
The kids are back to work or college, the Saints beat the Patriots and a light coating of snow has fallen across the land for the first time this winter.
Last night we went to help put up my daughter’s outdoor Christmas lights so at least I saw one of the kids to help get me from a full, noisy and happy household to my new normal, which is the dog looking at me and furnace coming on to break the sounds of silence.
But not to fret. I do still get to do “Mom Cheerleading ” though, which makes it all better. “Mom Cheerleading” is when you are called on to pump up a child after they have had a bad day, bad experience, bad test, bad whatever. It is challenging to do over the phone but I have become quite good at it. Mom cheerleaders have to break it down into three parts. (No pom poms are needed and thankfully, no little outfits as I wouldn’t look good at all.)
The first part is listening. You listen and provide feedback to make sure that you understand the issue. This can take some time, but not because you are slow to understand. No. This is because usually the party involved gets satisfaction from repeating the same thing multiple times.
The second is probing for solutions. You can offer two or three and go over the pros and cons. It is delightful when the other person comes up with their own but you at least need to throw up something to get the brainstorming process started.
The third is fun. After you have listened and decided on the proper action, you can top it all off with some pumping up of all the good qualities of your child and (this is the REALLY fun part) and how awful the other party/institution/place of employment/etc. was to do such a thing. They kids really love this part. It does require one last warning to be polite as this has a tendency to make a person feel a but too much “in the right” and can tempt them to do wrong, so be careful. It’s a balancing act. Like most of life.
I learned how to balance very well. A couple good falls a week over a period of years will do that do you.
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“A good balance of winning and losing is important. If you just win all the time, you won’t get anything out of it; having some tough losses can be really important.” ~ Andrew Shue
Mine did until I went looking for a plugin to fix this droop on my sidebar. I got something for now but it doesn’t list the numbers of posts or ring any bells and whistles, so I am still on the hunt.
Ah, if it were just as easy to fix some other droopy things…
But onward to make more items to archive on my blog. (Don’t think I have the nerve for the type of cosmetic enhancements these ladies opted for.)
Picked my son up at school and found out my daughter passed the second of four tests required for her CPA exam. This will truly be a good Thanksgiving in that regard because if she would not have passed, well. It wouldn’t have been pretty. Maybe there is a God.
Son has a full Jesus beard. I scheduled an electrolysis appointment for myself for this afternoon so there will be no mistaking us over the candle light at dinner.
Daughter #1 will be home later today, complete with her cat that she can’t seem to be able to leave alone. I shudder to think about the overprotective genes I passed on to her, and how they will exhibit themselves when she has a human child.
Today, in addition to my hair removal experience, I plan to be/look very busy so they will clean the house for me. The only downside to that is how much I will hear about the size of the cobwebs, thickness of dust, degree of bathtub scum incrustation, etc. Perhaps my busyness should involve trips to the store?
Happy Thanksgiving to all and may my turkey be all defrosted when it’s time to take the innards out of the cavity. Can anyone tell me why in the heck they put them in there? Does anyone use them for anything anymore?
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“A woman voting for divorce is like a turkey voting for Christmas.” ~ Alice Glynn
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