Party Time!

My baby girl is turning 11 this week so her Dad and I are throwing her a slumber party this weekend. Our house will be taken over by a bunch of little girls, giggling, whispering, playing games and making a ton of noise. If I were normal I would be dreading the whole evening, but instead I am kicked into full party planning gear and I couldn't be happier. In fact, my little girl is trying to reign me in and has warned me to not go overboard. She wants me to keep it low key, not like all the other parties I throw. Who is this child? I demand a maternity test because this girl can't be mine!

My baby Girl

I LOVE a good party. I really love MY parties. I get the deepest pleasure from opening my home, feeding people a ton of great food, concocting tasty drinks and watching those near and dear to me have a good time. I spend months planning a really big party and each moment is pure bliss for me. Well, maybe not pure bliss, the last 24 hours can get a little hairy and my husband and I are rarely speaking to each other when the first guests arrive. Rest assured though, by the time the last guests leave we are happily sharing a plate full of leftovers, laughing about all the wonderful things that happened the few short hours before and contemplating when the next big shin ding should occur.

I am also the expert at justifying any and all reasons to have a party. Holidays are my specialty, but really, I can celebrate any day that ends with a "y". Recently we were invited to some friend's house for a BBQ and my girlfriend's husband asked who was coming. As she was rattling off the short list her husband asked if I was going to be attending, which I was, and he simply stated "If she is going to be here it isn't just a BBQ, it will be a party".  Although I am not 100% sure his statement was a compliment, I took it as such and no one can tell me differently. After all, it was a day that ended with a "y" so if pressed I am sure I had a reason we should of been having a party.

I am not sure when my love of parties began or when I started throwing multiple parties each year, but I can tell you they were born out of necessity. Once we had kids my husband and I really became home bodies, which is crippling for an extroverted person like myself. They say having kids changes everything and it sure did for me. While we still enjoyed going out, having a good time, relaxing with friends, we were terrified to leave our kids with anyone. We even tried a sleepover with my parents when our daughter was 2 but after multiple unanswered phone calls we left the office party in a panic and rushed to see what awful tragedy had occurred to our precious baby girl. Imagine our shock when we arrive and found everyone asleep with the TV blaring so loud it drowned out the sound of the telephone. No, babysitters of any kind were not for us.

Meanwhile, all our friends also started to have kids of their own and we knew we weren't the only ones with the attachment parent issues. I fully admit it wasn't the kids that had the separation anxiety, it was us! So, instead of finding suitable childcare, paying the astronomical amount for said suitable provider (because if they are good, they won't be cheep) and then adding on the additional cost of the actual date, we began to stay home and invite other families to join us. It was a win win for everyone. In fact, one of the first big get together we had I hired a babysitter to hang out with the kids, do crafts and handle the little stuff so the parents could really relax without the constant interruption little ones supply. It was awesome! Now that our kids are older and more self sufficient it is much easier...trampoline in the back, a couple of games the older ones can control and lots of new outside balls and sidewalk chalk. EVERYONE is happy!

Our Halloween Witch's Brew

We have gotten so good at it that we are actually know for our annual Halloween party. Halloween is our big blow out of the year and absolutely everything is over the top. Kid game, goodie bags, enough food to feed a small country, drinks, fire pit, chocolate fountain and just about everyone comes dressed in costume. Halloween is my favorite holiday because I get to throw a party of gigantic proportions and my husband just sits back and watches me make the magic happen. He lets me roll with it because he knows it will be great and he knows it makes he happy to my core. I guess he gets the same thing out of it as I do, he likes to see me happy and it makes me happy to see everyone else happy. By the end of the evening our living room is usually a dance floor, kids and moms dancing, people sweating, laughing and carrying on. Occasionally a husband will take a disturbing home video of a mom getting her grove on and just like that our house party goes viral! Disneyland has nothing on our house, at Halloween we are the happiest place on earth!

All this talk of a party makes we want to throw one...hmmmm...summertime is almost here and my best friend is coming to visit. Sounds like a reason to party to me!

Christmas in July!

I just got the best news today! My all time greatest bestest friend in the whole wide world is coming to visit me this July! I am so over the top excited the only thing I can compare it to is the feeling you had as a child waiting for Christmas to arrive. I don't get to see my friend that often because she lives in another country on another continent a whole big ocean away! I miss her terribly and the joy she brings into my life is unexplainable.

The bonus of the trip is that her significant other is visiting as well. It is very rare to like your best friend's new squeeze but I can genuinely say that I love hers, the joy he brings to my girlfriend, and he just makes me smile. He is also one of the easiest house guests we have ever had. Being from a Scandinavian country he was completely taken in by all of our American excesses. I managed to impress him with Costco, factory outlet malls and the many many wineries we have within 5 minutes of our home. During their stay with us we enjoyed numerous trips to bulk warehouses, massive amounts of fresh crab meat, and never ending glasses of wine. It was two wonderful weeks of shopping, rich food and delicious wine. I had died and gone to hostess heaven.

So now I have the opportunity to not only redo our last visit, but to make this one even better. When they were here last time, we had just moved into our home and we were fairly unfamiliar with what our area had to offer. Two years later and I am practically a native and I am ready to show off our town and the awesome people that live here. Of course there will be trips to the wineries, but now I know people and people know me! There will be an evening of dancing at the greatest biker bar I have ever gone to! New restaurants to try, live music venues and home BBQ. I can't wait!

So to that big "Santa" in the sky, thanks for my Christmas in July.

Facebook is not my Friend

I used to like Facebook. Not so much anymore.

Facebook used to be a great forum to just get a glimpse about what was happening with your friends and family. Occasionally you would comment on something and rarely you would have a conversation with a true beginning, middle and end. If fed the voyeur in all of us with pictures, funny stories and perfect one liners. It was fun.

Now it feels like a full time job to keep up on everything. Somehow I have managed to divide my Facebook friends into lists and I am not sure how it actually happened. In doing so, I have lost the simple, clean and fun news feed. In order to see what everyone is doing I have to hit about 7 different "list" feeds and try to figure out what I have missed. What makes this even harder is that I usually access FB on my phone and for just a quick minute here and there, which means I am missing a ton of crap.

Missing a ton of crap probably wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't for the fact that people have posted stuff to me that I have never seen, commented on items of mine that I never knew, or responded to something I said in someone elses' thread and I look like a complete A$$ because I didn't respond to their response. People's feelings are getting hurt, grudges are being held and friendships are faltering all because I can't manage to figure out this list thing. What the hell is going to happen when I am forced to finally give in and switch to the Timeline?!

Recently I watched the movie The Social Network about the humble beginnings of Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. I am not sure if they were trying but they sure made him look like a friendless ass. Therefore, I am forced to come to the conclusion that all these changes being made to the layout, lists and timeline of Facebook are all a round about way of making us all become friendless asses. If we miss enough messages, comments and threads we will be blocked from everyone we have ever known just because we can't figure out the ever changing social networking monopoly. We will be outcasts of the cyber society but without the millions of dollars that Mr. Zuckerberg has to buy new friends.

My trivial complaints about FB are nothing compared to the people that are being asked to release their passwords to current or potential employers. When did it become acceptable to invade someones privacy? Are you no longer afforded the luxury of a personal life? If you have placed the necessary blocks that your page is not available to the public, can not be accessed by anyone other than your friends, then I don't think anyone has the right to request your password to access your account. On the other hand, if you are stupid enough to make your page, pictures or anything public and someone sees it then that is your own damn fault! I might not know how to find every one's news feed but I know how to make mine private.

So to all my Facebook friends, I am sorry. Sorry that I am a fuddy duddy. Sorry that I can't figure these lists out. Sorry that I haven't responded when you thought I would, thought I should because I am not sure I could. I will keep trying, but in the meantime I am an ace when it comes to emails and as long as one of my kids isn't using my cell phone to destroy a distant planet I can text like a champ!

One of THOSE Days

Had a crappy day yesterday...

work - hate waiting on people.

kids - tired of same arguments just do your______, fill in blank with whatever, it is all the same.

husband - why the hell do we pay for a cell phone if you never answer it and don't use it to return calls?

car - backed my car into husband's car trying to get out of driveway resulting in scratches and dings for everybody!

sports - went to the sport I usually don't go to because I had to present something for work that if I didn't spend all day waiting on people I could have done earlier in the day and of course the sport I didn't go to that kid had an awesome practice, got to play a new position that he has the skills to do and I missed the whole damn thing!

project - worked on it all day (most of which was waiting for phone call) and then forgot the presentation at home and only realized after I was half way to my destination, had to turn around making me late for EVERYTHING!

dog - we have a very old dog that got overheated yesterday so I had to sit with him for 15 minutes while he licked ice cubes from my hand until he cooled down and his eyes stopped rolling into the back of his head. Scary.

bugs - daughter got her first bee sting, which I have an allergy to, which resulted in a late night trip to the drugstore and a $12 purchase of children's benadryl and a late evening watching her sting area and making sure her breathing remained unrestricted. More scary.

more bugs - hate ants. All of them. Hate that family leaves food out on counter even after I have told them 1000 times that we have ants and everything must be kept clean and put away.

house - damn disaster area, laundry pile has requested its own zip code.

blog - have spent the last 2 hours writing various forms of this blog only to have the computer dump all the work I had done. About to throw all electrical devices out the window.

SCREW THIS!

CRAWLING BACK INTO BED AND WATCHING MINDLESS CHICK FLICKS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE DAY.

Summer Vacation to Do List

Summer Vacation is rapidly approaching and being the good mom that I am (cue the uncomfortable cough and advert your eyes) I have begun to dream up all the wonderful things we are going to do.

Then I stopped laughing and came up with the following Summer Vacation to do lists:

What I say we are going to do

VS.

What we are really going to do

What I say: We are going to go to the beach a lot this summer!

What will really happen: We will hit the community pool at least once a week but I will throw in new pool floaties to distract everyone from the fact we are not at an actual beach. Because let's face it, I really don't have any desire to partake in the hours of planning and lugging crap that is involved with an actual trip to the beach.


What I say: We will have all your friends over for a fun filled slumber party with games and activities.

What will really happen: At the last minute I will text some of your girlfriends to come over and I will order a pizza and soda and you can play Wii games and jump on the trampoline. To make it special I will let you all pick out your own donuts in the morning, sufficiently sugaring everyone up just in time for their parents to pick them up. My lack of sleep for a night should equate to everyone suffering with me the next day.


What I say: We will go for bike rides in the park.

What will really happen: I will call my friends and have them bring thier kids to the park and we will watch you ride your bikes around while we try to not die of heat exposure. I will make a great effort to not forget to pack extra water for everyone but being that it is summer break, Mommy's brain will be taking a little vacation of its own so don't count on me remembering much.


What I say: We will go have lunch with Daddy at work.

What will really happen: There will be some lunches out, it will just be without Daddy because he doesn't like the same restaurants that Mommy does, but Mommy's girlfriends do and if they are lucky we will let the kids tag along


What I say: We will read a ton of books together, expanding our vocabulary and challenging our minds during the summer break so we will be well preparred for the new school year.

What will really happen: We won't touch a book until 3 days before school starts and will try to cram the entire suggested reading list in 2 days. Note to self - check to see if they have Clif Notes for Captain Underpants books.


What I say: We will go on a fun filled family camping trip.

What will really happen: Kids will sleep out on the master bedroom balcony and we will leave the door open so we can hear them. If they really want the outdoor experience they can pitch a tent on the lawn but be forewarned, I have no control over when the sprinklers come on so camp at your own risk.


What I say: We will visit multicultural and mind altering museums this summer.

What will really happen: We will look up stuff on the iPad and Wikipedia from the comfort of our own sofa. Occasionally we will throw in a history related movie or TV show. Heck, I learn something every time I watch Phineus and Ferb so I am certain the kids are as well.


What I say: We will have the best summer ever.

What will really happen: We will have the best summer ever!

Rock N Roll Hall of Shame

Axel Rose doesn't want to be inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame along side his former band mates of Guns & Roses. Really, that is his right to not want to accept the honor. Do I think he is an idiot for turning it down? Hell yes. There is the saying that any publicity is good publicity and by the looks of it he is in need of any publicity he can get. Although, one might make the argument that by rejecting the honor (in a very wordy letter) he is actually milking his Hall of Fame moment even better than if he would of just peacefully accepted the award and moved on. We might just look back on this moment and think his move was pure genius. It's a long shot, but just maybe.

What I do have an issue with is that while reading the first blurb on this subject a writer actually stated that the lack of Guns & Roses was a major disappointment for the ceremony. They would have been the headliners. WTF? Other inductees include the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers. While I don't want to disrespect GNR I hate to say that for me they were just doing what other hair bands of the time were doing. They did it well, but I was never surprised by their musical offerings and they were not unique.

On the other hand, the Beastie Boys reinvented what we thought about rap. They broke stereotypes, broke the mold and challenged what we thought was the norm. My kids still sing "Girls" and have no idea that the song is decades old. Thankfully, they also don't get what most of the words mean and I hope to keep them in the dark a little while longer. The Chili Peppers changed my world when I was in middle school. I often watched a little rinky dink public access cable show out of Boulder CO and one night there was Anthony and Flea telling me that "Real Men Don't Kill Coyotes". Holly crap! I wasn't sure what I was watching but even in 8th grade I knew that this was something beyond cool. It turns out, it was the stuff of legends!

I went back to try to find the article that stated the disappointment in GNR not playing, but I can't find it for the life of me. Maybe the author realized their error and withdrew it from the main stream news releases. Regardless, the damage for me was already done and my poor husband was subject to my rants last night about the entire subject. Thankfully for both of us he completely agreed with me. People have divorced over much more trivial stuff than musical compatibility...just ask Kim Kardashian.

So to all the 2012 Rock N Roll Hall of Fame inductees, Congratulations. To the Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers, thank you for all the wonderful memories, milestones and music. You are truly legends in our home and I am sure in many homes across the world!

Graduation...Elementary School Style?

Last night we returned home from swim practice a little later than normal because of a pleasant pit stop to see some friends we haven't seen in a while. The visit was completely wonderful, but the ensuing chaos from the late evening was almost impossible to overcome. Although, almost quickly turned into utterly impossible when I checked the phone messages at 10pm last night. "Hello 5th Grade Parents. Just a reminder that 5th grade picture day is tomorrow." REMINDER??? I never got the first memo!! You have got to be kidding me!

Quickly I sprang into Uber Mom mode and addressed what I knew would be the most pressing issue..."honey, what do you want to wear?" I knew her choice would not be something that would be clean, easy to find or possibly even under the same roof we were currently standing under. As much as I love my girl child, she does have a knack for making some things impossibly difficult. Luckily for me she knew exactly what shirt, knew where it was but it did need a trip into the washer...STAT!

With the wardrobe issue solved, the outfit in the washer and time ticking by at a rapid pace I sent everyone off to bed. In my head I figured we could tackle any other issues in the morning but right now we were 1 1/2 hours past our normal bed time. What I didn't figure was that 1 1/2 hours was going to be made up somewhere and it happened to be the next morning. We all woke up late which didn't help the homework that didn't get done, the load of wet picture clothes in the washer or the fact that showers were skipped the night before. I quickly found myself not tackling any issues, but having the crap beat out of me by Father Time and Murphy and his frigging law! What could go wrong was going wrong and fast!

We did manage to make it to school, in the rain, and about 5 minutes late. She had the outfit she wanted, but we didn't have time to curl her hair. It was clean and blown straight and I thought very pretty, but I could tell she was a little disappointed. I hate when they get disappointed for the simple things and they manage to blow off the big issues, but I guess that is a luxury of youth. What I wasn't prepared for was her anger and frustration when school was over. "Mom, do you know what the pictures were? Do You?" Well, no I didn't. I really don't know what 5th Grade pictures consist of. "They made me put on an ugly GOLD gown. They couldn't even see my Stanford shirt!" Like the good mom that I am, I quickly jumped on her band wagon because I had just spent the last 12 hours trying to wash an outfit that no one even saw. Yes, I was pissed too!

What didn't help matters much was that I had spent the whole day working on 5th grade graduation projects. In the last couple of years I have really stepped back from volunteering, but I thought it would be nice to help with the last elementary event my daughter would have. What I didn't realize was that I was getting involved with a week long celebration of gigantic proportions. This is ELEMENTARY SCHOOL GRADUATION PEOPLE! There is a Pool Day, Field Day, Softball Game and Yearbook Day, Movie Day and an actual Ceremony Day. I don't even remember doing this much for my high school graduation, although that whole time frame is a little blurry for a multitude of reasons. Is she going to expect the same amount of hoopla for middle school?  God forbid what she is going to expect for high school. Screw a college fund, I better start socking away to make it through the graduation.

The man power that is needed to pull off these extraordinary events is just as over the top as the actual events. There are committees for each day, and some days have multiple committees. My rough estimate is that for our graduating class of about 140 students there are at least 75 parent volunteers feverishly working behind the scenes in hopes of making their young children's graduation experience memorable. With the amount of time, effort and money that is going into graduation, this better be the BEST WEEK EVER! Although, you have to remember who the audience is...a group of budding pubescent pre-teens in the throws of hormonal angst that would rather be caught dead than thinking anything their parents were involved in creating is even sort of cool. I fully expect that at the end of the week we will be lucky to get a collective "Yeah, it was alright".

For my daughter, graduation events better start picking up real soon. She is already a little disenchanted with the entire graduation scene based on the gold gown experience. For an almost 11 year old she is quite astute in her conclusion that her input or opinion regarding the entire experience doesn't really factor in. She is determined to proudly wear her Stanford shirt (that we went to the actual campus to get for her) at her graduation since she had to wear that stupid gold gown for her picture. Being the supportive mom I am, I smile and shake my head in agreement all the time trying to figure out when to drop the bomb that they will all be wearing the same shirt for graduation...so sayeth the 5th Grade Graduation powers that be.

I got a feeling we might not make it through her first graduation experience unscathed.

Spring Break 2012...

...not a dang thing got done! Including my blog.

Sorry I have been absent lately but it was spring break for the kids, the husband took some time off and the stomach flu tore through our house like a tornado in a trailer park. Each of these events warrants an entire blog of its own but I will try to condense them into one so as not to bore you.

First off, Spring Break. These words are both joy and torture to the ears. On one hand you have the lazy mornings, lack of alarm clocks, free spirited schedule and no torture sessions disguised as homework. On the other hand you have TWO WHOLE WEEKS OF FAMILY TOGETHERNESS. Don't get me wrong, I love and adore my family but like all good things a little moderation goes a long way. Who in their right mind decided that two weeks off of school in the middle of the semester was a good idea? For how much they push and remind me that my kids need to be at school and on time every day they are sure liberal with the vacation time during the year. We had three weeks off for Christmas and another week for Thanksgiving. Looking at the calendar, I don't think there is a single month that the kids don't have some kind of vacation/long weekend deal going. I can assure you, this was not the case when I was in school...walking both directions...in the snow...uphill both ways. Kids today are so spoiled.

Then in the middle of this wonderful vacation my husband takes a few days off for some family together time and a road trip. Now, with gas prices what they are these days you might think we are nuts for driving anywhere, but our daughter qualified to enter a huge invitational swim meet in the San Francisco area so off we went. To ease the pain at the pump we took our Mini Cooper. I love that car, but let's be honest, when the four of us show up for a 5 day swim meet with all our luggage, food, chairs and swim gear we look like rejects from Ringling Bros. Circus. The amazement on people's faces as we unfold ourselves from the interior of the Mini is hilarious. The fact that we are all still talking (minimally and through ground teeth) is nothing short of miraculous. But that little car gets almost 40 miles to the gallon so we suck it up and suck it in because we will continue to take that car everywhere we need to go.

Our spring break trip went off without a hitch until the very end. When I say very end, I truly mean the very end. After hitting Southern California traffic, therefore turning a 6 hour drive into an 8 hour drive, we finally pulled into our driveway. Oh the joy to be home! No one told me we brought a tornado with us because just as we pulled in and were putting the car into park, our daughter began to vomit. A lot. She was like Mt. Vesuvius of the gummy worm, twizler and twix world with a create your own pancakes on the side. Poor girl was done and it was a comedy of errors that we got her inside, cleaned up and in bed in between the continued upheavals of everything she had ingested the entire weekend.

She was the first soldier to go down, but not our last. No sooner was she feeling a bit more perky and our boy was heaving as well. Like all good illnesses it appeared to be getting worse with each new victim. The poor kid had it coming out both ends. This led to a new vocabulary word at our house, the Bart. Where you barf and shart all at the same time. Poor kid though everything coming out of his behind was going to be a fart but they almost always packed a little extra gift for him. Not to mention the huge pile of illness laundry for Mom to tend to. Then the husband got it and in true male fashion he toughed it out but was a bit of a crab apple to deal with. They say PMS is bad to deal with but I say a man with the flu is far moodier and unpredictable.

I knew it was only a matter of time and I would no longer be able to dodge the flu bullet. In true Mom fashion, I spent my last bit of energy cleaning up the house. I knew that once I was down for the count that the rest of them wouldn't do a thing to keep the house in even a semi-decent shape so I figured the cleanup wouldn't be as bad if the house started off in good shape. Oh how wrong I was! Of course, being the last one to get the flu made mine the longest to last and when I came out of the cloud I walked right into the remaining rubble that was once my home. I still don't know how they manage to make such a big mess in a relatively short amount of time, but manage they did and they managed very well.

So yesterday was the first day back for everyone and yes, that was me you saw in the middle of the street dancing a jig in celebration. I was so happy I threw myself a laundry, dishes and dusting party that I think will last all week. I know how to party like a rock star...a rock star Mom that is!