Hollow Tree Ventures

Putting My Best Foot Forward (and not in my mouth)

2012-05-25T09:07:00.001-04:00

Whadda ya know? I've been invited to be the Featured Blogger at Studio 30 Plus today!

If you've never heard of it, I'll fill you in. Studio 30 Plus is a social media site and online support community for writers; the "30 Plus" part indicates it's for people over thirty, but they were kind enough to let me in even though my imagination age is 28. You can join up and get all kinds of advice, connect with other writers, improve your writing, and win cash money! Okay, that last part is a lie, but it's absolutely worth joining if you're a writer/blogger/memoirist. Or just go for a visit if you don't write but you're a lurker who enjoys stalking excellent writers. Don't be all creepy with your stalking, though. And if you are, for the love of whatever, don't tell them I sent you.

I've been giving a lot of thought to what I want to post over there, but as I type this I haven't started my S30P post, or even come up with a good idea. I was going to ask Gerry for some ideas, but here's how that went.

Me (fishing for some congrats): Hey, guess who was invited to be a Featured Blogger at Studio 30 Plus on Friday?

Gerry: I know! But I'm so swamped right now - would you mind taking care of that for me?

Hahahahahaha. See how funny he is?

So I was left to my own devices, trying to dredge up a good idea out of the dark recesses of my worthless brain. This opportunity could mean exposure to a whole new group of folks, and I don't mean the trench coat kind of exposure, although if my post is a flop it could be just as embarassing as the trench coat kind. Not to mention I have to keep the content up to my normal High Standards of Writerly Excellence for the benefit of my regular, lovely readers (that's YOU, if you managed not to laugh at the suggestion that my blog is based on any kind of Standards, High or otherwise), so that it's worth your time to click through to S30P and check out more of my drivel. I want to be humorous, but not frivolous - poignant without seeming snooty - informative but not droning - tell a story without rattling on and on and on and on because you know that's how I usually write but I'm trying to stop so fewer of my posts will consist of one, uninterrupted 10-page sentence broken up only by intermittent italics.

NO PRESSURE.

Everyone knows that nothing helps you come up with quality, creative, funny, thought-provoking writing while you're already floundering in the midst of an Idea Drought like a whole heap of self-imposed pressure.

So anyhow, I hope I come up with an idea by Friday. If I do, I'd really love it if you joined me at Studio 30 Plus here. If the word "here" isn't a hyperlink, that means I couldn't think of anything to write about and I'm currently hiding behind my couch with the lights off in case S30P stops by to ask where my post is. Please, if you see them, don't tell them I'm home.

A click below equals one vote - please click, because if I bomb over at S30P I'll need your thick, absorbant votes to dry my tears.

The House Tour That Ruined My Life

2012-05-23T18:24:00.001-04:00

Hello.

Dramatic sigh.

I'm feeling blue today, because I was given an awesome opportunity to tour the inside of a house I've always been in love with, and I was stupid enough to do it.

What, this old crap shack?

That's not even the best angle. Or maybe it is. It's hard to tell, because the house is like some stupidface supermodel that looks gorgeous even when she's wearing a burlap sack and her hair's on fire.

I'm essentially looking up the house's nose, and it still looks good.

As you might be able to tell by the way I suddenly hate it, I can't afford to buy this house. I offered to go splitsies with my mom, who orchestrated this house tour (there's plenty of room for her, especially if she's willing to live in the maid's quarters), but then she pointed out we'd still need a couple more people to go in on it with us. Not likely, since they'd be sleeping in the smoke house.

EVEN THE SMOKE HOUSE IS CUTE!

I quickly discovered that it's a lot easier to love a house when you're admiring it from afar. Then, you can delude yourself by imagining that at least the inside is filthy and needs a lot of work and it probably has a terrible floor plan.

This acreage is its own gated community.

But now that I've been inside the gate, I'm cursed with The Knowledge Of What I'm Missing.

Who even wants this panoramic view as you rinse vegetables
in the kitchen sink, at your granite counter top,
over your custom-built Amish cabinetry? NOT ME!

Every single detail was perfect, and perfectly antique, and perfectly cared for, and updated in all the right ways. The doors were gorgeous; even the cat door cut into one of the interior doors was adorable.

Spoiled cat doesn't even know
how awesome his door is, I bet. Hiss!

Were there secret hallways with built-in window seats? Did it have front and back stairways, just like I've always wanted? Were there FIVE bathrooms, huge closets, 10-foot ceilings, 10-inch baseboards, and original windows with slatted shutters? Humph. I didn't notice.

This is where I sat to cry.

I cried here for a little while, too.

My mom and I also went shopping at Goodwill today, which was a lot closer to our usual speed.

Pinterest, I will make those adorable pillowcase dresses you keep taunting me with, even if I die trying.

Anyway, that's what I was up to today. Instead of buying my dream home, I took over 100 pictures of it; I'm hoping, at the very least, to get a really nice cardboard box and line the inside of it with the photos. I have a good imagination - maybe I can pretend I'm there. Because now, of course, I can never be happy again without The House. Judging by the look on her face as we pulled away, Madeline couldn't agree more.

Someone buy me that house! Please???

Please click below to vote! It might be the only ray of joy shining into the day
of a woman who is now the proud owner of every pillowcase in the tri-state area,
instead of a 3588 square foot farm house. ;)

Blogging Bites Back

2012-05-22T13:14:00.000-04:00

I absolutely love having a blog.

Except when it's hard. Or time consuming. Or I have writer's block. Or when a loved one throws my blog back in my face as a punch line.

When I started HTV, I secretly took pleasure in threatening those around me* that I was going to blog about whatever it was they were doing, especially if what they were doing was irritating me.

And we all know how many things fall into the category of Things That Irritate Me. Pretty much all the things.

Before long, these threats were being volleyed back to me in the form of snide taunts such as, "Why don't you blog about it?" every time I complained about something or wanted to make a point that no one in real life wanted to hear about.

Often, I do blog about it, even if Real Life people aren't the only ones who don't want to hear about it. (Take THAT, deadly cloud of space dust.)

Yesterday, I texted a photo of Maddie to Gerry while he was at work. I know he misses her during the day, so I wanted to show him Maddie's happy face and also prove that I can hold a camera while I'm eating bon bons and watching Friends reruns on TBS all day, just like any top-notch mother.

"I'm not quite this blurry in real life."

Last night, we were discussing the photo.

Gerry (noting Maddie's purple and white striped onesie): This looked blue in that picture.

Me (referencing the gorgeous, aqua, milk-stained tank top I was wearing**): Maybe it was a reflection from my shirt.

Gerry (perhaps a little overly incredulous): Oh, the reflection from your shirt made the purple stripes look blue?

Me (indignant): You don't know.***

Gerry (to Maddie): Your mother is pretending to know something, but we know that can't be right because she never makes any sense.

Me (to Maddie, possibly while packing Gerry's suitcase for him): Your daddy doesn't know when to stop words from coming out of his talk hole.

Gerry (smirking): Aww, honey, I don't mean anything by it - I'm just blogging out loud.

Hmmm. I see. So that's what we think of the blog, eh? Well, babe, I'd hate for you to have to waste a lot of breath repeating that line every time you make fun of me, because at that rate you'd run out of breath about four seconds after you got home from work. So I made you something.

Blog Out Loud shirts by HollowTreeTees

Folks, I pinkie promise I'm (probably) not going to make a new shirt every day, but I think we can all agree this one was necessary.

* When I say I "secretly took pleasure" in threatening people, I mean that I took pleasure in the most obvious way possible, complete with finger tenting and maniacal laughter.
** Full disclosure: I'm still wearing it.
*** Good comeback.

No marriages were harmed in the making of this blog post.
As far as I know.
Because he hasn't read it yet.
Please click below to vote, then stop back by to read the comments, because I bet he won't be able to resist countering my snark with more snark.
Ah, indirect internet snarking.
That's why we'll be married forevahhhhhh.

Your Pants Are Puzzling on a Global Scale

2012-05-21T09:48:00.003-04:00

Gerry recently bought some jeans at one of those stores that claim to provide Majorly Huge Discount Close-Out Prices. I won't say which one, though there might only be one; I wouldn't know, since the last time I went clothes shopping it was to pick out an acid wash denim jacket.

Shut up, they were in style at the time. You know you had one too, and it was probably covered in buttons proclaiming your eternal love for Duran Duran.* Like mine.

Yes! A vest! Even better. (source)

*Editor's note: JD at Honest Mom commented (below) that the band reference (above) should be The Police instead of Duran Duran, and she was so right that I had to add this correction. Because I'm obsessive like that.

Okay, we'll discuss 80s fashion and the horrifying fact that it's starting to come back in style at another time. Right now, I want to tell you about the $300 pair of jeans Gerry just bought, and why I find them so unbelievable.

Other than the price. $300? Really?

Of course the Major Discount Store's price tag said "$16.99 - Compare at $32.99!" so methinks perhaps the Close-Out Price of $16.99 was due to a tag misprint at the Dinamit Original Golden Jeans factory.

So, I was examining the jeans (he wasn't in them at the time, pervs), and maybe it was because the pockets are studded (!), or maybe because the dye felt like it was going to rub off on my fingers, but something made me check the label for special laundering instructions. That, my friends, is when things got interesting.

Finally. I know.

I included a picture because no one in their right mind would believe me, but let me share what's printed on the label so you don't have to strain your eyes.

WASH INSTRUCTIONS.

DEAR CUSTOMER.

DINAMIT MAKE ANY POSSIBLE

TO PROVIDE YOU WITH EXCELLENT

HIGH QUALITY PRODUCT.

TO PROMISE THE QUALITY

PLEASE BE STRICTED TO THE WASH

INSTRUCTIONS AND ENJOY OF OUR PRODUCT.

ACCORDING TO OUR

WASH INSTRUCTIONS.

THANK YOU.

Say what? This just in: Job opportunity for excellent qualified proofreader at Dinamit Jeans Company - you will really enjoy of the benefits package! Well anyway, there's another label sewn immediately adjacent to this one; perhaps that one will clear things up.

Um, no, that's just a summary of the label right next to it. Not sure what the purpose of that is, but whatever... Maybe I should check the back of the first tag?

Gah, that's no help, it's written in Hebrew! What about the back of the other one?

Ah ha, now we're getting somewhere!

DINAMIT

GOLDEN JEANS DESTINATION

RARE DENIM FROM

ITALY

100% COTTON

MADE IN CHINA

There we go, that explains everything! Except no, it doesn't. Actually, it only raises more questions, such as:

A) When did China start importing denim from Italy?

2) What makes the denim so "rare?" Are Italian Cottons an endangered species now?

c) Is Dinamit a misspelling of Dynamite, or Dammit? Because I feel sure it's one or the other.

IV) Is the laundering symbol "P with a slash through it" supposed to warn us not to pee in the jeans? Is that what they think we do with our pants? Is this in any way related to them being the Golden Jeans Destination?

5) You guys didn't think I knew Roman numerals, did you?

F) What's the purpose behind China using Italian denim to make jeans for export to the U.S. and Israel??? I smell a global conspiracy of some kind.

And just in case, after hearing all this, you're suspicious (like I was) that the Dinamit Original Golden Jean Co is totally made up, here's a screen shot from their website. As you probably guessed, it features a woman in purple leopard print stretch jeans awkwardly lounging against a gigantic cement orange, with an artistic rancid pumpkin/festering boil-themed backdrop.

(source)

And people, it doesn't get any more real than that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hey, one more thing before you go running off! Speaking of clothes, which sounds like a really contrived segue but doing that on purpose would've required me to be both clever and organized and I am neither, I posted last week about Team Cool Kids, among other things, and as usual the comments were twice as entertaining as the post, which is one of the reasons I love you guys so much, and now I'm going to end this sentence before it gets any longer. In the comments we determined that creating a Team Cool Kids t-shirt should be a matter of national priority, at least twice as important as the economy and the Health Care Debate combined. I've never been one to let my country down, so hereyago.

Head not included.

Team Cool Kids shirt - take 2 by HollowTreeTees

Then Shannon, to whom I would link here but her comment didn't have a link (sad face!), said something that I immediately knew needed to be on a shirt, too, because it's my new motto.

Will look great under a blazer
at your next interview.

I suck at team dynamics T-shirt by HollowTreeTees

Wearing this shirt to work could really help you avoid a lot of unnecessary conversations and nosey questions from your boss, like "Why haven't you turned in the TPS report?" and "Where were you last week?" You can find these suckers at Hollow Tree Tees, which is just getting started and has some fun stuff going on, as described on the About page of the shop, which I could cut and paste here but I know your eyes are already tired from all these run-on sentences.

If you please to enjoy my product, one click = one vote thank you!

This post is linked up with Finding the Funny #18!

FragEEElay - it must be Italian!

2012-05-18T13:41:00.002-04:00

I'm going out on a limb here and assuming that everyone and their mother has seen the movie A Christmas Story, since even I've seen it, despite the fact that I'm always the one in the room who hasn't seen whatever movie it is that everyone's talking about.

Somebody (using vaguely Italian accent): Say hello to my little friend!
Me: Um, okay. Hello.
Somebody: What? No, it's from Scarface.
Me: Um, okay.
Somebody: (spouts random factoids about Scarface in a misguided attempt to jog my memory)
Me: Yeah, I never saw it.
Somebody: (astonished, rants for 20 minutes about how Scarface is a Classic and they can't believe I haven't seen it, followed by plans that are starting to sound frighteningly concrete for the two of us to watch Scarface together in the near future)
Me (trying to get them to shut up): Oh, THAT Scarface. Yeah, I've totally seen that. I thought you said E.T.

Anyway, here's where I act like Somebody and explain, in case you don't know, that "FragEEElay - it must be Italian" is what the dad in A Christmas Story says when he receives a huge crate marked "FRAGILE" containing a major award.

Also, A Christmas Story is a Classic, and if you've never seen it we should really get together - how's Tuesday for you? - because I have it on DVD with the outtakes and interviews with the actors. Oh, you have seen it, after all? Big surprise.

What I'm getting at is that I won a major award! But not just one major award - I was nominated for TWO major awards on the same day! Can you believe it? Yeah, me neither. Things are really starting to come together for me.

The first one comes from my girlfriend (she doesn't know we're going steady yet, but she'll get used to the idea eventually and invite me inside so I can stop watching her from the tree outside her window), Paige at There's More Where That Came From, and boy oh boy, I bet right about now she's feeling rather sorry she did.

It's the Lovely Blogger Award!

Paige didn't specify that including an unflattering picture of myself was required, but she posted one of herself on her blog, so I think the mandatory nature of photo posting was implied.

One of the many wonderful things about Paige, besides her hilarious blog (which you'd better start reading if you don't already), is that the award she has awarded me has a super-simplified list of rules - namely, I just have to list seven things that annoy me. Which I was probably going to end up doing anyway, but this way I get to make it look like there's a reason for it beyond just general grumpiness. So without further ado...

Seven Things That Annoy Me

The fact that the whole world doesn't already know everything that annoys me, and doesn't just avoid doing any of those things without me having to intervene with irritated sideways glares and snide remarks muttered under my breath.
The extra gravity in effect in front of my refrigerator, which makes me drop every third thing I try to take out of the fridge and causes all 50 pounds of kid artwork to randomly fall down even though we use upwards of eleventy thousand magnets.
Commercials in general, but especially the ones that star the business owner, who clearly has very little acting experience, and are filmed by the business owner's 6-year-old child using a shoulder-mounted Camcorder that was time-warped in from 1981.
The baby's unwillingness to conform her nap schedule to the daily syllabus I have so thoughtfully provided for her.
The phrase "a couple three." A couple is two. Three is three. SO WHICH IS IT, ALREADY?
People who stand in my way at the grocery store because they're busy checking every single gallon of milk for the latest expiration date. If your life is so unpredictable that one day difference in the expiration date is that critical for you, just get a half-gallon and move on. Besides, I was going to get the gallon with the latest expiration!
The fact that I can't think of one more thing that annoys me, because in real life EVERYTHING annoys me.

I know we're all better people for having read that list. But we're not finished just yet! Vanessa, via her funny and so-clever-I-wish-I'd-thought-of-it blog at 5 Things About Nothing Important, has nominated me for a Liebster Award!

Here is where I was going to link to the post where I accepted the Liebster Award before, and tell Vanessa that I hope she isn't offended if I spare everyone going through my acceptance speech again, except I can't, because I suck.

Why, you ask? For many reasons, but in particular right now I'm referring to the fact that Marian of Just Keep Swimming (another blog you should SO check out - very funny - trust me, I'm not just her fan club president, I'm also a member) nominated me for the Liebster in April and I thanked her on Facebook, and then TOTALLY SPACED OUT on mentioning it here on HTV.

Yes, I'm a jerk, unworthy of awards, and I heartily apologize to everyone involved and to my mother, who's probably embarrassed by my rudeness because she raised me better than that.

Sigh. I hope my social awkwardness didn't ruin the merriment for everyone. To perk things back up, I'm going to break my rule about not passing out awards and spread the love (yes, that's love you're feeling, people). Since there are TWO awards being presented (now she's just bragging), the fine folks below are officially nominated for both. Or either. Or neither, if you don't like getting awards. I won't be offended, just like all my lovely nominators seem not to be offended, or at least seem to have forgiven me for my ham-fisted attempts at accepting awards, and continue to be my friends.

Trucking Tumbleweed at Confessions of a Tumbleweed, because I get all giddy with impending laughter every time I see a new post from her in my Google reader, and I'm a little surprised she hasn't taken over the world yet, or at least the interwebs. Also, she teaches me random facts about bugs and hideous fish that are fun to bring up at parties (that's a lie - I don't get invited to parties). She's so cool that Vanessa already nominated her for this Liebster, but I've always wanted to nominate her for something so I'm just gonna go ahead and do it, even though awards make her uncomfortable and twitchy. YOU'RE WELCOME.
Christian and Pat at Point Counter-Point Point Point, because I'm always excited to see what those two crazy kids are going to argue about next (except I rarely seem to run into Pat in the blogosphere, so I'm going to start an urban legend that Pat is just a figment of Christian's imagination). Their witty banter makes me laugh out loud at every post. I could never figure out why they didn't have a bazillion followers, until today when I realized they probably DO have a bazillion (or more) because I know for a fact that I subscribe but my name didn't show up under their Google thingy. So, heads up, guys - some of your followers are invisible. Unless you kicked me off your followers list on purpose, in which case NICE TRY - I just resubscribed.
Gerry at The Third Party, because he's incredible and I love him and I can't wait to see him roll his eyes at this nomination when he gets home from work.
Ang at Tall Curly Biscuit even though she prolly has bedunkdydunktillion followers and therefore doesn't technically qualify for these awards, provided there are Follower Limits as part of the award rules, which I'm too lazy to go back and check on. Her tagline is "Fourth funniest blog on the web," but I'm pretty sure that's based on outdated figures and should be third or maybe even second by now. I love her, and the world should be frightened about the very real prospect of us getting together in real life to practice her new sport, Cart Staging, and just generally wreaking havoc on society.

Okay, that's enough, mostly because my wrists hurt from typing while supporting a sleeping baby in my lap, but also because said baby is starting to wake up. I heart you all like chocolate chip-covered peanut butter toast (which is a lot). Thank you to Paige, and Vanessa, and (belatedly) Marian for the awards, and thanks to all of you for making me feel all loved and squiggly inside. Fo realz.

Please click below to vote, because I'm greedy and two awards still isn't enough to feed the insatiable appetite of my ego.

I Love An Enabler

2012-05-17T14:28:00.001-04:00

My name is Robyn, and I'm addicted to blogging. Among other things. But mostly blogging.

Hi, Robyn.

But far from trying to kick the habit, I'm here to talk about my beloved Enablers. These are the fine folks who help make my continued blogging obsession possible.

I've heard other people refer to their Enablers as "Sponsors." Potato, potahto.

Some of you may have noticed some new clicky tabs at the top of my blog - maybe even a few of you who aren't my mother! Or maybe you haven't noticed them yet. ::cries quietly:: In case you're just too absorbed in the hilarity of my posts to rip your eyes away and glance at the rest of the page (and who could blame you), I'll just go ahead and tell you about today's Featured Tab.

This tab is obviously for folks whose quest for awesomeness intersects directly with my desire for cash money.

I currently have two magnificent Enablers (or Sponsors - whatever) - you can see their buttons at the top of my left sidebar. Go ahead, look - I'll still be here when you get back... Keep in mind, I have more space up there, so a link to YOUR blog, Etsy shop, or small business could nestle right up next to them, all cozy-like. If you'd like to join Team Cool Kids and add your button (I can help you make one, if you don't have one yet), just visit my Sponsor page for the deets (that's short for "details," for anyone like five-minutes-ago-me who didn't know). The ads come in two sizes, Super Awesome and Wicked Super Awesome, so there's something for everyone. PLUS, right now you can use promo code HTV50OFF and get half off for your first month as a sponsor!

Now I want to tell you about the folks who are already encouraging my innerweb misbehaviour.

Twitter - Facebook - Pinterest - Google+ - BlogLovin' - Hellocotton

Confessions of a Semi-Domesticated Mama is the mad-house run by the ever-sweet and exceptionally funny Delilah. I fell in love with her blog by reading about her relatable misadventures involving stuff like social awkwardness and her five kids - she even has a series called So What?, which she so aptly describes as "Unsolicited Admissions of Parenthood Failure At Its Finest," and a series called He Said, She Said where she shares conversations she has with her husband that I sometimes swear she actually overheard at my house. She'll make you laugh until you cry, like when she describes her neighbor's yard sale, she'll give you weekly meal plan ideas that (I'm not making this up) even a Kitchen Idiot like me can use, and she'll touch your heart with moving, honest posts about her struggles with depression. You have to go visit her - you'll fall in love with her blog, but you'll soon have a serious girl-crush on Delilah herself, too, because she really connects with her readers. You'll be glad you found her - pinkie swear.

SParklingArt is the Etsy jewelry shop run by Sarah, who I can personally vouch for considering we're Real Life Friends (yes, I have a few) and I'm the lucky owner of some of her beautiful jewelry. I love - LOVE - the works of art she can spin from metal and gems, which is saying a lot considering I don't generally care one eensy iota about jewelry. I have an enamel Christmas tree pendant that she made for me in high school, which I still wear every year during the holidays. Here's proof, in the form of a dorky picture of me on Christmas in 2008!

Right now Sarah is dying a thousand deaths because I'm showing something
she made in high school jewelry class. But I love that thing.
Besides, shut up. I'm showing a picture of me in my glasses.

She also made gorgeous earrings and necklaces for all the gals fortunate enough to be in her wedding.

This was Back In The Day, before we were taking digital pics,
so this is the only photo of her wedding on my computer.
But trust me, the jewelry was to die for, even if you can't see it.

She's not just my personal friend, she's also a for-real artist, with for-real credentials (she graduated from the Gemological Institute of America in California, where I visited her and we got attacked by seagulls and also drove to Vegas where we gambled and drank beer in equal measure, but when I wasn't there distracting her she actually learned a whole heap of stuff). She works freelance, and operators are standing by to take your orders for custom-designed pieces of gorgeousness.

Pretty great, isn't it? Thanks, ladies, for helping me Live The Dream! Go check Delilah and Sarah out RIGHT NOW at their respective innerweb hang outs. And to all you people out there who want to get on board, there's still plenty of room in the boat.

I even have some Dramamine, in case the self-promotion in this post has made you a little queasy.

Please click below - one click is one vote - then become one of my favorite people in the history of people by becoming a sponsor today!

Are we there yet?

2012-05-16T10:20:00.001-04:00

The month of May finds me feeling a little bit like a kid being dragged along on a long, tedious car trip against my will. Except instead of being the kid, I'm the parent. And instead of a long, tedious car trip, it's a long, tedious school year.

This'll do.

We're almost there - I can see all the familiar signs that summer is approaching. The days are warm, the trees are lush, and the sunlight at the end of the day has a delicious golden quality that makes me want to go live in a Country Time lemonade commercial, where everyone spends their idyllic days swinging on a knotted rope and splashing into a cool, refreshing stream, or riding bikes past rustling fields of corn in the late afternoon.

Don't forget to laugh in slow motion.

But we're not there yet. We're still metaphorically in the metaphorical car, bored, tired of being cramped up in the back with our brother who won't stay on his side of the seat, headachy from staring out the window, and we've just been informed that there are no more rest stops between here and our destination. Or, for those of you too burnt out on Book Learnin' for symbolism: we're mere weeks away from the end of the school year - it's tantalizingly close - but there's still a seemingly insurmountable heap of projects and fund raisers and end-of-the-year miscellanea in store for us between now and the sweet, sweet days when the kids can start sleeping in their swimsuits.

We've had months of pick-up and drop-off, of meeting and volunteering, of field trips, of parent/teacher conferences, of "I don't have any clean pants" mornings, of collecting Box Tops For Education and Pennies For Hunger and Capri Sun pouches for reasons I never did figure out. When it comes to those last, lingering days of school, I think I speak for parents and children alike when I say, "I don't wanna."

Topping the list of School Things I'm Sick Of is homework, mostly because the kids each have long-term research projects going on that require Parental Assistance. For the record, "Parental Assistance" is School System Code for, "This assignment is over your kids' heads to the tune of about seven grade levels, so get ready to do 90% of a research project while your kids' eyes glaze over and you try to explain simple concepts like which literary elements constitute a proper paragraph."

As if I know.

I, for one, do not ever want to learn one more thing about Italy or Mars, which are the Topics Of Choice at our house. Frankly, they're starting to blend together, and I'll consider these projects a success if I manage not to write "Mars is the fourth planet from the sun" on anyone's project board in purple glitter paint right under a picture of the Italian flag.

Plus, there are a hundred other things they're trying to wrap up at school before the year ends. On Monday they crammed a choir performance, an art show, and a book fair all into one night. Then they had to do a repeat presentation of all the musical numbers because the massive throngs of hot, sweaty parents couldn't all smash into the sweltering gymnasium at the same time. Of course, as we parents sat dutifully in the audience with our cameras poised and encouraging smiles plastered firmly on our faces, none of the kids cared one bit about the show.

Here's Zoe, NOT singing because all her energy
is focused on making eye contact with me.

Here's Jake, NOT singing because all his energy
is focused on wishing he were on another planet.

Strangely, the kids don't seem to care one way or the other about the school year dragging on for an eternity. They appear to be content in their routine, while I'm the one beyond ready to bust out the sprinklers. I seem to be the only one who's eager to trade school uniforms for T-shirts, and I'm the one dreaming about ice cream dripping down their chins whereas they're happily eating yet another nutritious sack lunch.

But do you want to know the saddest part?

I mean besides the price of books at a school book fair. Because THAT is sad.

The saddest part is, it probably won't be long before I'm ready for school to start back up again. My best guess is I'll crack on day three. I'll miss the afternoons being quiet when Maddie takes her nap, and I'll quickly grow weary of the daily repetitions of, "What's for lunch? PEANUT BUTTER? But I don't liiiiiike peanut butter anymore." I'll suddenly remember that playing in the sprinkler is actually comprised of 10% fun and 90% tracking grass into the house on wet feet. The reality of drippy ice cream cones will come rushing back, complete with the full-body stickiness and the chocolate stains. And my blog! When will I have ~~an entire day~~ ~~a few hours~~ a little time to devote to my precious, precious blog?!? MY BLOG!!!

Pause for hyperventilation.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure if I should be pining away for summer, with its warm days and lack of wrapping paper sales, or hanging on for dear life to these last few days of school during which I have the freedom to blog and eat Oreos for lunch, as long as the baby says it's okay.

UPDATE:
As I was trying to make up my mind about the quandary above, the answer was delivered to me in the form of Irresponsible Mommy Karma.

At 8 AM, unable to tolerate the idea of bundling Maddie into the stroller and trudging to school in all my three-days-without-a-shower glory for Breakfast Supervision Duty, I decided to do something I hadn't done all year long - I blew it off. I felt badly about it, but I just couldn't drag myself over there to volunteer.

At 8:30 AM, I received a call from the school. Jake's teacher had decided to have an impromptu work day for their Big Project, and guess where all his materials were. That's right - in his bedroom.

So I ended up going to the school anyway, not only pushing the stroller, but doing it with one hand while carrying a bag of research material and wrangling a 3'x4' tri-fold poster board.

And to top it off, who was in the office when I got there to check in? The volunteer coordinator. The one I blew off this morning. Of course. Stupid school.

Please click below to vote for me - and then BRING ON THE SUMMER! I can't take any more of this school stuff, and now they're not too fond of me either.

Bloggers, Watch Your Backs

2012-05-14T10:47:00.000-04:00

I just realized that sounds sort of ominous. Sorry, I know how intimidating I can be, and I certainly didn't intend for you to feel threatened.

I actually mean, quite literally, to look out behind you. And I mean "literally" in the literal sense, not in the irritating way people use it to add unnecessary emphasis to whatever they're saying, as in, "I am literally going to starve to death" when really all they mean is they haven't eaten since lunch, which was two hours ago and consisted of four sticks of butter and half a mutton. No, I mean it as in, "I am literally going to start punching throats if people don't stop using 'literally' wrong." Because I am. Literally.

Anyway, I'm reminding bloggers to watch their backs because, when oriented toward our computers, we are not easily distracted creatures. While immersed in the Creative Process (e.g. refreshing our Twitter feed and stalking other bloggers), it's possible for the entire room we're sitting in to be engulfed in flames without it interfering too much with our busy click-clacking on the keyboard. Personally, I'd probably barely glance up from the screen while asking my husband to turn up the air conditioning, never mind the fact that he may or may not even be home at the time.

So it should have been no surprise to me when I roused myself from a Blog Fog, turned around in my computer chair (which is conveniently located in the nursery), and found this scene directly behind me.

What you can't see in this picture is that
she was wiping her nose on each article of clothing
as she removed it from the drawer. Perfect.

I wish I could say this was the first time I'd allowed such a thing to happen.

That must've taken quite a while to clean up, you must be thinking, unless you're a regular reader here at HTV, in which case you probably know that instead of cleaning it up I took some more pictures.

"If you're just going to stand there taking pictures,
I'm gonna go ahead and start unstacking
all these sheets and blankets."

That part was okay with me; I don't even know why we have little tiny crib sheets all folded up in there in the first place, since she's never once slept in her crib for more than 15 minutes.

Listen to me, pretending like I'd change the sheets even if she did sleep in her crib. Who am I, Martha Stewart? Please - I'm not even completely convinced Martha Stewart is real.

But that's where I had to draw the line. No, I didn't pick everything up - that would be such a waste of time, and plus sometimes I can get in a few more minutes of blogging while she frolics gleefully in the piles of clothes.

Instead, being the Super Ingenious Smart and Resourceful Mother that I am, I jammed an economy-sized box of diapers against the drawers to keep her from opening them and doing more damage. It also had the added benefit of blocking her favorite path behind my chair, which leads to the snake pit of computer wires and overladen power strips that reside next to the dresser.

Yes, I said this was in the nursery. What? I ordered the whole room from the Pottery Barn Kids "Death Trap and Electrocution Hazard" collection. It's adorable.

My plan would have been flawless and, as intended, stem the onrushing tide of clothes that now need to be washed due to the fact that they've been used as Kleenex, except that I overlooked one small detail.

Oh yeah, Maddie likes to play with diapers, too.

So now the nursery floor looks like an English trifle, but way less delicious because instead of sponge cake and custard, its layers are composed of dirty clothes and clean diapers. Which I guess is better than clean clothes and dirty diapers, but still.

Please click the banner below - one click is one vote! Then I'd advise you to turn around and look out behind you - unless, like me, you're afraid of what you might find there.

Brain Clutter Is Clogging Up My Mother's Day Wishes

2012-05-11T14:42:00.002-04:00

Here it is, the Friday before Mother's Day weekend, and I should be writing a post about how incredible my mom is, and about how lucky I am to be one of the few women who loves her mother-in-law dearly. But I'm having trouble. Certainly not because those things aren't true - they're absolutely true - so you'd think a post about it would practically write itself! But I keep checking my blog, and - alas - no such magically self-written post appears.

Part of the problem could be that the Sincerity Cortex in my brain is damaged, which causes my fingers to get all fidgety and non-typey when they aren't allowed to be sarcastic. I can get pretty sappy sometimes, but generally when I'm in the middle of saying something all sweet and thoughtful, my mouth will go rogue and spout off a stupid joke or an inappropriate comment. That's because my mouth's main goal in life is to Ruin the Moment.

It's one of my more endearing qualities.

Another problem I seem to be having is that very few coherent thoughts are escaping my brain, due to the insane amount of clutter up there. Any decent ideas that might be trying to germinate are trapped under musty cardboard boxes full of half-baked blog ideas, or behind heaping piles of mental notes about the kids' end-of-the-year research projects. I picture my brain sort of like an episode of Hoarders: Buried Alive.

I added a link to TLC's web page there, as if you don't watch the show. You know you've seen it! It's like a train wreck - you can't look away when you're flipping through the channels and suddenly you see someone clambering over piles of mail-order Precious Moments commemorative plates so high they have to use spelunking gear.

Anyway, here's an artist's rendering of what it looks like inside my head.

It's a mess, right?

So here's the deal. Today I'm going to unload some of my Brain Clutter on you - think of it as a self-imposed hoarding intervention. Hopefully this will clear the way for some A-1 top-quality blog content to come pouring out in the near future.

I can't tell Maddie and Zoe's clothes apart when I'm folding the laundry. Does this mean I have a tiny 7-year-old, or a gigantic baby?
I need to think of a good come-back for that time I was on facebook and Gerry told me to update my status to "bossy." I also need to think of an excuse for why it took me three weeks to think of a come-back.
Why does autocorrect assume it knows what I'm trying to say after I type one letter half the time, but I have to get all the way to the "s" before it guesses that I'm trying to type "apocalypse"? How many other words could I have been going for??? Apocalypso (the end of Caribbean music)? Apocalisthenics (the end of jumping jacks)? Apocalista Flockhart (the end of Ally McBeal)?
I will know the exact day that I've Made It Big-Time, and that will be the day I throw out all of my mismatched Tupperware.
Note to self: Since I'm never going to use the desktop computer from the other side of the room, attempt to hook up the regular mouse so I can stop feeding this wireless mouse its expensive, constant diet of AA batteries.
Zoe ripped a hole in the knee of yet another pair of pants - I need to patch those, and while I'm at it I should sew up the bottom of my winter coat pocket so, come November, I don't forget and stick my keys in there and lose them (again).
Work this phrase into an argument: "For your sake, I hope you fight better than you shut up." See if it sounds as cool out loud as it does in my head.
I need to start working out - I'm now so old I can sustain serious injury from not moving
I want to invent bite-sized PopTart Nuggets, except they'd be so small that they'd be all crust and no filling, and the crust is the only part no one wants to eat. Mental note: write a letter to Science asking them to research a solution to this problem.

Okay, that's a pretty good start - I think I feel better. Can you believe all that garbage was lodged up there? Thanks for helping me dredge out the hairball in my brain drain, or insert another, less disgusting metaphor of your own invention. Please tune in next time, when I might even write a little something about how awesomely terrific my Mom and MIL are, even though Mother's Day will be a distant memory by then and everyone will be thinking, How passé, appreciating our mothers is SO last week.

Hey, I just used the word passé - I think the intervention might be working.

Please click below to vote while I continue to regain brain function and get even more smarterer. Clearly I still have a lot of work to do.

Kitchen Fail (aka Why It Takes Me Two Hours To Ruin Dinner)

2012-05-10T13:01:00.002-04:00

Yesterday, all seven of us gathered together at a local park in an effort to have our very first full-family professional photos taken. I can't wait to see the results; our photographer is a very talented lady, so I'm hoping there will be at least one shot in which none of the kids are mid-gripe about how cold it was, Zoe isn't mid-freak-out about a spider sighting, Maddie isn't crying, my eleventy miles of wild hair aren't blowing straight sideways, and at least two of us are smiling. We'll see.

Too stuffy. (source)

Too relaxed. (source)

Nailed it. (source)

I knew it was going to be a busy evening without a lot of time to cook a huge dinner, so I decided to be Really On Top Of Things and make something in the crock pot. But what you may not know, unless you've been paying attention, is that I'm not too swift in the kitchen. So when I say "I made something in the crock pot," what I really mean is "I got an early start on ruining dinner."

My first mistake was completely forgetting all about my Grand Plan until I was already making lunch. Oops, it seems like there was something I was going to do first thing this morning... Strike one.

All was not lost, though! If I hurried, I could still pull it off. According to the recipe I just needed to cook up some bacon, so I grabbed the clean frying pan off the top of the stove, which is where you keep your frying pan if your kitchen is tiny and sad and has no storage.

Except the pan wasn't clean.

Apparently the pan was "soaking" so as I grabbed it, a little bit of the grease-water concoction sloshed out onto the floor. That wouldn't have been too bad, except the rest of the grease-water sloshed into the baby's car seat, because who doesn't keep the car seat on the floor in front of the stove?

That was only the beginning. Allow me to walk you quickly through the rest of the process, in case someday you'd like to spend two hours doing something that was supposed to take ten minutes.

Clean the pan. Locate bacon (in the freezer). Toss frozen bacon in the pan. Watch pan very closely - until two seconds have elapsed and you're distracted by a baby throwing bits of strawberry at the cat.
Clean up strawberry. Wonder what that weird noise is.
Notice plumes of smoke coming from the general direction of the stove. Take pan off stove. In a moment of panic, run water into the pan "to cool it off." Notice plumes of smoke increase in density by roughly 1000%.
Open the windows and rip the smoke alarm off the wall (safety first, people), but not until after you take a moment to tweet about it.

What kind of a 36yo person can't cook bacon without setting off the smoke alarm? #kitchenfailure
— HollowTreeVentures (@RobynHTV) May 9, 2012

Let the pan cool off. Realize there's no empty jar under the sink in which to deposit grease. Find half a jar of Ragu in the fridge, assume it's probably been in there since you moved in anyway, pour it down the sink so you can use the jar.
Clean up the pan (again) and determine that you know where you went wrong. Start all over with a fresh batch of bacon.
Get distracted by more tweets.

Accidentally licked fingers after handling raw bacon - am I going to die?Hello? ...Oh crap, this isn't WebMD. Sorry.
— HollowTreeVentures (@RobynHTV) May 9, 2012

That weird noise sounds awfully familiar... ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!

This used to be bacon. No lie.

Give up on stupid bacon. Omit it from recipe.
Finish getting everything into the crock pot. Begin clean-up of kitchen. Grease. is. everywhere. Try to put the Ragu jar of run-off grease under the sink, but realize the lid is missing. Spend 10 minutes looking, then suddenly remember what you did with it.
Dig Ragu lid out of trash, where it's wrapped up in butcher paper with raw chicken trimmings and chunks of carbon that were once potentially delicious bacon.
Hours later, start loading kids up to get professional photos taken. Realize that you forgot to clean sloshed grease-water out of baby's car seat.

My only consolation is that I'm consistently terrible at cooking, so even if I'd been paying attention as closely as I should have been, I wouldn't have known what I was doing anyway. Plus, we rarely have dinner guests.

I can't imagine why.

Please click below to vote, based on the fact that I've kept my children's standards so low that they said the dinner resulting from this mess was "just like Thanksgiving."

Mothers Are So Greedy

2012-05-09T09:40:00.002-04:00

Look, I know we mothers had a pact, but I'm letting the cat out of the bag. Get ready, world - I'm about to unleash the biggest secret to hit the innerweb since we all discovered that Alicia Silverstone is so environmentally conscious that she doesn't even use electricity when blending her son's homemade baby food. Here it comes...

We don't need Mother's Day.

There, I said it - now it's out there. Scream and yell and send me hate mail if you must (please don't), but deep down you know it's true.

Our kids shower us with love and attention and tokens of gratitude every single day, and yet we have the nerve to want a whole day dedicated just to us?

Okay, maybe I'm being a little sarcastic (Who, me?) - I made this Brite at Britely.com to help explain. Click below to see the little slide show.

Just refer back to this Brite if you find yourself feeling the all-too-common Mother's Day Let-Down on Sunday night. If you wait all day for your years of sacrifice, boo-boo kissing, sleeplessness, and unconditional love to be acknowledged, only to find a sink full of dishes, bags under your eyes, and an aching back as your reward - try to convince yourself that deep down, they really are grateful. Even if they don't seem to show it. They just have to be grateful, right?!?

And to you Fathers out there, OBVIOUSLY I'm kidding. We do need Mother's Day.

It's on Sunday - write it down.

And more importantly, you need Mother's Day, to show the hard working, beautiful, dedicated mother of your children how much you love and appreciate her.

But only if you want to live to see Monday.

If you need some ideas for gifts she'd like from yourself and/or the kids (yes, the kids, too - it's your responsibility to help make it look like they gave this some thought), I've got your back with another Brite so at least you'll know what her expectations are. Click below to read all about it (but click gently - that's Maddie's little squishy newborn face on the cover).

1 click below = 1 vote! Now that you've given me my Mother's Day gift, go orchestrate an incredibly elaborate celebration for the awesome mama in your life! If you ARE that awesome mama, then just sit back and wait for fabulousness to shower down on you. Oh wait, if you're a mama, that probably isn't "fabulousness" showering down on you. Eww. Back to reality - better go get the mop.

The Playdate Debacle

2012-05-08T11:44:00.001-04:00

Zoe entered the room, a sheepish look on her face and both hands behind her back.

This can't be good.

"Well, um, it was an accident, but...," she began. I didn't care much for where this was headed, but I nodded, encouraging her to continue. "When Annie* was over here the other day she pulled the leg off my doll, and when she tried to fix it..."

Unable to complete the sentence, she revealed what she'd been hiding: a legless Barbie Fairy torso in one hand, a single disembodied fairy leg in the other. Apparently, Barbie was the gruesome casualty of a playdate we'd hosted a few days earlier.

Observing from the couch (and clearly noting the blood vessel starting to bulge on my forehead), my mom sent Zoe off to locate the other leg.

While Zoe was in her room looking for the lost limb, Jake piped up. "That's not the only one. Remember Noah**? The Monster High doll? His legs are broken off, too."

The blood vessel began to throb, and it certainly didn't respond well when Zoe returned with both dolls and all four legs. It was immediately clear that the legs hadn't just been popped off - they'd been wrenched from their sockets, and there was no way to fix them. Not to mention, Noah had also sustained other injuries.

"Oh Monster High guy, hold me - I'm frightened."
"For the last time, I can't hold you - I have no arms."

I will admit that, at this point, I pretty much entirely lost my cool. Maybe it was (both) girls' disrespect for Zoe's belongings, or the idea of wasting of money on these practically brand new dolls that Zoe had begged for only a few months ago, or my general irritation with the fact that Annie has a complete lack of an Indoor Voice.

Hormones may have been playing a part, too.

Whatever it was, something was getting stirred up in my brain, and the ingredients seemed to be the exact recipe for a steaming hot stew of Indignant Rage. Zoe was sent to her room to clean it from top to bottom and was assured she wouldn't be getting any new anything for quite some time, nor would she ever have another playdate for the rest of her life if she couldn't take care of her things.

Deep breath.

I've had a few days to cool off, and honestly it didn't really take that long. First of all, it wasn't really worth getting THAT mad about, and secondly, even if it were, that's how my temper operates - I start in Volcano Mode right off the bat, and within minutes I can't even remember what I was mad about.

So here's my point.

Finally.

We don't usually have a lot of playdates. The kids have plenty of friends, and they go to the birthday parties and all that, but I'm wicked antisocial (I'll bet you guessed that) so I don't know a lot of the parents. That makes them essentially strangers, and in this day and age you don't send your kid to a stranger's house just because their kid sits next to yours at the school lunch table. And I'm sure they see it the same way, so their kids don't generally come over to our house either - just in case I'm a whacked-out nut job.

I'm not the dangerous kind.

So to all you parents who rock the parenting thing and actually regularly participate in Playdate Society... is this normal? Is a certain amount of toy carnage to be expected? What do you do when toys do bite the dust - more supervision? Hide everything besides Play-Doh and other unbreakables? Ignore it? I'm afraid if I don't get some outside guidance, my antisocial side (as if it's just one side of me instead of 100% of my personality) will use this as a welcome excuse to outlaw playdates, which I'm guessing would probably be somewhat of an overreaction.

Thanks and hugs and kisses,
Once Again Proving I'm Under-Qualified For This Mommy Gig

*Not the friend's real name.
**Also not the doll's real name, because in reality the doll is named after a boy in her class. But she DOESN'T HAVE A CRUSH ON HIM, so don't bother bringing it up 500 times like I have.

Please click the banner below - that's all it takes to vote!
Do it, and I'll admit that secretly I was glad that at least this resulted in Zoe finally cleaning her room...

An Hour In A Day

2012-05-07T08:35:00.000-04:00

On this fine Monday I'm linking up with Monday Listicles and Mothering Moments to tackle their listy prompt, "ten things that happen in an hour of your life."

Now, this could go one of several ways, depending on which hour of the day I choose to list. An hour during the week, when the kids are at school and the baby's asleep, would look about like this:

Blogging

But that doesn't quite fit the 10 Things requirement. Likewise, there are plenty of times it feels like I do about eleventy billion things in one hour, but posting a list that long is a good way to alienate my beloved, extremely attractive readers.

Please don't go away - I would never make you read a list that long. I love you. Plus, as a bonus, I'm going to stop being creepy now.

So I'm going to go middle-of-the-road (because you know the Blog Motto: Striving daily to achieve averageness!) and give you a taste of The Hour Before Bedtime here at casa de HTV.

7:45 - I start pretending like the kids are going to go to bed on time, so I make them hurry up and finish dinner. (What? Eating late aids in children's digestion. I read that somewhere, I'm pretty sure, or Oprah told me, or something. Don't judge.)
7:56 - I issue the third reminder to PUT YOUR DISHES IN THE SINK AND RINSE THEM FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WE GO OVER THIS EVERY DAY.
7:59 - Final warning that storytime better hurry up and happen if it's gonna happen at all. (Because I always try to foster a sense of warmth and snuggly joy when it comes to the educational and emotionally gratifying ritual of reading bedtime stories.) (In case you lost your decoder ring, that's HTV Language for, "If I don't usher my Dilly Dalliers through the storytime process with my foot lodged halfway into something uncomfortable, we might not make it to bed until it's time to get up the next morning.)
8:06 - One of the children is sitting by my side with their selected book. The other child sits down and announces that they don't want to read that book, and asks if they can get another book because [name of sibling] always gets to pick the book. (Of course.) Child disappears, and the baby decides she doesn't want to sit on my lap anymore.
8:16 - I finish chasing the baby around the living room, and join the two other kids and their books on the couch. Begin reading.
8:18 - I continue reading, but at greatly increased volume in an attempt to drown out the squirmy baby's loud whining long enough to finish Magical Family Storytime.
8:24 - Still reading at top volume (mmm, soothing) but now also increasing tempo until I reach the point that each paragraph is blurred into one syllable.
8:34 - I announce "The End" without regard to whether or not we've finished the book, and tell the kids to go brush their teeth.
8:37 - "One at a time! No playing in the bathroom! Don't forget to rinse your toothpaste spit down the sink. AND FLUSH! What do you mean you forgot to pee? Well, now your brother's in there, you'll have to wait. Well hold it, you didn't have to go that badly a second ago. Let's get your jammies. Yes, you have school tomorrow. No, you can't have dessert right before bed. Yes, I'll close your closet doors. No, there aren't any monsters in there. No, you probably shouldn't sleep with your collection of ChapStick. There, the bathroom's available now. Don't forget to flush. AND WASH YOUR HANDS. Honey, get your blanket off the floor. Put your DSi away; you have school tomorrow and you need your sleep. No, I don't mean after you finish one more level on Super Mario Brothers - turn it off now. Did you wash your hands?"
8:45 - Tuck the kids in, complete with hugs and smooches and as many repetitions of, "I love you don't let the bedbugs bite sweet dreams I love you good night" as they deem necessary. Retire to living room, wait 10 minutes and then go tell the Boy Child to turn off his DSi - again.

And there you have it, 10 steps to a ~~happy~~ ~~loving~~ ~~heartwarming~~ bedtime. I only wish that bedtime could come more than once a day (that's HTV code for, "I'm totally lying").

One click on the banner below = 1 vote! Here's hoping the kids pick short books tonight. Do you think they'd notice if I just read some blogs instead? Quietly, to myself? While they weren't in the room?

I'm Confused (It's Polite To Act Surprised)

2012-05-04T10:50:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a couple other posts, but I can't concentrate because social media is driving me insane. So please bear with me while I get this off my chest, and then I promise I won't mention facebook again for at least three or four days, minimum.

For people such as myself who are knee-deep in kids and cyber-interaction and other things we don't understand, Social Media has attempted to make things easier by allowing us to link facebook and the Twitter together. The idea is that if you update one, it copies your update to the other. Totally handy, because if you've ever read anything I've written about my children, you know how I hate repeating myself you know how I hate repeating myself.

Seriously, you'd think it would be really helpful, since I can only guess that Everyone On Earth is on the edge of their collective seats waiting to hear what I'm up to. So when I have some tidbit of information - something the world needs to know about ASAP, like how I should probably take a shower before my stank starts peeling the siding off the house - I hate the thought of sharing it with the Tweeps but not the FB followers, or vice versa.

Do you like how I'm making it sound like HTV is a Mammoth Global Empire? In reality, we are a Fledgling Global Empire, which is actually good news for you because there's still time to get in on the ground floor. Promotions will will doled out based on membership seniority, and you'll no doubt want to be first in line when the cushy positions like Senior VP of Wine Selection and Chief Corkscrew Engineer start opening up.

Anyhow, to absolutely no one's surprise, I've somehow screwed up facebook so that it has no idea that the Me that is Me and the Me that is HTV are the same Me. This causes my Social Media connectivity (in computery innerweb terms) to "not work." I'll post to Twitter and sometimes it shows up on my personal FB page, where I'm sure plenty of my old high school chums who haven't seen me in 15 years are thinking, "Um, gross, did she just update us regarding her boobs?" whereas if my bloggy friends who read this blog had gotten the update they'd be all like, "Thank Geezus Robyn's finally telling us more about her rack." See the difference? Similarly, sometimes my blog's FB status updates go to Twitter, and sometimes none of it goes anywhere, as shown below.

Does this seem muddled, stupid, and confusing? THAT'S BECAUSE IT IS!

If you study the infographic closely, you can see how it illustrates that I'm experiencing roughly 0% Social Media Effectiveness. I know I've been ~~ranting about~~ discussing Twitter and FB quite a bit lately (or at least it seems that way to me), but I hope you can understand why it's distracting me from blogging or child-rearing or whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing.

So thanks for letting me vent. Again. And please, wherever you follow my Super Important Updates, please forgive me if you get the wrong ones. Or none. Or if I drop my phone and accidentally send you an Instagram photo of my foot. I swear, I'll figure out the 20th century if it takes me the rest of the century.

Wait... what? It's the 21st century already??? Crap. I'm doomed.

Please click below to vote for me while I go try to find out if the Amish are hiring.

Thanks For Asking

2012-05-03T11:31:00.001-04:00

A lot of people turn to innerweb search engines in times of need.

Maybe they're looking for guidance, or medical advice, or the name of the song that's stuck in their head. But whatever the reason, they open their trusty search engine of choice, and type the words that they hope will reap an answer to their innermost, burning questions.

Sometimes those words make total sense. These are the times when the system works, like when you need to know if Desitin is on sale at Target, so you type something like, "cheap rash cream Target," and up pops a bunch of stuff that may or may not be helpful, but somewhere near the top of the page is the link you need. Problem solved!

It doesn't matter much that, taken out of context, the phrase "cheap rash cream target" sounds a little deviant. That's not your problem - the search engine doesn't judge you.

On a note that sounds unrelated, but is related and you'll see why in a second, bloggers often enjoy ~~stalking~~ reviewing their statistics pages. One of the stats the computer tells us about (drum roll, please... do you see where I'm going with this?) is a list of search terms that brought people to our blogs.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes the situation's pretty clear, like when the search term is the actual name of your blog. Other times, not so much.

Lots of bloggers do posts about these oddball phrases. Some, like Abby at Abby Has Issues, might shrug their shoulders and list the phrases (such as "Popcorn you make in your pants") for our amusement, having no idea how Google could've led these people to her blog. Others, like Kim at Let Me Start By Saying, can actually trace these weird searches back to the posts she wrote that caused the Google connection, even when the Googler was looking for something - ahem - relatively obscure, such as - another ahem - "Elf Masturbating." And still others, like Paige Kellerman at There's More Where That Came From, take it upon themselves to individually address the queries indicated by the Google search terms, in case those misled souls who got directed to her blog looking for guidance regarding "being ugly doesn't bother me" should come back again, looking for answers.

Because I'm feeling generous today (translation: the baby is taking an extra-long nap), I thought I'd take the latter approach. In doing so, I hope I might assist someone who accidentally got directed to Hollow Tree Ventures when they needed help, and instead of answers were disappointed to find the uninformative drivel I normally provide.

1. cereal shaped in retainer
Good question, reader! I was lucky, I never had braces or a retainer, so I can't speak with real authority on this one. However, depending on the brand of cereal, you'll probably want to soak it in milk first to make it more pliable, then sort of mash it into the retainer and let it dry. I wouldn't recommend using Cap'n Crunch, though - everybody knows that junk tears up the roof of your mouth.

2. eating eggs
This one seems fairly straight forward. Open your mouth, take a bite of egg, chew, swallow. (Editor's note: Even if this answers your question, I feel like maybe you still need some help.)

3. wishes Pokemon were real pie chart
I'm glad you brought this up, because you obviously know how much I love pie charts. I didn't have one that specifically fit your request, so I whipped one up.

4. sarcastic comments
Boy, I bet when you got directed here you got totally bogged down by the sheer quantity of sarcasm you found. You're probably still wandering around the blog, dazed and overwhelmed. Maybe you can find the person who Googled "subliminal wording;" you two could probably be friends.

5. beef jerky jokes
Hmm, I don't know any beef jerky jokes, but for you I'll take a stab at it.

How do you make beef jerky?
Scare a cow!

I know, that was terrible. I apologize to everybody for that one.

6. shut up and smile
Okay, that sounds more like a command than a question, and kind of a rude one at that. Still, not bad advice for most people.

7. as I do more laundry nudists seem less crazy
I'd like to know who Googled this one - that's borderline profound. But a word to the wise: Try not to be more witty than the blogger. We have very delicate egos.

8. dreams about hollow trees
Now that's more like it! ::pats self on back:: Very flattering, assuming you aren't the same person searching for "boobies" and "disney princess underwear," in which case I'd like for you to please honor the restraining order and stop dreaming about my blog.

That's it for now, folks. I hope this answered everyone's questions, or at least didn't make you feel funny about sharing the same reading space with people who Google weird stuff like that. But hey, I'm not judging.

If you got here by Googling "where can I click to vote for HTV to be a Top Mommy Blog," you've come to the right place! How about let's all click below, to make these marvelous and good-looking voters feel welcome?

Linked up with Finding the Funny #16!

Fair Warning: This Post Is About Boobies

2012-05-02T07:30:00.000-04:00

In case the title didn't alert you, this post may not be suitable for all ages. Or genders. Or people who are squeamish about reading Real Medical Anatomy words such as "boobies" and "nipular area." Or people who might not want to look me in the eye, either on the street or at family gatherings, after reading a post about me in the context of breastfeeding.

This post is intended solely for people who are not only willing to read mothering terms like "boobmilk," but who also possibly might let me know that I'm not alone and/or crazy with regard to my breastular issues. In addition, there might be wince-inducing conversation about the heinous damage that can be inflicted by overzealous boob-loving babies.

I hear crickets chirping. Is anyone still here?

No matter, at this point nothing can stop me from publicly sharing way too much information about my mammaries and breastfeeding problems, and if you don't like it then you should just close your eyes and hum softly to yourself until this post is over.

Or better yet, I'll take my story over to Kimberly's house at All Work And No Play Makes Mommy Go Something Something.

She has graciously invited me to come over and chat with her readers while she recovers from having an unwanted internal organ removed. AWESOME!!! (The invitation, not the gall bladder. The gall bladder was a real jerk.)

So please join me, assuming you've properly heeded the above warnings - I promise there's absolutely zero real photography in this post, if that makes you feel any better. Then hang around at Kimberly's blog for a while - she has posts so funny they'll make you wet your leg, she's a PPD hero, and I'm pretty sure she's hiding Chuck Norris in her basement (don't call the cops, though - she won't hurt him).

Please click below to vote for me, even though I'm not home right now -
because what's nicer than coming home to find a bunch of voting love waiting on your doorstep?
Nothing, that's what! Just please don't leave any flaming bags. I can do without that.

My Deep and Socially Relevant Musings on Facebookery

2012-05-01T12:55:00.000-04:00

So Gerry and I are both on facebook now, which is sort of a brain-bender if you know us personally, since we resisted it for so long despite our friends' repeated attempts to get us to join.

I get it now, though. Facebook is all about ignoring everyone who's physically in the room with you, in favor of making snide and witty remarks to people you haven't seen in over 15 years (as opposed to Twitter, which is pretty much the same except your snide comments have to be shorter, and you're sending them mainly to people you haven't seen ever in real life, not even in high school, assuming high school counts as real life, which, for the record, it does not).

Anyway, I can totally see the point, and I love it. It's awesome. Unfortunately, we're so late to the game that everyone else is pretty much over it, plus people who don't know me very well probably think I'm serious when I do things like update my status with a photo of Gerry updating his status.

We were walking to the park, ignoring the kids,
making dorky status updates.
"We absolutely can't do this kind of stuff," Gerry said, then
immediately qualified it. "After this time, I mean."

The only down side, really, is Zuckerberg's creepy quest to take over the world one piece of confidential, personal information at a time.

You know what I'm talking about; I hardly told facebook anything about myself, yet it suddenly knows my favorite color, when my library books are due, and the last three years of my deleted innerweb browsing history. Am I the only one who's disturbed when facebook suggests friends to me that I'd forgotten I'd ever met?

"Hey girl," facebook whispers in the Sleazy Bedroom Voice normally reserved for Ryan Gosling these days, "I bet you probably want to send a friend request to that kid who shared his funnel cake at the fair when you were eight - remember how he said you were cute? I'm sure he wants to reconnect. Mmmhmm. And don't forget the cousin of your third grade teacher, the one you met that one time when you were leaving the mall 11 years ago. You know you wanna know what she's up to, girl."

Um, no facebook. No, I do not. And also, Who????

But I do want to know what you're up to, so don't get any funny ideas about not joining the HTV facebookery. If that was too many quadruple negatives for you, the upshot is that you can just click the little facebook button over there - go ahead, I'll wait - because I'm loving me some facebook friends. You're my new family, since my real-life family is old news.

Obviously I'm totally kidding.

Mostly.

But I digress.

We're still sort of figuring out facebook etiquette so we don't tick off the Tiny Square Photos which our friends have become, and learning how to manage our accounts so that we don't go insane or feel compelled to track down (totally hypothetical) people he used to know and smother her in her sleep.

Or whatever.

Here's what I've learned so far.

It's irritating when people constantly post "humorous" graphics that aren't the least bit funny - unless they consistently label them "LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in a non-ironic way, complete with all caps and eleventy hundred exclamation points, in which case they start to become funny for different reasons.
You'd better do your homework when you accept a friend request from someone whose name only barely sort of sounds familiar, otherwise you might start getting Random Slutty Status Updates like, "How do you like my new piercings?" complete with graphic photos of said piercings. Your wife will not really think this is very funny. At all. Just sayin'.
Facebookians can be categorized many ways, and here's one of them:

People who want you to know where they're eating all the time
People who always just got the high score on some game that I must. never. click. on. or else I'm sure I'll get instantly addicted
People who are all business and whose super-serious posts make me feel like a frivolous silly little underachiever who should probably get off facebook and go invent Starbucks or something
People who are snarky
People who are Blessed

On that last count, let me go on record saying that I think it's marvelous so many people apparently feel blessed these days. However, I suspect some of you might be faking it, considering that psychotherapists still seem to be doing a pretty brisk business and Road Rage is at an all time high.

Hey, I'm not judging - I don't know your lives. I'm just a skeptic, I guess - a skeptic who assumes that (statistically speaking) at least half of these Blessed individuals are really at home with their teeth clenched together and their left eye twitching a little, rocking themselves in the corner. So by all means, go ahead and keep counting your blessings; just know that when I read about them in your status updates, sometimes I imagine that you're on facebook because you're taking a quick break from cleaning your rifle and writing your manifesto.

Because that's what I do.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please click below to vote - and facebookians, if you must know where I eat:
breakfast is served standing at the kitchen counter, lunch is enjoyed as I hover over the sink, and for dinner I perch on the edge of the couch while trying not to get ketchup on the carpet.
Now you know.

Linked up with Finding the Funny #15!

The Great (Phoney) First Birthday Spectacular

2012-04-30T16:16:00.000-04:00

Well, I have to say my fears were, once again, unfounded.

You might remember that I ~~procrastinated~~ was virtually on my deathbed, and spaced out on my duty to create a perfect, memorable, extremely expensive first birthday party for Madeline, the kind that would make her feel cherished and loved and prove once and for all to the other mothers in the neighborhood that I love my kids at least as much as they love theirs, if not more.

But I shouldn't have worried. Even though I didn't do one iota of planning until the day before The Big Event, I can say without exaggeration that Madeline's birthday on Saturday was an absolute riot of activity and unstoppable celebratory awesomeness.

Now, first let me explain a little something regarding her lack of clothing. When you're in the midst of creating an atmosphere of Ultimate First Birthday Wicked Crazy Greatness, let's face it - you can't be bothered to pay all that much attention to the birthday girl. I had stuff to do! So let's just say some coffee was left unattended, no one got hurt (other than her clothes, my clothes, the carpet, and the coffee table, which I guess at least was appropriately named), and a few pictures were snapped between wardrobe changes. Like this one:

If it weren't for the Snack Cups full of yogurt melts,
I would totally move into my own apartment.

We didn't let one little beverage mishap slow us down, though. First we followed ancient birthday tradition and stopped by to pick up some ~~E. coli~~ pizza at Chuck-E-Cheese.

I'm not clear on exactly why anyone
ever thought this place was a good idea.

Then, we increased the excitement level by riding coasters at Major Theme Park Of Your Choice.

Wheeeeeeeeeee.

source

I don't mind telling you, after all that E. coli and adrenaline, we needed to relax. A peaceful hike in the woods sounded perfect.

I think you sat me down on a pine cone.

But you know what? Even that wasn't quite relaxing enough (it's hard to chill out in the woods when all you're really doing is thinking about Tick Season until your scalp gets itchy). Since nothing's too good for our baby, we cashed in our 401Ks and the kids' college funds, and took a private jet down to Key West.

The sand. Is. Everywhere.

The tropical breezes and ocean views were the perfect backdrop for wrapping up what turned out to be a pretty decent first birthday party. Oh, speaking of wrapping, can you guess what Madeline's birthday gift was?

Do you have any idea how long it took me
to get this thing out of the gift bag?

Bon voyage, Sweetie! Now that you're one, I think you're old enough to go on a luxury cruise by yourself while Mommy recuperates from not planning your party.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...Okay, I'll admit it, a few of those pictures were lightly edited. You probably couldn't tell because of my mad Photoshop skills, but it's true.

And now that I've told you, it occurs to me that this is a MUCH better ridiculous get-rich-quick scheme than my last idea! Anyone wanting to create the illusion that their kid partied like a Kardashian on their birthday (minus the whoriness, obviously), send me your pics and I'll expertly (see above) drop in an exotic backdrop of your choosing. Slap the new photos in your family album, and years from now all you have to do is casually mention what a great time their [insert age] birthday was. Eventually they'll start to believe you because, Hey, they'll reason, Why would Mom lie to me? You'll know it's working when they start to say things like, "So that's why I like the smell of diapers and suntan oil," or, "I guess that explains my fear of giant rats." See?

This plan has the added bonus of leaving their college fund up for grabs when you decide you want a swimming pool or need a mid-life crisis convertible, or I suppose you could even use it for their college education (if you insist on being a total square).

Just let me know - the line forms at the door, orders taken on a first-come, first-served basis. Hello? HELLO????

Please click below to vote while I go check my camera's memory card -
I'm hoping we have at least a few real birthday pictures someplace...

Just Checking In From Fever Village

2012-04-27T15:11:00.000-04:00

I believe, in yesterday's post, I may have ~~demonstrated~~ mentioned that my mental faculties were temporarily (?) compromised by the ravages of a fever, but I'm happy to report that today I seem to be emerging from the Fever Fog. Sense is starting to make sense again, and I even sort of wanted some caffeine this morning.

Usually if I don't drink coffee for three days straight, it's a pretty big red flag that something's terribly wrong. Paramedics, somehow perceiving the seriousness of my condition before I even dial 911, will arrive on my doorstep with a gurney and a latte IV. Mmmhmm, I loooove some intravenous coffee. I wasn't even aware that I could function without coffee anymore, but maybe the lack of caffeine is why I slept for about eleventy hundred hours this week. Huh.

So when I arrived back in the Land of the Living this afternoon, I realized a few things.

My mom is awesome for coming over here every day so I could sleep as much as I needed to without tethering the baby to my ankle by an old phone cord (for safety).
My husband is awesome for taking care of the kids and feeding them dinner and handling a cranky baby who was no doubt wondering, "Hey, what ever happened to that one lady who used to live here and carry my favorite beverage around on her front side?"
And, OH MY EVER-LOVING DEITY OF YOUR CHOICE, the baby's first birthday is tomorrow!

You can probably gather from my reaction that I'm woefully under-prepared for the First Birthday Extravaganza. "Under-prepared," as in I have no party planned. Or food. Or gifts. I do have the baby though, so that's a start.

Procrastinate much? I hear you asking. Yes, I do, but in my defense I was under the (admittedly false) impression that I wouldn't be completely comatose this week, so my Big Plan was to work on it during the hours I actually spent sleeping. And whenever the baby's birthday was brought up for discussion while I was in the Fever Fog and I was awake-ish, for all I knew we could've been debating whether or not a Pegasus can fly just on rainbow power alone or if it also needs sparklers and raisins and David Hasselhoff. Which, come to think of it, wouldn't have made a terrible party theme, minus the raisins. And the Hoff.

So anyway, wish me luck. It should be interesting. At least I'm always safe in the knowledge that, even though I might not throw her a fancy party, I love my daughter like crazy. She is absolutely adored by this family, and we couldn't imagine life without her. And also, she's never going to remember her first birthday party anyway. Right? RIGHT???

Please click below to vote for me, and enjoy the additional HTV content
that will be coming your way thanks to the fact that soon,
none of my children will be speaking to me anymore and I'll have loads of free time!

You're In For A Real Treat

2012-04-26T13:17:00.000-04:00

That's right, the title says it all. Prepare yourselves to be entertained beyond your wildest dreams.

Or not. I'm not sure yet, because I haven't decided what I'm going to write about.

Is it premature to start typing before you have any idea what you're going to say? Perhaps.

I blame the fever, which came from nowhere two nights ago and settled over my brain like a thick, feverish thing that obscures thoughts. It also seems to be heavily influencing the function of my Metaphor Cortex.

I spent the night all shivery and hot (Note To Stupid Body: It isn't cold in here. Shaking uncontrollably and chattering our teeth isn't doing us any good. In related news, you're an idiot.) enjoying myself some fitful Fever Dreams. You know the ones - the dreams that, even by whacked-out dream standards, make you wonder if possibly you dropped some acid when you weren't looking.

For example, I dreamed up this really great business idea, wherein bereaved folks who find themselves too upset to delete their dearly departed loved ones' emails and computer files could just send them to me. Then I would delete them, since I'm not all emotionally involved, and in return I would send them an Email and Computer File Digital Urn (patent pending) that I'd created in Photoshop. You know, to hold the ashes of the deleted files, and to help ease the pain. And to display on the mantle. "Grandma always did love her Word documents." ::dabs tear with tissue::

This is a perfect example of a graphic that makes no sense
outside the context of this post.
Granted, the odds that it makes sense in any context are sketchy at best.

At some point yesterday I actually thought this was an honest-to-goodness cash cow of an idea. So you can see why a fevered person might start to think they were going insane, or worse yet that they'd always been insane but didn't know it yet, because why the hell else would you think of something like that???

I mean, it is crazy, right? Because when this fever goes away (optimistic), if I find out somebody stole that idea and turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry I'm gonna be really mad. If I remember.

Um, where was I? It's hard to concentrate when you have a fever, especially when the baby is stuck in the curtains. Don't worry, she's okay. Wait... Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's okay.

Which reminds me, the other thing I like to do when I have a fever, besides think of ways I can become independently wealthy, is scar my children for life. So when I came downstairs after taking an afternoon nap, during which my body attempted to spontaneously combust, I announced to my kids that I was hungry because I'd only had three Oreos for lunch.

Non-Fever Me would be concerned that this set a bad example, or at least that it might set off a series of whiny requests for Oreos. Fever Me doesn't care about such things.

Jake, showing obvious concern due to my vacant Thousand Yard Fever Stare, tried to make me feel better by telling me that he'd looked it up on the internet and read that Oreos have vegetables in them. My first thought, of course, was Innerwebs, I love you. But then some small measure of reason came back and I had to regretfully inform him that "vegetable oil" does not generally count as a vegetable. Then he said that the next ingredient was "sugarated sugar," which struck me as so funny that I was launched out of my catatonic state by a fit of maniacal laughter.

The children backed away slowly, and ever since then they've been treating me very delicately, like I'm the last character in a movie to be informed that I was recently diagnosed with a rather serious mental condition.

I kind of like it.

Please click below to vote for me while I take another nap -
my mom is coming over to watch the baby, and I'm willing to bet she'll have upwards of a 100% success rate at keeping Maddie out of the curtains.

Mom's In Her Non-Mom-Jean Jeans

2012-04-24T12:23:00.002-04:00

I don't think I'm the only woman who lays claim to several different sets of clothes.

I've been living in yoga pants, sweatshirts, and (for Special Occasions outside the house) my ultra-largest jeans for the better part of a year. To say that I'm sick of it is a huge understatement. To say that I'm way too lazy to do something about it, like start exercising or stop eating Rolos by the fistful, is also a huge understatement.

But the other day my frustration with yoga pants finally tipped the scale (no pun intended) and outweighed (so to speak) my fear of not fitting into my pre-pregnancy clothes, so I tried a few things on. I was delighted to find that the largest pair of jeans that falls within the category of my "real size" clothing actually fit, without me shoehorning my thighs into the leg holes or lying on my back and using a wire hanger to heave the zipper up.

That's not to say that I could comfortably walk in them, or that I could sit down in them without the deflated balloon Mama Belly draping itself over the waistband. But I could stand up in them, provided I didn't move too much, which was a good start.

This discovery emboldened me to approach the Evil Bathroom Scale, and I was surprised to find that I'm hovering right around my pre-pregnancy weight. Granted, that weight has relocated to completely different places on my body now and, after three kids, my skin no longer possesses the tensile strength required to at least hold those pounds somewhere near my skeletal structure. But whatever. Small victories.

So later that night I shared my news with Gerry, Loving and Supportive Husband Extraordinaire.

"I'm back at my pre-pregnancy weight," I announced.

"Is that right?" he asked, giving me an approving once-over. "Wow, that didn't even take you a whole year!"

"Har," I scoffed. "It'll be a year in less than a week, so I'm cutting it pretty close if that was the goal."

"Still, that's awfully impressive," he continued, seemingly with genuine admiration. "Especially at your age."

Authorities are still searching for the exact location of his remains.

I'm kidding, I didn't really kill him.
But please click below to vote while I go feed him -
I promised I'd bring him a sandwich a couple days ago when I locked him in the basement.

Linked with Finding the Funny!

The Spider Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

2012-04-23T11:08:00.001-04:00

I must've done something good in a past life, because a few days ago I was mercifully spared a spider to the face.

I was climbing the stairs, and in my house that means I was staring at my feet. That's because our stairs turn a corner midway up, and since there's no landing, the treads all come together at a point at the turn. I have to believe this design flies in the face of the Official Building Code, because my stairs are just begging for someone (me) to misstep on one of those skinny slivers of tread and fall, smashing my face, followed closely by the snapping off of the rest of my body parts.

But the other day, something (woman's intuition? a higher power? good karma? spidey sense?) told me to forget the danger that was lurking underfoot, and look up.

That's when I found myself eyeball-to-eyeball with a spider, who was scurrying down his Silken Butt Thread (it's a Science Word, I looked it up) in a calculated attempt to land on my face. His plan would have worked, too, if I'd just kept barreling up the stairs all rhinoceros-like, as I usually do.

I thought a picture would make my terrible description of the scenario easier to understand,
but I think my terrible art skills are only making things worse.

Now, I love all creatures as much as the next guy (as long as the next guy doesn't love spiders), but I can't have a vicious arachnid crawling around my house, pulsating with flesh-eating venom and potentially creeping down his Butt Thread toward my children. That's just not responsible parenting.

So I ended up batting the beast around as he dangled there, feeling like I was playing some macabre game of tether ball, until he finally landed on the extremely generous quantity of tissue I'd wrapped around my hand for protection (sorry, trees) and I was able to squeal him all the way to the bathroom, where I tossed him in the toilet.

And yes, when you do it like I do, "squeal" is a verb that denotes sound as well as motion.

I think that's fair, because if he's smart enough to get out, he lives! If not, then not so much. However, not knowing his fate has left me paranoid that a super-smart, self-aware, uber-strong spider with an axe to grind is still lurking around near the top of my stairs, so I have to watch for him every time I go up and down.

I call this Ghost Spider Syndrome. It's a mental condition causing me to believe a bug that's probably dead is actually hiding in my home, plotting his revenge. For whatever reason, even though I know spiders are highly mobile, I only watch for them in the last place they were spotted. The condition lasts until I see a different spider (or the same spider, which I assume is a different one because it's in a different place), and then all my Ghost Spider paranoia is transferred to the new one.

I'm telling you this because I recently found out that Ghost Spider Syndrome is genetic, and I've passed it on to my daughter, Zoe.

My mom's HOA had sprayed for bugs, which resulted in a large spider carcass finding its final resting place on her driveway. Zoe hopped out of my mom's car and started to run toward the house, but freaked out because the grizzly spider corpse was right between the car and the garage door, directly in her path. She had to go around the other way to avoid it, and was pretty shaken up by her encounter.

The next time she went to my mom's, she hopped out of the car but froze immediately, remembering the dead spider. She was terrified, but my mom reminded her, "He's long gone - it's been really windy, so the spider blew away."

Suffering from what can only be a crippling case of Ghost Spider Syndrome, an unconvinced Zoe replied, "Maybe, BUT HIS SOUL IS STILL THERE."

Thank you, Zoe. Now I'm going to have to watch for spiders even when I know they're dead. No amount of post-tether-ball flushing can save me now.

Please click below to vote, and give me one more moment of joy
before the Stair Spider finds out where I sit to blog!

Mommy Math

2012-04-20T13:05:00.003-04:00

I don't know about you, but back in school I took Calculus and Trigonometry and Finite Math (which is a real thing, though for some reason they don't offer Infinite Math), and as far as I can tell none of them have a single real-world application, unless you're some kind of brain surgeon for rocket scientists, or if you're interested in what kind of gas mileage your car is getting.

I prefer not to know.

Fair warning: if you're the kind of person who frequently finds yourself rubbing your chin, doing smart-people things like ruminating, "Gee, I wonder what the inverse cosign of the hypotenuse of a quadrangle is - cotangently speaking, of course," then prepare yourself to start thinking I'm pretty dumb. Also, I'm not sure what you're doing here in the first place - I rarely blog about the hypotenuse of anything, unless I'm using it as a euphemism.

Wink, wink. Because I'm immature.

I probably COULD use fancy math, if I Applied Myself, but let's face it - whenever an opportunity to use math rears it's ugly head, I skip it. Meh, I think, too hard. For example, I'll never measure the dimensions of a gift, insert my findings into some Complex Math Equation that looks like a bowl of alphabet soup, and use it to figure out how many square centimeters of "Congratulations" wrapping paper I'll need to cover up the fact that I'm regifting something I just yanked out of my Generic All-Purpose Token Gift stash. Nope, instead I'll quickly eyeball it, cut a piece of wrapping paper, realize it's too small, cut another piece to fill in the gap, and use a ribbon to cover to seam.

Like a normal person.

Or, more likely, I'll skip it all together and cram it into a gift bag with some used, wrinkled tissue paper that I've made a half-hearted effort to flatten out.

I use a lot of Scotch tape. Yes, even on gift bags. How else can you keep the hamsters in?

That's why I'm inventing the New Math, and I don't mean the kind of new math that says "40 is the new 20" (pleaseGodno, I can't do 20 again), or Zoe's Bird Math, or the kind of math my kids try to use wherein they think the Ten More Minutes I gave them to play until bedtime doesn't start until I come back to tell them their ten minutes are up. This is Mommy Math, designed to help parents everywhere figure out the answers to problems we actually face in a typical day. Just enter your info (called a "variable" - NERDY MATH TERM OF THE DAY) into the following equations to help you deal with Real World Parenting Issues.

(Le + T + S) G = O

The number of minutes Late you're running, plus the number of Tots you're trying to herd out the door, plus the number of times you have to remind them to put on their Shoes, multiplied by how Godawful their behavior is on a scale of 1 to 10. This equals the number of Obscenities you'll have to stifle before you get to the car.

{S (H +U) T} U = P

The decibel level of the Stomping you hear downstairs, multiplied by "you Hit me" plus "yoU started it," multiplied by the number of Time outs you've already enforced that day, times a billion if you're currently trapped Under a sleeping baby. This equals the likelihood that a blood vessel in your forehead will Pop because you can't scream at the kids to shut the hell up without waking the baby.

(Di + ET) FAI = L

Add the number of Ding Dongs in the house tempting you with chocolatey goodness, plus the unEaten sandwich crusts you consume from your kids' lunch plates so no food goes to waste, times the Taste you take of every french fry and chicken nugget you serve them. Multiply that by the number of Frumpy maternity tops you still wear, times the Alcohol content of your wine, times your Inclination to pass out face-first into a bowl of ice cream in front of the TV at 9 PM. This equals the number of decades it will take to Lose the weight you gained during your last pregnancy.

(Play) W + ITH = Me

Multiply the number of recently canceled Playdates by the number of consecutive Wet, rainy days that've kept you off the playground. Add that to the number of Interruptions you endure from your kids per minute while you're on the phone, times your Total exhaustion, times your Hatred of participating in pointless, endless, repetitive kids' games. This equals the likelihood that you'll go completely Mental long before your children stop asking you to play Barbies/Lego/dress-up with them.

(ArE) + WE + (Th)E + RE= YeT

Multiply the number of Arguments your kids have had in the backseat since you left the house by the number of Entertainment devices that are out of battery power. Add the intensity of the Whining times the number of minutes since they last asked to stop for something to Eat. Add that to The hours left in the trip, multiplied by the number of times they urgently Express a need to pee, plus the number of requests for you to change the Radio station times the fact you'd rather be anyplace else on Earth. This equals how long (in seconds) it'll take for you to freak out and Yell at Them, before finally caving in and stopping at McDonalds.

There you have it - parenting has never been easier! And it's all thanks to math - who'd have guessed? Not me, that's for sure. What an age in which we live.

Here at the end of the post is where you're used to me shamelessly shilling for Top Mommy Blog votes, but not today! Today I'm shilling for some Facebook love - since the Twitter didn't kill me, I went ahead and joined the Facebook, too, because I'm a glutton for punishment (yours, that is).
Please click below or on my right sidebar widgety thing, and check it out to see more HTV awesomeness! Okay, it's just me being my usual dumb self, but it might be fun - plus otherwise I might be tempted to put you on my Christmas gift list - you like poorly wrapped hamsters, don't you?

Dr. Spock: Childcare Guru or Deranged Maniac? - Episode 4

2012-04-19T09:00:00.004-04:00

It's been a while, but those of you who've been putting up with me for some time might remember the Dr. Spock series, wherein we review Dr. Ben Spock's child rearing advice in an attempt to determine whether he was trying to dramatically endanger our babies, or if he was just trying to kill them outright.

This tattered copy has obviously been used
to endanger several generations.

In Episode 1: Getting Ready For Baby, we discovered the need for a car bed and came to terms with the fact that we're going to screw everything up. We also explored Postpartum Depression treatments, such as stealing our infant's sedatives and/or buying a purty hat.

In Episode 2: A Typical Day With Baby, we learned to put our babies out to graze on the lawn all day, which you'd think we couldn't screw up, but we were taught that we'll probably screw it up anyway.

In Episode 3: Your Child Has the Plague, we learned what we did wrong that led to our kid getting that cough that sounds like a dog coughing up a cat that's coughing up a furball, and determined how much Castor oil to give them so they'll feel well enough to go back out on the lawn where they belong.

It's taken me a while to get to the next Episode because I've been really, really busy (that's a lie) but also because, as it turns out, writing a post that contains real facts and research takes quite a bit longer than writing a post in which I totally fabricate all the facts and research. Go figure. But I couldn't end the series without at least one more peek into the psychotic mind of an outdated and (allegedly) demented baby doctor, so here it is:

Episode 4: You've Got Problems, Lady

Don't read this - it's too many words, and the description of
parenting is so exhausting it made me want to send the kids out
to play in traffic while I took a nap.
I included it here just so you'd believe I really read the book.

Doc Spock admits freely that parenting is no walk in the park. In fact, he says "at best, there's lots of hard work and deprivation" (thanks for putting such a positive spin on it). But aside from the obvious hassles of feeding and talking to our children, there are plenty of other issues to deal with along the way (oh, good, I was hoping there'd be more time and effort involved). You may have noticed that I specified You've Got Problems, Lady in this episode, because it's pretty clear who's expected to handle the dirty work (that's you, mom - the same person who's been expected to handle everything else so far, from nipple hygiene to ensuring a badminton net is secured tightly over the crib so the baby can't escape).

There are many types of Parenting Problems for which we need to be on the lookout. For instance, what if some heartless beast of a mother has the nerve to work outside the home? Dr. Spock is quick to rush in from 1957 and reassure us that "usually their children turn out all right" but cautions that many kids "grow up neglected and maladjusted" (p 569). How do we deal with this issue? I read this section several times, and it appears the answer is remarkably simple - just don't work outside the home, gals. Duh. That probably should have been super obvious, what with Dr. Spock gently reminding us that babies have a 98.2% likelihood of becoming sociopathic miscreants if their mother isn't in the house with them 24/7.

What about Dad - does he need to be home, too? No, of course not, he'll probably almost never be at home! But don't worry, the doctor has also included a section titled The Fatherless Child, bearing in mind that in 1950s-Land "fatherless" just means that the father is off on business, not that there IS no father around (that would just be ridiculous). This is a particularly troubling Parenting Problem if the child is a boy, because of the danger that the mother might "[get] him interested in clothes and interior decoration" (heaven forbid). We all know what THAT leads to: Sissypants Syndrome. So it's once again up to the mother to fix the situation - in this case, she needs to make sure she hangs out with lots of different men so her children are regularly exposed to "substitute fathers" (p 577). Also, lots of photos and letters should be sent to the absentee father to ensure he remains an Involved Parent (by 1950s standards, a father can apparently be considered Involved even while out of state), though I would recommend selectively cropping photos that include Mom's Friend Uncle Bob and the ones in which the milkman has his feet propped up on the coffee table.

Now that we know what we've done to mess our kids up in the head, let's address some of the consequences, such as bed-wetting. Bed-wetting, Dr. Spock explains, is the parents' fault for a variety of reasons. You might be providing an unstable environment, which is causing your child's unconscious subconscious to become incontinent (stop me if you find all this Medical Terminology to be too confusing). In boys, bed-wetting is most often caused by insecurity, a domineering, impatient mother, and a father who ignores him. In girls, it's most often caused by an inappropriate romantic love for her father and a need for psychiatric help.

I know you think I'm making this up, but it's right there on page 506 - I'm looking at it right now!

In any case, according to Dr. Spock, your best bet to get the bed-wetting to stop is to shape up and stop sucking at parenthood so much (I'm paraphrasing that part, but that's the gist).

Six to Eleven year olds are unable to control themselves
or their kleptomania.

After the bed-wetting stage, Dr. Spock explains there's a period between ages 6-11 when your main Parenting Problems are going to be comic books and stealing. Luckily for you, your primary job during these years is just keeping your child out of prison.

In the event that you avoid warping your children into mass murderers before they reach puberty (unlikely), you'll have to give them The Talk. You know, The Talk. This is probably the biggest Parenting Problem of all, and once again it's up to the mother to hitch up her apron and take care of business, explaining how the Stork gets into the hospital delivery room and whatnot (the correct answer is: through the window ). Right off the bat make sure to tell your daughter about The Curse; she'll be thrilled to hear that Leading Authorities on the subject are nearly convinced that "most girls and women can live perfectly normal lives" while Having Their Monthly Time (p 377). The rest of us will be locked up in Menstruation Camps with hot water bottles perched on our abdomens, while we somehow manage to also stand at the sink and wash dishes. With your son, on the other hand, you'll want to concentrate on setting a "sensible limit" on how many times per day he can - ahem - Explore his Puberty Experience, since it's "not harmful if [the episodes] don't happen too often" (p 378). The father (or milkman - whoever's available) may want to teach the boy how to shave his palms.

That pretty much brings us right up to the time when Car Dating begins, and the subsequent Shotgun Wedding is celebrated! By this point in parenting, it's safe to fully dedicate yourself to your budding wine box addiction and encourage your husband to remain out of state for a while longer so you can have the house to yourself FOR ONCE. Maybe you can treat yourself to a night out on the town, so you'll have an excuse to wear all those Postpartum Depression dresses you bought. You've earned it.

Please find it in your heart to click below to vote for me,
even though I just made you read a post that mentioned 1950s puberty!
At least I didn't use the phrase "belted sanitary napkin," right? Right???

Our Unintentional Indoor Pool

2012-04-18T15:50:00.000-04:00

Don't be jealous, but we just got an Indoor Pool. It was a quick and easy installation; we put it right between the Sculpture Garden and our Personal Gym. We hardly even noticed it was there until construction was complete and it was ready for us to wade right in.*

*This is all 100% true if you replace "Sculpture Garden" with "Stack of Damp Boxes," "Personal Gym" with "Elliptical Machine That I Never Use Anymore," and "Indoor Pool" with "Flooding Caused By Backed-Up Drain In the Basement Floor."

I was alerted to the issue when my husband went down to check on the laundry and I heard indistinct, muffled curse words drifting upstairs through the ductwork, followed by the unmistakable shriek of the wet/dry vac.

I don't know anything about plumbing, but I believe it's a good sign that the water was at least clean and sudsy and not... the other kind. Nevertheless, because of the lack of drainage we had to seriously curtail our water usage all weekend. Sudsy or not, we didn't need our used shower backwash swishing around on the floor, ruining a bunch of junk that's been down there since we moved in and rusting out the bottom of the water heater.

I'm fully aware that some people may have had their own water issues to deal with lately, such as having no water at all like my mom (thanks to a busted water main) or Botswana (thanks to its unfortunate location in the Kalahari Desert). However, while I feel for these people, I would contend that my situation was just a teeny bit worse because they didn't have children that suddenly seemed filthy and needed now-impossible baths, nor did they need to call a plumber.

Before I continue, to all you plumbers out there I'd like to send out a heartfelt, "Thank you," from all of us who enjoy the undeniable convenience of hot and cold running plumbing.

I would also like to point out (as politely as possible) that after you fix the plumbing problem, I don't need to know which Drain Valve you used to fix it, and that you used the more expensive Drain Valve because you didn't have the cheaper one on the truck. Of course you didn't. In my experience, you guys never ever have the cheaper parts on the truck. Which doesn't matter, because you know as well as I do that I couldn't tell the expensive Drain Valve from the undercarriage of a La-Z-Boy recliner, not even if you set them both side-by-side on my dining room table and gave a two-hour PowerPoint presentation explaining the difference. You could've kept your Drain Valve and stuffed our pipes full of Flesh Eating Anthrax and the souls of a thousand murdered unicorns, and as long as water didn't build up on the floor of my basement, I'd never know the difference.

I would also like to, as politely as possible, ask, Is there maybe some way you could make yourselves a little less freaky to those of us who are here alone with a baby and have to let you in our houses even though our upper body strength leaves something to be desired and we have trouble fully concealing a stun gun in the waistband of our yoga pants?

I say this only because the guy who showed up at our door to fix the drain was all gigantic and sported some Pirates Of The Caribbean/Hulk Hogan Riding a Harley-inspired facial hair. Oh yeah, not to mention the casual small talk he made while he called in my credit card number, which included a longish story about that time he threw his daughter around by the throat on her birthday. On a less threatening but possibly very gross note, he also had something caked on his shoes and pants up to mid-calf from his last job (please let it be mud, oh please let it be mud). But actually he was very nice and, to his credit, didn't try to hug me like my mom's weirdo plumber tries to do with her. Plus, after digging around in my basement drain bare-fisted and snaking it out (or whatever the term is), he offered me his pen to sign the receipt even though (in his words) his hands were "kinda dirty." Which I thought was pretty polite.

Anyway, my point (if I have one) is that even though he looked and sounded and acted and smelled scary, he didn't end up bonking me over the head with a length of pipe or locking me in his crawlspace - perhaps only because his employer knew where his appointment was, which makes it tough to come up with a believable alibi, but whatever gets the job done. I'm alive, and (more importantly) we have full-on water now, so I'm happy. But I still haven't given the kids a bath.

Three cheers for indoor plumbing! And for not getting shivved by your plumber!
And for clicking below to vote for me! (You like how I snuck that in there?)