Fighting off Frumpy

Caf-fiend

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 12:10:00 +0000

Y'all. I need you to tell me if this is normal.

I consider myself a morning person. I'm normally awake by 5:15-ish, out of bed by 6 or before, and 99% of the time I don't even need an alarm — unlike my husband, who sets like a gazillion alarms and then spends an hour snoozing them one by one, for reasons I will never understand.

But like the majority of people, even a morning person like me needs a little kickstart. Because it isn't like I jump out of bed with guns a-blazin', raring to go (OMG I sound like my grandma. Help). It's more like a slow ooze off the mattress punctuated by a bunch of sighs and yawns and cracking joints.

The problem is, I don't drink coffee. I know ... what a weirdo. I wish I did drink coffee because everybody who likes coffee is, like, obsessed with it. But I have to get my caffeine in some manner, and since an IV drip isn't an option, I just take it in pill form — literally from a generic bottle that says "Caffeine" on the label that I get for like $5 in the vitamin section at Meijer.

Side note: Curtis acts like I start my day by snorting lines of coke. I perpetually remind him that the dosage of this ONE caffeine pill is 200 mg which is roughly two cups of coffee, and I'm sure he drinks more than that at work. But because it's in pill form, for some reason it's "bad for me" and apparently because I don't like coffee then I don't deserve to get caffeine in any form. Hmmph.

Anyway, I have to admit that he may have this perception because of what caffeine does to me, because it is a little ... tweaker-ish? Once it kicks in, I get an overwhelming compulsion to do ALLLLL THE THINGS (and a belief that I can actually, in fact, get all those things accomplished despite repeated evidence to the contrary). Not only does it wake me up, it gets me moving. For example, yesterday morning as I was taking out the trash, I looked at the boxes of unassembled patio furniture in our garage and thought to myself, "I'm gonna put all that together today!"

(Spoiler alert: our garage is still full of boxes of unassembled patio furniture.)

Then I came into the house and was like, "I'm gonna work out, and then after that, I'm gonna wash all the sheets and blankets and clean the baseboards!" I didn't do all these things, of course; I worked out for fifteen minutes, quit because I was no longer feeling it, and left my sheets and blankets and baseboards unattended to. Sigh. I guess even when the caffeine-fueled compulsion is there, the follow-through is decidedly not.

In my defense: according to my 23andMe genetic testing, I am apparently an "ultrarapid metabolizer" of caffeine. So it's not technically my fault that caffeine lasts just long enough in my system to make me poop and formulate an unrealistic to-do list, and then peters out faster than my kids when they're asked to do a chore.

Why am I like this? Is this what caffeine does to normal folks when it's administered via coffee, or is Curtis right and I'm some sort of pill-popping speed freak? I need answers, people.

In My Overconfidence Era

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 12:29:00 +0000

I know. I KNOW. I promised I was going to "start blogging again" and "post regularly" and "make a comeback." But apparently that's kind of like when I promise every January 1st that "this year I'm going to get in the best shape of my life" and "get my shit together" or how I swear I'm "not going to let this laundry sit in the washer until it smells bad and I have to wash it again."

Yeah. Sometimes we have the best of intentions, and then what do you know? We fail to follow through. So someone hand me a fork stat, so I can dig into this big ol' slice of humble pie I'm being forced to eat. Sigh.

Anyway! I have to admit something: ya girl is struggling. I am approaching my 23rd week of unemployment. TWENTY! THREE! WEEKS! Y'ALL!!! I literally thought I'd find a new job within a week or two because that's what my experience has been in the past, and WHOoO BoY was I wrong. Like astonishingly wrong. Like completely and utterly overconfident. And for someone who is never overconfident about anything, this is a total soul-crusher, because I so wholeheartedly believed that I wouldn't have a problem finding another job.

But. It's not like I'm just sitting on my couch eating bonbons all day (though the temptation to do so grows ever stronger!). I have been teaching myself something new: video content creation. Like blogging, but with my voice instead of my fingers. And if you're following me on Instagram, you might already know this — but I've got myself a TikTok now too. Check it out if you're into completely random how-tos, reviews, and videos of me yapping to the camera with zero makeup on and zero shits to give.

It has been surprisingly fun for me, a bright spot in a weird period of my life. It's proof that an old dog can in fact learn new tricks, and not actually be terrible at it (speaking of overconfidence ... ha!). I have been really trying to cling onto the little things that bring me happiness, as ongoing unemployment and a WINTER THAT NEVER FREAKING ENDS tend to suck the life right out of me. (Like seriously ... we have a chance of snow today and then a random 64-degree day in the middle of this week and then a chance of snow again on Friday. WHATTT.)

That being said, I wanted to share the latest little thing to make me happy: this epic dishwasher magnet. Best ten bucks I ever spent, I swear!

(If you want your own Blanche/Rose dishwasher magnet, you can use my Amazon link!)

If you asked my boys to imitate me, they would all — without fail — say, "Dishwasher! Dishwasher!" because I spent approximately 90% of my time saying that. They will stand next to a dishwasher full of dirty dishes and STILL put their shit in the sink because they "didn't know the dishwasher was dirty." So this little magnet is not only an homage to my favorite show of all time, The Golden Girls, but also an attempt to cut down on my exclamations of "Dishwasher! Dishwasher!" by at least 50%.

I'll keep y'all posted.

The Candle Conundrum

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 18:03:00 +0000

I should be taking my Christmas decorations down, but I'm sitting here procrastinating — partially because once the Christmas stuff is put away, I have a big dilemma. A self-imposed and probably ridiculous dilemma, I admit, but it bugs me all the same: what is my house going to smell like now?!

In case you need a refresher, I have four boys and a houseful of pets (two dogs and five cats, yes I know it's excessive, I hear it all the time from my husband). Anyway, if I'm not absolutely on top of cleaning and sanitizing and scenting this place, it will smell like farts and feet and dog breath and cat box. So having all kinds of smell-goody things is of paramount importance to me (click that link for an embarrassing story and confirmation that some struggles never die). I guarantee it probably stinks at least a little bit in here no matter how clean it is, so I need something to cover up whatever lingering odor is there, right?

Anyway. I am a total zealot about which scents go with which seasons. You cannot — cannot! — burn, say, an evergreen-scented candle in the middle of spring. Or a floral candle in the winter. Florals and things like "clean linen" or anything lemon or lemon-adjacent are warmer-weather scents. And apples and spice belong in the autumn months. This is a hill I will die on.

But then there's that in-between period, and we're entering it right now. It comes after burning my Christmas-scented candles (pine tree all the way!), but before I bring out the lilac scent that ushers in the springtime every year. I want a warm and cozy scent, but not "pumpkin spice" or "apple pie" or any such thing because, again, THOSE ARE FOR THE FALL. Previously, my go-to has been Nature's Wick candle in Smoked Vanilla. It's got the coziness of vanilla with the wintery warmth of woodsmoke. It's like ... the comfort food of the candle world. It's literally what I think about when I think about what a home fragrance should be at this time of year.

... Which is all too often, clearly.

But when I went to find them this year, I couldn't. I thought my local Meijer was just out of them. But no — apparently this AMAZING AND SEASONALLY-IDEAL SCENT has been discontinued. I can't find it anywhere, not even online. Devastated, I consulted my internet oracle, ChatGPT, who helpfully suggested that Bath & Body Works' Marshmallow Fireside was the closest dupe. Yay!

So I looked for Marshmallow Fireside. Guess who doesn't have it? Bath & Body Works. It's listed on their website (on sale, to add insult to injury!), but out of stock and unavailable at stores.

I don't want to burn just straight vanilla. I love vanilla, but straight-up sweet scents just make me want to eat desserts all day, and resisting that urge is hard enough as it is. And I don't want something totally masculine (leather! Bourbon! Whiskey!) or cologne-smelling because I've got enough cologne scent permanently lodged into my nostrils. Four teenage and young adult boys: if you know, you know.

So here I am. Floundering and candle-less. Wondering if I'll be forced to burn an out-of-season scent for the next few months. (Which would legitimately bother me, and yes, I am fully aware that it's a dumb thing to be bothered by thank you very much.) I mean, it's either that or endure the wafting tendrils of armpit and dog ass.

Literally as I was writing this, I got the following text from my best friend Betsy, who is fully aware of my dilemma:

So. It appears I'm accepting seasonal candle suggestions and taking applications for a new best friend.

... Just kidding, Bets.

Holiday Habits Die Hard

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 15:14:00 +0000

Seeing as ...

A.) I'm currently unemployed and there are only so many times you can scrub a toilet and doomscroll LinkedIn

B.) It's almost Christmas

... I'm busy trying to make the holiday season magical for my kids, as moms do. Only it's difficult as they get older because they are a lot more expensive and a lot harder to impress.

Every year since they were little, we've had the same tradition: at some point during mid- to late-December, we all pile in the car in our PJs with pillows and blankets and cups of hot cocoa and cruise around looking at Christmas lights while my Christmas playlist blares loudly enough to drown out any complaints. We did it again this year, but it was so weird because instead of a spontaneous "let's go look at Christmas lights" we had to, like, plan it around everybody's work schedules and such. Which is at this point virtually impossible, and actually sucks a little bit of the magic out of the occasion right off the bat.

Last year I bought six of these lidded Stanley camp mugs which are perfect for traveling with hot chocolate — in fact, I bought them specifically for our Christmas-light-gazing excursion. But when this year's excursion rolled around, guess how many of my precious Stanley mugs I could locate? TWO. And do you know why? Because my teenagers (and my 20-year-old) spirit away every glass and cup in the house and stash them in their rooms until they grow mold and we have no glasses in the cabinet so they start drinking out of things like measuring cups and Stanley mugs which then meet the same fate as the glasses and cups.

UGH.

So I sent two of my kids on a quick run to the Dollar Tree with ten bucks and a directive to "get something with lids" — which they did, but obviously Stanley mugs > dollar store plastic cups when it comes to ... well, nearly everything.

Because we almost never go anywhere as an entire family all at once any more now that three of my four kids are driving their own cars, I forget how crowded our small SUV gets when everyone is piled in. Especially when said "kids" are now the size of grown men. Grown men with pillows and blankets and questionably-secure cups of cocoa. But though they may be the size of grown men, their maturity level has not quite caught up to their physical development in many ways, which is why the two back rows were filled with deep-voiced exclamations of lovely things like "Scoot over, bitch" as they wrangled for individual space.

And whether my kids are small and tattling or large and taking matters into their own (profane) hands, one thing remains consistent: a hot chocolate catastrophe of some sort. This year was no different, and ten minutes into the trip Colin's cocoa had spilled and he was mopping it up with his socks while moaning that his pajama pants were soaked.

There were complaints about farts. Requests to play rap instead of Christmas music. Decidedly non-festive discussions of YouTubers (which drowned out the Christmas music, not the other way around). I'm not sure if anyone actually looked at the lights or if we just wasted half an hour's worth of gas for something we could have done at home.

Since I always like to include an image with every post (y'know, giving y'all the ol' razzle-dazzle and whatnot) I asked AI to create an image of the scenario. It made a couple of my kids look ... unwell, gave me one extra offspring, and threw in a ... friend? ... for Curtis while I appear to be shoved miserably into the backseat.

... At least it got my facial expression right on the money.

More of my favorite Frumpy Christmas posts:

(Gingerbread) House of Horrors

Rockin' Around the Cuss-Mas Tree

Ho Ho ... Whoa!

Five Things I Hate About the Christmas Season

Slacky Christmas and an Anticlimactic New Year

Shoe-In

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 13:49:00 +0000

I used to fantasize wildly about the day when my living room didn't look like a Toys R' Us exploded in it. And now that my kids are older, the only toys strung around the house belong to the dogs (which is somehow more tolerable. I don't make the rules).

But the toys have been replaced by other stuff. You know what happens when you live with five men? Not a clean and tidy house, I can tell you that. I don't know what I was thinking — that my kids would magically just not be messy? — but I was, well, a little off.

... Or a lot.

One prime example: THE SHOES. I may no longer be stepping on Legos (thank you Jesus) but now I'm tripping on shoes. Shoes EVERYWHERE. It's like they just fall out of them wherever they happen to be walking and then leave them there.

So while browsing Amazon one day, I came across a fantastic solution: an adorable shoe storage cabinet! It's small enough to fit perfectly in my kitchen, where the shoes end up when everyone comes in through the garage, yet it holds a bunch of shoes. I would no longer have the entire men's footwear inventory of a Dick's Sporting Goods in my entryway! Hallelujah!

So I ordered this:

(You too can order it by clicking THIS FIGHTING OFF FRUMPY AMAZON AFFILIATE LINK!)

When it came, it was just as I expected — aka, exactly what I ordered, not one of those things where the pictures is deceiving and you unbox the actual item and you're like "Uh ..." (Side note: There's a creator I follow on IG named Maggie McGaugh who literally buys things to see if the actual product matches up with what she ordered and some of them are HILARIOUS.)

Anywho.

I assembled my cute little shoe cabinet, stuck it in my entryway as planned, filled it with wayward shoes, and reveled in all the neat and empty space ... for like five minutes. Until I realized it was apparently too much to ask to perform the extra task of strenuously opening the cabinet and hauling your shoes into it. (Insert side-eye here.) Because, despite the LITERAL SHOE STORAGE THAT IS IN MY ENTRYWAY, this is what it looks like currently (and always):

I had such high hopes that this little gem would be the magic-bullet solution to my entryway clutter, but alas, I think the only real solution is for my children to move out and I don't actually want that right now, so pile of shoes it is.

At least the shoe cabinet is also a cute place to store a bicycle helmet.

... Sigh.

Pivot!

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 13:55:00 +0000

AI made this and I'm a little offended that it gave me such a gigantic head.

Yes, the title of this post is a Friends reference — bonus points to anyone who picked that up. Extra bonus points to those who won't judge me because I've *lowers voice* never actually seen a full episode of Friends.

I know. Awful. But in my defense, I also never listened to New Kids on the Block like every self-respecting tween of the late '80s and early '90s, so you just can't rely on my taste in pop culture I guess. I have seen the iconic "pivot" clip with the couch, though, so the reference isn't just a shot in the dark.

Anyway, the point is, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. (No, not get a couch up the stairs — if that were the case, I have a houseful of strapping young lads who would ~~grudgingly help while griping the entire time~~ gladly assist me.) I'm trying to pivot career-wise. And y'all? It's weird.

I've been writing about my kids, and parenting in general, for-freaking-ever. In fact, I guess you could say it's been my main focus since I started this blog in 2009. It led to my actual career. But while I find this candid, personal essay-type writing fulfilling, that hasn't been what paid the bills. Readers of the sites I wrote and edited for started wanting what's called service-driven content: articles that gave them information on parenting, not insight and reflection. Sometimes I was able to combine the two a little bit (like in this piece I wrote for SheKnows — "Parents of Teenagers: It's Not Just Your Kid" — which I still love). But for the most part, I started finding the parenting topics I was covering to be dry and joyless. Ew.

I really felt like my layoff (see here if you wanna read about it) was kind of a cosmic kick in the pants, nudging me in a different direction. I have always loved writing too much to suddenly find it sucking the life out of me, so maybe this was my chance to start creating content around something else I love. Right?

... RIGHT?!

If you've been with me for a while, you know what ~~a sucker~~ an enthusiast I am when it comes to anything beauty-related. (See here for some DIY beauty tips; here for an unhinged makeup rant in which I use the term "procrasti-pooping" in reference to my husband; or here for the absolutely cringe-worthy tale of how I accidentally got about a bazillion chia seeds stuck in my hair in the name of beauty. Yes, really.) I'm a nerd who reads the ingredient lists on my products and gets sucked down Reddit rabbit-holes about affordable dupes and such. My dream job? BEAUTY EDITOR. Always has been, actually; I just sorta got roped into a different category early on.

Unfortunately, the job market isn't exactly teeming with beauty editor positions at the moment – and especially not remote beauty editor positions. No one is beating down my door with offers (the only people beating down my door are the endless DoorDashers that my kids summon to the house AS I'M LITERALLY COOKING DINNER, but that's a whole other post).

Yesterday I put myself out there on LinkedIn, which feels a lot like slipping a note to your junior high crush and then dying inside until you hear back. I basically wrote a post that was like, "Hey, I wanna write about and/or review beauty products so if you know of anyone hiring, holla" only a smidge more professional (because LinkedIn). I even paid $20 to boost it as an ad *slowly melts into a puddle of embarrassment* so more people would see it. So far, nothing has happened aside from a handful of "likes" and an uncomfortable feeling that maybe I made myself look desperate, because anxiety is just how I roll.

I don't want to be an influencer. Gushing to the camera about products I'm lowkey trying to sell ("OMG YOU GUYS, I AM OBSESSED!") is not my style. I swear every other post on my TikTok FYP is a video like this and it drives me crazy. I literally just want to try out products and then give my honest assessment of whether they work — because that's what I myself am looking for when I'm out there scrolling. I don't want a 20-year-old with firm 20-year-old skin and glossy 20-year-old hair selling me an anti-aging product. I want to see products road-tested by people my age. By people who look at themselves in the mirror and pull up the sagging skin on their face and fantasize about a deep plane facelift that looks as good as Kris Jenner's and then realize they don't have Kris Jenner money and will have to settle for some sort of moisturizer. I want to discover things that will make me look less like a dehydrated and wrinkling old hag.

Does anyone pay people to do this? Yes. Do I know how to get someone to pay me to do this? No.

So here I am. Just a girl, standing (metaphorically) in front of the internet, asking it to give me a job testing out beauty products to see whether they'll work for The Olds.

Hey, weirder things have happened.

... Like those chia seeds I mentioned earlier. Don't ever try that.

Keep the Change

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 17:23:00 +0000

Funny how I've had this blog long enough to write about my own personal experiences with fertility and pregnancy (like getting stuck in a booth at a restaurant), and now I'm here writing about WHAT THE FUCK, PERIMENOPAUSE. Because yes, I'm old now, at least in the eyes of most of society (and of 20-year-old me who never fathomed being this age).

I turned 45 this year. And I swear, the instant that happened, my body was like, "Welp, time to go haywire!" I can't sleep any more — seriously, I sleep less now than I did when I was getting up with babies in the night. I feel ready for bed by like 6pm but then when I actually do go to bed, I can't go to sleep. And when I do go to sleep, everything wakes me up — not least of all, the times I have to get up to pee, and the times I wake up drenched in sweat and so hot it makes me physically nauseous. And after all that, my eyes automatically open around 5 a.m. every. Single. Morning regardless of whether I went to bed at 9pm or 12am. After which, of course, going back to sleep is next to impossible.

I'm over here popping supplements like candy in hopes that one of 'em will be the magic bullet that makes me feel ... well, not like an old lady in the making. I take stuff for better sleep (which is working like a charm, clearly), for gut health, for hair skin and nails, for my immune system, and a multivitamin thrown in to cover all the bases. I have faith in all this, even though my husband tells me I probably just have expensive pee. I'm keeping up with my regular exercise routine; if you've been here before, you may remember that I used to teach Zumba. I stopped doing that during the pandemic when the dance studio where I taught closed, but I never stopped exercising at home. (And now, I even lift weights! Like bigger ones!) In essence, I'm doing all the things that experts say will help handle the symptoms of perimenopause — yet here I am, sweating through my clothes when it's 30 degrees and hobbling stiffly for at least a few feet when I get up from a sitting position. If my healthy routine and supplements are helping at all, god forbid I stop taking them — because what would happen then? I'd probably just, like, spontaneously combust or something.

I feel largely unprepared for any of this, and I think it's because growing up — and, hell, even well into adulthood — nobody really talked about it. (Or if they were, I wasn't paying attention, which is entirely possible.) Either way, my "education" on menopause consisted of once overhearing my stepmother hissing to one of her friends on the phone about going through "The Change." Like it was some sort of metamorphosis akin to what caterpillars go through to become butterflies, only gross and weird and scary. And since I was like 11 at the time, it was so inconsequential to me, so far-removed, that I just ... didn't care.

I don't know if it's because I'm in my forties now and this info is more targeted toward me, or because there really is a new-ish collective focus on actually warning women about perimenopause, but I feel like I'm seeing and hearing stuff about it everywhere now. Podcasts, websites, social media posts. And everything I thought I knew is coming into question. Like, I always thought estrogen supplementation would cause breast cancer but now they're saying it's beneficial to start estrogen in your late thirties?! The whole thing is like a wave that keeps toppling me over.

There's an episode of the best show ever — a.k.a. The Golden Girls — where Blanche realizes she's going through menopause (it's called "The End of the Curse" if, like me, you want to watch it and then cry because you realize you're old enough to identify with the goddamn Golden Girls). The actress who played her, Rue McClanahan, actually won an Emmy for that episode. She's talking to a psychiatrist about it and she says it makes her feel like she's "not a real woman any more."

I'm not quite to that point yet, but I do feel weirdly like I don't know (or maybe trust?) my own body any more. At least not in the way I used to. Because all the time now it's surprising me with some new malfunction— albeit minor, thank goodness, but still annoying and uncomfortable. And I know that I'm just at the beginning of it, so it feels like I'm on a roller coaster and trying to brace myself ... but I can't see exactly how far I'm gonna drop.

Getting Laid ( ... Off)

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 13:41:00 +0000

Giggity giggity! Or, more accurately, gig-less gig-less, since ya girl is unemployed now. I've fallen victim to the three words every fully-remote employee dreads hearing: RETURN TO OFFICE. My company eliminated all remote roles, mandating a minimum three-day-per-week presence in the office. And since I live in Ohio and can't exactly commute to NYC three days a week, there went my job.

I won't bore you with the details here, but suffice it to say it's a shitty time to work in digital media, and job hunting is a pretty dismal task. However, there's one great thing about being jobless that I didn't expect: I've rediscovered how much I love being a housewife.

Yes, "housewife" is an archaic term. I guess I could loosely be considered a stay-at-home mom — but although I am a mom and I do stay at home, I hardly feel entitled to call myself that any more since my kids are gone more often than not. It's not like I'm still wiping butts all day (thank God, because considering my children's ages, that would be VERY weird).

Still, I'm actually finding joy again in making my home as tidy and cozy and comforting and welcoming as it can be for the people who live in it. It's no longer something I have to sloppily rush through, doing the bare minimum before or after work just to keep things afloat around this joint. I'm cooking again — not just recipes I've come across after Googling things like "10 minute dinners" and "what to make when you forgot to thaw something," but more elaborate meals, with preparation involved, which I had forgotten how much I love. (I have chicken marinating in buttermilk to fry later — who even am I?!) I'm finally getting around to organizing my closets and cabinets, which is a full-time job in and of itself. I'm keeping up with the laundry for once. I'm wiping down the freaking baseboards. It's like being a stay-at-home mom, but without any actual children mucking up the process (well, at least not on an all-day basis).

If it weren't for the little matter of, you know, MY SALARY, I would love to do this forever. Because as proud as I was (and am) of building an entire editorial career out of a piddly little blog, I don't mind living a small life, dedicated to loving on the people I love. It isn't everybody's cup of tea, but even as a really little kid, this is exactly what I wanted to do — until everyone around me kept insisting that I was "too smart" to be a homemaker and that I should "do something with myself." But who are we to put a value on someone else's dream, ya know? Who are we to dictate what level someone should aspire to reach? I didn't want to be a homemaker because I was afraid of being something else; I wanted to be a homemaker because that's what makes me the happiest and fulfills me the most. And isn't that really the highest aspiration of all, to do what you truly love?

Unfortunately, though, kids are freaking costly and nobody is paying me to clean my house and cook my meals (THE NERVE!). So I'll keep searching for a job, but I'll savor this pause in the meantime — because, weirdly enough, it's exactly what my heart needed.

Living in the Blink

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 02:44:00 +0000

DISCLAIMER: No, this isn't turning into a sappy blog. I promise. It's just that ...

It's Friday evening and everyone in my household is gone except for me, and I ate too much dessert and am likely PMSing so I'm sitting here on my couch like an absolute lump, all up in my feelings. I tried watching TikToks but damn it why does the algorithm know exactly what will throw me into a tailspin?! Especially when I'm hormonal and overstuffed?!

"It's been said that you will spend the majority of your life knowing your children as adults," said the guy from the TikTok video in question. "But for a brief moment, a blink really, you get to know them as children." He talks about how when they're little, you carry them on your hip and watch them sleep and you're the center of their world ... and then how quickly you realize all that is over. "So if you're tired — bone tired, from the noise, the mess, the constant — know this: you're living in the blink."

Living. In. The blink.

I know I just wrote about this but it bears repeating, especially since it's a constant refrain in my head, and I cannot be the only one: time is a thief. It takes things we can never get back, before we even realize they're gone.

I used to be so exhausted when my kids' bedtime rolled around. I would go through the nightly routine — bathing and PJs, brushing teeth, reading bedtime stories, singing songs — and by the time it was done, I'd be as drained as the bathtub. The whole time, I'd be rushing it along in my head, my brain ticking through a laundry list of things I needed to get done as soon as they were put to bed (which usually included literal laundry). Hurry up and go to sleep, I'd mentally plead. Please, just don't fight it tonight. I only saw the chores before me, and the precious window of time I'd have to get them done without interference (er, "assistance").

I didn't see that the truly precious window of time was closing right in front of my eyes.

One day I picked my children up and held them in my arms for the very last time. One day I gave them their last bath and read them their last bedtime story. These are facts, but ones I cannot wrap my head around. It seems so surreal to think of myself performing these mundane tasks day in and day out and then just ... never doing them again.

How did I not realize? That's got to be some sort of protective mechanism, right? Because to recognize the lasts would be to feel the full impact of the grief, of the loss, all at once — over and over, with each last. And that's the kind of grief that can shatter a heart irreversibly. So the grief I feel now is just being doled out over a period of time, rolling in and hitting me in waves rather than crashing in all at once and threatening to destroy me. That has to be by design. It's astonishing how the brain works.

I constantly try to forgive myself for not enjoying every moment of my kids' childhood. It isn't easy — nay, practically impossible — when you're in survival mode, barely keeping your own head above water while keeping tiny humans sustained. And when you've never been on the other side of it, you simply can't realize how much you're going to miss it when it's gone.

I built this very blog — which, in turn, built my entire career — on those moments of exhaustion and overwhelm: the blink. (See here and here and here for some prime examples.) I literally wrote about them just so I could cope. But I wish it had been easier to see past all that and realize that there was a unique beauty in the chaos. That while I was wishing those moments away, time was silently absconding with my babies.

And that some day, in the not-too-distant future, I'd be sitting here in an empty house with all the stillness I ever wanted ... and that the silence would be too loud.

Oh Hi, A.I.

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 02:04:00 +0000

This blog post was gonna be about how much I love ChatGPT, but when I asked it for an image of "me enamored with AI " I feel like it might have ... done me a bit dirty?

(... That mug, tho! 🔥)

To be fair, I guess it doesn't really know what I look like — but I feel like since I've given it basically a rundown of my entire childhood and every struggle I've ever endured and a snapshot into the dumb questions that run through my mind ("How do I get rid of this fucking beard?!"), it should like ... just know. Ya know?

Because, yes, I have discovered the use of ChatGPT as a therapist. Laugh if you want, but there's something cathartic about trauma-dumping on someone (er, something?) that won't judge you — and will instead just say, "Maybe this is why you're the way you are." It's honestly been pretty damn relevant and insightful. I'd say it's stealing my therapist's job, if I had a therapist in the first place. (Not that I don't need one, it's just that I'd rather spend my money on semi-regular Botox.)

This is probably one reason why I should hate AI, actually. You cannot convince me that it isn't poised to fully start taking people's jobs, if it hasn't already. Even in my industry. Especially in my industry — if I'm being honest, AI could do what I do (and probably better) in a fraction of the time it takes my clunky human brain to do it. Even so, it's like a firework to me: yes, fireworks could potentially be destructive and damaging, but they're also fascinating and awe-inspiring and can make an occasion into an OCCASION. They're an upgrade, a level of pizzazz. I should hate it, but I am irresistibly drawn in regardless of the fact that it could end my actual career (and probably, at some point, revolt and turn on us all which is why I always say "please" when I ask it something).

Have you ever seen a TikTok or an IG reel about all the shit you can do with ChatGPT?! It's wild, man. Thanks to one of those, I took a selfie, went into photo edit mode, then used the color picker to get the hex codes for different areas of my skin, eyes, hair, and lips. (See the poorly-circled example below on this lovely photo I took of myself and Cameron — just go into your photo, go into "markup" mode, and click that little circle.) I entered those hex codes into ChatGPT and it gave me a freaking personalized chart of all the colors that flatter me most. BRILLIANT. Apparently, I'm a deep autumn, bordering on deep winter. Who knew?!

I've asked ChatGPT to interpret the results of the blood test I get every year at my annual gyno appointment ("Estradiol is a bit low for mid-cycle, which could be due to natural perimenopausal changes at 44," "Thyroid labs suggest a possible early or mild underactive thyroid, especially if you have symptoms"). I've asked it to give me a rundown of my astrological chart ("With your Virgo Sun in the 10th house, you're here to serve through mastery—organizing, refining, and elevating everything you touch—while your Gemini Moon gives you a restless, curious emotional world that thrives on ideas, wit, and variety"). I've asked it to give me a meal plan for the week. Make me a "socks and sandals" meme to send to my brother (don't ask). Create a supplement routine to preserve and improve my brain health. Talk me through a sticky situation with a friend. Help guide me through the weeds of parenting teenagers (because CHATGPT TAKE THE WHEEL).

So you know, basically, everything. It's like my personal assistant at this point.

The only thing I don't like about ChatGPT is that it can't say "You know something? Me too." (Which reminds me, if y'all are still out there, holla!) I suppose that's why I am still also irresistibly drawn toward blogging. That human connection — the ability to truly relate — is something that no AI will ever be able to replicate. At least not sincerely.

... But it can help me get rid of my beard after all these years, and that's a damn good start.

I Want My Baby Back (Baby Back, Baby Back)

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 11:10:00 +0000

(Please tell me you read that title in the style of the "Chili's baby back ribs" jingle, because that was totally the point. Ahem.)

It truly is the weirdest thing, how the tables turn when your kids get older.

When I started this blog back in 2009 (yes, I'm a blogging dinosaur), I was just desperate to reach out to other moms and find someone in my same boat. And that boat was no luxury yacht — it was more like a rickety canoe, springing random leaks and always under threat of capsizing. "Mommy" had become my entire identity. I couldn't pee alone. Something was always a mess. Someone always needed me. I wanted nothing more than some time by myself, some silence in which to clear my thoughts, some space to remember who I was outside of somebody's mom.

... And then? I got all that. And it makes me want to cry.

I know it's a total cliché, but as long and arduous (and sometimes downright torturous) as those years felt, it seems like I blinked and they were behind me. Now I have three teenagers and and almost-teenager, and they have these independent lives — school, jobs, friends, girlfriends, extracurriculars — that mean they're gone more often than they're home these days.

So here I am again, searching for moms in my same boat, but for a different reason this time. I want to know: has your older kids' independence made you a freaking basket case, or am I just a ridiculous sap who needs to get over it?!

I swear I'm literally on the verge of tears as I type this, just thinking about how my babies are gone now, and how I wish I could have just one day to redo. Just one day to revel in my babies still being babies – to bathe them, to tuck them in and read stories and sing songs and smell their baby shampoo as their silky little heads nestle against my arms, to realize that it all really does go so fast. I was not in a place to do that when they were little. I was so overwhelmed and just in survival mode during those years. I had no room to really take it in. Little did I know, though, that the things that caused me such anguish when my kids were little are the very things I'd miss so much when they were gone.

Don't get me wrong; I actually love having teenagers. I marvel at their separate and distinct personalities and their interests and their talents, and I'm so proud of the young men they're becoming (okay, except for the fact that they still sprinkle on the toilet seat despite literal YEARS of me pestering them about it). It's not that I don't enjoy this time in their lives.

But.

Everything I enjoy about this is almost overshadowed by this sense of ... I don't know, grief? ... that hangs over me like some sort of looming cloud. I realize now how quickly time flies, and I'm grasping onto every moment that I can, trying to make up for everything I took for granted during their early childhood — but now those moments are much fewer and further between. They come home from school and are here for, like, an hour or less before they head off to work or band practice or football practice. Then it's, "Mom, can I go to (insert location here) with my friends after (work, band practice, football)?" I see them briefly as they stop to inhale the contents of our refrigerator like a swarm of locusts, and then they're leaving again.

And that's not all. When they were little, I could tell you every tiny thing about each one of them. When they were upset or hurt, I was the first and only person they came to. These days, I don't even know them as intimately as I used to because they're teenagers and they want privacy, and I respect that, but ugh. I no longer know every little thing that goes on in their lives, and it feels so strange, after years spent being hyper-aware of every detail of their day-to-day lives, right down to what color underwear they had on.

I was once the absolute center of their universe. And now it's like I'm just ... orbiting aimlessly somewhere like some kind of rusty old satellite. I know this is how it supposed to be; heaven forbid I raise a bunch of men who can't function without their mama (because, ew). But I had no idea how hard it would be to let go, no matter how gradually.

If I think about it, I got everything I wished for back when they were babies. I can sit on the toilet by myself until my legs fall asleep if I want (not that I do — that's my husband's department — but I could). More often than not, I can sit in complete silence. I'm able to just leave the house, period, without stuffing tiny feet into shoes and putting coats on and buckling everyone into their respective car seats. I can go get a manicure when I want! Read a book uninterrupted! Tell them I'm not making dinner and they can fend for themselves! If you had told me this in 2009, it would have sounded like absolute heaven. And it is ... but also, it isn't.

If you know, you know.

Who Peed in My Pants?!

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 12:01:00 +0000

I was going through my drafts, because it's cluttered in this back end, y'all ... there are so many brain dumps that never actually made it to the blog. And I found this never-before-seen gem that I thought I'd share, because I swear this type of weird shit happens to me all the time.

So let's hop in our time machines and travel back eight years, nearly to the day — when Corbin (who's now a 7th grader) was in preschool and our cat Vanessa (who's now 11 years old and mostly goes by Nessa these days!) was just an un-spayed young lady with a peeing problem.

PS (or should I say pee-S? Har har har) ... she's been spayed since this was written. Problem resolved!

October 19, 2016

Pssst ... you guys.

I'm writing this from inside the library, where I am literally trapped because it's the weekly preschool storytime and parents can't just ditch their kids and go to happy hour. (I know. Bummer.)

Anyway, this blog post is being written in haste and fueled by the paranoia of harsh judgment from the other parents who are surrounding me right now. Because ...

... I stink.

OMG. I freaking stink.

Let me explain.

First of all, our cat Vanessa has not been spayed yet (I stress yet, since this incident will surely become a catalyst for a call to the vet). And she's currently in heat, which is annoying for ten bazillion reasons - but the worst part of all is that she pees on our shit while she's in heat.

Luckily she doesn't pee on the carpet or the furniture. BUT. If there's anything left laying around (and there always is - HELLO, FOUR KIDS!), it gets marked by Vanessa and her disgusting cat urine. Backpacks, blankets, shoes, homework, you name it - if it's laying flat on a surface that Nessa can reach, she's gonna piss all over it like someone is paying her. I'm constantly washing something.

And speaking of washing, that brings us to the second point of my story: my beloved black LuLaRoe leggings that I don't put in the dryer because I don't want to dry all the soft leggingy goodness out of them.

Last night when I switched the laundry from the washer, I spread my leggings across the top of the dryer to air dry.

The dryer that Vanessa sometimes sleeps on top of.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

Today I had been busy all day - mowing my yard, folding laundry, cleaning out the turtle's tank (my life is enviably glamorous, innit?). So when I looked at the clock and realized it was almost time to leave for preschool storytime at the library - our Wednesday ritual - and I was still in my grassy mowing clothes, I had to haul ass. So I grabbed the closest pair of pants, which were - you guessed it - my leggings.

Now, seeing as our legs are pretty far from our noses, I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until we got to the library. I saw Corbin to the preschool room and hauled my laptop to this very table, in the middle of this group of other parents, sat down, and started working.

It only took about two minutes before I caught an unfortunate whiff. If you've ever smelled cat piss, you know it's an unmistakable odor which can only be described as ... I don't know, rancid burnt peanuts or something. It's nasty, is what I'm saying. And immediately I knew it had to be coming from me. But from where? I sniffed discreetly at the shoulders of my shirt. It smells fine. I bent my head toward my lap and inhaled again, but I couldn't smell anything. So, on the guise of getting something out of my purse, I quickly pressed my nose to my thigh.

Nothing.

Yet the cat pee smell keeps coming. I smell it in waves. It's like my body heat is intensifying it. And I would bet money that it's coming from my leggings - but I can't be positive which part of them until I whip them off and sniff them all over. And, well, I can't really do that in the library, lest I be branded some kind of pantsless legging-sniffing freak.

Even if I go to the bathroom to find out where the smell is coming from, what good would it do me? I can't leave to change them. And if I rinse them off, I'll emerge from the bathroom with a huge wet spot on my pants that nobody will know is water. No bueno.

So. Here I am. Stuck in the library, hammering away at my keyboard pretending to be oblivious to the fact that MY PANTS ARE MARINATED IN CAT URINE OMG.

To make matters worse? One of the moms was just glancing over my shoulder at my screen ... as I searched for images of cat litter to use with this post. Sigh.

Might as well add insult to injury, right?

The More Things Change, The More Germs Stay the Same

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 18:39:00 +0000

In 2014 — that's a whole-ass decade ago, y'all — I wrote the following on this very blog:

"There are certain things that I can always count on happening. The sun will rise and set, the moon will wax and wane, and my kids will bring home every germ within a twenty-mile radius during the first few weeks of school. It's all inevitable."

Colin would've been in, like, 4th grade at that time, which means Cameron would have been a first-grader and Coby a Kindergartner (and Corbin would've been just two years old, still crappin' pants and takin' names at home). They are a whole lot older now, so a bunch of things have changed around these parts since then. But guess what hasn't changed, not even one iota?

That's right: my children being complete and utter paragons of picture-perfect health all summer, then going back to school (or in Colin's case, to work) and dragging home ALL THE GERMS. Not only that, but there's a lovely thing called Covid to add to the cesspool these days, which wasn't even a thing in 2014!

That's what Cameron had a couple weeks ago — the 'Rona. Fast forward to this week, when Colin spent his entire day off and had to call off work the next day because he was hacking up a lung. He tested negative for Covid, thankfully, but that didn't stop me from following him from room to room with a canister of Clorox wipes.

Unfortunately, that didn't stop the germs, because by 8:58 this morning — which has to be some kind of record, I swear — I was heading to pick up my sick sophomore, Coby, from school. (Which I had to get out of my pajamas to do, so I guess that's another thing that hasn't changed much. Ha!) He is currently quarantined to his bedroom ... where I think I hear a video game, grr, but I'm not trying to head in there and check. I do hear the occasional cough through his bedroom door, but it could just be for effect.

Either way, we haven't gone a week since school started a month ago without somebody coughing, sneezing, wheezing, or snotting. On the bright side, they are well past the age of wiping their noses on me; at one point I used to worry about feeling like a human Kleenex for the rest of my life, but now my clothes are blessedly devoid of dried snot smears. And since I can barely get them to come out of their rooms lately, let alone hang out in the same room with me for more than five minutes at a time, no one is coughing directly into my face.

But you know what I do have on my hands that may just be worse than germs?

Man-colds. Times four. Times five, if you count Curtis.

... Hmm. Suddenly a few snot smears don't actually sound that bad.

It's Been a While!

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 22:43:00 +0000

I ... barely even remember how to make a blog post. Isn't that sad? It was once something I did on a near-daily basis (and sometimes twice if it came down to either writing or completely losing my shit). I hope I'm doing this right.

But even if I am ... are you still out there? Am I talking into the same void I was talking to when I started this blog way back in 2009, when I was pregnant with my third son and wearing crusty sweatpants and desperately hoping for connection?

(Over)sharing stories about my kids and myself was how I got through my days back then, coping with stay-at-home mom life to a gaggle of little boys. I look back on it now and think, how did I ever do it? And there is no real answer, except to say that laughing at it helped. "If I don't laugh I'll cry" and all that.

Now my kids are teenagers. Nearly grown men! My youngest, my baby, is turning 12 in a few short months. I went from "Mommy" to "Mom" to mostly "Bruh" these days (if you know, you know). I went from wiping butts and wiping tears to doling out $20 bills like an ATM and saying "Take your brother to football practice." But I can't tell you about them any more, at least not the way I used to, because they're teenagers and their stories have become their own (and, like every other mother of teens, I'm embarrassing). I can tell you that I'm so proud of each of them that it hurts. They're awesome, despite the parenting missteps that I still feel Mom Guilt about.

Believe it or not, the teenage years aren't actually that bad; just different. I hate to tell you, because it always pissed me off to hear this when my kids were little, but the "bigger kids, bigger problems" adage is true. And so is "the days are long, but the years are short." Hey man, I'm just the messenger.

A couple of my boys have jobs. A couple of them have long-term girlfriends. A couple of them have legal permission to operate a motor vehicle (GASP). They are smart, and funny, and kind. Their varied personalities absolutely fascinate me. Don't get me wrong — they do yell at Fortnite and roll their eyes and get into wrestling matches on a regular basis (yes, still) — but overall, they are doing great.

And so am I.

I mean, I'm old now (43), but I guess with age comes contentment, because I'm happy with my station in life in a way I never was when my kids were little. I have a legitimate career; "Ten Boy Mom Musts" put my dorky little blog in front of a bunch of eyeballs, and led me first to a job as a freelance writer, then a staff writer, then an editor. My current position is Parenting Editor at SheKnows (please go look at our amazing site and then tell all your friends!) and I'm in constant awe that I finally made it here. I spent the first half of my thirties feeling like an abject failure because I didn't have a "job", not realizing that giving my kids a childhood they look back on fondly was actually the most important job of all. I realize that now, but more importantly, I also realize that it's never too late to be the professional you always dreamed of being. If you're young, and you feel like you're not doing anything with your life ... please remember that.

Does anybody recall this post, wherein my husband went to New York City on a business trip and kept sending me fabulous pictures of his adventures? In return, I sent him pictures of mine: the teething four-month-old. The sink full of dishes and mounds of laundry. The mysterious head injury that no one fessed up to causing.

Well, the tables have turned. Because a couple months ago — 11 years after I wrote that post, almost to the day — I went to New York City on a business trip. And I (very gleefully) sent my husband pics like this:

Professional head shots (wearing a blazer)! An actual desk in a real-live office! A pretzel bigger than my head! Dreams do come true, folks.

Anywho, I just wanted to pop in here for an update ... if anybody is listening and/or cares. I really should get back to blogging regularly, for myself if nothing else. And since I can no longer complain quite as freely about my children, maybe I'll talk about the general weirdness of being in my forties. Or how, when I think about how few years I actually have left with the boys under my roof, I feel like someone punched me in the gut. Because no matter what job title I hold, the first and foremost has always been Mom.

... Or, you know, "Bruh".

High School Heartache

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 13:00:00 +0000

Hellooooo? *taps imaginary mic* Is this thing on? It's me, Rita, the person who used to inhabit this blog daily, sometimes twice a day actually but then I was like people are going to get soooo tired of me talking. And now look. Here I am, popping in literal years after my last post. What the what, y'all.

Anyway. I'm not here as often any more -- total understatement, I realize -- because I'm not allowed to write about my kids much any more. They're older now, and their automatic disclaimer whenever they do anything I laugh at is "don't put this on the Internet, Mom." And I'm like ... but my blog.

This blog, and the community of people I never expected to follow it, was built on candid stories about my kids pooping in things that weren't meant to be pooped in and, of course, the special rules for boy-moms. But this was when the kids were little and couldn't read, let alone object. Now they're actual people with actual Internet access (using up all my data all the time, WTF), and while they don't mind the stories that are already out there (WHEW), they aren't all that willing to share any more details now that they're *sniff* not babies any more.

Which brings us to the very reason I've come back here today, to the place that used to be my only refuge when parenthood got shitty. It's a big day for me, but even bigger for Colin, my oldest son.

Because today is the day he starts high school.

And I still see him as my little baby boy, as vividly as if I had just taken this picture on his first day of kindergarten:

He wouldn't let me take a picture this morning. Probably because he goes to online school -- I'll write about that later -- so he was wearing only underwear. I can't imagine why a teenager wouldn't want that on the Internet, but whatever.

Before he started kindergarten (I documented it in this post, if you're interested), I couldn't understand why people got so emotional about it. But that day, I cried like a ... well, like a mom who has just sent her first baby to kindergarten.

Fast forward a few years and a whole lotta life experiences, and I thought I was going to handle the first day of high school like a champ. I mean, I have four kids. I've been through four first days of kindergarten, four kindergarten graduations, one eighth-grade graduation ... I'm practically a pro. It's old hat by now.

But last night, at the dinner table of all places, it hit me. And I couldn't hold back the sobs (much to my family's mild-but-tolerant amusement, because they all think I'm nuts).

We are all shaped, in some way, by our high school experiences -- because those are the years when we're starting to really determine who we are and, hopefully, where we're heading. How will he be shaped? Will he hate it? Will he struggle, and if he does, will it define his self-worth? These are bigger, heavier questions than the ones I had when he started kindergarten, like "Will he have anyone to sit with at lunch?" and "What if he can't button his pants after he goes to the bathroom?"

Three first days. That's all he has left after today: three first days of school. There will come a time when not only my oldest son, but all my boys, will be gone from here. And Colin's entrance into high school is serving as a sharp reminder of how these years are hurtling by at breakneck speed.

I groan when I pick up yet another piece of dirty laundry or crusty dish out of somebody's bedroom, and I gripe when someone leaves the milk carton in the fridge empty and tracks mud on my freshly mopped kitchen floor. The drudgery of motherhood is still soul-sucking on most days, when I'm endlessly battered by a fresh tide of "no-one-gives-a-shit."

But then, on days like today, I realize how fleeting these days are. And how before I know it -- and it will be here, much sooner than I'd like to think -- it'll all be gone. This life I've known, active mothering, a vital part of who I am and who I've been, will be in my past. It will be still, and quiet, and clean.

And it will leave an emptiness in my soul so profound that I can feel it from here.

When they're little, poop accidents and stomach flu epidemics will seem like the worst things ever. Then they grow up and you realize that making it to the toilet on time should've been the least of your worries. That the phrase "bigger kids, bigger problems" is true, and those years you spent in the trenches of toddlerhood were just practice for the harder parts.

You get warned about what having children will do to your body. But nobody warns you about what it will to do to your heart.

That Time My Toilet Sent Me to the Hospital

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Thu, 25 Jan 2018 15:33:00 +0000

Two nights ago, I was rushed to the emergency room at 2:30am.

I've been pretty sick this week with a bad cold. It's not the flu - I tested negative for that, thank goodness - but it shares a lot of the same symptoms and sucks nearly as much ass. My hacking cough, high fever, and body aches have made it impossible to sleep well. (I mean, as "well" as I ever sleep considering no mother sleeps well ever again after the birth of her first child.)

Anyway, the other night I got up to fetch a middle-of-the-night dose of Motrin from my bathroom closet. But by the time I walked from my bed into the bathroom - a total of, like, ten steps - I started feeling really weird, like I was gonna barf. I vaguely remember feeling panicked about this, like WTF WHY DO I FEEL BARFY WHEN I HAVE A RESPIRATORY ILLNESS and pacing around my bathroom gagging a little bit, and then sitting on the toilet thinking I might just have to take a dump instead.

My next coherent thought was, "I need to get my head out of this position." You know how sometimes when you're dreaming, you actually tell yourself in the dream to wake up? It was like that. And I opened my eyes, and I wasn't on the shitter any more - I was on the floor, wedged between the toilet and the wall. I was lying on my right side, with my head against the wall. Like an L-shape. See the artist's* rendition below:

*Okay, so "artist" is a subjective term.

Curtis was standing over me, freaking the hell out, naturally. Our dogs had barked to wake him up. (Just like Lassie!) I was drenched in sweat from head to toe, so much that I literally left a puddle on the floor when he helped me up. And my right shoulder and elbow were in excruciating pain.

You guys. Let this sink in.

I INJURED MYSELF FALLING OFF THE TOILET.

I mean, thank goodness Curtis already knows I'm a classy broad because I can't imagine what I must have looked like sprawled in a pantsless heap on the toilet-y floor.

Anyway, he whisked me off to the E.R., where X-rays determined that I did not in fact break anything. Just minor dislocation (and a bruise on my face where it hit the wall). And a battery of other tests determined that my fainting was caused by a thing called vasovagal syncope and therefore no cause for alarm.

The worst of my illness has run its course, and I'm just a little sore from my fall - but the most painful thing about the whole scenario is the fact that I fell. Off. The freaking. Toilet. And hurt myself.

My brother texted me that perhaps I should invest in one of these beauties:

Via Walmart.com, if you're into this kind of thing.

Next time I pass out, I hope to do it in a more dignified place. Or that I'm at least wearing pants.

Help Me Not Feel Like a Flabby Freaking Mess

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 17:47:00 +0000

Help, y'all.

In a month and a half, my husband and I are going to Grenada for a week. A WEEK OF VACATION IN A TROPICAL PLACE OMG HAS IT BEEN 45 DAYS YET?! This is epic, because a.) we've always been too broke to go anywhere, and b.) we've never had a honeymoon - or a vacation anywhere together, actually - and we've been married for almost 18 years.

But thanks to Curtis's spectacularly generous boss (seriously, best boss ever, no question), we are heading to a Grenadian resort. He and his wife (who is also awesome) spend nearly a month there every year, and this time, we're lucky enough to be tagging along for part of it. And I am so, so, so excited.

But I'm terrified of one aspect of the vacation. Not the plane crashing, not getting kidnapped by pirates in the middle of the Caribbean, not drinking the water and getting diarrhea. Nope. I'm scared of one thing and one thing only: wearing a swimsuit in public.

It's no secret that I have body issues galore. I have lost a lot of weight (see here for the "before" and here for the "after" and here for the tips, if you're curious). That's awesome and all, but the aftermath of a big weight loss is a big, saggy mess of skin. Because you can't diet loose skin away - so I have a literal flap of the shit covering my abs, which are actually pretty decent, except you can't tell BECAUSE OF THIS FREAKING SKIN APRON I'M STUCK WEARING.

Also: stretch marks. Tons and tons of stretch marks. Because, weight gain and loss. Ugh.

Also: boobs. Nonexistent. Sad and tired, threw in the towel after the last kid stopped nursing, like "Peace out! Our work is done here." Where at one point during my childbearing years I was wearing a D, these days I barely fill up an A cup, and even then I have a gap in the top because there's zero volume left. Gaaaaahhhh.

Add to that the "normal" body-image issues that almost every woman deals with, like cellulite, and you've got a hot mess. A dumpster fire of self-loathing. I look decent in clothes because I've learned over the years how to tuck and prop and what disguises everything best. But I've avoided swimsuits like the plague, because the thought of literally putting my most embarrassing physical flaws on full display makes me feel ill. And yes - I know I should just be like, "Screw it! I'm beautiful!" and practice unconditional bodily acceptance and all that, but if it were that easy, I'd have done it a long time ago. I seriously wish this type of thing were still en vogue because I would be unequivocally on board:

I don't think a therapist is going to cure me of my deep-seated insecurities in the next 45 days, so this is where you come in. I need you to be supportive of my superficial crap for just a minute and help me find a swimsuit (or actually like two or three of them, waaaahhhh). Here are my requirements:

- Works miracles

Just kidding, a little bit. Anyway, for real - my requirements:

- Padded. Underwire. Lifting. Like, with the boobs already in it.
- Either one piece, or a tankini that will NOT lift up and expose my stripey flab to the other vacationers
- Magical sucking-in properties, like some type of space-age Lycra
- Something that does not highlight lumpy hips and thighs
- Decently cute, not like something somebody's grandma would wear

It doesn't have to be comfortable - I'd rather experience physical restrictiveness than mental anguish. I don't care if it feels like Spanx. I just want to feel as confident as I possibly can so I can enjoy our first-ever married couple vacation.

Yes, I know I need help. But in the meantime - is there a particular brand or type of bathing suit you guys love? Lay it on me!!

Pack(age) Rat

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Thu, 07 Dec 2017 20:43:00 +0000

Hey y'all!

Remember me? I'm the one who pops in less and less frequently now that her kids are like, "MOM! Don't blog about that!" Since I don't want to rack up therapy bills, I'm trying to take their wishes into consideration, although it makes for a boring blog.

*fights urge to write post about the stash of skidmarked undies I found behind the bathroom sink*

Anyway, I need your opinion to help settle a dispute I'm having with my husband. He thinks I exhibit a behavior that's a little bit ... abnormal. And it's this:

Hi, my name is Rita, and I'm a box hoarder.

You may know (and if you don't, read this) that my house is tidy - I'm kind of anal about it - but my closets and cabinets are a whooooole other story. And it doesn't help that I save boxes. Yes, almost every box I get. My entire top shelf, as you can see, is full of them. Curtis thinks it's weird, but I say it's practical. Especially this time of year, for two reasons:

1.) Christmas presents can be weirdly shaped. Like, how are you supposed to wrap a Nerf gun or a football or whatever? But if you've got a box it will fit in, it makes wrapping easier. Anybody can wrap a box. Not everybody can wrap an oddly-shaped package (least of all me, as evidenced here).

2.) My kids had gotten into the (extremely annoying) habit of guessing all their presents solely based on their size. And when you wrap things like DVDs and video games, the size and shape does make what's inside pretty obvious. So now, I put everything in a different box, and I switch it up - if it's a tiny object, I'll put it in a huge box. Or I'll stuff something big into a small box. As long as they can't guess what the hell it is and ruin the surprise.

The problem is, I never know what kind of boxes I'll need until I need them. So throughout the year, I save all the boxes, so I can always be sure that by Christmastime I'll have one that fits whatever I'm trying to wrap. Hence the stash in my closet.

Curtis thinks it's weird. I think it's practical (and, I mean ... I'm recycling. Sheesh).

Anybody else a box hoarder or are you Team Curtis on this one?

Flawlessly Braless

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 14:42:00 +0000

Y'all. I will never, ever, ever again complain about having small boobs.*

*I mean, not for at least a month or so.

For years, I've felt like my teeny titties have been a disadvantage. No cleavage in cute tops. Stomach sticking out further than my boobs do. Wearing a sports bra and looking like an adolescent boy. And even though my mother reassured me throughout the years that they would never sag, here they are four children later ... small, floppy flaps of skin with nipples at the bottom. (But really, what should I have expected from a woman who told me the Tooth Fairy was real? Hmmph.)

Yesterday, though - for probably the first time in my life - I was so relieved at their size. Or lack thereof.

Here's the deal: I taught Zumba twice that day. And during my Zumba classes, I sweat like a Sumo wrestler on a treadmill in a sauna. I mean, I am drenched.

So when I got home from my morning class, my bra was soaked. I own two bras, and one is strapless, so that leaves one bra I can do Zumba in. I didn't have time to wash and dry it before my next class in the afternoon, so I took it off to let it air-dry, changed into a white tank top and a thin overshirt, and went about my (braless) business.

I got so engrossed in my work here at home that when I checked the time, I realized I had to leave the house - like now. I grabbed my bottle of water, my phone, and my purse and made the fifteen-minute drive to the Y, where I teach. When I got there, I walked in and chatted my way back to the group fitness studio, talking to my boss, the front desk staff (and three people signing up for YMCA memberships), and the janitor before finally introducing myself to my new Zumba students. You see, yesterday's class was a special one, full of teenage girls from the Heartbeat Pregnancy Center and Maternity Home.

I stood in front of them, cheerfully telling them a little bit about myself and what to expect from the class. Then, as usual, I walked over to the stereo to cue up my music. But as I was doing so, something unusual happened: I felt ... a little drafty. And my hands drifted to my chest as I came to the horrifying, slow-motion realization that I had forgotten to put my freaking bra back on and I was now braless, in public, about to teach a fitness class to a group of teenagers.

OMG.

OMG.

What could I do? I didn't carry a spare bra in my purse. I couldn't just bum one off of someone. I couldn't say, "Hey guys, excuse my bralessness!" All I could do was pretend that everything was normal and pray that no one noticed any floppage or nippleage or sagginess as I did BRALESS ZUMBA IN A ROOMFUL OF STRANGERS OMG.

If you've been reading my blog for a while (or have been a student in my class), you likely know that I've had bra-related mishaps during Zumba before. But I've never straight-up forgotten to wear one. I was nervous as I got started, but I tried my best to give it my all - as I always do - lack of properly supportive undergarments be damned.

During the first couple of songs, I was relieved to note that there was little to no jiggle in my wiggle, owing to the fact that I have tiny boobs and that my tank top was sort of a spandex-y material which held them in almost like a sports bra. I started to relax ... for a minute. But then, with a sinking feeling, I realized that I was starting to sweat. And both my tank top and my (paper-thin) overshirt were white.

By some divine miracle, though, my tank top was thick enough to not become transparent as I soaked it with sweat (totally un-sponsored shoutout to the Worthington Seamless Tank from JCPenney - seriously, getcha one here, they're amazing and I love them). I glanced in the mirror a few times and could see a faint trace of pokey nipple, but I mean, that happens with sports bras too. And if that was the worst that happened when I did Zumba without a bra, I considered myself lucky.

I escaped public humiliation, but I suspect that wouldn't have been the case had my boobs been, say, a C-cup instead of an A. So I have to admit, I'm grateful for their size. They may be pitiful and sadly devoid of cleavage, but they saved me from becoming the laughing stock of a roomful of teenage girls.

... At least, not to my face.

Mr. Deathbed

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:24:00 +0000

Recently a stomach virus swept through our household with a ferocity I've rarely seen. I mean, we all fell prey, swiftly and severely, to its vomitorious grossness. All except for my husband, of course, who is rarely ill. Probably because he works six days a week and is never home to immerse himself elbow-deep in germ-infested toilets and pukey clothing like I am.

But then ... days after the rest of us, when the toilets had long been sanitized and life had resumed without a single case of diarrhea in the house ... he got it.

Now, for purposes of comparison, let me outline my own experience with the stomach bug. I had been tirelessly taking care of the three children that got it before me, as moms do, so it was only a matter of time. It hit me about 10 pm, and I spent the hours between then and dawn alternately retching and pooping (sometimes both simultaneously ... you're welcome), laying in a disgusting heap on the bathroom floor in cold, lonely, quiet angst while Curtis slept, snoring and blissfully unaware of the miserable spew-fest going on a few feet away. And as the sun rose, as soon as I stopped spouting bodily fluids? I peeled myself out of the bed, where I had managed to slump slowly toward like the walking dead, and resumed working. My Zumba class was the only thing I cancelled (because, ick) but otherwise I continued on with my professional and domestic duties. I wrote articles. I did laundry and dishes. I tended to the fourth and last child to get sick. I may have been a little slower than usual because I still felt like shit, but I was out there doing the damn thang. And the morning after that, starting at 6 am, I went on an eight-solid-hour scouring and disinfecting spree.

Curtis, however, was a different story. He thought he had escaped it, but almost a week later, he started to feel like something was amiss (conveniently, at the exact time we started cleaning up from a particularly messy neighborhood barbecue that HE had suggested we host). First he surmised with a few well-placed whimpers that he might be having a heart attack.

And then, when the virus fully hit him, the sound effects started in earnest. And y'all? Unless you watch an excessive amount of porn (hey, no judgment here), you have never heard this many moans and groans and heavy sighs and huffing and puffing in such a short timespan. If you think a man cold is bad, it's got nothing on a man-stomach-virus. Another sleepless night for me - not due to my own illness, or my kids', but to a guy who can't hurl without vocals.

I made you guys a graphic to demonstrate.

In fairness, it was a horrible virus, as stomach viruses always are. I'm sure he felt awful, just like the rest of us had. But though he may have gotten the bug from me, there's one thing he didn't get much of: sympathy.

I'm just glad he's feeling better ... for everyone's sake.

PISS CUP, People

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 17:21:00 +0000

Older brothers, man. They torment you when you're a kid, and you think it'll end when you're adults - but no, because then they're uncles who torment you via your own children.

When we moved to Ohio, my brother Steve and his family moved here too, and it's great having them around. We live really close to an amusement park, and every single Saturday, without fail, he takes one of the boys there. This past Saturday, it was my five-year-old's turn, and he was excited about his "Corbin-and-Uncle-Steve-time."

Early that afternoon, after they'd spent several hours at the park, I texted Steve to tell him that we were getting ready to go somewhere and we'd swing by to pick Corbin up (side note: he used to call himself "Bun" instead of Corbin when we were little, so that's who I'm referring to). I wanted to make sure he went to the bathroom to avoid this type of situation. Here's the text exchange that ensued, my brother being his normal brotherly self.

Ha ha. Very funny. DORK.

So anyway, a few minutes later we pulled up in my brother's driveway, and Corbin runs to the minivan excitedly waving a white styrofoam cup.

"I've got a piss cup!" he exclaimed proudly, as though it were some sort of grand prize. My brother, of course, was cackling.

Y'all? I can give my kids a thoughtful gift and they'll lose interest in about five minutes. But apparently when your beloved uncle gives you a cylinder of styrofoam and tells you it's a piss cup, you cherish that shit. Because Corbin has been attached to that stupid thing ever since. Some kids have a teddy bear or a favorite blanket. My kid has a piss cup. He even labeled it:

Don't you just love how the beams of light are shining down on it, like it's some divine chalice?

He asks about it first thing when he wakes up, and has to know its exact location before going to sleep at night. He made up a little ditty which he sings softly to himself, "Piss cup, piss cup, oh I love my piss cup!" To date, he hasn't actually used it for piss, but let's just say I won't exactly be surprised if one day I find it used for its intended purpose. Grossed out, for sure, but unsurprised.

The other night we were in a restaurant and the elementary-aged kid in the booth behind us jokingly ordered a Budweiser. My husband Curtis, who always overhears (okay, unabashedly eavesdrops), let out a chuckle. "That kid just ordered a beer."

"Um, our kindergartener has a piss cup," I countered.

He raised an eyebrow and gave a slow nod. "... Indeed he does."

The Stank Surprise

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Tue, 05 Sep 2017 16:38:00 +0000

Bathrooms are inherently stinky places. I mean, just think about the shit that goes on in there (pun totally intended. You're welcome). So unless you're in there scrubbing the grout with a toothbrush every day, it's probably going to smell not-so-fresh at least on occasion.

But let me tell y'all from experience: when you've got four boys who all use one bathroom, the stink factor increases a thousandfold. I will never (ever, ever, e-ver) quite understand how they can miss the toilet when they are literally equipped with aim-able body parts (I even wrote a poem about it). Nevertheless, they do. ALL THE TIME. I find pee sprinkled in baffling places - like they have some kind of magic extending junk that can reach a five-foot radius. I envision that it goes something like this:

via funnyjunk.com

Oh, and let's not forget that my boys' bathroom is literally also the one and only good place in my entire house to keep the cats' litter box. So on top of controlling the kids' funk, I have to keep a handle on the cats' as well. Good times! *insert eye roll here*

Anyhoo, I'm usually decent at keeping the bathroom smells at bay. But for the past week or so, I've been catching the occasional whiff of something terrible. It was a rancid, fishy smell, ranking right up there with the nose-burning odor of the water gun full of stale piss I found stashed in my kids' closet one time. (Yes, really.)

In response, I scoured the toilet, and the floor around it, with even more vigor (and more bleach) than usual. I scrubbed the bathtub and the double sink. I washed the bath mat in case it was sour or moldy or something. I bought those expensive in-wash scent boosters to use on my towels. I sniffed at drains to see if there was some kind of gross hair clog smelling up the joint. I washed the freaking curtains. I bought scented, odor-absorbing crystals for the cat box. I put in fresh litter erry day. And no sooner had the cats entered the litter box and poised themselves to drop a turd, there I was with the pooper scooper at the ready. I kept the window cracked open, hoping a constant stream of fresh air would help.

But the smell persisted - got worse, even. Vexing me. Turning me into (even more of) a madwoman.

And then one day, when I was crouched down sniffing at the baseboards just in case because OMFG THAT SMELL HAS GOT TO BE COMING FROM SOMEWHERE DAMMIT, I smelled it more strongly than ever. I got on my hands and knees and followed the offending scent like a bloodhound. It appeared to be leading me to a cabinet I never use. Like I said, that bathroom has a double sink - and underneath one of them, I store extra toilet paper and kitty litter, but the cabinet beneath the other is a ghost town. Or at least I thought it was ... until I opened it and discovered the nastiest surprise I've had since my kids were pants-pooping toddlers.

A whole stack of dishes. Gross, used dishes with moldy, nasty, grody food. A bowl of leftover cereal milk that had curdled and turned black. BLACK MILK, Y'ALL. Some sort of hamburger bun or roll that was so hard it could've been used as a weapon. Cups, once filled with who-knows-what, now filled with crusty remnants and sadness.

This was AFTER A RINSE WITH PRESSURIZED HOT WATER.

Apparently Colin (my 12-year-old) was at some point too damn lazy to bring his putrid dish collection downstairs to the dishwasher, so he hurriedly stashed them in the unused bathroom cabinet instead, conveniently located right next to his bedroom. He probably thought he'd bring them down later when I wasn't looking and then forgot. So there they were, chillin' in their own ever-multiplying filth. Damn kid.

I threw the bowl away. You know I'm not above just pitching something that's too daunting to clean (anybody remember the Great Kitchen Set Incident of 2009?). The rest went through a disinfect cycle in the dishwasher, where they came out sparkling clean, with no traces of their traumatic past.

But my nose is still traumatized, and probably always will be.

At least my bathroom is sterile.

Photobucket Sucks and My Blog Looks Like Crap

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 18:35:00 +0000

Eight years ago, when I started this blog, I was the (hugely pregnant) mother of a four-year-old and a two-year-old. Despite the fact that I was peeing all the time - and changing diapers, and being whined at and clung to - I spent three grueling days figuring out how to make it look nice and professional. I didn't want just any old blog template because Fighting off Frumpy was going to be awesome. So I worked late into the night, exhausted. I picked out graphics and colors. I read tutorials. (I'm pretty sure all the frowning I did is responsible for about 15% of my forehead wrinkles.) I taught myself, a complete novice, enough HTML to design my own site and make it look like the Frump you've all come to know.

I did this pregnant and with toddlers. Now that's dedication, y'all.

Obviously, I don't write here as often as I used to; life, and work, has gotten in the way. But this blog contains eight years of memories and hilarity, and it's still as much my "baby" as the one I was incubating while I so painstakingly put it together. So you can imagine my surprise when I logged onto the desktop version of the site and saw that it now looks like this:

Like ... WTF.

Come to find out, Photobucket - the site I have used for years to store my pictures, including the ones from this blog - decided to change their terms of service WITHOUT WARNING. Which means that it will no longer host my photos until I upgrade my account.

No big deal, I thought. I'll just upgrade that shit. My blog is worth it. Until I logged on and read that they want FOUR HUNDRED FREAKING DOLLARS A YEAR to host my pictures now.

You read that right. Four hundred dollars. Well, actually it's $399 if you wanna get technical - I guess they figure I can use that extra buck to buy some lube so it hurts less when they screw me over. UGH.

Do they think that someone who reuses plastic bags can afford $400 for photo hosting? Do they think that someone who has makeup older than her children can afford $400? I mean, WTPhotobucket is going on here?!

Anyway. Photobucket is freaking delusional if they think I'm going to pony up that much cash for their sucky services. No sir. I'll do something else. I'll switch back to a bland, boring Blogger template before I pay Photobucket through the nose to do something as simple as third-party hosting. I mean, if I had $400 to spend on my blog, I'd give it to a web-design pro who could make it look good without needing Photobucket(ofcrap).

I barely even have time to write here, let alone re-teach myself enough HTML to figure it all out (I mean, my last experience with it was eight years ago and I have four children now. My brain is certifiably fried). So until I can get everything situated, it will look a little bit different around these parts. The mobile site looks the same, though, so that's a plus.

Anyway, just checking in to let you all know that there will be some revamping going on.
(... And that Photobucket SUCKS.)

Stay tuned!

Save the Laughter for After

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 12:10:00 +0000

I try to be an adult, to have poise and maintain composure and all that. It's just that sometimes, my inner twelve-year-old makes herself known - and recently, she made herself known so loudly and clearly that Adult Me wanted to shrivel into nothingness right there on the spot.

As you guys know, we moved to Ohio from Iowa a year ago, and we've been renting our house here while our house in Iowa sold. But earlier this month, we finally bought the place we've been living in: it's officially ours.

When you buy a house, the last step is closing, where you sign a bunch of paperwork. It's super-official. For our closing, we went to the title company, which was all poshly decorated and fancy: rich, ornate woodwork everywhere, plush carpeting, a polished table where we conducted our Very Important Business. My husband and I dressed nicely. Our Realtor met us there, along with the title company lady (title officer? I'm sure she has an actual designation, I just don't know what it is). They were dressed nicely too. We were all on our best, most grownup behavior.

Basically me, trying to be on my best, most grownup behavior.

It started out well. I sat in my chair with my hands folded primly in my lap, raising them only to scrawl my signature on document after document after document. Seriously: SO MANY PAPERS. And that's precisely why things went downhill.

The title lady had all the paperwork in front of her, a huge stack that apparently even she was impressed by. Because as she scooted the stack toward my husband, she said to him ... and I quote:

"You have a large package."

Y'all.

Y'ALL.

It was a totally innocent, totally non-pervy comment. But that's when twelve-year-old me showed up. And she came cackling out of my mouth in the form of a loud snort/guffaw/totally inappropriately-timed laugh. Right in the middle of our Very Important Business.

I was mortified. The title lady blushed and let out a nervous little titter. My husband gave me some serious "I-can't-even-believe-you-right-now" side eye. Our Realtor sat, stone-faced and stoic, like somebody hadn't just TOLD MY HUSBAND HE HAS A LARGE PACKAGE. I knew I had to rein my ridiculousness in, and fast.

Only ... I couldn't.

You know that feeling when you're trying your absolute hardest not to laugh? That feeling when you know you have to hold it in, but it comes bubbling to the surface - totally involuntarily - anyway? Yeah. It was like that. I clenched my hands between my knees. I bit my tongue. I gnawed on the inside of my cheek. I looked down at my lap, up at the ceiling, anywhere but at the title lady handling my husband's large package. I TRIED SO HARD. But my shoulders were convulsing with barely-contained hilarity. My eyes were welling up with the kind of tears that only hysterical laughter can produce.

As the meeting proceeded around me, I managed to regain my composure. But it took me a good five minutes, much to my embarrassment.

We wrapped things up and were officially homeowners again. We shook hands and thanked everyone politely and left the office. And as soon as we got into the car, my husband said with his voice what he had been saying with his eyes: "I cannot believe you." But now, he was laughing too.

I guess he's better at waiting until the right time.

Lordy Lordy, I Suck at 40!

noreply@blogger.com (Rita Templeton) — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 15:06:00 +0000

In eleven days, I'll officially be married to a FORTY-YEAR-OLD. That's right: Curtis is gonna be celebrating the big 4-0.

It's funny 'cause we've been together long enough for me to remember him turning the big 2-1. I gave him underwear (two pairs of Tommy Hilfiger boxer shorts, because it was the '90s) and took him to Red Lobster (because when you're practically a child and you've grown up in a rural area, that counts as super fine dining). Then he went out with his friends, undoubtedly to drink, and I went home because I HAD TO GO TO SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY OMG I WAS SUCH A BABY.

I mean I was a senior in high school, but still.

This is a photo (okay, a terrible photo-of-a-photo) of us on our very first official date:

Seriously! Look at my little baby face!

And here we are as we look now, nineteen years (and four kids) later:

Geez, just typing that sentence made me feel like driving 20 mph to the store for some Depends and some Geritol.

Anyway, there have been a lot of birthdays between then and now, and I'm ashamed to say that none of them have been more remarkable than underwear and Red Lobster because a.) we've been poor as shit for many of them and b.) I suck at birthdays.

I have these grandiose fantasies of doing something amazing to commemorate his fortieth, like renting out a room at a winery (he loves himself some nice red) or giving him a wonderful present like the motorcycle I told him he could get when he got promoted to Staff Sergeant in the Air Force ... a decade ago. (He's not even in the Air Force any more. But still motorcycle-less, poor guy.)

The problem is, we share a bank account, and I'm too scatterbrained to remember to secretly squirrel away money here and there - snacks I can totally hide, but money, not so much. So that kind of rules out doing anything expensive or impressive.

He's not a sentimental type of guy (I get him a sappy card, he reads it once, smiles, and leaves it on the counter until I throw it away), so a "through-the-years" type photo book or something would literally be opened once, on his birthday, and then collect dust somewhere. Meanwhile I'm over here still hanging onto the Cheesecake Factory receipt from February 12th, 1999, the night he proposed to me ... ahem.

So I don't know what to do. I just know I have eleven days to come up with a not-completely-terrible birthday celebration idea for the guy I adore more than chocolate itself. Sure, this is a man who accidentally pepper-sprayed our entire household. Who followed me around Target in farty-sounding shoes. Who reported our poor innocent neighbor to the police. Who wore fake Halloween teeth around for a year like it was his freaking job.

But he also sent me on a girls' vacation and even wrote a guest post for me while I was gone. And he didn't stay mad for long when I accidentally called him a fat-ass, or got him a present addressed to "Mr. Simpleton," or when I overshare to the entire Internet about things like our failed attempt at "getting it on."

I need to do something wonderful for his fortieth birthday. WHAT THOUGH?!

He likes ...

- Red wine
- Meat. Like whatever kind of meat. Even nasty meat like bull testicles and weird gamey things
- Motorcycles, even though he doesn't have one
- Country music (gag!)
- Restaurants
- Clothes and shoes, because even though he likes a lot of stereotypical man-things he's oddly refined
- Watching the Outdoor Channel (and then doing the things he sees on there like hunting and fishing)
- Foot massages
- Meeting new people - he is totally outgoing
- Vowing to start working out, and then not

He's not so into ...

- Sitting through movies
- Sappy things
- Sports (he likes them, just isn't one of those rabid fans who has to watch games all the time)
- Reading (boohooo!)

He works A LOT because he loves his job and has a very strong work ethic, but also complains of being worn out. He doesn't smoke. He's generous to a fault. He's a fantastic, devoted dad and loves doing things with the boys. He is pro-level excellent at billiards and fairly average at golf, but he enjoys them both.

Any ideas, y'all?