I find it ironic that, as a single person without kids, I was the perfect parent. I knew everything there was to know about raising children and my parenting vocabulary was peppered with the words “never” and “always.” Example: I will never let my child eat in front of the television and my kid will always behave in stores and I will never work once I have kids and I will always be there for them when they come home after school.

I also find it ironic that, as a working mom, I was both impressed by a woman’s ability to become a stay-at-home mom (as it drove me crazy) and scornful when her stay-at-homeness went on to long. In fact, I was a SAHM until my second son was 10-months old, and the solitary, toddlerian nature of it (my older son was 2.5 years) drove me insane. I didn’t complain much when finances forced me back to work.

Admittedly, however, I thought those women that continued to be SAH moms once their kids went back to school were spoiled. And crazy. And what the heck did they do with all their time? Television, bon-bons (do people even eat those anymore?) and hair appointments. Maybe a volunteering gig every once in awhile.

It wasn’t for me. I wanted a career, and I loved that I was intelligent and hard working and driven. I wanted to succeed and keep on growing and to continue to aim ever higher for the next advancement.

Except advancement stopped coming. And I’d grown both complacent and disappointed. My work life eventually went from invigorating me, to becoming the center of my dread.

When the day arrived—when I stepped on the landmine that shot me completely off the same dreary path I’d been on for over a decade—I was disoriented. Then nervous. Then relieved. Few people anticipate being laid off; fewer people hope for it. So when you realize you were secretly hoping for some way to escape the frustrating, soul-sucking slog that your career had become, sudden unemployment can be a blessing in disguise.

I spend my days taking care of all the things I’ve ignored for years, like cleaning the refrigerator or organizing the linen closet. And other things I’ve wanted to do, like helping my own kids with their homework—instead of having to rely on some after school program to do it for me. Making dinner is no longer the intense, stressful rush to get home from work and get it on the table before whisking kids off to whatever practice or activity comes next. I can plan for it. And enjoy the creativity of it.

Life has slowed down. While I’m still able to see the forest for the trees, now I’m able to stop and actually appreciate the trees. However, “always” and “never” still cloud my vocabulary. As in: I will always appreciate this time, and will never forget how grateful I am to have had it.

Did you ever notice how every year there seemed to be some color that was uber popular with EVERYONE on the planet? From clothes to makeup to flippin' little plastic cups to toasters to Truck Nutz, it seemed like everything would suddenly be following some similar color pattern. And I, in my uninformed brain, would be like HOW DID THEY ALL KNOW? HOW DID THEY ALL INDEPENDENTLY DECIDE THAT TURQUOISE WOULD BE AWESOME THIS YEAR?

For those who were clueless just like I once was-- let me enlighten you: Nobody independently decides anything. Like most global decisions, this color thing involves conspiracy and covert decision making and probably the CIA in some capacity.

Panattone Bread: Perpetual loser

Every year a secret, elite group of snarky, black-wearing designers meets to discuss the zeitgeist-- "the spirit of the age"-- and based on such, decides what shall be the Pantone color of the Year. (At least I think that's how it goes. Maybe it's just a group of Pantone execs and the CEO of Target.)

Anyway, then the color is decided upon and the WHOLE ENTIRE WORLD lives on pins and needles for the very moment when the color is announced. Will it be Blue Blossom? Succulent Pickle? Iridescent Brown?

This year's winner: Still not Panettone bread. Which is good for raisin haters. No, this year's color, Tangerine Tango, "is a bit exotic, but in a very friendly, non-threatening way." Which makes me happy because I hate-- HATE-- when I feel threatened by a color. Because I get all, "FUCK YOU COLOR, I'LL KICK YOUR ASS" and the color is all, "FUCK YOU CRAZY, I DO WHAT I WANT. PLUS YOU'RE YELLING AT YOUR SHIRT." And I have to concede that a violent relationship with my clothing is good for almost no one. (Stupid shirt.)

Tangerine Tango: Apparently the zeitgeist of 2012

So there it is: Color of the Year. Enjoy it. Dance with it. Don't eat it (because it's not actually food).

I'd like to say I didn't know, but the truth is, with the constant evolution and trimming of my department, my need to dress for the public disappeared. And so I got comfortable. "Too comfortable," she said. "When you look good, you feel good. We need to update your sorry closet."

Specifically: Shoes. The Mission: Get some.

What with my birthday having just passed, she decided the best gift would be some awesome heels to jazz up my life. Walking into Macy's amidst a massive shoe sale is like floating into Nirvana;. Within 10 minutes I was trying on 12 different pairs. When the iron is hot, you strike; when there is a shoe sale, well... that's a lot of iron striking.

My oldest sister is quite honestly one of the most fashionable people I know. And maybe when I got comfortable lazy with my wardrobe, I lost my flair for fun. My big sister gave me the permission to have fun. "Black shoes?" I say, when she asks what I'm looking for.
"You don't have to just go with black. There are a million colors and styles that can actually be just as practical." READ: Not lame.

And so she hands me shoes: Patent leather? Of course. Red patent leather? They're adorable! Platform-style suede 4-inch heels? JUST TRY THEM. Try them all-- test them; the right shoes will sing.

Look at these sexy CFMs. LOVE!

And so I did. Well, most of them anyway. But when the winners were placed upon my feet, they were singing like Aretha: awesome and righteous in every way.
The winner: these awesome beauties.

Black Globs are almost as cheerful as Mr. Happy Doughnut. *almost*.

Black Globs
1/2 c carob powder
1/2 c honey
1/2 c natural peanut butter (Skippy, my ass)
1/2 c sunflower seeds
1/2 c sesame seeds
1/4 c wheat germ (available at all fine wheat germ stores everywhere) 1/4 c soya grits  (uhm what now?)
sweetened coconut crumbs  (WTH is that? Shredded coconut, perhaps? Not a clue.)

Blend everything except the coconut crumbs, into a tar-like substance and form tar  into balls (aka globs). THEN roll in the coconut crumbs. Refrigerate, and apparently keep them refrigerated because the globs are likely to revert to their natural tar-like state.  Amuse yourself by hucking globs from car window when you pick your kid up from school.*

(*No not really.)

The look on her face. The door closing. The quick way the words "You've been laid off" were uttered.

It's unreal, the sudden public understanding that what you do-- all you've done-- for an organization are complete non-issues. The days of awards and successes are long past. Nobody there remembers those days anyway.

The cruelty simmers under the surface; I'm a number. A line on a budget. Tears well in my eyes as I think of the kids; the house; college tuitions; survival. The tissue box lays mockingly across the room, forgotten. Try as I might, staring as hard as I can, I can't levitate the freaking box.

Tiny spark of past life lessons flame into memory: Nobody is going to whisper platitudes let alone hand you a tissue. Need something? Take care of it yourself.

The tears threaten and evaporate as the situation is discussed in terms of the lack of my existence; how hard it will be for "the rest of the team" to perform my workload once I've departed. These words are somehow meant to be comforting, as in, you were valuable, you did do important work that the rest of us will now somehow have to manage. NOTE: These are not phrases that should be uttered when letting a person go. Noting how the survivors will suffer by my being hacked does not actually make me feel better. It makes me feel more alone than I can describe.

It makes me feel sorrow and grief for my friends who went before me and suffered under my patronizing, self-victimizing rhetoric. Saying,"I'm next, I know it" didn't make me sound concerned and thoughtful. It made me look like an asshole. I get that now.

The letter, however, is delivered with solemnity. A sort of seriousness bordering on awe.

I don't open the goldenrod, sealed envelope. I go home and hand it to my stunned husband, who is on furlough this week. He reads it.

The letter is addressed to "Theresa." My legal birth name, used only by doctors reading charts and my mother when I'm in really, really big trouble. Fitting.

I feel embarrassed. Like a failure. Like this is the first of a long string of disappointing events my husband shall be forced to witness and suffer through.

Embarrassment brings on anger; anger fades to embarrassment; it's all covered over with humor.

There was a time when I felt valuable. Right now I feel exactly like the protagonist in Shirley Jackson's, "The Lottery." I stood by long enough; my turn for the stoning.

And yet...

The goldenrod envelope, the terms of my severance. The lesson of the tissue. The first lesson of single motherhood.

A new start. Go for what you want. Above all else, survive.

And so, it is with much love and only a slight bit of trepidation that I offer you– straight from my mom’s 1979 Holy Spirit Parish church cookbook, the recipe for Phyllis Healy’s Chicken & Rice Casserole:

Chicken & Rice Casserole

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 envelope of onion soup mix

2 cut up fryers (or 6 to 8 chicken breasts)

2 cups raw rice

2 cups white wine

Put the cream soups in the bottom of a 9×13 pan. Sprinkle rice and half of onion soup mix over the cream soups. Place chicken atop rice and sprinkle rest of soup packet. Pour wine over all. Bake at 325 for 2 hours, covered. Serves 6 to 8.

My interest in the sugar arts started when I was 7. At my BFF’s birthday party, her dad made her a Winnie-the-Pooh cake, shaped exactly like the bear himself. Fast forward a decade and some change to when my little boy had his first birthday, and I made a dinosaur shaped cake. From that point on, I was hooked.

Over the past six years, I’ve especially honed this dessert interest into a hobby. I’ve gone from baking cakes to cookies to cupcakes to cake pops, and this past year, to preparing entire dessert tables. The more I combed the internet and took in other people’s ideas, the more my interests changed and grew. And now, feeding my obsession has gotten even easier. Ladies and gents, I give you Pinterest. Crafters, DIYers and web-surfers who know it, love it; and those who don’t know it, just be aware I’m about to introduce you to virtual heroin. But it may just turn out to be your heroine, given the situation.

Pinterest.com (Pin + Interest = Pinterest) is of the latest of social media sites that takes on the concept of a bulletin board. Say you’re on the web and you see a particularly awesome article you want to bookmark. With Pinterest, you can visually bookmark, or “pin,” that page (or site) to your own personal board. To organize your pins, you can create several different bulletin boards by topic: Food, DIY, Table Centerpieces—whatever your interest, you can create a board.

Example: Let’s say I go to the food blog PinchMySalt.com (love), see a recipe I adore and decide I want to save it for later use. In my previous planning, I would bookmark the page and then promptly forget that it exists. Or print the recipe and hope I don’t lose it.

However, using my Pinterest account, I can pin the blog post to my Recipes board. While pinning I select an image for that post (based on a choice of images that appear on that web page), and that image then becomes a kind of “postcard” or visual representation of her post on my Recipes board. Now every time I go to that Recipes board, I can easily identify the recipe I want based on the image I’ve chosen.

As a visual person, keeping track of blog posts and articles, images and neat internet finds in this way is UNBELIEVABLY helpful. But it gets better.

I am limited in my time and can’t spend all day cruising the ‘net for awesome dessert table ideas. No worries. Going to Pintrest, I can do a quick search on “dessert tables” and see what *other people* have pinned about dessert tables. Scanning their ideas ignites some of my own.

As the holiday season approaches and you need inspiration for gifts, decorations, vacation ideas or to just blow-off some stress, be sure to check Pinterest out. You won’t be sorry.

1) Assign a day to specific tasks. Coming home to a filth pit is no easy task for someone who is just OCD enough to want to spend a Saturday organizing a 15-year-old box of screws. And while I’m not *exactly* that person (the box was 10-years-old, TYVM), it is hard to accept that my home can’t and won’t be spotless simply because I will it to be so. But I also don’t want to spend all my “free time” cleaning. Thus, the invention of SATURDAYS. My aim, usually, is that each kid whose specific chore deals with cleaning MUST complete the task Saturday morning. So by Sunday afternoon, when they have finally, officially quit procrastinating and done their task, I will have a clean-enough home for the week. Then during the week, I try not to get too agro about the un-swept floor or the toothpaste globs in the bathroom—because I know those tasks will be attended to come the weekend.

2) Everything has a home. Years ago, as I was heading off to college, I had a friend give me this little nugget of advice. I was overwhelmed by all the stuff I had and trying to keep on top of it all. Her thought was, “If every thing has a home, just return the item where it lives when you’re finished using it. Then you’ll always know where to find it.” Obvious, yes? But really great advice. From that point on, I’ve continued to literally think, “Where does this live?” when I’m putting items away.

3) Let it live where you need it most. I realized this one just this morning, when I was in my closet gathering laundry for the wash. “Remember to put spot cleaner on that shirt,” I thought, immediately realizing that I never, never, never remember to do anything of the kind even though I own several (and by several I mean more than three) bottles of Shout. And then I thought about why I never spot-treat a stain: I forget about the stain by the time the clothes hit the laundry room. The solution? Keeping a bottle of Shout in my closet. It’s where I disrobe, it’s where I notice the stain—seems like a no brainer place for an extra bottle of spot treatment. It’s almost exactly like why I keep that grilled cheese sandwich under my bed.

4) Like items with like items. To a newbie, a kitchen can seem like a massive repository a bunch of stuff related to food, all randomly situated. To a seasoned kitchenista, everything is exactly where it should be. My small bit of kitchen organizational abilities came from the half-semester Home Ec class I took in seventh grade. It goes as such: All glass baking items in same cabinet near the counter where I do my mixing; all baking sheets together near the oven; all pots and pans together in the cabinet beneath the stovetop; most used plates and cups on their own shelves, but on bottom shelf within easy reach for shorties, etc. In the pantry, I keep cans on one shelf, boxes on another. I try to keep my fridge similarly organized (dairy and cheeses in one place, veg and meats in their own spots) but sometimes that proves futile. Thus:

5) Decide what can slide. Of the current 8 occupants in our home, roughly 7 could care less about my organizational peeves. They grab, use and put things away—just not necessarily in the item’s proper place. Some things never find their way home again. I make corrections; I put things where they go. And over time, people slide into knowing that the barbeque lighter goes in the knife drawer with all the other potentially hazardous items, and when they are done using it, they leave it on the counter for me to put away, along with the empty wrappers that belong in the trash, or the box of cereal that never made it back to the cabinet—all knowing full-well that I will buzz about in grumped-out whirlwind returning items to their homes. This makes me crazy. And that is why I don’t get mad about the towels when people fold them wrong. See? Because I can’t control everything. And it takes a big person to recognize that fact. I just refold them while quietly huffing to myself.