Normally by now I would have been visiting other blogs or at least responding to those who left comments, and here this year I’ve barely even managed to write anything before each day is gone. The fact is, I spent the morning looking at two houses with my husband and realtor; then I spent the afternoon and evening wishing images of floral wallpaper and gold shag carpeting could be lasered out of my brain. No biggie. Tomorrow there will be pictures of my nightmare, unless my camera vomits and dies first. In that case I’ll hire a sketch artist.

On this day of rest, why don’t you go read something else? I don’t mean that in a rude sort of way. I want you to come back and all. Come on, baby, don’t be mad. Here is the blogroll of the 2012 WordCount Blogathon, hosted by Michelle Rafter. Now go read yourself something pretty. You can see there’s a very large number of participants, to the tune of 250. This week I intend to visit a few of them myself; I’ll post some links to favorites next weekend.

Check back tomorrow for my Real Estate Walk of Shame!

Then: “Oh no. I will not put any drugs into my body during childbirth. I will overcome the influence of the medical establishment with the mystical power of my vagina.”

Now: “Be a doll and fetch Mommy a glass of wine and one of her pills.”

Then: “No we will not be slicing off a perfectly healthy piece of our boy’s anatomy. Why on earth do you ask? Circumcision is mutilation!”

Now: “Son, I don’t care about your penis. Please talk about something else.”

Then: “Yes, I am still breastfeeding. I’m sorry if your social conditioning in this paternalistic paradigm makes you uncomfortable, but breasts are for babies.”

Now: “Jesus, kid, I’m trying to get dressed here. Don’t you ever knock?”

Then: “Mmmmm, freshly pureed organic avocado makes an optimal first food.”

Now: “I’m still reading Twilight, kids, so it’s Lucky Charms for dinner again!”

Then: “Disposable diapers are the mark of a rushed, commercialized society. We only put soft, sustainable cotton our our child’s bottom.”

Now: “Seriously, dude. Quit talking about your balls. There’s a whole world outside of your pants.”

As you can see, I have some atoning to do. I’m trying to leave the smugness behind when it comes to other people’s perspectives and choices. I also wonder now what I care about now that will someday seem like no big deal. In the meantime, though, I think we can all at least be glad we don’t have this kid.

A note to my husband. Somehow I don't remember writing this.

If he hadn’t called Mr. R “dad,” he totally would have gotten away with it, too.

Photo courtesy of AJC1 on flickr

Hello, blogathoners and readers! My old FB page is no longer valid, so I’ve updated it. It now resides here.

If you previously liked my page, you will notice that I’m not on your feed anymore. Undoubtedly this has made you very sad. And you totally noticed, right? Please take a second and make sure to hit me up.

New readers, friends, and people who are still wondering if Neil Patrick Harris is a Christian: Take a peek around my site here. If you like what you see and want to be updated when I post, go ahead and “like” my page. Then maybe stop being so nosy about Neil.

This is just a little bit of housekeeping to take care of before the real fun starts tomorrow, when I have a pretty funny photo to share. Then my lord, the venting will commence.

P.S. If you’re wondering what’s up with my Facebook profile pic, you can catch up here.

Photo courtesy of dmott9 via Flickr.

I think we all can agree that not all traditions are good ones.

Some rituals and memories get a lot of airtime — happy, fuzzy traditions involving aromatic fireplaces, Christmas tree lights, and wassail or someshit. Then there are the darker ones, such as a little ditty I like to call, “Get the divorce attorney on speed dial, it’s time to put up our Christmas tree.” Every year, without fail, I show up. I play the part of the wound-too-tight wife, and I screech about why the tree really needs to go in front of the window, even though that means our furniture is configured like the letter “T” in the middle of our living room. Eventually I say something like, “Jesus Christ, would you stop talking? You’re not here to think. You’re here to lift heavy things and shut up!”

And then my husband picks a fight.

To do things differently at this point would be to tear at the fabric of our family. We choose to preserve that tradition. Then there are accidental ones, traditions we fall into. You do something once, just for the heck of it; then the following year you think, “Why not, it was fun last time” and you do it again. By the third year, you feel the obligation. The pull. The dread.

Welcome to the WordCount 2012 Blogathon. For the third consecutive year I will blog every day in the month of May. I had such fun in the past that I feel compelled to start again in spite of myself.

Many posts will be short, I’m afraid, not just because brevity is the soul of wit, but because the househunting is truly in full swing! I’m packing my house and hoping to someday soon finally walk through a potential home without clutching my children and whispering, “Run away, my darlings! I don’t think you’ve been vaccinated for this.”

I can barely even comprehend the amount of work this will take, especially if you consider that our price range does not exactly afford us turnkey living. Translation: We may end up duct taping over holes in the ceiling or cleaning dried bloodstains before we can move in. It’s virtually impossible for me to stick to this for 31 days. I know, I know: people always say, “If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” But the fact is, no one ever says to ask a lazy busy person to do it. Think about it.

So I’ll be here in May, probably boring you with house stories, personal peeves, dog woes (wait until you see my baby!). With any luck, I’ll have found a house by the end of the month. If not, I’ll complain and panic and whine that I’ll never do another blogathon ever as long as I live. As a matter of fact, that’s pretty much what I said the last two years. You just can’t mess with tradition.

Today’s post is by one of the funniest people I’ve never met. Tanya is part of a small group of friends, spread all over the world, with whom I keep in touch through e-mail. Rants, victories, rants, questions, and rants are exchanged regularly. Someday, hopefully soon, we will meet face to face, and the world will be turned upside down. I can’t wait. Please enjoy her post while I continue to accomplish things in my off-blog life.

What the postcards don’t tell you

A guest post by Tanya Laing Gahr

Family vacation/ˈfam(ə)lē vāˈkāSHən

(noun, expletive): an expensive and ill-conceived excursion from which one returns needing a vacation from one’s family

I’m not sure where the original disconnect took place. In my mind’s eye, I imagined that a trip to California with our sons to visit my husband’s family would involve happy, relaxed adults sipping wine and beer and barbecuing in the sun while the boys entertained us and themselves, and all were generally fulfilled by the formative memories being created. Instead, there was a lot of ass-hauling around Disneyland, lurching half-awake and mostly hungover from one promised event to another, hissing at my husband to not drive so fast it’s not the Grand Prix for the love of Odin, driving back and forth to the skate park, and getting my face in between two young men with that deep, primal, not-quite-a-whisper voice to say, “If I have to tell you One More Time to stop touching him/copying him/making faces at him/spitting at him/stealing his food/making whatever noise that is with your nose at him, I swear to God that you will never see your home again.”

“And this time, I mean it.”

Of course, it’s my fault. Had I taken even five minutes to cast my mind back to my own childhood vacations with my family, I would have remembered the tedious 10-hour drives to visit aunts, uncles and grandparents—completed with no stops except for gas because my father wanted to “make good time.” (Granted, I now have a bladder that can hold roughly my own body weight in fluid, but that’s not necessarily a win, medically speaking.) My parents were smokers back in the day, so we would arrive at our destination smelling like we had travelled via ashtray. The rest of the vacation would involve being either hustled around to rocky beaches (fewer crowds), dodgy restaurants (to save money) and the occasional roadside motel that may or may not have been murder-free for more than a month (what? we’re just there to sleep! and I’m sure the man outside with the chainsaw is just the resident lumberjack). To pass the time, my brother and I would poke each other, copy each other, make faces, draw spit pictures on each other’s arms, sneak food away from each other and make irritating noises with various parts of our body in an effort to not be the first one to say, “Muuuuuuuuuum! S/he’s bugging me!”

It’s not the vacation that’s the problem; it’s the family. Look, we all love our families, assuming they haven’t shown up on the evening news with neighbours saying, “They seemed so nice—kept to themselves a lot.”

For the most part, we make peace with their quirks: the fascination for video games that try as I might, I can’t bring myself to care about; the questionable political stances; the terror that they’re going to say something embarrassing that will leave a stain on you for years to come. It’s just in close proximity, those little idiosyncrasies become magnified. And when several generations of extended family come together for a visit in an enclosed environment, every adult reverts back to their childhood role within the family, leaving the actual children no choice but to revert back to toddlerhood. It’s a fascinating study in human development. It’s important bonding time for everyone. It’s a great reason to remind oneself why they’ve moved hundreds of miles from the place of their birth. But it’s not what one could consider a holiday.

We’re home now, and the kids are back in school and the fistfights are at a minimum. I mean between my husband and myself—what the boys are up to, I have no idea. Peace has descended again and all talk of a family vacation has thankfully ceased. At meals, we smile benignly, even warmly, at each other. We bask in the glow of each other’s company and then retreat to our corner of the house, enjoying a little mini-vacation from our family.

Tanya Laing Gahr is a professional writer, communications consultant, actor and director. If you’d like to hear more from her, and you should, check out her website. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Dominus Vobiscum.

A Father’s Day guest post

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. Eggs have a lot of cholesterol. We’re trying to cut back.