Tag Archives: Los Angeles

The Renovation that Wouldn’t Die

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Yet again, I’m apologizing for disappearing on you. This time, I blame my bathrooms. I’ve been elbow deep in renovating two of our three bathrooms, and when I say “renovating,” I mean supervising others who are far more qualified than I am to do the actual work.

When we moved into our house eight years ago, we knew we’d have to redo the bathrooms sometime in the near future. Well, the near future became the far future and we’re finally hunkering down to get it done. To explain the state of our bathrooms, I’ll have to give you a little history about the house. Our home was built in 1954 by an architect for his family of ten to live in. Yes, he and his wife had eight children. It’s a really wonderful mid-century modern house that’s more than large enough for Ad Man, the monsters and me, but the thought of living in it with eight children runs shivers down my spine.

There were a number of owners between the architect and us, most notably an inept contractor who bought the house when it was listed as a teardown, did a half-assed renovation and flipped it. (Thankfully, there was one owner between the flipper and us who bore the brunt of the half-assedness.) The contractor’s clumsy work was most prominently displayed in our two upstairs bathrooms. When we moved in, the tub and girls_shower_funwall tiles in the master bath had been reglazed (poorly) and the floor was covered with nondescript, beige floor tiles. Biggie and Smalls’s bathroom, which also serves as our guest bath, had reglazed tiles, the same beige floor, and an original, extremely crappy shower we used maybe once. In fact, the girls most often used the shower as a hideout or reading nook. Here’s an old photo of Biggie and Smalls in their favorite playhouse.

pink_bathroomWhile biding our time, we painted the rooms, changed out the lighting and hung some artwork. That made the bathrooms livable for a while. As time went by, though, the reglazed tiles and tub chipped and showed their true colors…1950s Potty Pink to be precise. Don’t get me wrong, if our bathrooms looked like this one, I’d be the first one out shopping for vintage poodle accessories. Unfortunately our pink bathroom couldn’t be saved. Here are a few “before” photos of the bathrooms. Sadly, we don’t have any pictures of them in their original, mid-century glory.

Master bath before
Little Biggie in kids’ bath, before
Pink tile hiding under beige
This one’s just embarrassing
Original tile hiding under beige
Kids’ bathroom during

  

When we started to demo the bathrooms, there were a few surprises in store for us. First, our wall tiles were glued directly to inch-thick concrete. Apparently, that’s how things were built in the ‘50s…strong enough to withstand a Soviet attack. So, what we thought was going to take two days (one per bathroom), stretched into a full week.

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Tub ‘o Rubble

Then, we discovered that there were beautiful, original mid-century tile floors under the ugly-ass beige tiles the evil contractor thought would be more appealing to a buyer (who is this person with a love for all things beige?). I was shocked to see what good shape the original tile was in, but it was covered in glue and filth and couldn’t be saved. It was seriously heartbreaking. I’ve been gazing longingly at my neighbor’s original tile for years without ever suspecting that a similar treasure lay just beneath my feet at home.

I’m a newbie to renovation, so this process has been quite enlightening. Essentially, it all boils down to the following series of events, just repeated over and over until the project is done…or until you kick the contractor out of your house vowing to finish the damn thing yourself.

Here’s how it’s going for me:
1) Someone asks me how I want something done.
2) I tell that person how I’d like the thing done.
3) The person tells me why it can’t be done that way and, instead, does it the way they’d already planned to do it before asking for my input.

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Our bedroom, throughout the holidays. Good thing we have a guest room!

It’s maddening! Add to this the fact that the renovation is already weeks behind schedule and you’ll understand why my stress level has been through the roof. Perfect time to have a bunch of family in town for the holidays, right?…

Update #1:

Please note that the holiday I was referring to above was Thanksgiving. I set this post aside for a few weeks since there were a few things going on (holidays, Biggie’s birthday, never ending renovation…) and suddenly here we are with Christmas just days away. One might think I’d be luxuriating in my fabulous new bathroom by now, but sadly, one would be wrong.

The bathrooms still aren’t done-done. Actually, I’m convinced they may never be. We’re damn close, but there are still a few tiny problems. For instance, we can’t seem to find a faucet for the master bathroom that doesn’t leak. We’ve been through three already. And, I insisted on black fixtures, so I can’t just pop over to Home Depot whenever we need a new one. Also, when I recently attempted to give Smalls her first bath in the girls’ brand new bathtub, water came out of the back of the faucet where it attaches to the wall, not from the actual faucet itself. I’m pretty sure it’s not supposed to work like that.

We have friends coming into town from Los Angeles, and staying with us, in five days. Five! I will not be sharing a bathroom with three other adults and four kids, so the upstairs baths had better be in working order by then. I don’t care if I have to pay a plumber triple overtime and hand forge a black faucet myself!

Update #2:

We’re now weeks into the new year and guess who still doesn’t have fully functional bathrooms? You’re right! It’s me…the one with the hairy legs. It seems we still have an issue with hot water, or lack thereof. The best it gets here is lukewarm. No one ever says, “I can’t wait for a nice, lukewarm shower!” And, that’s in the downstairs, unrenovated, not-at-all-beautiful, bathroom. In the new bathrooms upstairs, you have two choices of water temperature: cold or ice cold.

It’s now the middle of winter, so it’s damn cold downstairs. Alas, I’ve been taking warm showers in a freezing cold bathroom since before Thanksgiving, hence the hairy legs. I’ve taken advantage of a few unseasonably warm days here and there to shave, but the rest of the time, it’s so freaking cold, I’d shave off my goosebumps and quite possibly bleed to death if I even tried. I’m sorry if I sound bitter, it’s just that I am.

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Girls’ bathroom, in progress

The story just keeps getting better. It seems that the problem is that there’s a spot in the system where our hot and cold water lines mix, making our tankless hot water heater get all confused and serve up only water the temperature of spit. It took two plumbers and two weeks to diagnose the problem. But here’s the fun part…we are going to have to break through one of our newly built and tiled walls to fix a valve that our “contractor” apparently installed sideways. I seriously couldn’t make this up.

So, now we’re in the process of getting bids from plumbers and contractors to undo what we spent the last few months doing and then do it again, correctly. I could cry. Considering the foregoing, you’d think we wouldn’t want to renovate or do construction ever again. In my case, you’d be right. Ad Man on the other hand, wants to sell our house, buy a lot and BUILD A NEW HOUSE. He’s trying to kill me. Please send help!

mission_accomplishedI must end this tragic story to spare both of us, but I promise I’ll get back to you soon with “after” photos. The bathrooms really do look fantastic (pre-re-renovation), but I’m too superstitious to call anything finished until after I’ve taken a hot shower in my lovely and functional new master bath. Remember this? I don’t want to be that guy.

 

But wait! There’s more.

PS: Our friends did come in town for a visit after Christmas and stayed with us. It is a tribute to them, some of our oldest and best friends (K and I have known each other since fourth grade), that they didn’t complain once about their piss warm showers. I guess they were just relieved to find out we finally have three working toilets in the house.

 

 

Feeling Like a Failure? Lower Your Expectations!

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antidepressants_funnyWhen I was working in production in Los Angeles, my boss and friend, Tom made a point of sitting down every January to write out his personal and professional goals for the year. At the same time, he’d revisit his previous list to determine which goals he’d successfully completed, which ones he’d fallen short on, and which ones to reevaluate and revise going forward. Thankfully, he got me in the habit of doing the same.

Now, I’m great at writing down my goals for the year, but I have to admit, I kind of suck at looking back and evaluating my success. I’d like to believe it’s because I’m such an optimist, always looking to the future with no time to dwell on negatives. Sadly, pretty much everyone who knows me, knows that’s far from the truth. In reality, looking back at things I intended, but failed, to do is just really f*cking depressing and I generally like to avoid it at all costs.

This January, however, I am forcing myself to confront the 2014 list and acknowledge my progress (or lack thereof). Lucky me, I also ran across my goals for 2013, so I have even more data to consider…and to haunt me for the next twelve months. Without further ado, let’s strip me bare and judge me. It’s for my own good.

My Goals for 2013

  1. Heal back and neck
  2. Get fit
  3. Drink green smoothie or juice every day
  4. Atlanta or LA — make a decision and make it happen!
  5. Get a job (or not, depending on #4)
  6. Get finances in order (Make appointment with financial planner)
  7. Refinance house
  8. Be more creative (drawing and writing)
  9. Read more nonfiction
  10. Exercise brain — learn one new thing every day
  11. Learn French
  12. View aging as an interesting science experiment, not a failure
  13. Stay in better touch with family and friends
  14. Spend the holidays on a beach

Reading through it now, I find this list charming in its naivaté. 2015 is looking back at it and shaking its head with a knowing smile. “Aw, bless 2013’s heart…so young, so hopeful…” There are exactly two items above that I can cross off with authority. I have, indeed, been more creative, with writing at least. And, I suppose cake decorating. I have also succeeded in reading more nonfiction. So there, 2013!

As far as the other thirteen items on the list go, well, I can say I gave at least most of them a shot. I actually did get more fit and drank a lake of green smoothies in 2013. Had I evaluated this list in January of 2014 as previously scheduled, I’d have proudly checked off those two goals. But no, I had to give myself an additional year to backslide on my fitness progress and go on a kale strike. So, let’s say success in 2013, less so in 2014.

I did French lessons online and was very consistent for a few months. Unfortunately, as I wrote more, I conversely spent less time studying French. You’ll see that this trend continues through 2014. Something had to give! There are only so many hours in the day! I have two children and a puppy to raise! Other excuses like that!

Goal number four is the one that makes me chuckle the most (sometimes, we laugh to hide the pain). This particular goal…deciding between staying in Atlanta or moving back to Los Angeles…has been on every single one of my annual goals lists since our first January in Atlanta. I’ve made exhaustive pros and cons lists for each possibility and the race always ends in a dead heat, hence, the inaction. I suppose we’re choosing to stay where we are by not choosing to leave. Alas, the internal cage match continues. And, now, on to my goals for 2014:

Things I Will Do In 2014:

  1. Paint our bedroom
  2. Spend more time writing
  3. Spend way less time aimlessly wandering around on the internet
  4. Read four classic books I should have read in high school
  5. Exercise five times a week…even if just thirty minutes of walking
  6. Learn to bake a pie
  7. Practice French five days a week
  8. Have at least two girls’ weekends away
  9. Get back to LA
  10. Cook one new recipe a week
  11. Write at least two blog posts a week
  12. Build a file of blog posts so I’m not always playing catch-up
  13. Volunteer at the girls’ school
  14. Meet with financial planner
  15. Introduce kids to one new veg and one new fruit each week
  16. Take a knife skills class

Reading through this list, you’ll see that I attempted to be much more firm with myself. No more of that wishy-washy “get fit” or “learn French” crap. This time, I threw some numbers behind my promises…”practice French 5 days a week.” Five and nothing less! How is one supposed to succeed unless one has her goals very clearly defined?

I started off 2014 strong. Did I paint my bedroom? Yes, I did! Did I spend more time writing? Absolutely! Did I spend way less time aimlessly wandering around on the internet? Well, um, not exactly. But, I did take one whole week off from my computer. That should count for something, right?

I managed to get away for one girls’ weekend this year. Fifty percent isn’t too bad. I started walking at least thirty minutes a day starting from when we brought Birdie home and taught her to walk on a leash (a triumph in itself). I also started doing hot yoga, which I thought I would hate, but ended up loving. Hey, I could count that as learning something new! Oh, never mind…that was 2013. As for doing actual, vigorous exercise at least five days a week, well, that was a lofty goal so I’m giving myself a pass on that one. On this year’s list, I’ll shoot for a much less onerous three times a week. Or maybe twice. Twice is good.

Actually, that may be just what I need to do in order to reach a 100% success rate…make my goals less ambitious! In an effort to end this post on a positive note, I have drafted a list of goals for 2015 that I know I can achieve:

MommyEnnui’s Far More Attainable Goals for 2015:

  1. Get out of my pajamas at some point every day (even if just to change into a fresh pair)
  2. Make a healthy, non-processed meal containing actual fruits or vegetables once a week
  3. Complete the Monday New York Times crossword puzzle at least once a month
  4. Walk the dog a minimum of once a day
  5. Think about getting a job
  6. Listen to others tell me what an important job I’m doing as a stay-at-home mom (try to believe it)
  7. Volunteer at the girls’ school, or at least boldly write my name on the sign-up sheet and then claim I have an unforeseen conflict when the date rolls around
  8. Learn to bake a pie (I’m adding this one, because I plan to do it this weekend. I’ve even bought ingredients. See? I’m well on my way to success!)
  9. Learn to see aging as a natural process that occurs between Botox appointments
  10. Speak to my husband in the evenings instead of sending him an occasional text from the adjacent couch while watching Project Runway
  11. Stop believing I’ll ever make a decision whether to stay in Atlanta or move back to LA
  12. Apply sunscreen to my face at least as often as I sunscreen my tattoos

Think I can check off twelve out of twelve when next January rolls around? I’m suddenly feeling more confident than I have in years! This is going to be very good for my self-esteem. How about you? What are your goals for the year? Need help making them more achievable? I’m here for you.

My Journey From Love’s Baby Soft to Chanel No. 5

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My summer scents and year-round favorites

As I’ve mentioned here before, I have a bit of an obsession with fragrances. This fascination began when I was young and realized that smelling certain scents brought on a rush of vivid memories like nothing else. To this day, I can’t smell Ivory soap or sulphury well water without thinking of my grandmother and long, summer days spent running wild on her farm in Indiana. My father will forever be tied to the scent of cigarettes and Aqua Velva aftershave (thankfully, he quit smoking many years ago). Anytime I smell oil paint, linseed oil or spray-mount adhesive, I’m transported back to college where I studied art and design. Some smells immediately send me into funk of homesickness from missing California.

I actually met Ad Man in my second year of law school while on vacation in Los Angeles, staying with mutual friends. We quickly fell in love and I was heartbroken when I had to return to Chicago at the end of my visit. We traded t-shirts so we each had something that smelled like the other. (Sixteen years of marriage later, however, I gag when I have to put his workout clothes in the washing machine!) I kept that t-shirt carefully sealed in a plastic, zip-lock bag in hopes of capturing his scent indefinitely. Sadly, it faded within a few weeks. To this day, my memories of our early relationship are inextricably bound with various LA smells…the scents of salt water, eucalyptus trees, dry desert air, night blooming jasmine, bicycle grease, the mix of freshly squeezed juices at the Beverly Hills Juice Company and coffee roasting at King’s Road cafe.

love's_baby_soft_bottleI was a confirmed perfume fan from a young age, counting Love’s Baby Soft, Lauren by Ralph Lauren and Anaïs Anaïs as teen favorites. However, it was actually my mother’s death and the subsequent birth of my daughters that set me off on an olfactory treasure hunt. My mom wasn’t a big scent person, but I do remember her going through phases of wearing Gloria Vanderbilt and flirting with various Avon perfumes. When my mom died, I found myself wishing she’d had a signature scent so that I could track it down, envelop myself in the fragrance, and feel her presence again. That yearning along with my very real fear of getting the breast cancer that claimed my mother’s life and leaving behind young children, led me to seek out a signature scent for myself as a way of providing that connection for my daughters.

I started off seeking a light, clean musk that people would relate to me without consciously thinking “perfume.” I wanted something that could reasonably be the natural smell of my skin, but better. For obvious reasons, perfumistas call those types of perfumes “skin scents.” My friend M from law school always smelled so good and it didn’t occur to me for quite some time that she was wearing perfume. The scent seemed to emanate from her pores. I asked her years later what the fragrance was and it turned out to be a, very inexpensive, Cuban, baby perfume called Para Mi Bebe. I tracked it down on Amazon and ordered a bottle. It was still beautiful and brought back clear memories of law school (good and bad), but I found I couldn’t wear it because it was seared into my brain as M’s scent. It was eerie…like trying on someone else’s skin. So, my search continued.

Photo: Tena Keefe

Photo: Tena Keefe

Luckily, early into my explorations, I discovered samples and decants. Otherwise, I would have gone broke buying full bottles of perfume searching for just the right one. (To make matters worse, it turns out I have very expensive taste. This, of course, did not surprise Ad Man one bit.) Many perfume companies and retailers give out or sell small samples of their perfumes so buyers have the opportunity to experience the full range of a scent and judge its longevity and intensity before making a purchase.

Decant companies and individuals who sell decants have extensive selections of different perfumes and sell anything from a small sample to a few ounces of a fragrance decanted from its original bottle. Decants allow you to own a large number of different perfumes without having to pay for a full bottle that you might not ever get through, especially if you have a sizable collection. And, when I say sizable collection, you have NO idea! I’d say I own about twenty full bottles of perfume and hundreds of decants and samples. It’s certainly nothing to sneeze at, but in the world of perfume fanatics, mine is an extremely modest collection. Pictured here are some of the drool-worthy collections owned by perfumistas I’ve since gotten to know across the globe.

After trying a number of different samples of skin scents, I decided on a lovely one called Musc Bleu by an Italian perfumer Il Profumo. It is a soft, clean musk perfume that makes a perfect everyday scent. Mission accomplished, right? Well not exactly. I quickly realized that there are occasions on which one doesn’t want to smell sweet and soapy. For instance, there are times when I want to smell enticing and sexy as hell. There are also cold, winter days when I crave the feeling of woody, spicy warmth and humid, summer days in the South when I prefer a scent that’s icy, green and citrusy.

Photo: Victor Wong

Photo: Victor Wong

I came to understand why someone might “need” a diverse selection of perfumes for different seasons, events and moods. It’s a rare perfume connoisseur who considers one scent to be his or her signature and wears it year-round. I’m reminded of the time, before we got married, when Ad Man sat me down and informed me that he would be needing eleven bicycles. That sounds like madness for someone who isn’t a cycling junkie, but he went on to list each one of those eleven bicycles: a road bike, a mountain bike, a fixed-gear bike, a beach cruiser, a BMX bike, a track bike and I can’t remember the rest. Believe me, anytime my darling husband balks when I tell him I need a new perfume, I remind him of this conversation.

Through the search for my “Holy Grail” scent, I discovered thousands of other people just as infatuated with scent as me. That’s the beauty of the internet. How else would I have ever met so many others who share my obscure hobby? Perfume lovers are a generous bunch who love to share their knowledge about our mutual passion. I’ve learned more from my perfume forum friends than I ever could just poking around on my own.

My samples and decants

My samples and decants

In the last couple years, I’ve been sniffing samples, reading about the art of perfume making, and learning about the science of smell. (Interestingly, scientists don’t yet know exactly how our noses identify different scent molecules.) My friend S shakes her head every time I add another perfume book to my Goodreads list, but I find it all fascinating. I’ve also been saving for, buying and being gifted with an array of fragrances. It continued to bother me, though, that I’d gone in the exact opposite direction of my goal at the beginning of this adventure. Instead of discovering the one scent that would be my signature and comfort my loved ones, I’d confused their poor noses even more!

That was until recently when I had the girls with me at Neiman Marcus which is, in my opinion, the best place to peruse fragrances in Atlanta. We sniffed some new releases and chatted with Mack Jones, sales associate extraordinaire. After lingering around the Maison Francis Kurkdjian counter with Mack, we moved on to the classics at the Guerlain counter. Biggie and Smalls tested perfumes until they were scented all up and down their arms and each held a bouquet of paper tester strips. We talked about our favorite smells; chocolate chip cookies, newly sharpened pencils and puppy breath ranked high on all our lists, and each made our pick for the prettiest fragrance. We didn’t buy anything that day and I’m sure we drove the other sales associates crazy. What they probably didn’t appreciate, though, was that they’d gained two perfume fanatics and customers for life.

eli_garden_0511I, on the other hand, gained something even more valuable. I’m now able to rest easy knowing that I’ve passed along a curiosity about, and a passion for, fragrance to my daughters. When I’m gone, they’ll have a myriad of scents to remind them of me, and not all just in perfume form. I hope they will pick up a handful of topsoil and smell its sweet, loamy odor and enjoy the sharp, green scent of tomato stems and leaves and remember our attempts at gardening in the steamy Atlanta summers. I want them to smell the warm smokiness of logs burning and think back to reading books by the fireplace, the whole family snuggled in pajamas on a winter night. The girls will each have a collection of my perfumes to enjoy as well since, as Ad Man likes to point out, it will take more than one lifetime to use all the fragrances in my collection by then!

A few notes:
1. Two wonderful decant companies in the US are Surrender to Chance and The Perfumed Court. Ebay is another good source for fragrance samples and decants.
2. My favorite online source for perfume shopping is LuckyScent. If you live in, or will be traveling to Los Angeles, be sure to visit their boutique Scent Bar. Both have an amazing collection of high-end designer and niche scents.

An Interview with Biggie and Smalls

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three_on_a_swingAs part of the 30-day blogging challenge, my assignment today is to write a post that includes a new-to-me element, like an image or video. I’ve already done both, so I’ve decided to conduct an interview which I have not yet done (If you’ll recall, you guys conducted the interview with Kanye West, not me).

In considering who to interview, I looked far and wide, remembered that it’s 15 degrees (Fahrenheit!) outside and recommitted myself to not leaving the house. Luckily for you, dear readers, the witty, charming and only occasionally maddening Miss Biggie and Miss Smalls are here within the confines of my warm house. They’re also bored out of their skulls and ready to murder each other because they’ve been home on winter break for the last 2+ weeks. They’re now stuck here for yet another day with school cancelled due to the frigid weather.

You see, children in Atlanta don’t even own clothing warm enough for standing at bus stops with temperatures in the single digits. The former Chicagoan in me scoffs at the concept of calling off school for a “cold day,” while the former Los Angeleno in me is like, “Aw, HELL no! I’m going to sit my freezing ass down right here by this space heater and not move again until the temperature hits 50 degrees!”  But I digress.

Anyway, as you’ll see below, the girls had lots of insightful things to say about my current and former careers. They also really, really want cookies.

Q: What kind of work does mommy do?
Biggie: Taking care of us and doing your blog.
Smalls: Taking care of us and doing your blog. [Hmm…maybe I should ask Smalls the questions first.]

Q: What does Mommy do to take care of you?
Smalls: Giving us baths, kissing us goodnight, tucking us in at night…
Biggie: Making us food.
Smalls: Cookies! Can we have dessert?

Q: What do I do during the day when you’re at school?
Smalls: I don’t know. I’m at school.
Biggie: Dishes, laundry, clean the house, go get groceries, go get your nails done. Daddy says you just get coffee and tea.
[I give Ad Man a dirty look and kick him out of the room.]

Q: What should I do during the day?
Smalls: Go and get a surprise for us…like cookies or something. Or you should bake cookies.
Biggie: Go look at French Bulldogs. [The ladies of the house want a French Bulldog. Ad Man doesn’t want to clean up poop.]

Q: What kind of work did Mommy do before Biggie was born?
Smalls: I don’t know!  It was before she [Biggie] was even born!
Biggie: You were a lawyer. And you made a movie…a documentary. [At least someone has been paying attention.]

Q: Do you know what kind of lawyer Mommy was?
Smalls: What’s a lawyer? [Sigh.]
Biggie: You were someone who helped people who someone else thought did something bad. And you would defend them. [Yes, like representing the poor major film companies that didn’t want to pay their producers’ royalties.]

Q: What’s a blog?
Smalls: Something that you write down things on on a keyboard. People read it on the other part of the computer [pointing to the screen].
Biggie: Something some people write that goes out on the internet for people to read.

Q: What do you think mommy’s blog is about?
Smalls: You talk about what you do at your house like giving us baths and taking care of us.
Biggie: About your life. Like, a few days ago, you wrote about how messy our house was. [Specifically, Biggie’s bedroom.]

Q: If you had a blog, what would you write about?
Smalls: My family and friends.
Biggie: You could write anything. You could even write about your butt!  I would write about my friends and me.

Q: What do you think I should write about next?
Biggie: Why you started your blog…you know, so you could have something to do when we were gone. Or what you did before you started your blog, like where you lived and where you went to school and stuff.
Smalls: I don’t know. [Smalls is clearly starting to check out at this point.]

Q: Do you think I should spend more time or less time writing my blog?
Biggie: Less time so you can hang out with us more.
Smalls: More time so you can do a better job. Like if you messed up, you could do it again.

Q: What kind of school did mommy go to?
Smalls: A college?
Biggie: You went to elementary school, high school and college. You studied Geometry and Geography and French. [Huh?]

Interlude while the girls show me how they pretend to fall down.

Q: How do you think my life is different now than it was before I had kids?
Smalls: You have to take care of kids. You didn’t then.
Biggie: Mostly the same except for the part about having kids.
[Yep. Exactly the same…except for the having kids part.]

Q: Do you think mommy should go back to work full-time?
Biggie: No, because I want to hang out with you.
Smalls: No. You should stay and snuggle with us…because you do love my snuggling.

Q: Do you think mommy is funny?
Smalls: Yes. You say funny stuff.
Biggie: Yes. You make funny faces at us through the car window at the gas station. [I kill it at the gas station.]

Q: What do you like least about Mommy?
Biggie: You can sometimes be mean. Like about making my bed and cleaning my room.
Smalls: Sometimes you’re so busy you don’t get to play with me. [Like, for instance, when the thought of playing one more game of pretend with Littlest Pet Shop animals makes me want to bang my head against the wall.]

Interlude while the girls demonstrate their “mime-in-a-box” skills.

Q: What kind of work does Daddy do?
Smalls: Advertising. What does advertising mean? [OK…I feel better now.]
Biggie: He makes advertisements and commercials in a big office building.

Q: What kind of work do you want to do when you grow up?
Smalls: I don’t know. [She’ll drive around the country for a year in a smelly van with her boyfriend and his bandmates.]
Biggie: A veterinarian, an artist and a fashion designer. [She’ll change her major seven times.]

Q: Do you want to have kids when you grow up?
Smalls: No, It’s kinda scary because they cut open your belly. Do they always cut open your belly?
Me: Well, either they cut open your belly, which is called a c-section, like I had with you two, or usually the baby comes out of the mommy’s vagina.
Smalls: Eeeeewwwww! [This isn’t the first time we’ve discussed this, by the way.]
Biggie: I want to adopt two girls. [Sucker!]

Many thanks to my darling daughters for providing MommyEnnui’s readers with such a clear, detailed and accurate description of my life before and after children.  I suppose all that’s left for me now is to move on to blogging about my butt.  Stay tuned!

Worst Mother Ever

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willa_tantrumLike most parents, I often lie awake at night worrying about what will become of my children and feeling guilty for the many things I’ve done wrong in raising them.  Every tantrum or door slam is due to some failing on my part and is just more evidence that my kids will, most likely, grow up to be psychopaths.  If Biggie gets up 10 times a night before finally falling asleep, it’s because I nursed her to sleep during infancy. When Smalls holds her pee for 8 hours refusing to go to the bathroom at school, it’s because I started potty training her too early as a toddler.

At least one of my children, will freely tell you that I am a terrible mother…definitely a contender, if not the finalist, for Worst Mother in the World.  Poor thing. What are the chances of being born to the very worst mother of all?!  Because of all the psychological damage Ad Man and I have surely done to our kids and because they’re my children and come from a long line of anxiety-ridden depressives, I’m sure they will find themselves in psychotherapy at some time or another.  So, in an effort to save them time and money in therapy bills, I’ve compiled the following list outlining my failures as a mother for future reference.

1.  By quitting my job and staying at home full-time during their formative years, I have robbed them of a professional female role model.  Moreover, volunteering at their schools, meeting them as they get off the bus every afternoon and bringing them to all doctor and dentist appointments mean I am clingy and overbearing.

2.  I moved them (well, at least Biggie) from the hip, glittery, idyllic wonderland that is Los Angeles to hot, buggy Atlanta thereby denying them the careers as actors, marine biologists, surfers or winemakers for which they were destined.

3.  Because I am a vegetarian who doesn’t cook meat, I have kept them from all the meaty delicacies the world has to offer.  If they fail to become chefs, butchers, or cattle farmers they’ll have me to blame.

4.  I lied to them about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny making them believe in magic.  I then abruptly pulled the rug out from under them when they got smart enough to question my outrageous tales.  This will undoubtedly lead to trust issues later in life.

5.  I raised them in a mid-century modern house with weird art and 50s furniture which made them feel different from their friends living in cozy, shabby chic cottages and reproduction Tudor mini-mansions.  Surely, one or more character flaws can be traced back to never having a canopy bed or eyelet curtains.

6.  I refused to let them have televisions and computers in their bedrooms.  I’ve also, thus far, not gotten them cell phones even as they near the ripe old ages of 8 and 6.  Only time will tell, but I suspect my heartlessness will keep them from expressing themselves through naked selfies at least while I’m home or until they leave for college.

7.  I was a wildly liberal feminist campaigning for Democratic candidates, supporting women’s reproductive rights and LGBT rights and defending the separation of church and state in the midst of the Bible Belt.  This could go wrong in two different ways.  I could end up being the clueless hippie mom who is an embarrassment to my daughters when they decide to go all Alex P. Keaton on my ass.  Alternatively, they could agree with my politics and be left with nothing to rebel against…quite possibly a teenager’s worst nightmare.

8.  I failed to sign them up for etiquette classes and never dressed them in smocked dresses and giant hair bows instead allowing them to make their own (often ridiculous) sartorial choices, greatly reducing their chances of success in cheerleading, cotillion and the sorority of their choice.

9.  I stuck them with some pretty crappy genes.  In addition to the depression, mentioned above, I’ve also passed down a pokey metabolism, a propensity to carry weight in their mid-sections and strangely muscular legs that are exact replicas of their Grandpa Jack’s.

10.  But, worst of all, I loved them unconditionally which just set an unattainable bar for future significant others.

I’m sure this list will be expanded to 10 or 20 pages by the time Biggie and Smalls reach adulthood.  So, to my beloved children…for all of the above and for my failings to come, I am sincerely sorry.  Blame mom and get a good shrink.

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Stick a Fork in Me

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These people are lunatics. I blame them.

That’s it…I’ve had it!  I give up!  I would like to be admitted to the hospital, preferably Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles.  I am suffering from exhaustion.  It may be a questionable diagnosis, but if it’s good enough for movie stars and rock stars, it’s good enough for me, dammit!  In fact, my condition is so dire, I’d like the Beyonce Suite, please.  Didn’t Jay Z pimp out like a whole floor of the hospital for her when she squeezed out Blue Ivy?  Yeah, that’s the one I want.  (I can assure you, I saw no gold plated birthing tubs when I had Biggie there 7 years ago.)

Since this is a self-diagnosis, I suspect the doctors and my insurance company will require some empirical data before they’ll check me into my suite and begin the massage treatments and bonbon deliveries. So, in the interest of science, I am providing the following documentation of my day thus far.

It began as does every other day at our house…with the morning meltdown.  Alarms went off obscenely early, as always, so we would have ample time to get Biggie and Smalls ready to hop on the bus by 7 am.  Unfortunately, we were not up early enough to provide a sufficient cushion for this morning’s super-sized meltdown.  Today’s drama was due to my utter inability to choose the correct socks for Biggie and Ad Man’s ridiculous choice of breakfast foods for Smalls.  Approximately 30 seconds before the scheduled departure time, we were dragging Smalls out from her favorite tantrum spot under the bed, attempting to brush her teeth through her cries of injustice and stuffing Biggie’s feet into whatever socks were closest to the door…quite possibly the dirty ones she dropped there yesterday.

With two kids successfully deposited on the bus and Ad Man off to work, I began the most pleasant part of my day, the sweet, sweet hours in which no one is whining at me.  As much as I wanted to crawl back into my still warm bed, I had many things to accomplish before the beginning of the afternoon’s homework meltdown.  I ran to the gym for a pathetic attempt at a workout.  I thoroughly researched and bought a new flat iron to replace the one that crapped out this morning leaving my hip-mom shag looking more Carol Brady than Sally Hershberger.  I stalked Goodwill for missing elements of the girls’ Halloween costumes and then headed to the grocery store to purchase the items necessary to make a healthy and delicious minestrone soup for dinner.

I was hurrying home from the grocery store so I would arrive before the school bus when I got a call from Smalls’s teacher.  It seems I’d totally forgotten I’d planned to pick up Smalls in carpool instead of having her take the bus since Biggie had an after-school activity at the other campus.  Instead of unloading the groceries from the car, I immediately turned around and headed to school.  Visions swirled in my head of my poor, abandoned child sobbing alone on the sidewalk as the last car pulled up to the carpool pick-up area and she saw that her mother was not inside.

As it turned out, Smalls was unaffected by being abandoned and was happily coloring in the front office when I arrived at school.  I, on the other hand, slunk in with my head bowed in shame hoping that none of the upper echelon of PTA moms would spot me claiming my forgotten child…in a Carol Brady shag no less.

Milking my guilt for all it was worth, Smalls requested that we stop at the park for King of Pops chocolate sea salt popsicles before retrieving her sister.  So, we went to the park, grabbed our pops and sat down at a picnic table so Smalls could do homework. She, of course, dripped chocolate all over herself and her homework and spent half an hour denying that the dance she was doing was in any way related to the fullness of her bladder.  I checked my phone and saw that we were going to be late if we didn’t leave to pick up Biggie just as Smalls began chanting, “I have to pee, I have to pee, I have to pee!” No shit, kid!  Really?!

diagnosis_kidsWe jumped back in the car, headed over to Biggie’s school, ran into the building and located the closest bathroom where Smalls flat out refused to sit on the potty because the door to the stall wouldn’t latch to her satisfaction.  Because, you know, heaven forbid a stray 2nd grade girl should wander in and see a sliver of her sitting on the toilet through the ever-so-slightly open door.  At this point I was pulling my hair out, biting my tongue to keep from yelling all kinds of naughty words in an elementary school and wishing I had a handful of Xanax to munch on.

We managed to track down Biggie who was the second of my two children to wander around looking for her missing mother today and raced home with Smalls’s overextended bladder threatening to blow at any minute.  We skidded into the driveway, unlocked the front door and Smalls ran to the bathroom just narrowly avoiding a pee disaster.  I unloaded the melted groceries from the trunk of the car and thought, “Aaahhhhh…finally, things are starting to look up!”

I was settling in to start overseeing homework and chopping vegetables for tonight’s dinner when it became clear, after a frantic search, that Smalls’s backpack was no longer in our possession.  FUUUUUUCCKKK!!!  Rather than herding the girls back into the car and schlepping them to every location we’d just been to, I called my friend A, sent the kids over to her house and told her to be ready to drink with me upon my return.  I then texted Ad Man and asked him to bring home Mexican food because there’s was no way in hell I was going to cook dinner tonight!

Really, the only bright spot in this day was when I found the backpack sitting right there in the park where Smalls and I left it earlier.  And now finally, after a glass of wine with A, I’m again able to form a complete sentence.  So, here it is…I’m done!  Stick a fork in me. Beyonce Suite, here I come!  I’ll have my driver drop me off at the secret back hospital entrance usually used for whisking in overdosing celebrities.  Make sure that bed is made with 600 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets and get my bourbon I.V. ready to go!

Over-educated, Under-employed Mom Seeks Career Counseling

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help_wanted_lgOK, here is the blog post in which you, dear readers, get to play career counselors and solve all my problems.  (Thanks, in advance.)  I am going to tell you all the diverse things that float my boat and you, in turn, will tell me what my next job should be.  Ready to play?

First, a quick outline of my experience for new readers: I am an entertainment lawyer who represented film studios and talent agencies.  When I was not busy being verbally abused by one particular partner at my firm, I spent my time writing briefs, going to depositions, making court appearances, trying to be cool when walking around film studio lots and crying in the file room.  Highlight: Cher once borrowed my bathroom key.

My other main role was as a TV, film and video producer.  I developed numerous television commercials and video projects for one particular client, a scandal-ridden, major mortgage lending company.  One of my strengths was remembering which make-up artist the CEO prefered (hint: the hot one with big boobs).  This former CEO has been referred to by CNN as one of the “Ten Most Wanted Culprits” of the 2008 financial collapse in the United States.  Top ten, baby!

At this same company, I also produced a feature-length documentary about homelessness in Los Angeles which won a couple film-festival awards and played at Cannes.  Highlights included staging and filming a one-man theater performance that was then incorporated into the documentary, filming in Skid Row, LA while 8 months pregnant, trying to find a dress to fit my postpartum body for the Beverly Hills Film Festival awards dinner and managing not to spring a breast milk leak during the lengthy ceremony.

I’ve documented my various strengths and skills here previously, but I also have a number of interests that could point me toward potential career paths.  Art, design and architecture are three of my greatest loves.  I can often be found shopping for furniture and homes that I can’t afford and renovating and decorating houses in my mind.  I watch how-to videos on YouTube in an effort to determine whether I can tear out the refinished (spray-painted), formerly pink tile in the bathrooms of our 50s modern house myself or if I should put it off for 6 more years.

dead_plantsI enjoy gardening, but after numerous attempts to grow a verdant oasis in the backyard of my Atlanta home, I’ve officially given up!  Everything wilts in the hellish summer heat here and, on the occasions that I actually had a few lush raised garden beds growing, flooding from the nearby creek swiftly wiped them out like a magazine squashing a fly.  I now have two dying basil plants and one dying rosemary plant on my porch.  I call them topiaries and hope the neighbors don’t get too close.

I love fashion and, while I’m generally in my not-at-all-fashionable mom uniform, I do try a little harder on the weekends.  I am quite adept at reading fashion blogs and magazines and firmly believe the day the September issue of Vogue arrives in my mailbox should be declared a national holiday.

I’m also interested in (OK, somewhat obsessed with) perfumes.  My friends think it’s insane that I can read scent reviews and peruse perfume discussion boards for hours and Ad Man is less than thrilled with the amount of money I spend on samples every month.  This infatuation grew organically from my crazy strong sense of smell.  This talent was a bit of a burden when I was pregnant and got within 50 feet of anyone eating anything, but it has proved helpful when it comes to wine tasting, perfume sniffing and identifying that thing that stinks in the refrigerator.

I love to cook, at least on weekends when I don’t have homework to supervise and kids begging for snacks.  I even started a Facebook group called Vegetarian Mamas.  I don’t think I’d like to cook for a living though because, generally, cooks have to either get up early or stay up late.  I’m really more of a middle-of-the-day kind of gal.  Oh, and I have a freaky aversion to smelling like food.  It’s most likely a nose thing again.

A few other things you might find helpful when choosing a career for me…I have recently started this blog and discovered that I enjoy writing.  I am a certified kettlebell instructor. Kettlebells are those weights that look like cannonballs with handles.  You know the ones I mean.  No?  Well, you’re not the only one.  I am a skilled negotiator as long as the parties involved in the conflict are under the age of 10.  I plan parties and vacations like a boss.  And, I’m really, really good at Pinterest.

So, what should I do?  Take the Georgia bar (I’m licensed only in California) and try to claw my way back into some sort of legal career?  Find someone to pay me to use their money to make obscure documentaries?  Become a personal shopper?  Be a perfumista and start my own company?  Try rooting for truffles with my bionic snout?  Remain a kept woman and thank my lucky stars?  The possibilities are wide open.

The possibilities would be infinite though if all the over-educated, under-employed moms who wanted to work could band together to build something great.  In the 7 years that I have been a stay-at-home mom, I’ve met some extremely educated women who have set aside their careers to raise children.  All are as creative and hardworking as those who have chosen to, or have had no choice but to, remain in the job market.  I constantly find myself searching for a solution for funneling that huge pool of intelligence, ambition, creativity and dedication into some incredible project.

If each of us brought our job and life experience, talent and desire to the table, we would be unstoppable.  So maybe instead of just trying to map out a plan for my career, we should take more of a big-picture view and become career counselors for the group of us former professional women turned full-time moms.  So, what do you think?  Should it be a corporation, a think tank, a revolution?  Let’s shoot high.  You’ll get bonus points for creativity.  What should we make or build?  How do we grab our portion of the profits?  What can we change for the better?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Bitter

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standard_la_footAd Man travels for work.  A lot.  In fact, he’ll be out of town most of this week. So, I’m sitting here sulking and dreading and wondering if I can get away with feeding the kids take-out for every meal until Saturday.  I’m also planning ways I can ensure that I’ll actually wake up when the alarm goes off so I can get Biggie and Smalls on the bus at the crack of dawn and not have to drag them half dressed, each with an energy bar stuffed in her pocket, into the car where we will then sit in two carpool lines at two different campuses. Pulling off that feat with neither child being marked tardy requires a plan of attack timed to the second and seeing that in this scenario I couldn’t even drag my sorry ass out of bed, the chances of me succeeding in such a plan are slim.

I am most emphatically not a morning person.  I lived in fear for many years of missing finals or sleeping through the bar exam because my bed was just so damn warm and cozy.  One thing Ad Man does well, though, is waking up.  No snooze button for him…when he’s up, he’s up.  And I am the direct beneficiary of this talent because, day in and day out, he manages to get three cranky ladies out of bed and moving at 6:15 am and for this, I am eternally grateful.  Oh, believe me, he bitches about it every single morning, but he gets the job done.

Beyond just missing my own personal alarm clock who won’t take “but I’m so sleeeepy!” for an answer, having a husband who travels a lot can be difficult.  In fact, one of the reasons we moved from San Francisco to Atlanta was that I was often left by myself with a newborn baby, who I was up nursing every few hours, in a town where I knew almost no one.  Meanwhile, Ad Man was flying blissfully alone to meetings on the east coast where he was put up in posh hotels, sleeping uninterrupted in sheets not stained with breast milk or baby spit-up and going out to restaurants I could only sit home and read about in Food & Wine magazine.  Not surprisingly, this arrangement got really old, really quickly.  So, we moved to the east coast where we bought a house and Ad Man started collecting more clients in, and traveling more often to, the west coast.

I also have the uncanny ability to come down with any number of illnesses that would normally send me right to bed the moment the wheels of his airplane leave the ground.  And, if I somehow manage to avoid getting sick while he’s out of town, you can be sure that both children will start running a fever or be covered in suspicious looking spots so they can’t go to school and we’re all quarantined in the house for the duration of his absence.

I really shouldn’t complain (but I do it so well!).  I know a number of women and a few stay-at-home dads who have it far worse than I do.  I have friends whose spouses have “commuted” to south Florida and even Detroit from Atlanta.  My friend K’s husband is the president of a European company that makes bicycle components so he’s often gone for weeks at a time, occasionally reporting back that he’s been cycling in the Pyrenees, or something terribly stressful like that.

I have to admit, things have gotten easier now that the girls are older.  Ad Man has learned that it’s best to be as vague as possible about the details of his trips, which helps too.  This was a lesson he learned the hard way, however.  Once, when Biggie was about 4 years-old and Smalls was 2, Ad Man felt he just had to post a photo on Facebook taken in his hotel room at The Standard in Los Angeles.  (He’s just reminded me that his room was called the “Wow! Suite.”  The guy just does not know when to keep his mouth shut for the sake of marital harmony!)  What prompted him to post the photo was an approximately 6 ft. long by 4 ft. high sculpture of an actual foot…in his bathroom.  Now, just imagine what the rest of his room must have looked like if there was space for a 6 ft. long foot in the bathroom.

I can’t remember what I posted in response or if I called him directly, but I assure you, retribution was swift and painful.  Even his guy friends were like, “Dude…what were you thinking posting a photo of your swank hotel room?!  Your wife is going to kill you!”  Luckily, he (sometimes) learns from his mistakes.  Now, half the time I don’t even know what city he’s in.  We joke that he could have a whole other family in another city and I’d know nothing about it.  Of course, the joke would be on him because he’d be the one with two pissed-off wives and even more children running amok.

I do, occasionally, get to go somewhere by myself for the weekend.  For instance, I’ve been to a couple funerals and I try to get together with a group of my friends from law school once a year or so.  In those rare instances, as soon as word gets out that Ad Man will be home (alone! gasp!) with the kids for a few days, support pours in from all corners of the globe.  It’s usually something like, “Oh you poor dear, why don’t you come to the mountains with us for the weekend where you can stay in our rustic-chic cabin, your kids will be entertained by ours during every waking moment, you’ll have a cold beer in your hand at all times and the women-folk will take care of all the meals?”  It’s truly amazing he survives those difficult times.

There are, however, a few benefits to having a husband that travels for work.  I mean, who can deny the allure of frequent flier miles?  When he’s gone, I go to bed earlier because there’s no one to veg out with in front of the television.  And, when I do indulge in some late night TV watching, there’s no one trying to convince me that an America’s Next Top Model marathon is a bad idea.  I also have one less mouth to feed and fewer articles of clothing to pick up from the floor next to the clothes hamper.

Of course, Ad Man’s frenzied and unpredictable travel schedule also makes me wonder what type of position I could accept if some fantastic job opportunity fell in my lap.  I worked as a producer at a multi-media production company before Biggie was born.  It was the job I loved the most and miss to this day, but it also required long nights in the edit bay, weekend film shoots and changes for clients at the last minute.  Could we work it out if another opportunity like that arose?  I would hope so, but I just don’t know.

biggie_tupac_croppedWe’ve talked about turning our downstairs guest room into a space for an au pair if necessary, but do I really want to be responsible for a teenager living in my house when I already have two kids and a moody, skateboarding husband with a vast collection of hip-hop dolls and breakdance figurines?

These are some of the questions that keep me up at night (along with things like “does it really matter which earbud I put in which ear?”) and I have no idea how or when they’ll be answered.  In the meantime, I’ll just be happy if I can get the kids to school on time, make it through homework without strangling one or both of them and manage to feed them items from more than one food group this week.  As for me, I’m stocked up on tea, wine and dark chocolate so how bad could the next few days possibly be?  Right?

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

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first_day_school_blog_picIt’s the first day of school for my daughters and I’m kind of (really) freaking out.  It’s Biggie’s first day of 2nd grade and Smalls’s first day of kindergarten. The first day that I’ll have a chunk of time from approximately 7:15 am to 3:15 pm with no children in the house, no questions to answer, no fights to break up, no snacks to retrieve, no butts to wipe, no tears to brush away, no screen time to monitor. In an attempt to talk me off the ledge, my dear friend A. tells me to think of this newly found extra time as an opportunity (“Just think…you can go to a movie in the middle of the day or have lunch with a friend.”), but I’m having a hard time imagining it as anything but the big, black void I’ve been fearing for 7 years now.

My friend S., who is a professional recruiter and therefore qualified to make such proclamations, tells me I need to write a book.  I’ll be honest, I’ve been told before that I give good Facebook, but I’ve never written “officially” unless you count legal briefs.  With the first day of the rest of my life looming though, I figure what the hell?  I’ve got nothing to lose…right?  My first reaction upon setting off on this journey however is, “Oh crap!  I need a notebook!  And pens!”  As someone with a sprinkling of OCD on top of a big dollop of depression, this is a task that could take weeks to complete to my satisfaction.  Because I am well-medicated, however (big ups to Dr. A!), I’m able to acknowledge that the risk of not finding just the right pen could derail this whole train before it even leaves the station. So, I make the momentous decision to spew my thoughts into one of those new-fangled home computers that are all the rage these days rather than writing by hand on actual paper that may or may not have the right level of porosity.

So, I decide to start slowly, recording in blog form the incessant rattlings of my childbirth-addled brain beginning with this, The First Day of the Rest of My Life (henceforth to be referred to as “This Day”).  This Day begins with a 6:30 am alarm going off in three different bedrooms simultaneously.  Biggie is already up reading and immediately shuts hers off. Smalls has never been woken by an alarm a day in her 5 years of life, but is raring to start checking off the items on her “Morning To Do List” which I wrote and she illustrated just the day before.

The Ad Man and I, however, are far less perky after having spent the entire summer waking sometime between 8:30 and 10 am., occasionally yelling out to the girls instructions for operating the television or toaster from our warm bed.  I am particularly difficult to rouse due to my 2 hour crying jag the previous day followed by a handful of melatonin with a white wine chaser in order to avoid laying awake for hours imagining my sweet 5 year old lost and crying out to me from somewhere in the bowels (I’m picturing a boiler room) of her new elementary school.

I’m actually feeling quite proud of myself for putting pen to paper (cursor to screen?) since, I’m sure, had I not captured the events of, and my fragile feelings toward, This Day beginning on This actual Day, I would have undoubtedly scrapped the project altogether. Then I would have to add it to my pile of unfinished (i.e., never started) projects like the documentary I never made about our infertility woes and struggle to conceive Biggie because we didn’t start filming with that first negative pee stick.

I know all mothers feel a mix of melancholy and euphoria the day their youngest fledgling finally leaves the nest (at least for 8 hours a day).  This Day is particularly significant for me, however because it was never my plan to be here in the first place.  My vision for my life with children included either a hunky, but tender stay-at-home dad or well-trained nannies, enriching after-school programs, character-building summer camps and me, blissfully cradled in an Aeron chair in my law office or production company receiving respect, accolades, money by the bushelful and compliments on my chic wardrobe.

Anyway, fast forward past law school, moving to Los Angeles, passing the bar, joining my first law firm and proudly using the obnoxious title “Esquire” after my name.  Continue past my years as corporate counsel at a thriving and then failing dot-com where 18 year-olds actually rode around the office on scooters and drank beer in the middle of the day.  Speed by the small but scrappy production company where I worked on Important Projects like the one with all the living Nobel Peace Laureates and the obscure but (minor) award-winning documentary about a theater group in Skid Row, Los Angeles made up of homeless and formerly homeless actors and the overall issue of homelessness in America.  Whew!  And, finally, you will arrive at today, when my to-do list looks like this:

to_do_list_09131.  Buy groceries
2.  Pick up cupcakes (for our annual first-day-of-school celebration)
3.  Straighten house (because I was too busy filling out school paperwork, labeling backpacks and sobbing yesterday to do any cleaning and the disarray is making me more crazy than usual)
4.  Pick up antidepressants at pharmacy (see above)
5.  Exercise?
6.  Mix bread dough and let rest
7.  Buy notebook and pens

In the end, This Day wasn’t much to write home about. The morning was a blur of the requisite photos of cute kids posing with spanking clean new backpacks and getting on the school bus, confusion over turning on the Today Show and seeing Matt Lauer and Al Roker instead of Hoda and Kathie Lee, and forcing myself to leave the house though depressed and distracted to hunt and forage for sustenance at the grocery store.

I somehow controlled myself during a few tense moments at said grocery store (“Don’t tell me you’re out of cilantro or I swear to god I will lose my shit right here in the produce aisle!”).  I received texts and calls from friends concerned with my well-being (“So.  How are you doing?”) and other depressed moms looking to commiserate (“I feel like I will never laugh again.”).  I made a list of things I’ve been meaning to, or dreaming that I would, do when I had both girls in school full-time (hence the dough mixing).  And, finally, I received back two relatively well-adjusted girls who had a great time in school, loved their teachers, made new friends and couldn’t wait to do it all over again the following day.

As for me…I’m still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up.