My Make Believe Cliffs

Have you ever felt like you were standing on the edge of a cliff?  A cliff so high above the rest of the world that the wind was your breath; no other human being could see or hear you.  It was just you and the cliff and the bustling world going on without you down below?  I am there.  My eyes are rimmed red with unease and my heart is heavy.  There is so much awful in the world right now that the hope of the New Year is tarnished with violence and dispair.  A woman whose face I had never seen until last Saturday night haunts me from my computer screen and TV.  I am so absorbed by her story that I constantly check the local online news for updates on what the hell happened to her. 

A gal I went to high school with now knows her 6 year old little boy only has 6 months to live.  She was on the Denver news with Jacob and she was so brave.  She told the reporter that her little boy will die.  6 months.    http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-young-brain-cancer-patient-visits-with-colorado-avalanche-20120110,0,6312942.story

I am standing on this cliff, my toes gripping the edge and feel the wind and close my eyes and wish that the pain that tears hearts apart were just bad dreams.  That the agony of heartache would just float away like a cloud; dissipate into thin air.  I wish the wind would blow the bad away.  I wish people didn’t have to fear each other and that little children didn’t get cancer.  I wish the beautiful serendipity of life didn’t also include darkness and tears.  I wish peace for the people who are hurting in the world right now. 

I wish my make believe  cliffs of solitude were a real place I could go right now to just be.  To sit in the green grass and pick exotic wild flowers and maybe a few Indian Paintbrush (totally illegal, but not on my cliff).  I wish everyone had a cliff to go where the wind takes your breath away and holds you in comforting quiet.  A cliff so far above the rest of the world that even if you fell, you would never hit bottom.  A place so elevated it held you above the world.  Because it truely is a beautiful place, this Earth.

The Book of Revelation tells us that “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

Christmas Strangling…

I am starting a new tradition:  my list of annoyances that deserves a Strangling by either a strand of twinkling lights, tinsel or a stocking.  This list will consist of 12 (randomly ordered) Annoyances.  Why 12?  Well, it’s my blog and it’s in the theme of The 12 Days of Christmas, which gets me started:

12)  The Twelve Days of Christmas Carol.  What the hell is the 12 days of Christmas?  There are 31 days in the month and 24 of those days come before Christmas.  Yes I know, 12 is a significant number in the “look for signs” realm.  I get that.  12 months in a year, 12 steps (or 10, who’s counting) in AA, etc.  But the damn Christmas carol is long and terrible.  Who the hell wants 10 maids a milking?  That just sounds like a lot of hormonal upheaval!  Lactation and dancing, yeah.

11)  People who TEXT Merry Christmas on Christmas, yet don’t send a real Christmas card.  Take me off your to Text list!  That is just rude; being so cheap as to not send a real card but to send a text since it’s part of your Verizon or Cellular One plan!  I’ll tell you what:  Verizon should start charging for every Merry Christmas Text sent on Christmas just to slow the new, retarded tidings.  DO NOT SEND ME A MERRY CHRISTMAS TEXT!  Or a Happy Thanksgiving or Happy Easter or any holiday text!  Blah!

10)  Icicle Lights.  Really!?  We live in Montana with real icicles!  If you have fallen on your ass as much as I have you would hate ice, too.  Now they come in color and blink, so what is the point!  Unless a rainbow pissed on your house no icicle will be rainbow!  (Ok, I love Christmas lights, so this one is just on here since it’s funny.  Decorate on, my fellow Christmas fans).

9)  Double Sided Scotch Tape:  What the F*#K!  That shit sticks to everything except the paper you are trying to coax into conforming to the gift you are wrapping.  Bad invention!  Bad!

8)  FruitCake:  How awesome is cake named after one’s in-laws!  I guess we all know how that name came along:  shitty cake baked by a mentally ill mother-in-law and passed along as a gift! 

7)  Holiday Sales:  Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the newest trend, Green Monday.  Really!  We give names to the most important shopping days of the Holidays?  And some have theme songs!  Wal-Mart ruined a great AC/DC song this year by using “Back in Black” as their Black Friday theme.   Bad Big Box Store, Bad!!!

6)  Santa’s with beards so fake they hang off their lips.  REALLY!  Like little kids are that stupid!  What makes things worse is when the beard hair sticks to your kids clothes.  Now that is just nasty.  Who know where that white, marled mess has been.  (ANd yes, marled is a word…. I think).

5)  Happy Holidays:  It is Christmas!  CHRIST-mas!  It’s a religious holiday, so let’s keep CHRIST in Christmas and in Nativity Scenes, too.  Try and take Baby Jesus away and this “Saint” will march all over your ass!

4)  Toys R’US Commercials:  Ok, tell me shut off my TV and I will punch you in the throat.  Retro Christmas cartoons give me time to wrap presents with double-sided tape.  Toys R US is just a cult that makes kids THINK they want everything yet their ads are on every 15 seconds during prime time!  Ugh!!  And who the hell invented Squinkies?  Tiny little people that plug up my Kirby, yet made it on both my girls’ lists this year!  Hum-Bug!

3)  Alcohol Free Egg Nog:  No explanation needed.

2)  A White-less Christmas:  I want snow, damn-it!  And if you live in MT or WY or ID and don’t like snow…. quit your bitching and move to CA!

1)  Candy Canes:  Why candy canes?  If you have children, it needs no explanation.  They are sticky, gooey, set up like cement in hair, never get eaten all the way and end up in the carpet, Issie’s hair or rear seat of the car since every business and bank hands the damn things out like it’s Christmas or something….. wait.  Oh yeah!  It is Christmas!

Merry Christmas (remember #5) my dear friends!  And may you know that this list was in fun!  Well, most of it! 

Glittery Reindeer Poop

Eryn, Santa, & Isabel 2011

The Holidays are a time of giving; selflessly.  Christmas is magical and once children come along the magic takes on a whole new meaning.  When Eryn was born I had almost a whole year to anticpate her first Christmas.  But I had no idea how awesome it would utlimately be.  Christmas is one thing, but BEING Christmas is an entire new ball of wax mistletoe!  Being Christmas is a new adventure.  Being Christmas happens when a child, your own or one you love enough to be your own, opens a little space in your heart, making it bigger and better than you knew it could be.  And Eryn’s first Christmas gave me another new lesson in “heart enlargening”.   With every Christmas since, especially with her sister,  my heart leaps in sizes!

When Christmas comes to a household with children a magic it’s own begins to manifest.  (I could go on and on about the anticipation of wrapped gifts lurking under the tree, shining with speculation and excitement; the frozen snot of late afternoon sledding and searching for reindeer poop in the snow as proof that Santa is truely watching).  Anyway, onto Christmas morning . . .

Once we become parents the magic of Christmas starts to actually grow inside of us.  Why?  Because WE  become Christmas.  We are the ones who tell the story of Mary and Baby Jesus and the Star (if that so applies- I am open to other traditions).  We are the ones who shop and wrap and hide gifts from peeking eyes.  We become the spirit of St. Nick, waiting till sugarplums dance in their heads to sneak treats in stockings and take bites outta cookies.  And all the while it is magic!  It is tradition and sentimental, quiet moments and yet always hectic.  It’s the prime rib and ham and ornaments and scotch tape (double sided or disappearing).  It’s Secret Santa and parties.  It’s baking and wrapping and shopping.  Yes, Christmas has taken on a “bit” of the commerical, what with Black Friday and Cyber Monday and Green Monday (?) and all the shopping and sales and mayhem.  Yet, doesn’t it all come down to recognizing the real magic of Christmas in ourselves?  To give, not to receive? 

The real trick is to cling to that feeling all year long!  The real meaning of Christmas, for me, anyway is the dazzling, sleepy smiles of my children the morning of Christmas.  Yes, it is the celebration of Christ’s birth, but it is also the celebration of children and their innocence and delight in lights and wrapping paper and, even, reindeer poop (that is evidence.  And how does one know the difference between mule deer poop and Rudolph droppings?  The glitter . . .duh!).  

Merry Christmas!  And let’s remember the Reason for The Season (Christ’s birth) as well as the magic in children.  For didn’t Jesus say:  “Let the little children come to me?” 

 

Trashing Creativity!

How did my Mom keep all my treasures?  Really, she had boxes of my shit stacked in her storage room (I was lucky enough to have gotten most of it pre-house fire).  Knick knacks I thought were important and that I still hold sentimental value for.  Barbies in unopened boxes that my girls beg for; looking up to the top shelf of my closet.  That is probably torture for them, those glittery dolls all packaged up since the 80′s.  There are just a few of those, I wasn’t one of those kids that kept their toys in shrink wrap.  Nope, I played with my stuff pretty hard and not much survived.  Anyway, I am running into some guilt issues with the works of art my girls create on a daily basis.  I love it all, but know I will turn into a full blown hoarder if I start saving it all.  I try to weed through the good and average; the colorful to the dull.  The ones that took time to the ones scrubbed in Crayola out of sheer boredom.  (I took away the Play-Doh months ago and they are going through the crayons like toilet paper).  And then there are the school papers and projects that get toted home everyday; 1st Grade and Pre-School.  What is a mom to do?  Seriously, when I pitch something that I know is trash I still feel that paper looming in the plastic, white abyss; covered in whatever Issie didn’t eat for dinner.  I still feel the paper’s doom right up until it ends up in the big green dumpster outside.  Let’s be honest, once it gets to that point it’s a goner. 

Yes, I have fished papers out of the trash that Mike threw in there.  He likes a tidy house, I am a raccoon . . . clean and tidy is relative when something shiney attracts my attention.  (Another blog).

I love every piece and shred of creativity my girls produce; yet I am getting really crafty with ways to hide the art in the trash.  I cover it with other papers (bills) and left over lunch or dinner.   I still love it, but I have no room.  I could be the perfect mom and scan the art and save it on the computer, but that is work and I am a stay at home mom who doesn’t work! 

The Muppet in My Closet!

I have, once again, been avoiding Facebook and WordPress.  My blog has been neglected for over a month. Truthfully, I thought it was because I was just too busy to update my status or blog about my elk hunting or first 5K or online Christmas shopping, etc.  But then Good Morning American slapped the obvious in my face.  I have had some anger issue lately.  I have been a snit on Facebook, sick of other people’s mundane and retarded posts.  I have literally had to not log-in to keep my sanity.  I have been sitting on my fingers to keep from typing hideous, honest comments on other people’s status’.  But today, just this moment, I realized why.  The Muppets are back.  I have HUGE Muppet issues.

Let me take you back to my childhood.  I was not a beautiful child.  I was tall for my age (no, really, I was) I had long lanky legs (stop laughing, I did).  I had freckles that multipled like a bad rash.  I had a big nose, too big for my round face.  I was made fun of (and all you people who made fun of me; you know who you are- go sit on your big toe and wiggle it).  I was so brutally mocked that I even tried to make my nose smaller.  I would pinch it and suck in the air and hold my breath; desperatly hoping my version of plastic surgery was working.  Some days I could see the “pig nose” shrinking,  I was hopeful. 

About 3rd grade little girls can become little bitches.  That was also about the time The Muppets had a big movie.  I think it was The Muppets Take Manhatten.  I actually liked the Muppets.  Miss Piggy and her glitzy dresses and sassy attitude.  I had a Miss Piggy Doll.  Her body was soft like a baby doll and her face was plastic, snout and all.  I had the book, too.  My mom ordered me the Scholastic version of the movie to book.  It was awesome, bright pages filled with glossy illustrations of the movie.  Miss Piggy rocked, she was the heroine.  Until she became my biggest enemy. 

My at-home-nose-pinching-nose-surgery was going well.  Lemon juice on the freckles was also producing some hopeful results.  And then BAM:  someone called me Miss Piggy.  What an original name, right!?  So creative.  But it did the trick.  The name stuck.  Miss Piggy.  Kids are cruel and some of them I still loathe!  No really, I do.  I still won’t be Facebook friends to this day.  Issues?  You think?  Some people just don’t outgrow the 3rd Grade.  You know who you are.  Anyway, kids suck.  Mean kids with unhappy homes with fathers that cheat on the mothers and mothers that pop pills or drink too much; this creates insecure little assholes that can only feel good about themselves by preying on other kids.  (Truthfully, when a kid has been mean to my 6 year old daughter and she tells me:  I usually know the home life of the kid and tell her:  “Little Johnny is sad because his Mommy ran away.  He is being mean right now, just ignore him.”    I really do this.  It’s called truth and maybe by me telling Eryn that kids are mean because they are sad will make her more apt to just walk away with her feelings in tact.  Just because some kids’ Mom is a whore doesn’t make it alright for that kid to be a dick, but I get it.  Parents are usually the ones breeding the bully into the own kids.)  OK, onto Miss Piggy…

My beloved Miss Piggy doll got a Sharpie to the face.  Looking back it was a total cry for help.  Miss Piggy was graffiti-ed, my projections of rage onto the once adored face.  I ripped her dress apart and trashed the doll.  The book . . . no page was left un-shredded.  I was 8 years old.  The name calling didn’t stop until I was in high school.  WHy?  Those 3rd Grade bitches multiply and get meaner as hormones kick in.  They run like a pack of wolves.  But you know what!  With age, like wolves, they lose their power.  They get mange and get ugly and by college they aren’t so cool any more.  They lose their territory and marry men like their own filanering dads and continue the cycle.  But, the cycle of the victim also continues.  In my case I rose from the rubble of my broken feelings by college and found beauty in the mirror, nose and all.  And not too long after that, I found my prince charming.  Kermit?  Sure, why not!  Because Miss Piggy really is a bad ass Muppet and Kermit is cute as hell. 

So, will I take my girls to see The Muppets this Holiday Season?  Probably.  I will sit in a cushy theatre seat and remember all the heartbreak I went through with Miss Piggy.  But I will also be aware that Eryn is approaching that akward Muppet age herself.  And I can’t, for the life of me, find one thing anyone could pick out on her to be mean about.  Alas, Kids are evil.  And every kid has a Muppet in their closet . . . what’s yours?

Low-rise Surprise

SHopping for jeans now-a-days is brutal.  Skinny jeans don’t make it past my calves.  Petite jeans are in “short” supply.  And forget anything that covers my bum crack and keeps it covered when I sit down.   I swear pockets no longer hang on the butt, they now located south of the ass checks.   Pockets are also now little areas on the jeans that sport all sorts of bling, embroidery and other shiny things.  Some much has changed since I now am able to wear a shirt tucked in.

But the dilema of the ass crack is the biggest one so far.  Low-rise is a joke.  That cut does not cover my booty.  I don’t know if it because of my hips, my ass or what.  The low-rise is so low I could try a thong with a pair of low-rise and make the front page of the little local newspaper here in COlstrip, MT.  Oh wait, it wouldn’t be front page, but whatever page it is that has all the legals and court cases; me in low-rise is criminal!  Let me show you a hypothetical of me in low-rise:

Issie at the PUmpkin Patch!

There will be NO thongs on these cheeks till she is 42…

Post Apocolypto

On the tracks with our 1930 Model A

I have been staying as far away from my blog as I possibly can.  Why?  PMS of course.  I actually come so close to deleting my Facebook account during the dark days of PMS that I sometimes think of UN-friending myself.  I can’t stand some of the mundane shit I read on that website so I just stay away.  But oh the things I would love to put on people’s statuses.  I can get so wickedly creative it’s almost mean.  Well, ok.. .  it’s past mean and in the realm of bitchy.  But I have never once said I am nice when this time of the month hits me.  I think there is a disorder that one can medicate for during PMS.  I am thinking I am a likely candidate. 

So, what has been happening?  Not much.  I baked a scrumptios Pumpkin Pie from scratch.  Used the special squash and spices and all.  It tasted delectable and I hate pumpkin pie.  Must be the weird cravings.  I also baked myself special PMS cookies . . . peanut butter and chocolate chip and instead of the sugar  I used applesauce and they are little lifesavers I pop when the craving for chocolate hits.  Yes, I am a walking cliche!  So what!

I need to start work on my kids’ Halloween costumes.  I have all the parts, just no idea where to start.  The blueprints are in my whirling mind, so once I slow that down long enough to hold a thought, I will start work on the costumes.

I did manage to make my family pose for photos last week.  (see random above photo; thought I would insert it there to throw you all off).  Make is the key word here.  No one was in the mood, least of all me.  But we posed and smiled like we were a happy little group of well adjusted humans; which we are on most days.  This day, well, picture days are all from hell.  Issie cried because she wanted to wear her usual wardrobe of mismatched knee hi socks with pink camo cowboy boots on the wrong feet along with her dirt smudged graphic tee of the week and jeans that are 2 sizes too small.  (I swear she hides clothes and drags them out and then ferrets them away again).  On most days I shrug my shoulders and say “whatever”, but on picture day we will look presentable with shoes on the right feet, damn it!  Even I wore make-up!  Holy crap, right?  People rarely see that phenomenon anymore!  And when I do take the 5 minutes to apply the stuff, I look stunning and it’s like an Extreme Makeover.  But, I am lazy.  But for family picture day, I doll it all up!  Eryn is so easy to dress.  She just sighs her little princess sigh to let me know that she really does not approve and puts it on anyway.  Mike is the same!  But instead of princess sigh it’s a manly grunt of sorts.  But in the end, everyone listens to me.  And we know why. . . PMS.  And look at how lovely it can be!

 

And yes, those are real railroad tracks.  Are there any other kind?  Mike wanted to get a few photos of me tied to them.   That’s how we show our affection for one another . .. weird sense of humor and holding hands while walking down tracks.  It does feel weird . . .being up on those railroad tracks, a place you were taught as a child to NEVER go!  Now I have to re-wire my kids and tell them repeatedly that what we did was NOT okay!  But it sure looks cool!

F-in’ Facebook!

I am about half in inch away from deleting my Facebook account.  I just can’t do it anymore.  I can’t be subjected to the STUPID status updates of “love in Jesus because He loves you.”  Seriously, people only post shit like this because they are lacking in morals and shove them off on everyone else because stupid Facebook gives them a forum to be an idiot.   I also am sick of the minute to minute updates of people who do lots of laundry, cook crazy meals, and bake like Cookie Smurf.  I am fed up with status updates filled with drops of “sunshine and morning glories and my shit don’t stink because of …”  Ugh.  It’s tiring.  It’s bullshit.  It’s not even high school mentality.  It’s much below even my 3 year old’s understanding.    ”It’s 7am and I just wiped my own ass”; now there is a status!  I may just use that one today!  OR  “It’s 3pm, I am exhausted, time for another round on the shitter and maybe a nap.”  Another great status.   “I just picked my nose and ate the snot off my finger.  Wow, there was left over applesauce in there, too!  BONUS” 

Hmmm… maybe I have stumbled onto something better than freakin’ Farmville.  Use my toddler’s schedule and antics as MY status updates!  Oh yeah, Facebook just got awesome again!

Maybe you think that if I hate Facebook so much, then why look.  You can’t help but not look!  There is so much entertainment it’s almost as good as “Grey’s Anatomy” reruns on Bravo!  And I am not posting this bitch as my status.  It’s my blog, you don’t like it then don’t read it!   PS:  my Facebook time is roughly 15 minutes every other day.  I know moderation and also what is a HUGE waste of time!  Also, I don’t FRIEND people I don’t know or don’t like.  You might wanna check my Friend’s list; your opinion of me may change in a minute!

Bullshit Super Heros

I never intended this blog to become a vent session for everyone to read.  I never intended for you, my reader, to roll your eyes at my words and think to yourself:  “Whatever, I am never reading Shelly’s crappy blog again.  She can’t get past (insert your bitch here).”  Anyway, I don’t know if it is because school has started or if it is because I am at my wits end with it; but I want to vent about this Perfect Mom bullshit. 

When I became a mom I never anticipated the bullshit that comes with it.  I never imagined that I would be subjected to the drama of Motherhood.  I don’t want a freakin’ cape to join the ranks of Super MOm, so therefore I am a misfit.  I don’t wear the mask of a “super hero” to hide my flaws.  I don’t wear my underwear outside my pants (you would be shocked if I did).  I don’t fly, leap over buildings or even enjoy (not one bit) my kids soccer schedule nor some of the kids on her team.  I do, however, make sure my smiling daughter makes her practices.  I cheer her on and smile.  She has no idea it’s torture for me to keep up with her schedule. 

What do I do then?  I do cook, quite well.  I do laundry and clean my house.  And just because I don’t freaking post every single move I make as a mom on Face BOok does not mean I am not SUPER!  I am a freakin’ rockstar and so are all the other moms who hate soccer as much as I do.  So are all the other moms who get frustrated with 1st grade homework and 50,000 new sight words.  Most other moms don’t bitch as much as I do, but I have HAD IT with the superficial, fake super mom BULLSHIT!  Why?  Because today, some stupid “perfect” mom brought her SICK freaking kids to a childcare facility when she KNEW they were sick and left them to play with my 3 year old!  So, thank you for your complete lack of consideration!  Thank you for being such an awesome Mom that my kid will probably get sick.  You can now put your freakin’ cape in the closet and hang up your bullshit mask cause your “SUPER-NESS” was enough for one day!  I get to look forward to a runny nose, cough, and long nights because you wear your granny panties outside your pants!  My daughter had RSV as a baby so whenever she gets congested it’s nebulizer treatments and forced breathing.  So, thanks to your stupidity, Issie will be wheezing and oozing green boogers for a few weeks and I will miss my workouts and I will get REALLY bitchy!  You think this is bad . . . just wait! 

And to all those other Super Moms out there with the same agenda, KNOWINGLY taking sick kids out to be around other kids; school, daycare, CPRD, the grocery store, ANYWHER . . .  .  F- off!  You suck and should have your cape stripped from your neck and burned in a fire of plastic BPA filled bottles and plastic grocery sacks.  I have a ton since I don’t recycle or use cloth bags.  See, Rockstar!  I also throw aluminum cans in the garbage!!  Ohhhhh…..  crap,  it’s my lack of a filter again!

Halloween!

This is my favorite season.  Well, Winter is a very close 2nd, almost a tie, really.  But Autumn is amazing in my book.  You have relief from the heat of yucky summer.  You have beautiful foliage on the trees and you have hunting season.  Big fan.  You also have trips to the Pumpkin Patch and HALLOWEEN!  The Day of The Dead is a big deal in our house!  It truly is a holiday!  And for whatever reason, last year started my trend of the “Homemade Costume!”  I rocked it with peacock costumes last year!  Yeah, you could still see the duck-tape in a few places, but this beeoch don’t sew, so it’s staples and ducktape! 

This year I am dressing up with my kids and we are all something different!  Issie want’s to be Darth Vader (no kidding), but I got her convinced that being a spider is way cool, too.  I just think she likes the Light Saber and the creepy black mask.  If she were to hear his awesome voice “Luke, I am your father” Issie would probably fall in love.  Anyway, we are all our own thing this year and I am ready!  Supplies are ordered, eye patch included and not for a pirate!!  Cellophane:  CHECK!  Double Sided DuckTape (there is such a thing, I found in on Amazon today): CHECK! 

The next phase is The PUmpkin Patch and choosing the best pumpkins for my amazing carvings!  I am quite the Pumpkin artist!  No, seriously… I can cut the shit out of a gourd and make it look fantastic!

The one in the middle was one I let Eryn draw on when she was 2 and I carved on her design.  That one was the hardest!  Anyways, Halloween is coming and I can feel it in the air on this awesome Autumn day!  I even drug out a few decorations; stuff Eryn and Issie have made over the years!  Last year we were gone for the big day, but had the awesome experience of Mexico over their 3 day Dias De La Muertas (Days of the Dead) celebrations!  The decor and culture behind it all was breathtaking. 

The girls even got to go Trick or Treating on the resort!  The costume the friendly locals made for Eryn was a little Politically Incorrect for our side of the border, but was still cute!  I can’t find the photo of me wearing it, but it was a white sheet with a smiley face and holes cut out for the eyes!  Apparently all the savvy parents knew to pack their kids’ costumes!  WHAT?!?  Yeah, we missed that memo!  Anyway, no matter where you are on Halloween, it is kick ass and fun!  Be watching for me and my girls this year!  I will be the one with face piercings!  Oh yeah!!  Will they be real or fake?  Hmmm. . . could be 50/50, some real and some fake.  Who knows!  (insert evil laugh here:  MMMMHHHAAAA)!