Just Say No

Earlier I was talking with my friend, let’s call her Amy.  She lives just up the road from me. Awesome gal – really doing things right and teaching her children how to live.  She brings joy to everyone she meets – I’ve never seen anything quite like it.  She surrounds herself with beautiful things – antiques, flowers, animals and children and you can’t help but be uplifted when you spend any amount of time with her.  But enough of the mush…

She and her family farm as well.  Big time.  I’m talking hundreds of acres big time.  And it’s been a tradition in her bones for many lifetimes before, I’m sure.  She’s one of those people that are born to farm.  She naturally takes to coaxing things out of the earth and making them useful.  She makes her own soap, her own candles, her own teas and tinctures.  You can understand why I feel slightly less than my best around her.

I’m the gal that stands in the garden asking everyone the following questions:

“Are you feeling hot or is it just me?”

“What time to you think we should head in?” (After five minutes of being outside…)

“HOLY CRAP!! Did you see the size of that bee?? ”

“What level SPF do you think is best under a sun as hot as this one…?”

“It’s just so dirty out here.”

 “Seriously.  Are you hot because I am BURNING UP?”

I just don’t get farming you know? I mean I get it in theory, but I tend to fall apart when it comes to the actual “doing it” part. I actually really enjoy growing flowers and herbs but not the rest of the stuff. Not the really tough stuff. It truly makes me feel like a bad person to not enjoy farming.  Shouldn’t I have feelings of elation digging in the dirt? Shouldn’t I rejoice when I get the chance to dig in fresh compost? Yeah? No.  It’s not for me. 

Which stinks because, well, it’s what Joe wants to do.  So I do my best to cheer (and sometimes jeer) from the sidelines.  I try to take him the mandatory lemonade and sandwich in the middle of the day (though I regularly forget or just go get it from Subway).  I try to help when I can, if I happen to be the only one standing there.  I mean really, the only person for miles around.

I guess I’ve always been more of a bookworm.  Totally content to snuggle up with a good book and a cup of tea.  A contemplative person really, not so much into all that “hard work” business I suppose.  I far prefer the winter months when you are FORCED to be inside.  You must stay in due to the weather and that’s precisely what I want to do.  Fill up the woodstove, pick a good book, heat up some tea and relax.

ANYWAY, back to my conversation with Amy…

I mentioned to her that we needed some hay for our goats.  She leaned in, just a little, and said, “We’ve got some really good stuff right now.”

“Really good,” I ask?

“Really good,” she assures me.

We’re inching closer together just a bit when she looks to the side and then back to me and says in a hush, “He won’t even tell me which barn it’s in.”

My eyes grow wide and I look around then whisper back, “I have to call him.”

Then my eyes fill with concern.  “What about your goats? Do they need some?”

She looks down, “He says they’ve been spoiled and they can’t have anymore.”

“Listen,” I say, “Let me help you out.”

“How?” she asks, looking at me with her eyes wide.

I begin to weave my plan. “I’ll tell him I need a certain amount – like 20 when I really only need 15.  I’ll put the extra aside for you to come and get whenever you’re ready.  I’m all in if this is a “dark of night” mission – dressed in black, crawling through the mud to make the delivery.  Whatever it is.  I’m in.  Unless, I guess, it’s really late.  I kind of start to lose steam around 9:00ish so anytime before that would be great.  Really all in!!”

Sex is like a hot fundge sundae

Well it's happened again. I was caught unaware and unprepared and went ahead with it all anyway. Sometimes you just have to go with your gut and hope it all turns out.

Now that my son is in 6^th grade, he is learning about reproductive health.  The teaching is a little more advanced than I remember.  He comes home every night with a sheet of paper that has some questions on it and he is supposed to talk to a parent or trusted adult about these questions. Of course I didn't notice my dear husband stepping to the front of the line to answer any questions so I took it upon myself to be the one to handle it.

The first night the questions were pretty benign:  “What did you like to do when you were my age?” “Do you remember your body going through changes in puberty?”  No trouble at all.

The questions last night got a LOT more detailed: “How did you learn about sex?”   “What are your beliefs about sex?” and “How old were you when you first had sex and why didn't you wait until you were married?”  (Ok, that last question wasn’t really on there but it sure sounded like it.) I started to sweat.

I tried to be direct in my answers and open and honest as well.  We talked about abstinence and that it is the only sure way to prevent an unexpected pregnancy.  I told him stories about kids I knew who had gotten pregnant way before they should have and how it ruined their lives. Most of them, to this day, I assured him emphatically, work in gas stations.  Not that there's anything wrong with working at a gas station, there isn't, it's just that these particular, albeit fictional kids had full ride scholarships to Ivy League schools prior to the pregnancies.

Then the wheels kind of came off the bus.  I'm not going to go into all of the gory details - you'll thank me later - because it's all too bizarre. Suffice it to say that I told him that he couldn't have sex until he was 18, that it was illegal to have sex without a condom and that sex is like a hot fudge sundae.

I also invoked the use of a visual aid in the course of this discussion - a condom - but thankfully decided against demonstrating the use on a banana. That decision is going to save me some BIG bucks later when he's in therapy.

His only comment upon opening and unrolling the condom was "Wow. That's kind of big." Which is precisely why you can't have sex until you're 18 because, prior to that,  the condom won't fit.

Folks, there's no training for this sort of thing, ok? I'm out here winging it and trying to do the best that I can. I felt a desperate need to give him all of the information I could because I was pretty sure he'd never want to talk about this again. I'll take every shot I have to make it clear to him what a big deal it all is.

Ok, back to the hot fudge sundae... He made the comment that all of his buddies were all jazzed up about sex. Thinking about it, talking about it, wondering when they're going to have it. So I said:

"Sex is like a hot fudge sundae. It looks so good, so yummy, so pretty! All that hot fudge and whipped cream. All you want to do is eat it!! Finally, you do and it's wonderful. But the next day, you have another hot fudge sundae and then another and then another. After awhile, they all start to taste the same and they aren't all that exciting. After an even longer time - say 20 years - you start wondering why you didn't order a strawberry sundae instead."  

Totally kidding about that last part - I didn't really say that. Still, I think I made my point in a strange, convoluted and bizarre way. I'm hopeful that our discussion will give him a healthy understanding of sex and what it means. I'm hoping that he'll feel safe talking to me about all of this in the future. But seriously, right now I just have a craving for a hot fudge sundae and not the metahorical kind. I really want a damn sundae. Why is the Dairy Queen not open 24 hours??

For the Love of Craigs List

I am a HUGE fan of Craigs list.  I check it constantly and have bought and sold numerous items.  You’ll never even guess what I picked up on Sunday….20 pounds of baking soda!  Unopened! For FREE!!

Why, you might ask, would I need that much baking soda?  Well for the goats of course.  Goats eat baking soda to help settle their stomachs.  When I came home with my treasure (which, incidentally, Joe mocked me for) I took some directly out to the goats and they were THRILLED.  That's why the goats like me best....

Drunk Blogging - Is It A Crime Or Just Bad Judgement?

In my defense, I had to have a few (ok, a LOT) of drinks to go see "War Horse" (the movie). Lisa, Lesia and I just about cleared the theater with our sobbing and weeping.   I guess it was a bit much that I kept shouting out "REALLY?" and "FOR REAL?"   But seriously, how much more could one horse go through????

You throw three animal loving girls into a movie like that (with a TON of alcohol beforehand) and you're just bound to have trouble. At one point (SPOILER ALERT: barbed wire scene) I stumbled out and bought God only knows how much popcorn just to get a breather. I can't begin to imagine what the concession stand girl thought about me at that point.  Must have had eye make up down to my cheekbones and I wasn't actually speaking in full sentences. I think I choked out something that sounded like "War Horse" as some sort of explanation but she still looked pretty stunned.  She asked what kind of drinks I wanted and I just stared at her. Luckily, Lesia was there to save me and we didn't get ejected from the theater, but come ON.

Either way, I'm home safely now and I vow that I will NEVER WATCH THAT MOVIE AGAIN. It was really good though so you should probably go see it. Just plan on lots of popcorn....

Jolly Ranchers

I was taking my shower this morning, VERY early and barely awake. I went to reach for my lovely scented body wash and, alas, the bottle was empty. The bottle was not empty yesterday. The only change between today and yesterday is that both kids took showers in MY bathroom.

Based on previous incidents, I have concluded that the children were to blame for my early morning dilemma. Normally it isn't my body wash that is affected but my shaving cream. That's a big favorite for the kids. During their unbelieveably long showers they apparently like to make drawings in (my not inexpensive) shaving cream on the shower walls. More than once, I've also noticed the involvement of my shower gloves, that I'm assuming they use to add texture.

It's difficult for me to problem solve so early in the morning. I looked around the shower stall and considered the options. Not so many options actually. I didn't feel it would be prudent to waste my expensive face wash on the rest of my body so that was out. Using conditioner would have been a complete mistake as well. So that left the only option - the kids' body wash.

You would think that, seeing the presence of children's body wash, the kids might actually use it. It does have the Wacky Melon scent and the funny looking fruit guy on the label. Ah, but you would be mistaken. I'm desperately trying not to take this personally. It's not that they are trying to irritate me, it's just that they must like my stuff better. So now, my kids are walking around smelling like a lovely lavender field while their skin enjoys the benefit of added moisturizers. While I am walking around smelling like a giant Jolly Rancher. 

It's come to this.

I never really thought that I’d be one of those people, but it appears that I am.  I am one of those people that puts sweaters on their dog.  In all fairness to me, I don’t put the sweater on the dog to make her look cute, I put it on her to make her WARM and that’s totally different. At the very least it’s slightly less crazy.

She went out yesterday and was shaking SO badly from the cold.  Still, there was a bone she was working on so she refused to come in.  I was worried about her being so cold so I looked around for something to warm her. The only thing that I had (since I have not yet acquired a dog sweater) was the doggie Santa suit that we force her into every year at Christmas. So if you drove by my house yesterday and wondered what the Santa dog was doing, there you have it.

Not so funny

Who’s fault is it when things don’t work out in a marriage?  You hear the stories about the breakups (which seem more and more frequent lately) and everyone scrambles to take one side or the other even though you never really have ALL of the information.  When did the trouble start?  Was it there from the beginning?  Or was it the stress of being together, raising a family and fighting about money that finally got them?

I often wonder if the vast majority of people out there are happier than I am.  I wonder if they’re having more fun.  I wonder if they feel that their children are loving and well-behaved and whether or not they are best friends with their spouses.

Are men happier than women or is the reverse true?  I once saw an article which listed the “order of happiness” with the happiest being listed first:

1)      Single Women

2)      Married Men

3)      Single Men

4)      Married Women

Do you think it might be true?  Are we allowed to talk about it?

With the holidays upon us, things seem to be more magnified for women.  The stress, the pressure, the busyness.  Most men I know tend to retreat from the family around this time as well which only compounds the stress of the woman. What to do?

If we aren’t allowed to ask these questions in polite society or discuss them with honesty then where does that leave us?  Can the women who went before us tell us the true tales of their struggles without “sugar coating” it to steer us one way or the other for sake of family?  If not, how can we expect things to change for the better?

What do we want to teach our daughters and sons about love, marriage and family?  We certainly can’t preach that it’s a life of wine and roses but can we set some minimum requirements for them?  Can we give them guidelines to determine the things that are acceptable and unacceptable to them?

Divorce is so sad.

Full of questions today.  No solid answers.  Sigh.