The Not so Pleasant Bits

Makeup. You know, I've never gotten good at using the stuff... Once in a while I'll get a tip from a friend, like use blotting papers when you're out and need to look like you just walked off the runway not the playground.  (Disclaimer: I really have no clue what these are actually called. I just made that up; but to clarify they look like tracing paper with some powder on one side and they absorb that shiny sheen you get when you've been busy all day and haven't had a chance to shower before you have to go to an important event...ya know?) Or you forget your lip gloss and ask a friend to borrow some and then frantically try to ingrain the name of the stuff into your already overstuffed brain so you can rush to your nearest drug store and purchase it in the hopes that you may possibly one day look half as stunning as the original owner.  This is making me sound like I have some major self-image issues.  I wouldn't say that...I would however say that I have earned each and every gray hair I possess, that I have stayed up countless nights to acquire the bags and purple smudges under my eyes and quite frankly I don't look like the 21 year old version of myself any longer.  I'm proud of my hips, my age and everything I've been through to earn every iota of motherhood I possess. So let me rephrase, the lip gloss you borrowed from your much younger, single, child-less friend who looks like she probably slept 12 hours last night alone...not 12 hours total in the last four nights. 

I wish I had some infinite wisdom to share with you here about what makeup you can whip onto your face to make you look ten years younger... No. Scratch THAT. To make you look like you just got a full night of sleep.  Can you imagine if you could bottle that stuff up?!?! Genius idea. Lets think on that one, but for now my wisdom is this.  It can be a challenge to embrace who you are and to enjoy the coming of age.  I personally have always been excited to get older. Maybe it's because I know I won't be making those same dumb-a@$ mistakes I made in my late teens, early twenties, late twenties...oh well, if we're being honest, the mistakes I'm still making.  It is fun, fun, fun to get dressed up and made up and feel like a million bucks for a while and it's fun to get your makeup just right and find something that makes you feel like you just discovered a genie in a bottle for a little while.  It's fun to be a girl and to flaunt the good stuff if you feel like flaunting! However, makeup is not who it says it really is.  Throughout my makeup wearing days I have learned that it is not the makeup, but the person inside that smiles brighter then anybody else, that stands tall, that respects the changes her body has made and is proud to just be that makes you feel like a million bucks.  That is my infinite wisdom on makeup. It lies. 

I own drawers and drawers full of the stuff. It's unreal! I could probably have a healthy savings right now if I stopped walking into the drug store!!! That place is like my kryptonite. I only enter on an emergency basis anymore and even still I end up with stuff I never, ever in a million years needed. Yet, the marketing was awesome, the packaging was too cool to walk away from and I really just "needed" it.  There must be a name for this drug-store obsession I have and to make matters worse, you can simply shop for it all online now! Even greater selections at your beck and call. Ouch. The "lies" work when it comes to sucking me in and making me want to believe.  I honestly do feel refreshed and awake when I apply mascara and some superhero bag reducing, purple smudge erasing, magical potion to my under-eye area.  There is nothing wrong with that as far as I'm concerned, it is a matter of opinion and what makes us feel confident. Maybe the marketing helped guide us there but in reality we decide if we like it and will use it again or if it ends up in the depths of the drawer we rarely open to get a little makeup assistance. 

Funny story: The other day I was out sunbathing on my lawn.  I live in a "relatively" private area and didn't fear that anyone would see anything they shouldn't because I had a bathing suit on...no big deal right? Then a delivery truck started to pull up my driveway and I booked it to the back of the house in hopes that I could outrun his speed up my hill and throw on a t-shirt before getting so busted.  I was clearly unsuccessful as he cracked a joke saying something about it being "pretty private up here huh?" HA!! BUSTED. Mortified.  Re-telling this story to my own mother she asks, "why is it that people can go to a beach full of strangers in a swimsuit but in their own back yard they freak out and run away like fools?" (this may not be her exact wording, but it's how I interpreted it anyway.) So true. Why not own up to the fact that I was taking advantage of little beans nap and catching a few rays (with sunscreen....retract the claws!) and this guy was actually on my territory and time? Same reason I feel awake and confident when I have on a little makeup.  It's hiding the not so pleasant bits and enhancing the ones I like to make it through a day.  If that's what it takes, I say go for it within reason and feel like a million bucks. You really do only live once.

If only I could remember the name of that lip gloss....must be in there with my forgotten passwords somewhere!

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I forget passwords.  It's what I do.  I think I'm being all mysterious and creative and make different passwords all the time...yeah, really good idea when your memory bank equals that of the fly buzzing around your head repeatedly because it forgot it's done it 60 times in the last two minutes.  In the words of Charlie Brown, "Good Grief." You would think that by this time in my life I would have some sort of system figured out in remembering such things.  I even once worked for a giant company that shall remain nameless but rhymes with DAY-OF-Hell....resetting passwords for idiots who couldn't remember such a simple thing.  Yeah. Pointing at self...idiot.  

I was always told, never write your passwords down, someone could steal them.  I'm sure little bean would find them quite tasty but I sincerely doubt anyone is going to come looking for my scribbled passwords on my pathetic excuse for a desk (aka, piles of papers that I move from one side to the other and clear an itty bitty living space for my computer from time to time).  So...I attempted to write them down.  I lost the first attempt, so I wrote another.  Then I lost that one to, so there are multiple copies of these lovely passwords just kicking around, but don't worry - by now, I've had to reset each and every one because I can't remember what they are.

Why don't I make them all the same you ask? Well, that is a wonderful question.  Lets face it, every single company looking for you to make a password has a different set of rules.  This one won't take any characters, that one is case sensitive and that one is not, this one wants you to have capitals, numbers, letters, and characters but only the characters %$~@& and nothing else.  That to me looks like a disguised cuss word and you can bet your bottom dollar that is EXACTLY what I am doing when I go to log into your stupid account and can't remember my ridiculous password and need to spend an extra 15 minutes figuring it out! UGH!!!! 

I blame who for this? The hackers? They are freakin' geniuses! I imagine them sitting in some dark basement surrounded by crazy amounts of machinery that could probably stop another country in its tracks, but they are using it to hack my measly bank account for the five bucks sitting in there.  Awesome.  Good for you.  I hope your day is complete because you read my emails from my idiot ex-boyfriend who thinks that I should be driven off a cliff and you are five dollars richer then when your day began.  Of course, I imagine hackers stumble upon some amazing material...to vast for my imagination to drum up, but it must be fulfilling.  Do these people even need real jobs??? I doubt it!!!  Genius.  

Do I blame the companies who are trying to protect me from the hackers? Can't really do that now can I? They are trying to make it so my five bucks remains in place and I don't have to share the idiocy of the man I used to date and rarely lay claim to (although...he is little beans dad, so maybe one day I'll have to own up. That's an entirely new blog).  They are trying to make my life better.

It must come down to my utter lack of organization.  My brain is full of filing cabinets.  If only I could add a file-o-fax so my brain could just flip to the little insert for each account and shout "BINGO, YAHTZEE, DING DING DING!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER HERE!!!" I guess I'll have to settle for prying soggy post-its with scribbled text from little beans hands so that I can try to guess what the mangled password may be.  One day I'll have it figured out, but for now...mommy brain 0, passwords = to many to count. 

What was that Parrots Name?

My Mommy Hung the Moon...and then I threw applesauce at it.

I read that book just about every night, not the applesauce part mind you. "My mommy hung the moon. She tied it with string. My mommies good at everything." Yeah, well sorry Jamie Lee Curtis, but you live in a delusional world.  I can barely get the kid to drink milk (kids are supposed to like milk, aren't they???) and when the moon comes up? It's lights out time kiddo!!!! Sorry, don't get too attached. 

Here's the thing, I am a single-ish mama as far as being a non-married, non-traditional mother is concerned. I have an amazing support system and someone I could spend every waking minute with, but that being said, day in and day out...I am the mom.  

Obviously the mother clan knows what it means to have had a baby. Exhaustion. Fat where it wasn't before. Exhaustion. Dark circles under your eyes. Exhaustion. Flabby arms, aka bingo wings...need I say more? Oh yeah, and lets not forget: Exhaustion.  To top off the exhaustion, lets add some throw-up, boogers, blood, snarly hair, crusted on food and then lets bring it right back home to EXHAUSTION.  It's like nothing I have ever felt before in my entire life.  I've pulled all-nighters, both for fun and for not so fun reasons.  I've driven hours on end and sat through countless boring and ridiculous meetings.  Nothing a little caffeine and exercise couldn't fix.  This folks, is sheer and irreparable exhaustion. 

Yep, you read that right. I used to exercise.  Now, I chase little legs, shoo little feet from standing on furniture, dry tears, and clean up spills.  Not the typical form of exercise, but who's counting.  So, here I figure I will insert some dieting.  I figure, hell (ahem, I mean heck...shoot, dang, you know the PG terms), I did it once I can do it again! So here comes the gluten-free attempt.  Who am I trying to kid?!?!?! That is ridiculous.  First of all, every kid snack basically known to man has gluten in it. Goldfish? Yes please.  With my kid, it's like I'm the parrot in Aladdin, and I'm getting crackers shoved in my face even though my mouth is clamped tight and I am shaking my head "no" vigorously...What was that parrots name again? Doesn't matter.  Basically, the kid foiled most of my GF plans!!! Easier to lay blame there then on the fact that I essentially have zero will power and cannot fathom a day without my blessed pasta, bread, and crackers.  But here I sit trying.  I will try to update you on this attempt, but don't think that I'm going to offer you tips and recipes....I don't even know what day it is so, I can't be that girl for you. 

I don't do coffee, so the exhaustion tends to just settle in my bones and is the driving force behind every mistake I make on a daily basis.  Yesterday, I walked into the grocery store, filled my cart, went to the register and yep, you guessed it...NO WALLET!!! Of all things. So little bean and I parked our cart, lost a shoe, stopped to re-attach said shoe, which led to a minor meltdown, walked to the car, found said wallet, retrieved our parked cart and proceeded to check out with red cheeks and the speed of a gazelle bagging groceries.  Get me the *&^%$#* out of here!!!! Yikes. 

So, this is the story of me.  The story of forgetting who the parrot is because really...my brain just can't fathom trying to remember such a thing.  This is the story of hating coffee but essentially needing an IV of the stuff... Of remembering my own sippy cups and training bras, but reveling in the world of doing it all over again from an entirely different perspective.  Here we go...time to find some string to re-attach the moon.  It's crooked.