My Real Life

I have a confession to make.

It’s a startling confession and it may have some of you questioning if you even really know me.

Heck…it has me questioning if I even really know myself.

There are certain things I have always known to be true about myself, and I am shaken to the core to find that one of those things is no longer true.

It started out as a mistake.

An accident, really.

But then it took hold and I can’t seem to shake it.

I figure the best way to deal with a demon is to face it head on, so here it is…

I like country music.

There, I said it.

See, I have lived my whole live in New Jersey, 45 minutes outside of NYC.

I’m an 80’s Jersey Girl and I grew up on hair bands and heavy metal.

I have always said that I like every kind of music…except country.

Granted, my exposure to country music was limited to my high school youth group trips to Appalachia and drunken frat boys in college belting out “I Got Friends in Low Places,” but that was enough for me to decide that country wasn’t for me.

Until last week.

I was driving in the car and it was one of those awful radio times when every single station is at a commercial and all you want to do is sing something.

So, I set the radio to scan.

Talk, talk, talk, talk, wait!

I stopped at some lovely little tune about some woman whose mother was telling her to suck it up and put on some make-up and quit whining about the guy that she just lost.

I stayed and listened to the whole thing, because really, whose mother hasn’t been critical of them in their lives?

Sorry, Mom…but you know it’s true.

That song ended and another started.

Some duet where the couple has broken up and each of them is talking about how hard it is to make it look easy to go on without the other.

I’m a huge fan of forbidden/unrequited/lost love stories, so I listened to that one, too.

By this time, I had reached my destination, so I got out and went about my business.

But, when I got back in the car, the station started back up and I didn’t even bother to change.

Song after song after song…all country.

Each one telling a different story that sucked me in.

None of them were deep, earth-shattering revelations.

You couldn’t really dance to any of them.

I wouldn’t say any of them were in my top 100 favorites of all time.

But they hooked me.

And…and…

And I programmed the station into my radio and now…I’m a frequent listener.

I don’t believe this changes me.

It doesn’t make me a bad person.

My lifetime membership as a Jersey Girl will not be revoked.

It’s just time for a little redefinition of who I am.

I’m a girl who likes all kinds of music…even country.

One of the hats I wear is choral director of the spring musical.

My job is to teach all of the students each song in the play and rehearse it with them over and over and over again until they finally have it down.

Or, at least, I thought that’s what my job was.

We have an amazing photographer, Ted, who takes photos during our rehearsals and then shares them with us.

Based on these photos, I’m thinking that perhaps I do something quite different than what I thought I was doing.

For example, apparently I spent a good portion of the time imitating a big mouth bass.

I also seem to try to intimidate people with my “Oh really?  You think so?” stare.

When I’m not doing either of those two things, I’m busy

a) inspiring people by telling them they are doing a great job

b) giving the cast a review of the film “Sweet Home Alabama”

c) going back to my science teacher days and giving a lecture on the evolution of the opposable thumb

I am also consistently busy playing Candy Crush taking copious notes on the sets.

Or, when all else fails, I just spend my time being awesome.

I kid, of course.

It’s a freaking ton of work, but it’s worth every single second.

We did “Annie” this year and it was incredible.

The kids brought tears to my eyes and there wasn’t a person in the sold out audience who didn’t walk away feeling like they had gotten more than their money’s worth.

Nine more months and I’ll be right back in the fray again.

Until then…

…I’ll dream of “Hard-Knock Life” …for the fifty billionth time.

So, the other day, I wrote about the top 5 things I do that make my husband crazy.

I thought it would only be fair if I devoted equal time to my better qualities.

So, today, I offer you:

The 5 Top Things That Make Me a Catch

1.  I’m a cheap date.

I work full-time, teach piano after work, come home and parent four kids and take care of a house.

I’m happy just to get out for a few minutes.

So, I don’t need to be wined and dined.

In fact, I don’t really drink, so Real Man doesn’t even have to spend money on alcohol if we go out.

I’m not a stickler about what constitutes a meal when it comes to feeding myself (I’m a little stricter about what I like to feed the kids) so I’m happy with a shared large bucket of popcorn at the movies as my dinner.

Heck, I may or may not change out of my jeans/sweats if we go to a movie, so he doesn’t need to worry about gussying himself up, either, which means spending less on clothes.

We take the kids to the movies and earn points on our Stubs card, so by the time we get to a movie ourselves, we’ve usually earned enough points for the movie and the food to be free.

We’re already married, so he doesn’t have to worry about trying to get me back to his place afterwards, so no post-date schmoozing required.

For Real Man, dating me is easy.

—–

2.  I’m around children all day.

My history students, my piano students, my own monkeys.

This means I’m surrounded by pre-teen and small child banter all day long, and while I enjoy it immensely, by the time Real Man comes home, when he starts talking, I hang on every word of the adult talk.

Really, honey?  They’ve implemented a new system for the QR3 integration with the 507 forms, which gets implemented with the database?

Tell me more.

Because his stories usually don’t involve excuses about homework, boyfriend troubles, One Direction, farts, poop, or vomit.

I’m a great audience.

—–

3.  The way my teeth are situated in my mouth, I have a little bit of a spot where I place the curved end of a hanger as I hang, button, and adjust the collars of Real Man’s work shirts while doing laundry.

Does this make me a catch?

Don’t know…however, it was while standing in the laundry room with hanger in mouth that I thought to myself, (sarcastically) “I’m a real catch” and thus the idea for this post was born.

—–

4.  I make Valentine’s Day a breeze.

I don’t like flowers.

a) I’m allergic.

2) I don’t really need something else to take care of around here.

Because I’m diabetic, I can’t have candy, and even though I’m a bad diabetic and have been known to indulge with some candy or cookies sometimes, in general, I try to be good, and Real Man is very supportive of that.

I’m not big into jewelry and if I’m going to get anything, I’d rather pick it out myself, and it will take me thirty trips to the jewelry store to pick it out, so why bother.?

So, Valentine’s Day?

No pressure.

—–

5. I write a blog.

Not only do I write a blog, but I write a blog where I say pretty much anything and everything that comes into my head.

I have a feeling that some of Real Man’s partial hearing loss may be due to the years in our marriage before I wrote the blog and he was subjected to having to listen to me spout all of (she gestures broadly with her hands) this, verbally.

He reads the blog every day, so he still hears it all, but I think it’s in a much more digestable format.

Come to think of it, both of my parents have some hearing loss as well.

The only commonality between my parents and Real Man is me.

Coincidence?

Hmmm…

Since I spent yesterday on the couch with NatGeoWild channel and hosting a Girl Scout meeting and trying valiantly (and failing) to resist the four boxes of Tagalongs we purchased, I didn’t actually write a post for today.

So, I’m going to let some of my friends do the talking for me.

If, like me, you are the person who winds up being tech support for your parents or other less-tech-savvy family members, you must read The Dose of Reality’s post, Damn You, Amazon.com

If, again, like me, you’ve read one too many Berenstain Bear books, you’ll love Toulouse and Tonic’s take on one of the books in her post, The Berenstain Bears and Too Much T.V.: Bitch PLEASE

If you’ve ever felt like you were supremely unqualified for jury duty, then you definitely need to check out Insane in the Mombrain’s post, This is a blog about all the reasons I am not fit to report to jury duty

I’ll be back tomorrow…promise, but luckily, these lovely ladies can, more than adequately, fill in the gap!

If you look at the right hand side of my screen, you can see that the book is now available on Amazon.  I’m asking you to wait to purchase it (look at me, assuming you want to buy my book) because we are waiting until it is available on all formats before making the push.  Makes our stats much better.

However, if you decide you want to buy anything from Amazon at anytime, I would definitely appreciate it if you bought it through the link on my blog.  Even if it takes you to the book page, you can then search for other things and I get credit for my Amazon Affiliate account.  Every bit helps.

In the meantime, we’ve been sharing each other’s blogs on our blogs so that our readers can become familiar with some of the other authors that are contributors to the book.

However, I’m running around like a crazy loon these days and I feel like I’ve been remiss in sharing my fellow blogger/author friends sites.

Lucky for me, Teri Biebel, of Snarkfest, is awesome and made a post where she listed links to ALL of our sites!

I encourage you to click here to find her post and then click on the links and check out these fabulous ladies.

They all make me laugh on a regular basis, and in the past few weeks, I feel like I’ve made 35 new friends, some of whom feel like long-lost friends that I’ve known forever.

It’s gotten to the point that I make sure that I don’t have any liquid in my mouth before logging into our group Facebook page or it will be coming out of my nose.

So, please take some time to check out these blogs.  Your time will be well-spent and will bring a smile to your face.