My Real Life

…I’d have a palate that only appreciated macaroni and cheese or spaghetti with meatballs.

…I’d think wrestling was the only way to communicate with my siblings.

…I’d have the unique ability to clog every toilet I used.

…I’d mysteriously use every spoon in the house.

…I’d never tire of the same song, same book, same story, same show, same movie no matter how many times I had heard/told/seen it.

…I’d be able to forgive before a fight was even over.

…I’d remember to find the wonder in every new experience.

…I’d rush less and take more time to smell the roses.

…I’d understand the power and comfort in goodnight and boo-boo kisses.

…I’d smile more.

…I’d worry less.

…I’d love unconditionally.

When I grow up, I want to be like my kids.

We were in the car, last night, and the kids were talking about the heat and I called back to them, “Yeah, but is it hotter in the summer, or in the city?”

Crickets.

Real Man and I laughed, not so much at the joke itself (which, hopefully most of you know comes from the song) but at the fact that this particular joke is one of his Dad’s standards.

Another gem is “What’s the difference between an orange?” which always leaves the kids stumped.

I love that.

I love that there are certain things that we will always say, and that hopefully the kids will say to their kids, that will always make us laugh because we’ll remember they were “Grandpa’s Jokes.”

I have a feeling that when they grow up and see my number on Caller ID, they’ll answer the phone “Jello!” because that’s how my Dad answers when we call his house.

Love.

Does your family have any inside jokes?  Anything that would cause the casual observer to think you had all lost your minds as you laughed hysterically?

I’d love to hear some of them!  Leave them below in the comments!

My Dad came over for dinner the other night.

I made homemade pizza and we ate and all through dinner, the kids chatted away at their Grandpa, and when the dishes were cleared, they hopped up and went to play.

But, my Dad, Real Man, Monkey Girl and I sat at the table and talked.

We talked about a lot of different things and the conversation flowed from topic to topic as the evening wore on.

At one point, I told my Dad that I had just been talking about my grandmother, earlier in the week, when I was asked about who was one of my inspirations.

I shared that I never forgot the time that I was staying with my Grandparents, in Ohio, and I went to work with my Grandma.

She drove the Bookmobile, and one day, we went to this tiny, broken down, ramshackle neighborhood.

You could smell the dirt and hear the stomachs grumbling.

The kids who came to the Bookmobile that day were filthy and they weren’t wearing shoes.

My Grandma put her arms around them, hugged them, leaned in close, read to them, laughed with them and treated them as if they, too, were her precious grandchildren.

I was a little jealous (only child AND only grandchild, here) and when we left, I said,”You treated those kids like they were me!”

She responded, “Amy, you should be as kind as you can, as often as you can.  You might be the only kindness and gentleness in someone’s day.”

It always stuck with me and it’s something that I tell my own kids over and over and over again.

My Dad said that he never heard that story, but it reminded him of one of his own.

It reminded him of something that happened with his father, one time.

My Grandpa did not like conflict.

At all.

I remember when my grandparents would come to visit, and they would stay for a week at a time, because Ohio to NJ is not just right around the corner.

If my parents started fighting while my grandparents were at our house, my Grandpa would say “That’s it!  Doris, pack your bags!  We are leaving!”

He hated conflict.

My Dad said that one time, my grandparents were arguing and my grandpa said he was going to take a walk.

My Dad sat on their front stoop and watching his Dad walk away from the house, down the long, long block.

He waited for a long time and then my grandpa came around the bend on the other side of the block and my Dad thought, “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” until my grandpa just kept walking to do the loop again.

So, the story my Dad shared took place at the Dairy Queen, which was at the end of my grandparents street.

My Dad was about 12 and he and my grandpa were standing in line and they were behind this woman and her little boy, who was about 4 or 5 and she was just railing at the kid.

Calling him names and berating him.

When the line would move up, she would grab the kid’s arm, if he didn’t move fast enough, and yank him forward.

Hard.

As my Dad told the story, I was pretty sure he was going to say that my grandpa was so uncomfortable with the situation that he turned around and left the Dairy Queen, but that wasn’t how it went.

At one point, the line started to move again and the woman, reached down to grab the boy’s arm, again.

My grandpa’s arm shot out, he grabbed her wrist and said “I think that’s enough of that,” and put her arm back down at her side.

My Dad said she never raised her hand to the boy again…at least not in my grandpa’s presence.

I never would have guessed that story.

That’s not the Grandpa that I knew.

He was always very busy and very quiet when I was there.

He took me fishing and we’d sit out in his boat (named the “Amy Beth”) for hours, just looking at the water, in silence.

He carved my name into wood and I had that on my shelf in my bedroom and every time he would come to visit, he would see it and nod.

If we were at the table and my grandma started filling my Dad and Mom in on the gossip from the town, he would mutter something about minding our own business and excuse himself from the table.

I loved that story.

I loved to hear that story so much, and I never would have heard it if we hadn’t been talking.

Just talking.

I miss talk.

I feel like we don’t spend enough time just talking with people anymore.

Talking without a goal for the conversation.

Conversation for conversations sake.

It’s one of the reasons I love visiting Kim, Erin and Michaela because it’s pretty much all we do.

Just talk.

I’ll admit, I’m not a great social talker.  I tend to stay quiet and listen and only speak if I have something specific to say.

But even being on the receiving end of a good talk is fulfilling.

Going forward, I’m hoping to really prioritize making time for talk in my life.

It’s amazing the things you can learn when you open yourself up to it.

…not funny ha-ha, but funny as in “Hmmm…isn’t this interesting?”

So, maybe I should change the post title to “An Interesting Thing Happened…”

Maybe I’m over-thinking it.

So…

I was tired this weekend.

It was kinda muggy and yucky out and we were all feeling low-key.

The boys were happily playing in the basement, Real Man was doing something on his computer and so I decided to go up to our bedroom, lay down for a few minutes and see what was on tv.

Turns out, it was “The Proposal” with Sandra Bullock.

Love that movie.

I watched for a few minutes and Monkey Girl wandered in.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asked.

I told her about the movie and she plopped down next to me.

And stayed to watch the rest of it.

She was the perfect romantic comedy companion.

She laughed at all the right places.

She “Awwww”ed at all the right places.

She was quiet when she was supposed to be quiet and she knew when it would be an appropriate moment for conversation.

When it ended, (and no one had come looking for us) we flipped around and found “While You Were Sleeping” (which prompted me to think that Sandra Bullock had passed away because when a celebrity dies, they always play all of their movies or all of their songs on the radio.  She didn’t.  She’s alive and well.) and settled in to watch that.

We did have to stop that one in the middle, but we recorded the rest and watched it the next day.

And when it was over, we found another romantic comedy.

You’ll remember that I am always bursting into tears at the thought of this girl moving out of my house and leaving me.

This past weekend, I began to see some benefit to this girl growing up.

——

Please remember to visit my Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes page and read my story and (if you feel so inclined) donate!

For this week’s Twisted Mix tape, Jen challenged us to create a “Best Of” list for any band.

This is tricky for me, as I am pretty much a fan of all genres of music, and wasn’t sure who to pick.

So, I started going through my iTunes to see who I had the most of and which would make a good list.

I’m from Jersey, so maybe Bon Jovi or Springsteen.

But, then I figured those were obvious choices.

I looked at Pearl Jam which made me think maybe I’d just do Eddie Vedder, but then he’s not a band if I’m doing his solo stuff, but maybe that was okay.

If that was okay, then perhaps Justin Timberlake, because…seriously…Justin Timberlake.

Then I started thinking, maybe I’d go old school.  I scrolled through Zeppelin, the Beach Boys, Metallica, Guns-n-Roses, Clapton.

I almost did the Beatles, but the truth is, one of my favorite albums growing up was Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and I knew all of the songs that I would pick would be from that album.

So, I asked Real Man to help me figure out my favorite band.

He said that it was Aerosmith.

He reminded me that over the course of my life, the band I have gravitated to the most is Aerosmith.

So, here is, (according to me), the best of Aerosmith:

“Dream On” was released two days after my first birthday.

I like to think that it was a present to me from the band.

I know it might be noise to some, but by the time they get to the end and Steven Tyler is screaming “Dream On! Dream On!” you realize you’ve been holding your breath because they’ve been building to it the whole time.

I also love “Home Tonight” which a softer side to the boys.

Here are the boys mixing the two at a concert.

“Walk this Way” and “Sweet Emotion” also make me stop the scan on the radio every time.

I like both versions of “Walk this Way.”

The original and the pairing with Run D.M.C. version.

“Round and Round” is another that I always liked, but you really don’t hear it very often, so it’s one you need to find on your own to hear it.

I love “Mia” as well.

Again, another that isn’t played a lot on mainstream or even classic rock stations, but I like it.

It’s hard for me to choose favorites from some of their albums.

Permanent Vacation, Pump, Get a Grip, Nine Lives, and Just Push Play were all albums that I played so many times (although, at this point, they were CD’s) that they began to skip and wear out.

I don’t remember if it was Nine Lives or Get a Grip, but one of the two also had an interactive DVD portion that you could play on your computer, and you could be the drummer to the song.  Early Guitar Hero-ish, I guess.

My poor keyboard.

I remember my roommates thinking I was insane, but oh, how I loved it.

I loved them all, but I’ll admit to being a fan to almost all of the songs from those albums that went platinum.

“Love in an Elevator,” “Rag Doll,” “Dude Looks Like a Lady,” “Crazy,” “Amazing,” “Janie’s Got a Gun,” “Living on the Edge,” “Cryin,” “Pink,” “Jaded,” etc.

“Falling in Love is Hard on the Knees” is one of my all-time favorites.

I love the beat…it’s just a good, driving beat.

I’ll be honest…I wasn’t overly impressed with their 2012 album release, but with that exception, I have loved most of what they’ve produced over the course of my life.

Not everything, of course, but most of it.

Real Man was right in that I have gravitated to them the most over the course of my life, but I’m not sure if it’s because they have been so prolific.  The more you produce, the more there is for me to like.

However, I guess the more there is for me to not like, as well, so job well done, Aerosmith.

Those of you who have been here for awhile may remember reading that I have Type 2 Diabetes.

Luckily, I’m able to control it with diet and exercise and by doing so, I’ve kept it in the pre-diabetes stage, but it’s a constant battle for me.

I am one of the lucky ones.

I know people who were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes as children.

Who have gone through life with a pump.

I’ve taught students who have needed to check in at the nurses’ office throughout the day to monitor their glucose levels.

My Dad needs to take insulin shots.

A friend can’t venture too far from home because her numbers are always so out of whack, she is afraid to be driving a car and have it drop too low or sharply rise too high.

It’s not a disease that targets only the heavy, the slow, the lazy, as I have heard many people say over the years.

It’s a disease that can hit anyone.

I AM one of the lucky ones.

And so, because I am healthy and strong and able, once again, this year, I am going to be walking in Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes.

Please visit my participant page to read my story and, if you feel so inclined, to make a donation toward my fundraising goal of $1,000.

Together, we can put an end to this disease.

Here’s the description Jen wrote of today’s MixTape assignment:

You know what? I stink/ You stink. Get your venom out here, or maybe that ballad that basically says ‘you stink’”, or play it this way: you’re the one who did wrong and you know it. This is your apology/acknowledgement for being an jerk. Or a mix of the two. You decide.

“Sk8er Boi” by Avril Lavigne is my favorite, in this category.

In high school, this punk guy likes this preppy girl (who secretly likes him, too) but she thinks she’s too good for him and ignores him.

He grows up to be a rock star.  She grows up to be a disgruntled Mom who wishes she had given him a chance.

Too bad, so sad.

Love this song.

Missy Higgins wrote “Where I Stood” and it fits perfectly in this category under the “I Stink” portion.

She loved you, she had to let you go, she wishes she hadn’t.

Such a beautiful song.

A good “You Stink” song is “Jar of Hearts” by Christina Perri.

Love her gravelly voice, and love how she tells the guy to just back off.

He hurt her and who does he think he is coming back around and thinking he can get her back?

I’ll admit it.

I’m a Taylor Swift fan.

I am.

Would I want to be one of her boyfriends?

No, but you know what?

When I was a teenager and I had a breakup, I wrote bad poetry about it.

She just happens to be a famous teen/early 20’s who writes good poetry about her breakups and makes money from it.

Anyway, I think it’s an understatement to say that most of her songs fit into the “You Stink” category, but I’ll go with “We Are Never Getting Back Together” for today.

I’m also a huge fan of Mariah Carey, the early years.

“Someday” is perfect for “You Stink.”

“The one you gave away will be the only one you’re wishing for.”

Says it all.

Back to “I Stink” is classic Britney.

“Oops! I Did it Again!”

Remember that Britney?

Then she went bad.

And broke Justin TImberlake’s heart.

And he wrote about it.

And I love him.

Nothing says “You Stink” more than All-American Rejects “Give You Hell.”

You stink, I rock, and I hope it hurts you is basically the theme.

Perfect for this mix.

I could go on forever, but I’ll wrap up with Orianthi’s “According to You.”

Basically, according to you, I stink, but really, it’s you that stinks.

And that’s that.

Last week, I had to go to a meeting in a different school building.

I’ve been in and out of this building a million times before, and I usually park on the side of the building and go in the front door.

This day, I carpooled with the other two Vice-Principals, and one of them needed to talk to someone about something after the meeting, so the other turned to me and said, “You want to go out back and see the farm?”

I had known there was a farm behind the school since it had been planted, but I had never actually been there.

We walked out back and I was stopped in my tracks.

It’s beautiful.

We went back and talked to Farmer Shaun, who is in charge of the entire project, in conjunction with Grow it Green, and as we stood, talking to him in the sunlight, with a gentle breeze and the sound of the sprinkler softly watering the crops, I couldn’t help but think that this guy got it right.

What a way to spend your days.

The project puts students, townspeople, Girl Scouts, and so on, to work.

They learn about farming, get their hands dirty, and grow a ton of crops.

The majority of the crops are donated to the local soup kitchen.  Others are sold at a low cost to low-income townspeople, and some go to the high school to be used in the school lunches.

It’s amazing.

It has recently doubled in size due to donations, which include a chicken coop.

We are going to start our own, small patch of farm at our school, and I am so excited about the process.

To walk through those crops and see them growing and know that the food is being put to such good use, and that kids are learning about sustainability…I just love it.

If you are local, you should definitely head on over and check out the Urban Farm, if you haven’t already done so.

And if you aren’t local, you should talk to your town about doing the same.

So, remember back in March when I co-authored I Just Want to Pee Alone?

Well, some of the lovely ladies that co-authored that book are writers for “In The Powder Room,” which (according to their own words) “…has been entertaining women online since 2009 with the funniest and most irreverent articles, written by the very best women writers. When you’re In The Powder Room, you can have a laugh, share your opinions and enjoy the interactions with other women who are very much like you.”

These ladies from “In the Powder Room” have just published a new book called “You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth.”

According to “In the Powder Room,” You Have Lipstick on Your Teeth is a hilarious collection of true tales by women, for women, about being women—bodily changes, relationships, careers, motherhood, aging, illness, and more—written with the humor and grit that proudly sets In The Powder Room apart. But be forewarned: we’re holding nothing back. We’re revealing our funniest deep dark secrets—because it’s through our most vulnerable and honest moments that we forge the strongest connections and discover we aren’t so alone after all.

So, like David Puddy on Seinfeld, I gotta support the team, and so as soon as they shared the good news, I downloaded my copy.

Here’s what I loved about this book…

Yes, there were stories that made me laugh out loud because we’ve all experienced embarrassing moments like the ones that were shared.  But, even some of these made me pause and think, because within the humor, there was cause for reflection, as in Alexandra Rosas Jungle Moves.

Some I could connect with immediately, like Kerry Rossow’s The Reason I Need a Chaperone.  Having been my lifelong chaperones, Erin, Kim and Michaela can tell you that there are some things that I am just not fit to do/decide on my own.

Speaking of, I laughed and laughed at Rebecca Gallagher’s Friends Let Friends Pee Their Pants.  Erin knows.

There were also some that really touched me and some even brought a tear to my eye.

In particular, I found myself very drawn to Love and Other Drugs by Bethany Thies.  I just got it.  Right there.  Ya know?

I could go on and highlight how I connected with so many more stories, but then you might not buy the book because you’d feel like you read it and that wouldn’t be very supportive of me.

Not every story is going to be to everyone’s taste.  And that’s okay, because guess what?  You can turn the page or swipe your way through a story that isn’t connecting with you.

I’m so proud, once again, to be connected with so many of these writers through the Pee Alone book.

Writing is hard.

Writing something funny is harder.

Writing something funny that turns out to be meaningful, even harder.

And they nailed it.