My Real Life

1.  I discovered the magazine “Mental Floss” while at Michaela’s apartment a few weekends ago.

Total mind candy for a nerd such as myself.

I now follow them on Facebook as well and am delighted with the tidbits of trivia and articles they share.

Until this little feature.

Playgrounds from Hell.

Made me laugh as an adult, but would have set me up for decades of therapy as a child.

14 years ago today, I married the love of my life.

We’ve made a home, we’ve made a family, we’ve made a life.

Happy Anniversary to my sweetheart…Real Man.

I love you.

My sister-in-law has a blog named “Why We Yell.”

I thought that, today, I might share with you why WE yell.

Because, if we don’t, we won’t be heard.

Here’s a snippet of Saturday evening at our home.

Monkey in the Middle and Baby Monkey were sitting at the piano, creating commercial jingles.

Loudly.

They had been at it for awhile, and finally I realized that someday, they might like to hear it.

So, I turned on my phone and started recording, unbeknownst to them.

I put the phone on the mantel and sat down.

And it continued.

Love that they weren’t plugged into anything and were being creative.

Yet, it’s why WE yell.

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Don’t feel like you have to listen to the whole thing.

We have a phenomenon in our home called “GCA.”

It started years ago when Real Man and I started dating.

I noticed that every time he would chew gum, his attitude would change.

He’d become all tough and badass.

Pair some sunglasses with the gum and watch out Pacino.

When I finally made the connection between the gum and the attitude, I came up with a name for it.

GCA.

Gum Chewin’ Attitude.

I can tell when he’s chewing gum even when we are on the phone, and no, it’s not because I can hear him chomping.

“Hi sweetie!” I say.

“Hey,” is the response I get through the phone line.

“How’s your day?”

“Good.”

Pause.

“Are you chewing gum?”

“Yep.”

He likes to say that I get GCA, too, but that totally isn’t true.

I’m chewing gum right now and there is no GCA in sight.

And if there was, you wanna make somethin’ outta it?

Baby and Monkey Girl love to chew gum, but so far, they haven’t inherited GCA.

In fact, I think Baby has GCC.

Yes…Gum Chewin’ Cuteness.

So, if you see Real Man coming down the street and his jaws are working, if you engage in conversation with him, just know that he’s not mad at you.

It’s the gum.

“You’ll see.”

Two of my least favorite words in the English language

It used to drive me nuts, as a kid, when my parents would say that.

And now, my kids say it to each other all the time.

I find these words to be mental torture.

“Oh,” starts Monkey Girl.  “I want to show you something on my iTouch!”

“What is it?” says Baby Monkey.

“You’ll see,” she says.

“I reached an awesome level this morning on the xBox game!” says Monkey in the Middle.

“Ooh, tell me about it,” says Monkey Girl.

“I’m doing something else right now,” he replies.  “You’ll see later.”

They tease each other with little bits of information and then hold off on the reveal.

It drives me INSANE and I already know what it is that they are hiding.

I guess it’s a power play.

A way of saying “Na, na, na, na, na, na,” without doing the sing-song.

Even without siblings of my own, I know that this will pass.

But right now, it makes me nuts.

1.  Les Miserables

In a way I cannot even put into words, I am beyond excited for the release of Les Miserables.

I read the book in 8th grade English and was mesmerized by the story.

I have seen the Broadway show 6 times, and have sobbed my way through every single time.

And now, this, which brings so much more emotion to the story.

My friend, Tara, and I were talking about this the other day and she was saying that she’s loved the Broadway show, but she’s always wanted to see their faces up close while they acted and sang and I thought that hit the nail on the head perfectly.

I watched this extended trailer and cried and cried and then watched it again and cried some more.

It’s the story and the music put together, and this time, the raw emotion that you can see as they bring it all to life.

I simply cannot wait.

2.  V/H/S

I’m hopeful that this could be the scary movie of the season for me.

Someone passed out when they screened it at Sundance.

That bodes well.

Or says bad things about Sundance, but still.

Fingers crossed.

3.  Thanksgiving

We alternate holidays between the in-laws and this is our year with my parents.

We usually do Thanksgiving with my parents at their house.

However, our dining room table was delivered this week and now I can’t wait for Thanksgiving.

I just love the idea of a big family gathering here, in our space.

And, you know, it’s nice to have the leftovers in our fridge.

Cold turkey.

Nothing better.

4.  Halloween episodes of tv shows.

Since I was a kid, I loved the Halloween episodes even better than the winter holiday specials.

They aren’t necessarily scary, but they are fun to watch.

Especially when I’m watching with Monkey Girl, who is also a big fan of the Halloween episodes.

Fun.

5.  The next great book I read.

I’m in the market for a great book.

A really great book.

I spent the summer reading Nora Roberts books, and they were entertaining and had really good stories, but let’s be honest…they weren’t great literature.

I’m up for something great.

As I said in a previous post, I recently finished “Shadow of Night” and thoroughly enjoyed it, but now it’s over.

My book club (and I use the term “my” lightly as I’m dying to actually get to one of the meetings, but haven’t been able to make it work with our family schedule yet) is reading “Life of Pi” for the next meeting, and I have to be honest, I have no desire to read it.

I will, but I don’t wanna.

So, when I’m done, I need something great, because there is nothing like losing yourself in a book.

6.  October 27th

It’s when I walk in the Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes.

I’m excited to be around so many people working toward the same goal.

I’m excited to be part of something that can make a difference.

I met my original goal of $500 and am now working toward $750!

I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you, if you haven’t yet read my story, please visit my Walk Page and read it and consider a donation.

And if a donation isn’t in your future, please just keep the date in mind and send good thoughts our way that day!

It is 2:58 am and I’m wide awake.

Real Man and I tried, valiantly, to watch Revolution tonight, but neither of us lasted past 9:55.

I hit the ground running at 5:45 am and literally don’t stop until I collapse into bed at 9:00.

So, why am I up, when I could barely keep my eyes open through dinner?

Tiny woke up around 2 and I went and rocked him and put him back in his crib and covered him up in all of his blankets and came back to bed.

And lay here, eyes wide open.

Once I’m up, I’m up.

There’s no going back, for me.

This lack of even an iota of downtime means that my mind doesn’t have time to do the usual thinking and dreaming and worrying and planning that it needs to do during the day, and so it’s grabbing the chance.

“Body finally still?” It asks.

“Excellent…now it’s MY time to run.”

And so it does.

So, what do I do?

After setting it free for about thirty minutes, I try to harness it here. Try to guide my thoughts into a coherent, less frantic state of being. Try to force some order and sense into my mind.

So that when I put down the iPad again, all is quiet in my head and I can grab a bit more sleep.

Because, if I fall asleep right NOW I’ll be able to get at least two and a half hours of sleep.

Two hours twenty five minutes.

Two hours twenty.

Darn.