Total Pageviews

Saturday, April 27, 2013

From Housewife to Pioneer Woman


I want to be the pioneer woman. Not a pioneer woman, the pioneer woman. Are you familiar with Ree Drummond from The Food Network? She lives on a working cattle ranch in Oklahoma and also has her own blog (www.thepioneerwoman.com) where she shares her recipes, her photography, her gardening tips and oh yeah, she homeschools her four kids, as well. And I want to be her. Despite the fact that I can’t handle more than my one child, I don’t like cooking or cowboys, and my son goes to public school for a good reason. Ok, so maybe I can be a mini-pioneer woman, because we still have a lot in common. She lives “in the middle of nowhere” and so do I. Well, she might be more out there than I am, living on a sprawling Oklahoma ranch. But I have to drive twenty-three miles to the nearest Barnes & Noble. Does that count?
She may have given herself the Pioneer Woman moniker when she transitioned from working city girl to married country girl, but for me, it’s got nothing to do with the ranch. I think she’s a true pioneer for a different reason: she embraces her choice to center her life around her family, and she doesn’t apologize for it.
I like Ree’s spin on her role. Pioneer Woman captures it so much better than stay-at-home mom or housewife. Those pioneer women were revered. Their importance to the foundation of their family was appreciated. Today, women who choose to be “housewives” are often looked down upon. Ree writes about herself: “My days are spent wrangling children, chipping dried manure from boots, washing jeans, and making gravy. I have no idea how I got here…but you know what? I love it.” Then she jokes, “Don’t tell anyone!” Because she knows educated women of the 21st century aren’t supposed to be satisfied, much less fulfilled, by any of that stuff. We must still be brainwashed from prior generations if we choose to do our husband’s laundry or cook the family meals.
Hence, the battle rages on between working moms vs. stay-at-home moms. Women argue over which is better for the kids, but I don’t understand that debate. If you’re happy and fulfilled in your situation, then that’s what’s better for the kids. You know the saying, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” It’s true whether you work outside the home or in it.
A large part of Ree Drummond’s focus on her family includes making meals for them and even though it’s 2013, she feeds them regular food. Ludicrously, this too makes her a pioneer in today’s society where you’re shamed for eating anything white…or eating at all! One of Gillian Michaels’ food rules is to wear a ribbon around your waist so it gets tight while you’re eating so you’ll stop. Why not just have someone slug you after every third bite? That should keep you in shape. And let’s not start with Gwyneth Paltrow’s food rules. Suffice it to say, don’t eat anything you can find in your grocery store. (Let’s not pretend she’s an expert on health, because she admits to being a smoker.) There are so many people telling us which foods we must eat. Funny thing is, once that food goes out of style, you never hear about it again. Kale, anyone? “Nutrition coaches” were practically bathing in it last year. Then it was acai berry juice, then quinoa, and now it’s coconut water (or maybe that’s passé already, too). There are too many morning show slots to fill, too many beauty articles, and too many food blogs. People aren’t trying to make the rest of us healthy, they’re just trying to stay relevant.
How pioneering it is for Ree Drummond to be relevant by being traditional. By cooking some of her husband’s grandmother’s recipes. By making her home and family her main focus, even as she continues her love of writing, photography, and cooking. Even though that might not be the thing for everyone, I admire her for unabashedly embracing her choice.
As I said, my cooking skills are rudimentary, so I don’t usually turn to the Food Network for recipes. Still, when I watch The Pioneer Woman, I get the cozies. I understand the appeal of being the one who keeps your home humming. Comfort can come from doing something as simple as packing a peanut butter and honey sandwich in my son’s lunchbox every day. I can relate to her fulfillment in the life she’s chosen and the pride she takes in it.
Yes, she has a TV show, but it organically emanated from a life she was already leading. Personally, I think she’s pioneering a new definition of success, one not based on money, degrees, or status.
Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, recently started a “Lean In” movement. Her website describes it as “a global community committed to encouraging and supporting women leaning in to their ambitions.” I wonder if women can also support other women whose ambition it is to be the true matriarch of their family. In other words, a pioneer woman.

Saturday, April 20, 2013

How Do You Scream Midlife Crisis?

For future reference: t-shirt, not tattoo

Having a midlife crisis is so cliché that I used to think it wasn’t true except for balding men with small penises and red sports cars. Then I hit my 40’s and found out that men don’t have a lock on the midlife crisis. In fact, women seem to be hit just as hard as middle age creeps in. I know several women who have uprooted their entire lives because of it. If you’re not certain if you’re having one, take this simple test:
            Are you over the age of 40?
If you answered yes, you’re about to face your midlife crisis. If you’re still unsure or simply unwilling to admit it, the following are good indicators:
  • You’ve dyed your hair blonde or red for the first time.
  • You sing Taylor Swift songs at the top of your lungs alone in your car.
  •  Going to a Bikram Yoga class was your idea.
  • You consider the chair ‘yours’ in the Self Help section of the Barnes & Noble.
  • You’ve snuck to the theater to see Magic Mike more than once.
Any of this sound familiar? Hey, it happens to the best of us. And who can blame you? Hitting the possible halfway mark of your life is pretty affecting, for sure. You can’t help but take stock of where you are and compare it to where you thought you’d be. Even if you’re happy with how far you’ve come, there may be this renewed sense of urgency to do things you haven’t tried. After all, the declining years seem to be all that’s ahead of us.
Maybe that explains why so many of us revert to our youth. We’re going to fight that decline no matter what. So you’d think we’d take up running or slather on more SPF to help the effort. But no, going back to our youth in midlife crisis mode means denying our age and making the same mistakes we made back then. It means leaving all our years of life experience behind and choosing indulgent behaviors for immediate gratification. Everything we tell our children not to do. Over the years, more responsibilities have crept in to our lives, leaving less room for the carefree fun we’d still like to have. And we should remember to have fun! We deserve it! But not at the expense of the women we’ve grown into. Therefore, it might behoove us to remember some basic childhood rules that can also be put to good use during a midlife crisis. Let’s review:

            Don’t lie, cheat, or steal. Even, or especially, if you think you won’t get caught. It’s called having integrity and I’ve learned that it’s the most important character trait a person can have.
            Don’t do drugs. Except caffeine. I don’t care what your health teacher said, that’s a necessary one.
            Don’t get a tattoo. I’m not talking about the ones you might get in memory of a lost loved one or because of a military bond. I’m talking about the skull tattoo you think will look AWESOME during that daiquiri-filled girls’ weekend…only to realize the next day that you aren’t planning a second career as a pirate. On the positive side, your 10-year-old son and his friends will think you’re way cool (but they’ll be the only ones). And if you're considering one while sober, dispense with the decision between a butterfly, a heart, or a fairy. Just pick a nice font and have them ink Midlife Crisis on you, because tattooing Tinkerbell on your ankle at the age of 45 screams the same thing.
            Act your age. No one wants to see an 8-year-old throw a temper tantrum like a 2-year-old. And no one wants to see his middle-aged mom pick him up from school in a midriff shirt like a college student. Muffin top or not, it’s a bad idea. And a hangover should be a Bradley Cooper movie, not your regular weekend Facebook post. I'm sure we'd all like to be positive role models for our kids, not models of mistakes they should avoid.
            Play nice. The older we get, the more baggage we have, the more we might want someone to throw those bags at. But the common denominator in your life is you, so it’s time we stop blaming others. Take responsibility and try not to be bitter. Besides, the bridge you burn today could be the barista at your favorite Starbucks tomorrow. 

Reminding ourselves of our basic tenets might help us better navigate this rough patch. We should strive to be role models for the younger generation, rather than a Botoxed version of them. I would hope at our age, we have gained some perspective and confidence and grace along with some saggy body parts. That doesn't mean we can't explore what makes us happy, but I think there's a more productive way to do it. Take time for some introspection. Need more time with friends? More time alone? More time outdoors? Maybe those bald guys are onto something; buy an overpriced sports car! And for heaven sakes, put down Fifty Shades of Grey and take a field trip with hubby to the adult store! And then let's start to be grateful for what we have and enjoy where we are in life. Just remember, this too shall pass; nothing lasts forever. Well, except for that pirate tattoo.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

This Perspective Sucks


I miss the perspective I had as a kid. Watching cartoons and seeing Wile E. Coyote accidentally blow himself up every episode, his fur charred and smoking one minute, back to chasing that roadrunner the next. Donald Duck getting his bill blown around by Elmer Fudd’s rifle during Duck Season (No, Rabbit Season!). That’s what I knew of bombs and guns at nine years old.
At nine years old, my son knows that bombs and guns maim and kill people and not just during war or in far away countries. He felt the fear that the Sandy Hook massacre instilled, and the distress from the recent Boston bombings. He read about the horrifying events of September 11th. At nine years old, he knows far too much about terrorism…and terror.
Yes, there are good things that can be found after these tragedies, good people and good deeds. You can say that it makes us appreciate what truly matters. But frankly, I’m tired of the perspective this is giving me. I already hold my son tight every day and feel a deep gratitude for him and my husband. I don’t need any more perspective, thank you very much. I want to go back to taking things for granted. I want to start complaining again about shallow things like my diet and my hair. I want to focus on trivial matters like what I’m making for dinner or where we’re going for summer vacation. I don’t want these few sick, evil people to linger in our lives. It’s bad enough they touch our lives at all. I don’t want them casting their shadows over us as we travel, as we send our children to school, as we go to the theater or the city or the mall. I don’t want them to haunt our dreams or heighten our anxieties about our children’s future.
My friend ran the Boston Marathon on Monday. Thankfully, she and her friends had finished the race and met up with their spouses before the explosions. She came home to her kids, who normally would have been full of pride, but instead were full of fear. They told her they didn’t want her to run any more marathons.
As a community and a country, we can’t ignore these events. But as an individual, I want to disregard them as best I can. I asked my friend her time. I congratulated her on finishing the race. Of course, she didn’t bring out her medal, but I had hoped she would, because that’s what she should’ve been doing two days after that event, celebrating. And I should’ve been making my jokes about runners. And then my non-runner friends could be chiming in about what it would take for us to run marathons, like being baited by a Krispy Kreme on a stick. Because when we can be engaged in things that are frivolous and inconsequential, even silly -- that’s when everything’s right with the world. I don’t need more perspective to know that.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Slice of Life: Racking Up Mother of the Year Votes


Two nights ago my son woke me up at about midnight.
“My stomach hurts,” he said.
He's only gotten sick once in his nine years (on a bad hot dog), so I took him into the bathroom where he promptly, almost delicately even, proceeded to vomit six times into the toilet. Then he stood up and said, “That’s better,” rinsed his mouth out and went back to bed.
I tried to figure out what the bad food was that he could’ve eaten as we had all basically had the same thing. Maybe it was just his piece of chicken, I thought, and just to be safe, cleared out the rest of the boneless chicken from the freezer. He slept through the rest of the night and was fine the next day.
Last night my son woke me up at 2 AM.
“I have a question. Why am I burping and farting?”
I replied groggily, “Um, because you’re a 9-year-old boy?”
“Oh,” he replied and went back to his room where he promptly started throwing up before he could make it to the bathroom. The orange. He had a Clementine orange both nights, but because he’d been eating one every night for over a week with no problem, I had ruled it out. But after stripping his sheets and grooming the stuffed animals caught in the fray, it was definitely the orange. New sheets on the bed, assurances that he was fine, and both my boys (my husband and my son) were sound asleep again within ten minutes. Me? I saw 4:15 on the bedside digital clock.
An hour later: “Mom, I had a little diarrhea.”
“Oh, ok, honey. Do you feel alright now?”
“Yes, but it’s on my sheets.”
Strip the new sheets. Search the closets for extra twin sheets. Re-make the bed. Make sure my boy feels fine. He’s back to snoozing within ten minutes. Me? I see 6 AM, but finally, blissfully, I fall back to sleep.
8 AM: “Mom, what time does the bus come?”
I look at the clock. I’m usually downstairs fixing him breakfast and making his lunch by this time, but I have no desire to get out of bed.
“How does your tummy feel?” I ask, barely opening my eyes.
“It feels fine.”
“Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m ok.”
This is where my mothering skills really kick in.
“Well, you were up sick last night. You can stay home from school if you want.”
“Nah, I’m fine. Can I have breakfast?”
Yes, I know. Inadvertently poisoning my son TWICE and then suggesting he play hooky so I can sleep in might not win me too many votes for Mother of the Year. But the kid made the bus. And from now on, I’m forgetting the fresh fruit after dinner and going with salmonella-free Oreos. That should earn me a few votes, right?

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Facebook: The Good, The Bad, and The Annoying



Like many people, I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. On the upside, it’s gotten me in touch with old school friends, given me a plethora of daily inspirational quotes, and made me keenly aware of people’s contrasting political viewpoints. On the downside, it’s gotten me in touch with old school friends, given me a plethora of daily inspirational quotes, and made me keenly aware of people’s contrasting political viewpoints. You see the problem.
I think people just aren’t meant to have 300 friends. I’m certain the Friends category on Facebook was once culled from an original and more accurate label: Anyone You Ever Came Across in Your Lifetime
I had never really kept in touch with anyone from my hometown since being dragged from New York to Texas mid-junior year by my father who thought he was going to be the next J.R. Ewing (he wasn’t). So the nostalgia upon first finding these familiar pals was heady. Plus, there’s the aspect of wanting to catch up, like the first hour of a high school reunion. What does everyone look like now? What are they up to? But after many months, I began to feel like the girl who’s waiting for her ride to leave the party well past midnight when the beer is stale and my mascara is smudgy and the pounding music is making my ears ring. I just wanted to metaphorically go to breakfast with the people I connected with, and wave so long to the ones who hadn’t progressed much beyond their glory days.
It took me years before I pared the list down, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings if by chance they noticed their friend total went from 272 to 271. To unfriend someone seemed so harsh. But I finally realized that those particular acquaintances probably didn’t want to be besieged with every milestone photo of my son any more than I wanted to be inundated with their You Tube music videos “covertly” chronicling their dating life (love songs intertwined with sex songs invariably followed by break-up songs).
For me, a shared history is not enough to sustain a friendship, even a cyber one. When we were young, deciding whether to be friends with someone was often as simple as the proximity of your age, your houses, or your classroom assigned seats. In fact, a lot of times it didn’t even feel like a decision had been made. You just started riding bikes after school together or made the same sports team and before you knew it, you were friends. I’m pickier now, which at first felt a little judgmental to me. Then I realized – probably because of one of those Be True to Yourself type Facebook quotes – that I’m allowed to be choosey. I’m allowed to surround myself with people who are authentic and share my core values. I’ve been told in three sentences or less in those colorful little boxes with the cool fonts that I don’t have to put up with other people’s drama, ignorance, or negativity.
So now, four years later, I’m left with Facebook friends who I really enjoy interacting with on a regular basis. Especially with work, kids, spouses, and all around busy schedules, getting together with nearby friends can be a challenging endeavor. So to be able to just log on and share a chuckle, a tragedy, support one another’s career endeavors, or crow about our children’s accomplishments - all with a few keystrokes - seems pretty nifty to me now. In fact, it might even make being bullied to re-post someone’s personal cause (97% of you won’t do it!) worth it.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

My Blog Initiation


Hello, friends! Here is my first blog post…no pressure, right?
I was hoping that creating a blog would propel me into the realm of the computer savvy, but, if anything, I realize I am more techno challenged than ever. Now I’m aware of even more computer terms I didn’t know I wasn’t aware of. So I may be tweaking this blog as the months go by as I learn more about it, but stick with me. I really want to hear all your comments and stories, as well.
In the meantime, I’ll be giving you my take on whatever is rolling around in my brain that I’m compelled to put down on paper. I’m certain my husband will thank you for sharing the burden of hearing my riffs and rants. It’s sure to take the pressure off of him as he tries not to glaze over as I’m heatedly taking sides in the latest Real Housewives feud as if these were my real girlfriends or when I’m complaining how shallow all the celebrities are in People Magazine (to which I have a lifetime subscription). So I’m sure these topics will come up as well as things closer to home, like being a mom to my 9-year-old son. I know it’s probably Blog Blunder #1 not to write about one specific topic, but I’m not here to inform, only to kvetch. I’m not hip enough to try to tell anyone what to do. Yes, I know who Sheldon Cooper is, but I couldn’t tell you his catch phrase. (I’m thinking Kowabunga, but I could be confusing him with Bart Simpson.) This is why I still reference Seinfeld. Don't come to me for cutting edge.
I know there’s this new thing on Facebook going around where people say, “The moment when…” and then follow it up with something that happened to them. Not only do I not understand what they’re trying to say, it irks the crap out of me that it’s not a complete sentence. Is it not enough that I have to endure the misuse of your for you’re way too many times on Facebook? That I’m forced to hold my tongue when grown people who’ve graduated high school write a lot as one word? Now I’m supposed to be subjected to people starting a thought in the middle of a sentence? And will someone please be the first to inform me about the hashtag craze? I thought I didn’t have to understand it since it was relegated to Twitter, which I have quite successfully lived without since its inception. But now I keep seeing it pop up at the end of people’s Facebook statuses and it confuses the heck out of me. (And not just because you’re expected to read the sentence without spacing, although I think that would be enough.) I have to wonder if the pound sign has been following Bethenny Frankel’s advice and finally learned how to brand itself. I mean the # symbol has been around forever, but never as wildly popular as it is now. It seemed to have gone the way of the local butcher, before trying to re-invent itself to mean other things. You’d think being the tic tac toe game for children would keep it in demand, but its target audience is way too young. It got itself on every push button phone for decades, only to have it mocked by the * on the other side, which seems equally useless. But now the # has come into its own, borrowing from the Europeans and re-naming itself hashtag. It is now inexplicably being used in front of names, places, and nonsense sentences. It had me worrying if I could even legitimately have a blog without understanding the hashtag concept. Will I ever graduate to understanding plus one’s? (Silly me, I thought it was something you put on an invitation.)
I know this all makes me sound old and uncool, but if you can’t admit your flaws on a blog with your name plastered all over it for anyone in the world to see, tell me, where can you? #ThemomentwhenIrealizedthismightberead.