Category: Life Balance

Jeff Baumgart photo by Flickr Commons

Read the Fine Print. Lives on the Innerwebs Are Crappier Than They Appear

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Jeff Baumgart photo by Flickr Commons

A little bit of reality for you. Jeff Baumgart photo by Flickr Commons

 

On more than one occasion I have heard people declare, ” I have to get off of Facebook for a while. Other people are having a really good time at life/school/family/career and I can’t handle it. The perfection and happiness are wearing me thin. ” I will be the first one to tell you that the Book of Face can be quite irritating sometimes. Or I will have a come to Jesus with myself and realize I spend way too much time on there and I have to do my own internet-intervention.  However, it has never effected me so much that I get the blues from it. As someone who has lived through bouts of depression and anxiety in my life, I understand that everyone has their triggers and for some, the world of social media can send you into a sadness spiral.

As a person who is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and who writes this blog; I know that I put the highlights out there. And by highlights I mean the happy shiny pretty moments. While I did a post with pictures of my acne covered chin that erupted shortly before my 43rd birthday; I usually keep my posts on the pretty side.

A friends once said, “Facebook is the icing. I’m not going to put the bad stuff out there.”  They are your proudest and prettiest moments. I believe that this is the case for most people. That is the honest truth about all of the perfect family photos, postcard scenes from the beach, and shiny happy social shares.  99% of the time you are only seeing people’s icing. Not the fucked up, lopsided, burnt on the bottom, cake that is their real life underneath that glorious vanilla whipped goodness. That hot mess is all of our lives, but we don’t post pictures of it. I think this is because we can’t have a camera ready in time or we don’t consider those Kodak moments. If I could have photographed me holding my son’s head over a bucket as he vomited while I simultaneously gave a presentation on a conference call I would have. But I felt still photography would not have done it justice. Video would have come with audio, and nothing beats the sound of splattering puke in a bucket.

But let’s get real. Do we really want the awful truth everyday? Do we want to hear that someone ran out of creamer for their morning coffee, broke a nail, and missed a deadline at work? Hell, I use the Internet as an escape from the daily grind. Not for a play by play of other people’s tragedies. Maybe a little balance is in order. A few coffee grounds at the bottom of the latte to remind us that no ones life is perfect all of the time.

I will try to do that here and in other places you may see me on the web. Just look for the perfectly imperfect  lady with some gray showing with a husband, kid and several beers. If you’re lucky you might catch some kid vomiting videos.

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Reunions, Cute Shoes, and No Pants

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Style means something different to everyone in our family.

My shoes were awesome but they killed my feet by the end of the evening. Did I mention I think I have gout? Yes I am old.

Joe’s look is always effortless and obviously his feet never hurt.

Aaron was in no mood for clothing and instead donned his new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle underwear for this photograph.

We were dolled up and headed to my 25th high school reunion when my mother-in-law snapped this photo.  Vodka tonics and laughs with the fine folks who made high school bearable on Saturday night; a tour of the new school on Sunday afternoon. People hung around with the same folks they did in 1989, men had less hair, and nearly everyone had bigger waistlines. You know how those things go.

I hope you all had a great weekend and wore pants as little as possible!

You Can’t Spell Labor Day Without Vomit

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Now that I have finally removed all of the vomit smell from my hands I can tell you how my Labor Day weekend went. Yes, I said vomit. I will discuss that in a bit.

For the third year in a row Dragon Con rocked my face off. I attended a True Blood panel that included Michael McMillian (Reverend Steve Newlin), Nelsan Ellis (Lafayette Reynolds) and Kristin Bauer van Straten (Pam De Beaufort). The crappy series finale was redeemed by being in the same room as these three. It was funny and sweet to hear them reminisce about the show. Kristin cried at times and Michael did his “Daddy Dance” that he performed whenever he had to wear the hideous pleated pants Rev. Newlin wore so often.

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Notice I am not wearing any jewelry in this photo with Kristin Bauer van Straten

After a visit to the Walk of Fame I got to meet all three of them, have my picture taken with Kristen and had Nelsen buy my necklace right off of my neck. You read that right. My multi-colored wooden bead necklace by Iram-inal  was so awesome he just had to have it for his grandmother. Who am I to turn down a celebrity’s cash and a gift for a grandmother?

I didn’t think this Con could get any better; but I was gloriously wrong. Civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis was on a panel for his autobiographic graphic novel March. Not only did I buy it, I also got him and Andrew Aydin, the other writer on the project, to autograph the book.  If there is one thing that is consistent about Dragon Con, it’s that you never know what will happen.

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I think I will have this made into a poster

Now onto the vomit! Around 5am on Tuesday morning the kid woke me up with his screams. I got into his room and he cries, “I’m gonna throw up!” …then SPEW!!! With the lightening quick speed that only mothers with wall to wall carpeting would understand, I whisked him into the bathroom. Vomit in the bed, on the pjs and the child; but none on the carpet! You can say that my priorities are off; but you try getting that smell out of upholstery.

The next hour was spent with the boy in a bath of cool water (he had a fever), a load of laundry being done, and me catching subsequent pukes with a trashcan. All of this before 6am.

Did I mention that the husband was not home from a red-eye flight? Did I mention that I had two meetings that day? After sending an email to my coworkers telling them I would be calling into the meetings, sending a text to the hubs telling him to pick up Pedialyte  on his way home from the airport, and confining that the puke had taken a break; the kid and I laid in bed and watched cartoons on the iPad.

I will say this about being a working mother and I don’t mean to be preachy – You can do it and be proud of every minute of it. Don’t give into this whole YOUR KID SHOULD BE YOUR ENTIRE WORLD line of mommy thinking. I was not ashamed that I didn’t want vomit on the carpet. I was not ashamed to be excited about opening my laptop in anticipation of working after the boy went to sleep. I love my job and I am not a bad mom because of that. I was not ashamed that my hands wreaked of vomit after repeated washings (probably because I wasn’t going anywhere that day.) I was not ashamed that I was still pretty super pumped up from my time at Dragon Con so I waltzed through the entire episode in a good mood. I know you were spewing chunks kid; but I Lafayette likes my accessorizing!!!

How was your holiday weekend? I hope it was filled with happiness, awesomeness and as little vomit as possible.