Color Scheme

My friends bought a thing, aka a new house, so they're selling their old one. To actually sell the old house they have to repaint the entire place gray because people would rather buy that than their meticulously-thought-out-color-schemed-by-actual-designers one. Because people like to think they are creative and original when 80% of people's favorite color is blue and they're just going to put in whatever's trendy (and ultimately dated) anyway. 

  

Whatever. While discussing this with my girlfriends I suggested the color "Monterrey Bisque" because: "it's beige as fuck." My mom painted the entire house that due to her lack of imagination (which she admits) and is afraid of color which I can prove because she told me the neutral tiles I suggested for the back splash had "too much color." 🙄 

Anyway. We came up with our own designer-educated-suburban-color-pallet. Including: 

"Beige as Fuck" 

"Fuckit. Just paint it white"

"Suburban Sunkiss" (pale yellow)  

"Just a bit of green for pizzazz"

Happy painting!

10 years later

So. In 2008, that is 10, yes, 10 years ago, I started this blog with 100 things about me. 
Some things in that 100 haven't changed. Such as: 

• My favorite color is pink.
• I talk all the time unless I am exhausted or mad as hell.
• I do whatever Jeanne tells me (PS: buy her yarn!)
• I'm allergic to cats (including that mother f*cking one)
• Text talk is one of my biggest pet peeves.

Some things are in the past and therefore cannot change. Such as: 

• My appendix ruptured and had to be removed when I was 6.
• I had my belly button pierced until I was 21 when a drunk wrestling match went horribly, horribly wrong. 

Some parts of things have changed. Like: 

• In 2008: I know so much random pop culture stuff, but not as much as my friend LB. 
• In 2018: I know practically nothing pop culture unless I heard it on NPR. LB still knows more than me though so I have her explain things. Or have my (much) younger coworkers explain things to me (occasionally I get to tell them stories of my youth).  
• In 2008: I don't judge my friends. But everyone else is fair game. 
• In 2018: I don't cast my judgement net as broadly. I realized for the most part no one really knows anyone's story. So when I do judge it's typically warranted or I'm just being a bit (or lot) of an asshole.

And some things are just not the same at all. Like: 

• My dad was alive in 2008. He was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia in 2010 and up until he passed away in 2015 it changed so much. It changed my parent/child relationship with both my parents. It lead to some serious crisis's. I found courage I didn't know I had. The fights my mom and I got into. He died right before father's day and while I was pregnant with little turkey I'll never forget being there when he died, and how it it was one of the saddest and strongest moments of my life. I miss him so much and always will. 
• But the biggest most changing thing that has happened in 10 years is that I married the love of my life in 2012 and we have two children! 
• Because when I started this blog I had just broken an engagement. It HURT for a long time. It was hard. I grieved over my could have been, I vented. I cried. I was angry. I wished a lot. I wondered. I doubted. 
• BUT! Ultimately, many, many, much more wonderful things were a result of that broken engagement. Like having an epiphany. Discovering what I truly wanted in a a husband. I celebrated things. And came up with multiple, (often time) hilarious, random lists. So the day came and went and life moved on. 
• And life got better. I met dr.soc and we clicked pretty quick. He had 19 out of  21 of my husband checklist. I was so happy engaged to him and swirling around in the bubble of tulle. Sometimes I'm a great wife and other times not so much. Our marriage isn't perfect (no one's is) and there were tough times I didn't talk about here. But our marriage is good, it's strong, our anniversaries keep coming and I know I wouldn't love him the way I do if I hadn't given back that other ring.  
• AND, dr soc and I created our own family! Which changed everything. Parenting will probably be what this blog will be about more often than not. Sometimes I'm a great mommy and have instagram to prove it. Other times I'm bad mommy and phone it in. It's all about finding the balance. But now my future think is beyond my own lifetime. I'm willing to fight for things, to voice my opinion, and try to make the world a better place now for my girls. Motherhood is hard and very challenging at times, but it's also one of the most fulfilling and wonderful things in my life.  

So. Ten years later, here I am! I hope my life is just as happy in another 10 years. Thanks for reading y'all!  

High Hopes

Girl-2 is a burper. Which is perfectly normal but since Girl-1 rarely burped (she still doesn't burp much really) any burping, especially the juicy ones, we notice more. Dr soc and I (okay, more me than him) find burps hi-lar-ious, so we (okay, more me once again) have high hopes Girl-2 will one day give us a "Ben & Jerry's burp."

The backstory: Dr soc and I were on the patio of Ben & Jerry's one afternoon (either engaged or newly married) with a mom and her 2 kids, a boy and a girl. Out of nowhere, the girl (about 8) lets out this monster burp. I'm talking John-Belushi-frat-boy-dragon-roar-style burp, followed with a dainty "'s'cuse me!" I absolutely lost it, laughing so hard I couldn't stop. Dr soc was laughing too, but not nearly to my extent. The mom was mortified, but the girl was quite proud of herself judging from the smug smile she was giving her brother. From that moment on, that "Ben & Jerry's burp" was deemed the pinnacle of burps and utter hilarity.

So here's hoping one day, Girl-2 (or Girl-1, really, just one of them), gives a "Ben & Jerry burp" and I laugh as hard as I did that one afternoon!

Mother Russia

I went viral in my own way with the last blog post telling Facebook (and the world in general) to fuck off with the diet ads/products body shaming on my feed.

I checked my feed an hour or so later (because I'm on social media all the time and always close to my phone) and the targeted body shaming ads were (almost)* gone! Now the targeted ads were how to organize/take charge/fail less at my messy/chaotic family life. Body shaming ads to mom shaming ads.

*lets face it, there will always be a degree of body shaming even after the ashes of the patriarchy are scattered across the desert of men's tears

So hey, even though we know that Russia is totally messing around with us (though the chumps Russia fooled typically staunchly refuse to believe that) at least they are paying attention!
 

Go Viral

It's a not so secret dream of mine to have one of my social media posts go viral. Or make it onto the huffington post funniest parents and/or women lists. However nowadays people go viral for the wrong reasons (major embarrassment, social gaffe, racist/sexist/idiotic/etc behavior followed by (hopefully) public outrage), so "going viral" probably shouldn't be on my life's accomplishment's list.
  
Anyway, I'm on my social media a lot right now (I'm on leave, newborns are pretty boring, the toddler is every bit a 2.5 year old so I have to vent and daytime tv sucks). All of those platforms have ads which I normally gloss over and dismiss. But this time I noticed all the ads were for diet products, workout routines, waist trainers, supplements etc, all these...things in an effort to motivate me to become an even "better" me.

And I'm like, I just had a baby. She's not even a week old, we're talking days. I housed a tiny human in me and literally pushed them out of my lady parts. Some might even consider that the epitome of what a lady's body can do. Here I am, sleep deprived, mentally exhausted, sore everywhere, ice packs on my raw nipples, wearing diapers (postpartum life is disgusting y'all), super hormonal, in addition to raising two very needy small humans to not be assholes and I'm supposed to be pretty too? WTF?
   
So I posted this on facebook: 

All the diet ads/products on my feed imply I should be getting back to societal set beauty standards and be ashamed of my current body for producing a healthy baby. 

Guess what world? Fuck off!

Us ladies giving a middle finger to that mindset
I also like the prominence of my double chin and how I don't give a rat's ass 

I tagged my husband (because when it involves the kids that's pretty much what we do), and got a respectable amount of likes and comments applauding my fuck off. In fact, one of dr soc's friends copied and pasted my status and gave me credit on her own wall and she got lots of likes too! So in my own way, I'm going to count that as going viral.

Achievement unlocked!

Party of four!

Yup, we're a party of 4 now! Our 2nd little lady arrived on July 23, 2018 at 9:57 pm, right on the cusp of leo! She's perfectly healthy, so tiny and our hearts couldn't be fuller. Turns out my maternal instinct was way off since I knew this one was a boy. But meh, she kept making moves like she was going to come out for 2 weeks and getting distracted. So I started referring to the baby as my little trickster towards the end, makes sense my girl would fool us all.

We're all adjusting as well as we can. Big sister likes little sister well enough but sees her more as a novelty at the moment. She "helps" in her own special toddler way, she'll bring us the right size diaper when changing the baby, and she'll yell sing her ABC's to calm the baby down in a meltdown. She has even managed to wait on occasion when she wants something but the baby is monopolizing my hands/boobs/time/overall being. Dr Soc can't feed the baby at the moment (we haven't started bottles yet) but he is secure enough in his masculinity to embrace being outnumbered forevermore (probably-the dog's a female but won't live forever, and who knows how the kids will identify themselves). And I'm recovering at whatever pace I want, and taking a nap (and/or eating) whenever I can.

Thank Heaven for Little Girls!