If I just keep telling myself I'm going to do it - maybe it will really happen

It's starting to get hot down here in South Florida. Like - really hot. I know, everyone up north is all "Wah wah wah, aren't you the same bitch who was posting pictures of your sandy feet at the beach while we were scraping ice off of our windshields? Suck it."

But until you've received a third degree burn from your steering wheel and had sweat form a stain on your backside that makes people think you've had an accident, you don't understand the hot that is a South Florida summer.

With the heat comes two other gems that I love - the end of the school year and Hurricane Season.

I used to think Hurricane Season wasn't so bad. I mean, yeah, we might get some rain and some wind. We might lose power for a couple of hours. But no big deal.  That is until we experienced what will forever be known as The Hurricane Season From Hell.  It was 2004 and we boarded up our house not once, not twice, but three times that summer. We learned what it was to not have air conditioning in Florida, we learned what it was to have to grill every bit of meat in your freezer because it had all defrosted, we learned what it was to not have water and how to ration gas and how to drive in a world with no traffic lights (it's actually kind of awesome).

The next year brought us another nasty bitch called Hurricane Wilma who ripped all of the shingles right off of our roof and left us living in a world of buckets in strange areas of the house until we could get it repaired. I got to view our neighborhood from the top of our house while I helped The Man cover our sad roof in big tarps.

So now, every year, we hold our breath from June 1st to November 30th. We check TWC on a regular basis and we cringe at every alert that interrupts our regularly scheduled viewing.

About this time every year I decide I want to get the house all clean. I'll tell you what, it's a lot nicer to be stuck in a clean house with no air conditioning than a messy one. So every summer I vow that I'll get the house all cleaned up so if we do have to endure another hurricane, at least we'll get to do it in relative cleanliness and organization.

Except my house hasn't been really clean since 2007. I'm not kidding.

I mean, it's been presentable a few times - but only because I shoved everything in the garage or my bedroom or my office and closed the pantry door. If you looked close you would have found the nasty.

I'm a terrible housekeeper and my kids suck at doing chores. Like - they really, really suck and I'm really really terrible.  I'll pretty much do anything except for clean if I can get away with it.  I have great intentions - I want my house to be clean - but when it boils down to it I can't seem to make myself just do it.

But I'm going to this summer. I am. I AM!

I found a blog I fell in love with. And I've read a lot of it and I'm encouraged. I totally think I can do it with Nony's help. I'm just going to start slow and get it done. I am.

I AM.

Where are those mom's dealing with acne, hormones, dating, and Axe Body Spray?

I spent a good portion of today perusing other blogs. I was looking for something to write about and it sort of worked... because I found something.

I discovered while perusing other blogs that the majority of parenting blogs are written by parents of young children. Mostly they seem to be kindergarten or younger age and nearly all are elementary school aged kids.  So as I read these blogs I couldn't help but think all those thoughts that parents who have older kids think when they hear parents of younger kids talk.

"Hah. You think they're expensive now."

"You just wait until they want to date."

And my head gets all smuggy and know-it-allie and whatever.  Some of these bloggers have even written books on the subject of parenting and I'm just wondering how you can write a book about fixing a car when all you've ever had to do was change the oil and put some gas in. Amirite? 

Whatev. I'm just jealous because I haven't published a book about anything. But really.

I wonder if parents just stop writing about their kids at a certain point because the kids are like

"Knock it off, Mom, I don't want to be on your blog anymore."

Or if there comes a point when life just stops being so much about the kids and parents start focusing more on other things. It's true when I first had kids I was ALL ABOUT THE KIDS ALL THE TIME. I mean, you kind of have to be. You have to watch them 100% of the time, you have to sleep with one ear open, they can't survive without you. Like, they'd die if you didn't make sure they kept themselves out of the middle of the road and stuff.

But now they're a lot more independent and I can think about other things.

Like friends... I have some now. It's nice because for a long time my whole world was contained within the square footage of our 4 bedroom ranch style home. My BFF Trish is in that stage right now where her life is fully contained in her home and revolves around her two young sons. I do not envy her. I miss her a lot, but I do not envy her.

And I can do other stuff that I care about - like paint. I like to paint. I'm not that great at it, but I enjoy it and it's something that I get to do that has absolutely nothing to do with my kids.

I mean, it's not like I don't take care of the kids anymore - I'm still their taxi driver, personal chef, and house slave - but with them having their own interests, I have a little more time for myself. 

But as my kids enter pre-adolescence, I wonder where those parenting blogs are that have older kids - kids going through the teenage years and early adulthood. I do know of a few and I love these ladies, but we do seem to be sorely under represented. 

The one where I struggle with mindfulness - it could be a series.

Mindfulness is hard, y'all.

It's probably the single most important skill I need to have to be a successful human being and yet it's what I have the most trouble with.

Our society seems to glorify those that have mastered the art of multi-tasking. Doing just one thing at a time is so unproductive.  And I've fallen into that trap. While I'm grateful for my computer, it has seriously contributed to my attention issues.

I can be in the middle of writing a blog post and my email pops up.

"Hey Spaz - guess what? Someone's asking you something about shirts on Facebook." My computer sounds like Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused when it talks to me. Alright, alright.

Okay, okay. I know. Just let me finish writing this so I don't lose my train of thought.

"I don't know if you should hang on this, sweet thing. They seem pretty impatient. Unlike me. I'll wait for you all day."

Stop flirting Matthew McConaughey. It's been over between us for years. I've moved on.

And then I have to go over to Facebook to answer the question.

21 notifications? I really should check into those. But first I'll answer this question. Oh look, a puppy riding a bicycle!

And before I know it, I'm elbow deep in baby animals, gluten free recipes, and inspirational quotes; I haven't answered any questions and my potential customer already bought their Girl Scout shirts from some chick on Etsy; and I totally forgot what I was blogging about.

This is why I need to practice being mindful and why I thought Vesak Day was going to kick me into mindful overdrive.

It did not. I struggled. Social media down (for the most part), TV off (except for Real Housewives of OC on my lunch break), and focusing on one task at a time.

It was quiet. My head wandered. I got off-track. I faltered. I recentered. I focused. I lost my mind in the deafening quiet. At 3 pm I had to leave the house to pick Goober up from band practice and as I stepped outside into the dank South Florida humidity I felt as if I was being freed from a prison that was my own easily distracted head.

Waiting in the pick up line I clung to my phone and it's connection to social media. I facebooked, I tweeted, I felt my whole body exhale.

I'll get better. No one becomes enlightened overnight.

As an aside, there is an old Vesak tradition of setting captive animals free that I was pretty sure I just wasn't going to be able to participate in. Until our cat found a poor tail-less salamander in the house and decided to torture it. I've decided Mr. Salamander was tail-less before Smeagol got ahold of him yesterday, but I'm probably (definitely) fooling myself. I managed to get Smeagol to drop the poor little guy and I trapped him under a cup and used the old "slide the piece of paper under the cup" trick to take him, the paper, and the cup outside. Be free, Mr. Salamander! Happy Vesak Day to you!

Happy Vesak Day!

Today is Vesak Day in most of the world (it is celebrated on different days in different parts of the world due to variations in the lunar cycle - but since no one is telling me different, I'm going with today).

What is Vesak Day, you might wonder? Well, I'm glad you asked.

In a nutshell, today we celebrate Buddha's birthday. But it's so much more than that. Today commemorates the birth, enlightenment and nirvana of Siddharta Gautama. In countries where Buddhism is the major religion, this is a big deal. Like Christmas. Except for not at all like Christmas. Not even a little bit.

Today is the first year I will celebrate Vesak Day and I'm really looking forward to it. It's an opportunity for me to reconnect with myself and my beliefs and push closer to becoming the person I truly want to be.

I will celebrate Vesak today by rededicating myself to Buddhism and bringing myself back to mindfulness throughout the day. Today will be a vegetarian day and I will consume no alcohol or any other mind altering substances. Because today is about being mindful and you can't be mindful if you're half in the bag.

Today I will focus on cleaning my home, giving Buddha a bath (he really needs one), and keeping my head in my tasks. I will be staying away from distracting social media and the TV will remain off.

It's a sharp contrast from how we celebrate most holidays, isn't it? While most Western holidays have morphed into a sticky mess of consumerism and overindulgence, Vesak Day is almost the complete opposite - which I find absolutely refreshing.

I'll report later about how it goes with Vesak today. I'm excited to spend the day in mindfulness.

And now for something completely different - The Spaz discovers Iggy Azalea

**Note to Dad (because I think you might be the only one reading) - Don't click on any of the links, you won't like them. :) Love you!**

I am a product of the 90's.

I turned 13 in February of 1990 and had my first child in December of 1999. Literally, the entire decade encompassed freedom for me.

I embraced all great fads of the 90s. From NWA to Nirvana, Guess Jeans to my dad's old flannel shirts, K Swiss to Converse, Manic Panic to my tongue piercing, Adidas to Polo Sport, Clearly Canadia to Zima, and my little purple pager to my Nokia 5110 - I was a 90's kid.

And as a female coming of age in the 90s, it stands to reason that even at 37 years old I would find Clueless to be one of the greatest movies of all time. Much like the generation that followed mine latched on to Mean Girls with a passion, my generation loves Clueless. What teenage girl in the 90s didn't want to be Cher Horowitz? With her perfect blonde hair, blissful ignorance, and fat allowance, she was arguably the most enviable character of her time. I'd still like to be Cher Horowitz. (Side note, when in college I discovered that Clueless was actually based on Jane Austen's Emma my mind was officially blown.)

So, when I was flipping through channels the other day and noticed this video - I had to stop and watch. (Note: strong language)

When I showed The Man this video his remarks were "She's cute until she opens her mouth."
Iggy Azalea is cute. And this particular song is catchy and wins my heart with the Clueless remake. Me being me had to look further into Iggy to see what else she had done. It's been a long time since I've been up and up on what's new in the rap world and Iggy's music isn't exactly what I would normally listen to, but something intrigued me about her so I looked further.
I found out that Iggy Azalea was born as Amethyst Amelia Kelly and grew up in a little town in Australia called Mullumbimby. She lived in a house literally made from mud bricks that her father built. At 15 she dropped out of high school, choosing instead to work and save money by cleaning hotels and vacation houses with her mother. 
At 16 she hopped on a plane bound for Miami by herself. BY HERSELF. And never looked back. 
The mother in me felt my heart leap into my throat when I read that. If one of my babies got on a plane at 16 years old and flew literally to the other side of the world without me, I would crumble into a puddle of worry and heartbreak. 
But Iggy had a dream to be a rapper and maybe it was her youthful optimism and ignorance - but dammit, she did it. And whether you have respect for young rappers and that lifestyle or not, I will always have respect for someone who chases their dreams and doesn't give up until they've achieved them.
It makes a lot of the crap I complain about seem pretty petty when I think of her with "no money, no family, 16, in the middle of Miami."

Here's to not giving a rat's ass.

I came across this blog today and before I had even really started reading I stopped in my tracks at one paragraph.

"I feel absolutely no obligation to be aesthetically pleasing to others.  Oh don’t get me wrong, it is always nice when someone refers to me as beautiful, but I don’t feel it defines me or adds any value to me as a person.   Now admittedly, mostly women are expected to be beautiful, or at least aspire to beauty.  Women are often seen as prizes or trophies measured by their beauty.  I want more from my life than being aesthetically pleasing."

I want to read it again and again because I think it's a message I need more than ever.

I've reached a point in my life where I'm not young. Sure, compared to some people I'm "young" in years, but I'm beginning to notice things about myself that are decidedly not young person things.  I have gray hair. Lots of it. I shudder to think what my head would look like if I stopped dying my hair. My body aches - sometimes for no apparent reason. Fillings in my teeth just fall out sometimes. They just get old and crumble right out. I need glasses. Now, I've always needed glasses or contacts - but now I really need them. I used to be able to compensate my way around if I didn't have them. Now I stumble around blind looking for them.  Most of all, I can't lose weight like I used to be able to. I've always been chunky, but since I've been on this side of 30 I just can't seem to use some crash diet to lose 10 pounds anymore. So I just keep getting fatter.

Fat has stopped me from doing lots of things. It stops me from wanting to reconnect with old friends who remember me in my younger, thinner days. It stops me from wanting to meet new people. It stops me from going on adventures, from sitting in questionable chairs, from going roller skating with my kids. I'm working hard to stop letting it stop me from doing things. Because I do want more from my life than being aesthetically pleasing. I'm worth more than that and those people that get to know me don't give a damn how much I weigh or whether my hair is gray or whether I took the time to put on mascara. Those are the people that matter.

The Spaz reflects on being a Girl Scout Leader

As I've mentioned before, I'm a Girl Scout leader. I never really intended to be a Girl Scout leader, actually. When little 1st grade Munchkin and I went to her school for the Girl Scout round-up so she could become a Brownie, I remember distinctly there were leaders there trying to recruit new leaders from the pool of mothers that showed up with their eager little girls.

I thought to myself "No way in hell."

We signed all the paperwork and paid some dues and in a few weeks we got a call from a wonderful lady saying that Munchkin was going to be in her troop and that we were going to meet and all that jazz.

For the first few years while Munchkin was a Brownie, I was a helpful mom to the troop. I got registered and I drove the girls places in my minivan and I handed out stuff at meetings and I tried not to get in the way.

And then just before the girls were about to start 4th grade, I got a call from that same wonderful lady, who I had gotten to know by that time, saying if someone (me) didn't step up and help her out with this troop that the troop would have to disband.

"Do I have time to think about it?"
"No."

And that was that.

It's been almost 4 years since I got that call and I can honestly say that being a Girl Scout leader is one of the most rewarding, wonderful things I've ever done. I've had the opportunity to get to know these amazing girls - each with their own little personalities and joys and struggles. I've been so lucky to watch them grow from little girls to beautiful young ladies. Saying yes to this is a decision I will never regret.

In the past 4 years my co-leaders and I have been more active than your average troop. We've planned multiple events for our service unit, badge parties, and camps. We've spent hours, days, months pouring our hearts into making activities awesome for our troop and the other troops that attend our events. Our houses are messy, our husbands are exasperated, and our children need their mothers back.

So last weekend we hosted our last event - a Hunger Games Training Camp for our council. We had 12 troops come and compete and it was absolutely awesome. The girls who came were age 11 and up and it was really great to get to work with the older girls who have stuck with scouts past the time when a lot of girls move on to do other things. Every single girl I had the opportunity to work with last weekend was a pleasure to speak with. They were kind, they were polite, they were easy-going and friendly. They were strong and outspoken and confident in themselves.

This event was almost a year in the making and it took more planning than any other one we've ever put on, but it was worth every hour and every tear we put into it. The girls had a great time and they learned so much about themselves and what they could accomplish. My co-leaders are truly amazing and I could not be more lucky to get to work with them.

But now we're hanging up our event hats and just going back to having our troop and focusing on what our girls need to get out of Girl Scouts and what our girls need to get from their moms. Our girls are going into 8th grade this year and some of them will complete their Silver Award and continue on with Girl Scouts and some of them will move on to other interests. I'm so proud of all of them. I'm happy to be starting a new chapter with them, but sad to leave that old one behind. Change is bittersweet. 

The Spaz's Day Off

Yesterday was The Man's birthday. We celebrated it on Easter Sunday with my family who sang to him and made him wear a funny hat. Thank goodness we did, too, because yesterday became known to me as

The Day When Nothing Would Stay In My Body For More Than Ten Minutes

It all started at 5:30 am when I was rudely awoken to that lovely hot saliva thing that happens right before I'm about to hurl. I willed it away for about 30 seconds before I realized there was no willing it away. I was about to hurl.

You know what pisses me off about puking at 5:30 in the morning? There's no one to hold my hair back or baby me. The Man slept soundly while I wretched. It didn't even phase him. My groans of discontent as I got back into bed went unheard.  And then when the alarm went off at 7, I was still expected to get up and take Goober to school, wake Munchkin and Bug up, and make sure the day still went as planned. Or at least make sure the children made it to school. That was really the only important thing.

Sure, I could have shaken him awake on his birthday and said "Get up, Mister. I'm sick and you're on duty."

But what kind of martyr would I be if I did that?

At any rate, I did manage to make it through the day, thanking the heavens above that my kids are now old enough to pretty much take care of themselves and even make their own freezer pizza for dinner.

I spent the day wrapped up in a blankie watching Lindsay on OWN and Gossip Girl on Netflix. Don't hate. I did attempt to get a little work done, but the effort needed to get anything done was great. It was mostly about Lindsay Lohan and Blair Waldorf - all day long. And during the day, I asked myself some questions.

1. Why does the cat meow incessantly for me to pet him and then lay just out of my reach?
2. Why don't I remember eating that?
3. If Lindsay has a personal assistant, why doesn't he make sure to get her anywhere on time?
4. Have I lost weight today?
5. What do people from Manhattan really have against Brooklyn?
6. Why has no one invented a closet that washes and dries the clothes while they're on the hanger?

It's a great idea, really. Someone needs to figure that out. I'll be the guinea pig.

At any rate, today I'm feeling.... better.... still a little off but so much better. I'm planning on getting some work done today and doing a few errands so I sincerely hope I don't spread this funk around too much while I'm out.

I'm totally throwing out the Mardi Gras beads.

I just realized today is April 14th... which means that tomorrow is April 15th.... which means that I have to file my taxes.

I do realize I can file them before the 15th. In fact, every year I fully intend to do so. I get all motivated in January, thinking I'll get them done early and get them off of my mind.  And then I don't. I have to wait for stuff, yanno? And then.... math.... ugh.

Doesn't it seem like there are usually a lot more reminders about tax day than there were this year? Maybe I haven't been watching enough television. This year I sort of just pushed taxes to the back of my mind and was all "Yeah... those are due, like, forever from now. It's cool."

At any rate, today I realized I was really pushing it and decided to get started (right after this blog post, that is). But first I would need to locate all of my stuff. Forms with numbers for names. Or number and letter combinations. Forms that look official and that I should have been keeping in a safe place. A file perhaps.

And that's when I took a good, hard look at my desk.

Ah, my beautiful desk. The place where I spend so much of my time, a hub of busy activity, a cornucopia overflowing with everything that passes through my fingertips on a daily basis and then some.  It's a ridiculous mess.

The above picture is just a small selection of disaster. What IS all that stuff? Expired coupons, a patch that needs to be sewn on something for some kid, mail from my alma mater asking for support... my desk would certainly win on Let's Make A Deal.

Somewhere under all that mess are a few important tax documents I'll be needing for the good old IRS this year. So I'm hereby declaring April 14th to be National Clean Up Your Desk In Order To Find Your Crap Day. 

I think it might catch on. 

In which the Spaz doesn't care if you're a helicopter mom.

I read a blog post today written by another mother exasperated by the helicopter parent trend. To be fair, I sort of started skimming the post toward the end, but I'm pretty sure I got the gist of it.

Parents who coddle their children and make them the center of their universe are not preparing said children for the real world in which they will be required to function.

I agree with this. Wholeheartedly.

However, I really and truly feel like this issue is one that needs to be put to bed. It's none of my business how someone chooses to parent their child and it's none of anyone else's business how I choose to parent my child. Unless I'm opening the door for parenting advice, I think everyone needs to keep their hands in their own affairs and stay out of mine.

If you want to spoil your precious princess and teach her that whenever she has a "boo-boo" the world should stop and address it, then that's your prerogative. It's none of my damn business.

Just like I don't want you judging the fact that I tell my kids to "shake it off", I'm not judging that you whipped a first aid kit complete with happy face stickers out of your Thirty One bag. That's your deal.

I truly don't think this helicopter parent thing is even all that big of a thing. I have lots of friends with kids and we all went through the same phases.  When our kids were infants we kept them close and monitored them constantly. As they became toddlers we followed them around making sure they didn't choke or electrocute themselves. When they went to school we both cried and sighed in relief to drop them off with someone else for a few hours a day. Now that they're older and active, we let them do their thing - giving them independence but always being nearby just in case they need us. In my experience, this is what typical parenting is. Of course there are extremes in both directions - but who am I to say someone else is doing it right or wrong?

I just feel like there's so much judgement among mothers and women and it makes me sad. We're all (okay, well most of us) just trying to do what we think is best and we're all making mistakes along the way. Let's all just jump off the criticism train for a minute and try to support each other.