Dark Side of the Street

(Sung to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon")

The snow and ice stay on my grass
The snow and ice stay on my grass
I look across the street, theirs doesn't seem to last
My snow and ice don't melt so fast...

The snow and ice stay on my walk
The snow and ice stay on my walk
I'm just afraid someone will slip and hit the floor
That lawsuit I just can't afford.

And if I shovel and scrape like my neighbors do
But the sunlight never hits my house
I'm still out when the sun becomes the moon
Cause my snow and ice don't melt that soon.

My neighbor's driveway has no snow
He got it all away I know
I cannot seem to get the heavy ice to melt
Even with the shoveling pain I felt.

You try doing it yourself
To save some money
But hiring someone might be the key...

And if my husband starts the job but has no rock salt left
You shout to him, "Use more elbow grease!"
But even after both of you have failed to do the job
It's 'cause you're on the dark side of the street

And all of the flowers
That don't seem to bloom
And all of the plants
That wither too soon
And all of the snow and ice
That make you slip and slide
And all because your house location
Keeps the front shadowed outside
And all that you think is this winter weather you can't beat
It's living on the dark side of the street...

Backhanded Compliments

I just got one of the nicest compliments since I've moved to the suburbs 4 years ago...but it wasn't to my face. I was out to dinner with two friends, one is like family to me, and the other is a newer friend.

I guess the topics of conversation veered away from children, and as much as I love my children, I love to have conversations not including them and not around them, and we talked about many things...none of which fully come to mind, but we had a great time.

I left dinner and my two friends were still together and the newer friend turns to the older friend and commented how much fun I was that night and how she had never seen that side of me...I guess different than how she normally sees me around my children (the fun side?). My other friend, said, no, that wasn't a side of her, that's her!

Well, it just reminded me of who I am outside my kids. It's not that I associate my worth by them and have nothing else to deliver, I guess I just don't let loose enough when I am around them...Poor kids. I'd better learn to incorporate all of "me" even when I'm with them. I do want them to remember me as a fun person, not as someone who was always up their butts!

Did you ever feel like you'd lost that fun part of yourself when you became an adult? What did you do to get it back???

I'm happy and I love my kids, but I have GOT to let them see how much fun there is to life, and their mom, so that every memory can be filled with just a bit more laughter...

The Recession Haircut

As a mom of three kids 4 and under, I have very little time in the morning to get myself ready. I used to "enhance my natural highlights", which really means "color my hair", but I couldn't stand going to the hairdresser every two months to dye my roots back to match the rest of my hair, and I really didn't have time to do that with my crazy kids, so, I stopped doing that.

Then, I decided no matter what kind of style someone wanted to give me, all layers had to be long enough that I could put them back in a ponytail (another time saving technique!)

Basically, I had to do away with "high maintenance hair".

So, pretty much, I used to have fun layered blonde hair, and now I have brown one-layered hair. I used to think that was boring...but boring is so out...so I'm calling my style the recession haircut! Who has money these days to get their hair colored every two months at $200 a pop before you even get your hair cut???

So, if you cannot afford to spend the money on your hair, just get the hip "recession cut" - you just go natural. Get a good haircut that lasts 7 months, instead of 2, by keeping it long and unlayered! Stop getting highlights - that is so 2008.

I'll get a good recession haircut picture as an example tomorrow. But just think how cool people would sound with the "recession haircut"??? Okay, probably not cool, but at least you could give the new "do" a title without saying I can't afford high maintenance hair...

Ode to a Meteorologist

Ever since I was a little girl, I have always loved the weather. Well, maybe I can attribute this on my dad. I can remember him calling me in college. He was in Maryland and I was in Louisiana, and he would ask me about the weather. I'd tell him that it was a sunny day. He'd tell me that was impossible because he looked in the newspaper and saw rain. This is the same man, when I traveled through Europe after college, and would use my calling card to call him and check in, his first question would be, "How's the weather there?" His first thought wasn't whether I was okay or not, but what was happening in the skies above. Yes, my love of weather runs deep. Oh, and my dad is a lawyer and has no inate meteorological tendencies that I know of...

In fact, not to insult meteorologists, but I have always wanted to be a weather girl. That is one job where you can be totally wrong about your analysis and not get fired. I mean, it's Mother Nature, for goodness sake, and she is one testy lady who can change her mind at the drop of a hat! I always thought that if I could point well to the map, look good in front of the camera, and talk convincingly, I'd have a career. If I made a mistake, I'd just apologize and try again the next day. If there's one thing I know, there will always be weather! Hey, I would have meteorologists in the background to give me good information, like a good manager, but I'd be out there, makin' the calls! I can hear me now, "There's a low moving over the mid-Atlantic states that will bring rain to most of the area, but watch out, Northeast! I think this low is going to bring some icy conditions to your area tonight...maybe up to 3 inches of a slushy mix...but the temperatures should rise quickly overnight and change over to all rain by the morning rush hour!" Visual - I am swirling my hand over the DelMarVa area and slide right up to New York and Massachusettes!

I write this as I wait at my window to hear the icy mix that should be developing over my area this evening but should change over to rain by morning...

Songs in my head

Sometimes I walk around with a smile on my face because of a song I am singing in my head...Not from an IPOD or MP3 player of any kind. It's just random songs from whenever, and I spend my life with songs constantly running through my head. Good songs, bad songs, I have no filter. I could have heard the song yesterday or 25 years ago, but all of a sudden, I'm doing dishes and I start hearing, "All I wanna do when I wake up in the morning and I see your eyes...Rosanna, Rosanna". It makes me want to start dancing. I just wish the rest of my family could hear the song in my head and start dancing along with me. Kind of like a musical of my life.

I've always thought it would be so cool to have my life be a musical. I can picture it now. I am waiting with my husband at a coffee shop, ready to order, and he turns to me and says, "What do you want for breakfast?" The piano starts playing a quick little number, and I turn to him and start singing, "What do I want for breakfast? What do I want to eat? Isn't it nice, my darling, that we can sit and have some food together...what a treat!" And everyone in the coffee shop stops and starts doing some back up singing and dancing and then we all sit down for breakfast.

But it doesn't stop there...of course, there is drama in every day, right? So, at those dramatic moments, like when I'm stuck in the pediatrician's office and my daughter is so lethargic from her double ear infections (when I had just been there the day before but had not been diagnosed), and I realize that 40 minutes have passed and they must have forgotten my appointment, instead of having a conversation with the woman sitting next to me, whose daughter has also been forgotten and is climbing up the walls and screaming, we could talk and complain in song! We both could go up to the receptionist, the piano starts playing some sad, slow dramatic music and we say, "What have we done to wrong you? Was it the Christmas card we forgot???? You must know now my child needs help and if you don't see her soon - this song won't stop!" And it is such a silly moment that the other parents around us laugh a total loud, booming stage laugh, and we go back to our seats. It would be so much nicer than what we actually said to the receptionist...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I am so important that people would be interested in my life, in fact, in my perfect world, everyone can have their own musicals, and surprisingly, they would not overlap and cause accidents with dancers bumping into each other and all! I just think it would be fun!

My To Do List

There is so much I'd like to do
Write a book or a blog or two.
Start a brilliant charity
To help families with their sick babies.
Take guitar lessons and start a band
Become famous, now wouldn't that be grand?
But all I can think about at this time is that I have a baby upstairs with a bad cold...she only stops crying when my husband puts her in our bed and holds her...I am not going to sleep tonight. And the doctor told me that since she just has a cold and since she's only 14 months old she's not allowed to have cold medicine, which I know will put her to sleep, but god-forbid I give her the medicine and something happens to her because she took medicine I would never forgive myself, so I know I should stop trying to write and just go to bed because it is going to be a long night...
But if I didn't have to go to bed
I'd finish this to do list instead!