I have more to say

on the matter of John McCain’s VP pick, but I don’t even know where to start. I could begin with how transparently laughable a move this was, but I’m too insulted to laugh. Let me preface my gripe by saying I would’ve been over-the-moon if Hillary Clinton had been the nominee instead of Obama; I respect and admire her incredibly. But not simply because she is a woman. And although her gender makes her accomplishments all the more admirable, she is Hillary Clinton because her lifetime of achievements and capabilities define her. Not her vagina.

But apparently Sarah Palin’s vagina is going to fill the 18 million cracks in the "glass ceiling" left by Clinton’s departure. That’s one hell of a vagina. I’d pay good money to see that.

Shame on you John McCain for assuming gender is the reason for Hillary’s success. In one general sweeping motion you have painted her supporters as shallow feminist sheep, following the golden vagina off into the sunset. And Mr. McCain? Sarah Palin is no Hillary Clinton.

And secondly, you’re old. You’re 72 and have had cancer four times. You’re one misshapen skin discoloration from the casket. And you want to put an inexperienced, first-term Alaskan governor one melanoma away from the highest position in the land? You think her mad skillz as a rural town mayor is exactly what she’ll need to equip her as President of The United States? Hello? Zero Foreign Policy Experience? Sarah Palin speaking.

Smooth move Mr. Maverick. You really showed those undecided Clinton supporters exactly what’s going on in your shriveled, geriatric gray matter. And it ain’t pretty. It’s frightening.

Thanks for clinching the next Democratic president. You’re awesome that way.

Ahhh.....

just like a chunky burp after Thanksgiving dinner, the Biden-Palin debates in Missouri will prove to be quite satisfying.

Quite risky Mr. McCain, quite risky indeed.

Methinks the republicans are playing their last card.

And I like it.

John Jacob Jingle Heimer Schmidt

has never been paid such a tribute. It is with great happiness that I share such unbearably edible cuteness with you.



Resisting urge to bite his delicious cheeks.....

Step off Joe Francis.

Your toned, tanned, titty-flashing, barely-legal hollywood hopefuls girls ain’t got nothin’. There’s a new babe in town and she’s got poise, attitude, experience, stretch marks, a 401K and she knows how to cook a mean lasagna.

Introducing Mums Gone Wild – New England 2008

Scintillating, isn’t it?

It was either that or My Mom’s Homemade Bread Is Hotter Than Your Mom’s Homemade Bread.

They’re both real headliners, aren’t they?

This is what happens when my dedicated Dad, also known around here as Pepérè, offers to take my ceiling-bound monkeys overnight. I frantically pack their bags, hurriedly smooch their faces and try desperately not to stub my toe as I sprint to my car after dropping them off in his capable, coddling care. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my demon-possessed enthusiastic urchins children, more than I can possibly express with my fingertips on this keyboard. But, when given the opportunity to lie horizontally in the afternoon sunshine without opening my eyes every two minutes to make sure nobody’s hungry, thirsty, in need of sun block, unhappy, arguing or drowning, you can bet your sweet ass I’m going to take it.

It was a slice of hot strawberry-rhubarb pie, an hour-long backrub from Pablo the cabana boy and a soft French pedicure all wrapped in one sunny afternoon.

Try not to gasp with shock when you see what I’ve been up to:

Crazy, I know. I didn’t intend to be so reckless with my free, childless time but sometimes I lack self control. I’m working on it.

And with them rides my soul.

Watching hot air balloons inflate at my feet and float above my head always leaves me in slack-jawed amazement. I marvel at how gracefully fierce their looming presence above the treetops and church steeples can be, and at the simplicity of fast-moving air molecules treading so closely to a beautiful catastrophe.

I am so small and irrelevant standing beneath them.

I am so thankful to know that he’ll remember this day and refer to it often and incessantly. I’m also somewhat happy that he’ll remind me daily that it cost two hundwed and fitty dowwahs to ride in a hot air balloon and that he only had two pennies in his pocket. He’ll be disappointed about his lack of funds for a while.

I love this time of year with every fiber of me.

Two years ago

my family stood beneath the colored sheaths of humbling proportions, marveling and squealing at the sheer majesty inflating above them. It's that time of year again and I'm beyond excited! I promise to bring extra batteries for my camera and an adult diaper in case I soil myself in anticipation.

Camping can be fun!

Despite beach sand in your socks and torrential downpours of unwelcomed August rain that leave you stranded inside the arcade drinking an overpriced Slushie and handing quarters to your children every time the pinball machine cheats them out of their third ball.

Really. Camping can be fun.

It can be a wholesome family experience even if all the sleeping bags smell damply smoky and the daddy long legs have started a colony on the screened roof of your tent. It’s fun to lie there on your slowly-deflating air mattress, staring up at the ceiling while their long, spindly legs scurry this way and that, all the while knowing the only thing separating you from certain panic and blood-curdling screams is mesh. Did you know daddy-long legs aren’t actually spiders? They have only six legs. Trust me, I’m an expert on the amount of legs they have as I counted them over and over again while lying there in the dark, obsessing about whether or not they had eaten their way through my tent and were sucking the life from the sleeping toddler next to me.

Sand is for beaches. A leafy forest ground is for camping. Sand mixed with camping only makes for a gritty, impossible-to-keep-clean tent and sandy bits that sneak their way into your sleeping back and lodge themselves either a) up your butt crack, b) in your nose and armpits or c) up your butt crack. Either way you wake up scratching.

And partly due to my inefficient packing skills, we may have been without a few of the necessities that make camping tolerable fun. Like pepper, enough paper towels, and soap. Yes, I said SOAP. I didn’t pack it. Let’s just say I learned one of life’s lessons the hard way. Don’t wash your body parts with Head ‘n Shoulders shampoo. It burns.

Moving on.

Overall it was a regular camping trip filled with cheeseburgers, s’mores, canoeing, and general happiness.

Don’t I look happy?




That's because I'm drunk.

200 things for the 200th blog entry

I’ve hit “publish” 200 times on this little emotional rollercoaster of mine. It’s been cathartic, entertaining, embarrassing, scary and fun. But mostly I just like telling people I have a blog. It makes me feel special. So here are 200 amazing things about me that you never even knew you needed to know:

1. I like wearing black nail polish.
2. I adore my full breasts when I float naked on my back.
3. That’s really the only time I like them.
4. I’d prefer my feet to be one size smaller.
5. I like watching HGTV’s House Hunters more than I admit to anybody.
6. I’d breastfeed indefinitely for life if I had a willing baby.
7. I think html is exciting.
8. I don’t regret remodeling my home.
9. But I do regret not selling it two summers ago.
10. I’ve had an ingrown toenail surgically removed from my right big toe twice.
11. I’m slightly attracted to the holographic doctor on Star Trek Voyager.
12. I’ve also got an itty bitty thing for Benecio Del Toro.
13. Tim Horton’s – large with five creams one sugar
14. I like the smell of my toddler’s stinky toes.
15. I don’t have many friends in this rural town.
16. Sometimes it bothers me and other times it refreshes me.
17. But the friends I do have are friends for life.
18. I’m scared shitless of aspartame.
19. I feel so much at home deep in the woods, alone and hiding.
20. I was a single mother for three years.
21. Mountain biking makes feel powerful and strong.
22. I have two guinea pigs and they are my wittle babeez.
23. I rock them and sing lullabies.
24. I wax my upper lip and my children find my mustache hilarious.
25. I wax their arms just for fun and laugh at their pain.
26. I’m just kidding about #25.
27. Well I waxed their arms once just to show them what waxing was.
28. And I totally laughed at their pain that one time.
29. Moving on.
30. I wish it could be September in Maine all year round.
31. I am a Trekkie.
32. I think my husband would look hot as a Vulcan.
33. He fantasizes about me dressed as an Orion Slave Girl.
34. Google it.
35. I shop second hand for clothes.
36. It helps me feel less guilty for driving new cars.
37. Once I start a game of solitaire I have difficulty stopping.
38. My garbage man comes early every Monday morning.
39. But I rarely it get it down to the end of my driveway in time.
40. So I usually have four weeks of smelly garbage festering in my garage.
41. But I do have exceptionally clean bathrooms.
42. My sister is my absolute best friend.
43. She was the most amazing gift my parents ever gave to me.
44. I feel a twinge of sadness that my daughter only has brothers.
45. I am a conspiracy theorist.
46. But I didn’t stockpile canned goods and generators for Y2K.
47. That would’ve been plain silly.
48. I’m on an antidepressant.
49. And I’m very much okay with it.
50. I’m happier at this point in life than I’ve ever been before.
51. Despite being rounder, fuller and more voluptuous than ever before.
52. I haven’t had the urge to starve myself since the birth of my son.
53. I think that’s pretty amazing.
54. My husband thinks my boobs are pretty amazing.
55. I wish he’d stop grabbing them every chance he gets.
56. The kids are starting to notice.
57. Homeschooling has been an incredible journey for our family.
58. A snickers bar always lifts my spirits.
59. I’ve never been in a sorority but almost pledged in 1994.
60. One of my favorite childhood books is Tikki Tikki Tembo No Sa Rembo Chari Bari Ruchi Pip Peri Pembo has fallen into the well!
61. My least favorite household chore is folding clean laundry.
62. I admire my parents and aspire to follow their examples.
63. I did not admire them when I was 16.
64. I was actually a spoiled little shit at 16 and tried to give them ulcers.
65. To this day I have no idea why they didn’t sell me to the gypsies.
66. I sell Arbonne to myself.
67. I have yet to reach regional manager.
68. That was a joke.
69. I’ve given birth to two children but am a Mama to three.
70. The one I didn’t birth has taught me a lot about selflessness and real love.
71. He’s pretty much the biggest lesson I’ve learned in life.
72. And he looks just like me so that’s awesome.
73. I was married in Auckland, New Zealand.
74. I make deliciously eggy homemade waffles.
75. We eat them way too often for lunch.
76. I lived in Connecticut for five years.
77. Those years are slightly hazy in my memory.
78. Age 21 was tumultuous for me.
79. And intoxicated.
80. But so fun and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.
81. My long hair is a security blanket for my head.
82. I’m constantly putting it up and taking it down.
83. I dyed the poor mop black for almost ten years.
84. I had to cut it extremely short to remove the black color.
86. My husband tried to say something nice to make me feel better.
87. But he couldn’t hide the fact that he really loves big 80’s hair.
88. Now I curl it up nice and big like I’m a member of Winger just for him.
89. That’s commitment, baby.
90. Every Saturday night my husband and I get Ruby Tuesday take-out and watch Star Trek Deep Space Nine as our date night.
91. I look forward to our date night all week.
92. I listen to techno.
93. And I’m not afraid to admit it.
94. I keep my heels pumiced and lotioned.
95. Cracked heels are gross.
96. I give my girlfriends pedicures.
97. I adore my friends’ children.
98. That’s one of the amazing aspects of good friendships.
99. If I live to be 99 years old, please let me still have bowel control.
100. If I don’t have bowel control at age 99, please let me be too senile to realize it.
101. I have a biological father who I didn’t meet until I was 25.
102. I have an adoptive father who fell in love with me when I was two.
103. I have a step-father who’d do anything for me or my children.
104. I’m a damned lucky daughter.
105. Blackjack gum is my all-time favorite gum but I can never find it.
106. I don’t like or wish for abortions but still believe in a woman’s right to choose.
107. I grew up Catholic.
108. But I would never subject my children to it.
109. My children are not baptized.
110. I had a dog named Frodo.
111. He barked.
112. I gave him to my sister.
113. She plots my untimely death each night because of that furry black mutt.
114. My theme song is “Take On Me” by A-ha!
115. Ally McBeal helped me discover it.
116. I have a pierced naval and a tattoo.
117. I suppose that makes me a bad-ass.
118. I’ve road-biked 350 miles so far this summer.
119. I’ve got solid calves to prove it.
120. The five of us constantly bike together in a pack.
121. But somehow I always get stuck pulling the toddler in his buggy.
122. Why is that?
123. Willow Tree figurines tickle my fancy.
124. I don’t think I’ve ever said “tickle my fancy” with a straight face before.
125. We’re due for a family portrait this year.
126. I’ll undoubtedly obsess about how chubby my face looks.
127. Stretching with my Pilates band helps me relax.
128. Shopping for new shoes does too.
129. I have a fabulous hairdresser named Sheila.
130. I’m having a love affair with my Tassimo one-cup coffee maker.
131. My husband’s totally okay with it.
132. I’ve caught him giving his laptop a backrub so we’re cool.
133. I was a beauty queen.
134. No seriously.
135. I won a beauty pageant in 1994.
136. There were five contestants.
137. I’ll wait for you to stop choking from laughter before I go on.
138. ………
139. Need a hanky?
140. I’m an eBay junkie.
141. But to my credit, I usually only buy school supplies and books.
142. The cashiers and baggers at my local grocery store know my name.
143. They also carry my groceries to my car for me.
144. Small town charm is not lost around here.
145. I smoked cigarettes on and off for the better part of ten years.
146. I regret it.
147. Watching my mother continue to smoke at age 52 breaks my heart.
148. I find Celebrity gossip oddly gripping.
149. My little brother is a police officer…..shhhh…it’s the po-po.
150. His fiancé is a lawyer.
151. I’m very well-behaved around them.
152. I hated Bush before it was hip.
153. And I was talking about Obama in 2006.
154. I suppose this all makes me very special indeed.
155. Sometimes I worry that I’m raising politically angry children.
156. But I don’t know any other way.
157. I believe we’re evolving.
158. But I’m not so sure that it’s into something good.
159. I’d like to raise hens.
160. I have dimples in my cheeks and sometimes people poke them.
161. My sweet toddler’s got them too.
162. Which is good - because other than that?
163. He’s a miniature version of his Daddy.
164. I’m going to write a book someday.
165. I loathe commercials with a burning hatred.
166. I’m trying very hard to keep my children from growing up in the pop culture of Disney.
167. I want to smash High School Musical’s teeth in.
168. I can’t even find a toothbrush without Hannah Montana’s face on it.
169. I’m making myself so angry just thinking about it.
170. But bookmarks made from pressed flowers make me happy.
171. I love watching black and white movies from the 1940’s.
172. Particularly movies starring Cary Grant.
173. My husband and I eat pepper jack cheese and Ritz crackers in bed.
174. Sometimes I worry that Africanized bees are going to take over the world.
175. Blue Moon has been our summer beer.
176. I’ve eaten more butter-crunch ice cream this summer than I’ll admit.
177. I tried to build my kids a tree house.
178. I got as far as a triangular platform.
179. And then I ran out of wood.
180. I have a pumpkin patch.
181. I almost always stop at a garage sale.
182. My husband and I watch two Netflix dvd’s a week.
183. The dvd’s are always Star Trek.
184. I have a red-headed Scottish friend named Kelly.
185. She even wears a kilt and plays the bagpipes.
186. I’ve signed my name on the Eiffel Tower.
187. I play Webkinz when nobody’s looking.
188. I’m a part-time college student.
189. Because I’m a full-time Mum.
190. I drive a black VW Jetta.
191. I danced with gay cowboys in St. Louis last year.
192. I drink 64 ounces of ice-cold water every day.
193. It’s a good habit I started when breastfeeding.
194. My husband’s genius is his sexiest attribute.
195. My clothing just falls right off when he geeks it out.
196. My egg salad is kind of a big deal.
197. I didn’t know the difference between an excavator and a backhoe until I had a toddler boy.
198. But now I can name every piece of farm equipment ever made.
199. I was pulling my daughter in a little red wagon down main street the moment the planes hit the twin towers.
200. I’m overly-protective of my children.

That’s ten minutes of your life you’ll never get back. I hope it was worth it.

Even though our plan is three

and fallopian tubes have been tied, the forever maternal longing within me mourned the loss of something that never even was. A little whisper in my ear giggling it’s possible. Maybe this little egg tried to wake something in me that I’d long since folded and neatly put away in the bottom drawer. This little one wanted to get noticed. It wasn’t getting reabsorbed quietly or without a fight. Its’ refusal to pack up and leave town stirred me. It gave me sore boobs and a niggling hope. It made me silently wish for a surgical failure.

As it turned out, my doctor was a proficient surgeon and my fallopian tubes have not re-grown together.

It was just two weeks of lateness, fatigue, and confused anticipation. And really, that’s okay because I never had it to begin with. I only had a possibility. Possibilities aren’t always endless. Some end.

But the baby that occupied my heart for the past 14 days did exist. And I named her Daisy.

Because I'm easily amused

and have a giant crush on the sounds of Daft Punk:



Now imagine that with toes. I know, right?