Category Archives: nature

How to have the perfect apple picking experience

Posted on September 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

The sky is a perfect cerulean blue, there is a hint of chilliness in the air and if you listen hard enough you can almost hear the screeching death wail of summer. It’s finally time. Time to go apple picking! Because you promised yourself you would give the kids less stuff and more experiences. Which you didn’t actually mean but then made the mistake of mentioning it to them after your second glass of wine last night and they have NOT forgotten. 

The first thing you’ll want to do is get an early start. Because everyone else has also decided today is the perfect day for apple picking. And no, it doesn’t matter what day you pick. It’s always that day. 

Of course, this means gently herding everyone out of the house. And when that fails three times, screaming at everyone to hurry the hell up and get into the goddamn van. Which they will absolutely do after three trips to the bathroom, a meltdown over a weird sock bump and a fruitless argument about how many stuffies everyone is allowed to bring (in theory none, in practice three each). 

Now, no family-friendly fun-filled trip to the apple orchard is complete without a scenic drive down some picturesque roads. Try to remember this beauty and wholesome moment together as you finally arrive and immediately get into the Parental Parking Lot Fight. Because the driveway is right there. Right THER…well, you passed it. No, that’s the exit. Turn LEFT! Right THERE. See the sign! No, to the LEFT. Not that parking lot, it clearly says birthday party parking, the OTHER one. 

Don’t worry though. Any lingering anger over parking (and then getting out and then getting back in and parking again because you were wrong, it WAS the birthday party parking lot you were supposed to go to, not that you’ll ever admit you were wrong, the signs are stupid and confusing), will eventually dissipate when you head to the cashier and the Sticker Shock sets in. Because it IS that much. And no, it doesn’t include that. Or that. Those are separate tickets. 

But hey, you made it! It’s important to note here that the first ten minutes of apple picking is the Actual Genuine Fun Window. Savor this. Even when something in a hay bale bites your butt, ignore it because the kids are literally full of joy right now and running around in nature, squealing with delight in the fresh air. It’s downright magical. This is the time to take 600 almost identical photos. 

Soon however, you’ll notice how hot it is. It’s really hot. Stupid hot. Because every year you think September will feel like fall but it never does. Why did you wear a sweater? And why is this orchard so big? Oh, and look, somehow your youngest pulled off an entire branch of an apple tree even though she is the size of a pixie and you could yeet her over to the pear tree section if so inclined. And you don’t even know where your other kid is. 

This is when you’ll remember you saw a hard cider tent on the brochure. 

In total, there will be no less than five sibling fights, three tantrums and one dramatic storming off (before said stormer realizes there is nowhere to storm off to in this godforsaken Land of Endless Apples). Feel free to get creative with your hissed threats. As in “I swear to god if you little gobshites don’t knock it off we will sell you to the farmer and he will use you as scarecrows.” And don’t worry if anyone else hears you. They will be too busy threatening their own kids. 

After lugging a gigantic bag of apples around (one bushel being the equivalent of 780 apples) there is nothing you’ll want to do more than rest and have a hard cider. Which is why next on your agenda is going through the mazes! All three of them! None of which are anywhere close to you or close to each other.  

The first maze will take forever, which is why when you end up coming out the entrance you accept victory because at one point you did have a fairly legitimate fear you would die in there. 

Luckily the second maze is kids-only. Make sure to stand in the hot sun next to the super chill parents that use phrases like “it’s such luxury garbage” so that you and your partner can bond over how much you hate these other parents while you wait. 

Time for an apple cider donut break! Which you’ll awkwardly eat standing up on exhausted legs after standing in a 20 minute line because one of the kids saw a bee over by the picnic tables and refuses to get within ten feet of them now. But the good news is the hard cider tent is also nowhere near the apple cider donut stand. 

After fighting over caramel apples (because you are NOT getting back in that line) and pulling the youngest out of the goat pen that she somehow managed to get inside of, you will be ready to pack it up and call it a day. Once you find your other kid. 

Oop, but you forgot about the third maze and you PROMISED. And yes, the third maze is in the complete opposite direction of the parking lot. On the plus side, you will be only the second loudest arguing family in the maze, the first being the one led by Nate, as in “Dammit Nate, how do you keep finding every single dead end!?” If you make it out alive, you’ll hope to befriend these people who are just as miserable as you. 

It goes without saying but the hard cider tent is also not inside this maze. 

Finally it’s time to head home. After buying two gigantic pumpkins PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE that you’ll have to lug all the away across the parking lot because you just don’t have any fight left in you. 

As you drive away, you will finally see the hard cider tent. You give it a sad little wave and head off into the sunset, on your way back home where you will look up apple pie recipes that you never actually intend to make. 

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Posted in cooking, Family, Food, funny, Humor, nature, Parenting

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How to play with your kids in the snow

Posted on February 16, 2021 | Leave a comment

There are some people in this world who will tell you that there is no “right” way to play with your children in the snow. These people are wrong. And probably serve their children fruit as “dessert.” 

There is a right way. Oh sure, a few details might vary and there is some accounting for individual family quirks, but on the whole, no matter how good of a parent you are, snow days follow an almost scientific formula. At least according to the data I have collected over the last seven years. 

First, any proper snow day begins by the children waking up at dawn, looking outside their window and then immediately running into your room, where they jump on your face and loudly ask if they can go play in the snow. They will then repeat this question every five minutes and whine “but you PROMISED!” over and over and over again until you finally roar “FINE!” at the top of your lungs and they scamper away squealing with delight like the relentless, adorable gaslighters they are. 

Then begins the thankless task of gathering all the outerwear, which were scattered to the distant four corners of your house the last time your children played in the snow. In between muttering obscenities about missing gloves and yelling about how in the world can all the snow boots only consist of the left snow boot, you remind everyone to go potty. Because once all these layers are on you are NOT taking them all off again. 

The next half hour is a blur of stuffing tiny humans into snowpants and socks and sweaters and hoodies and hats and one glove while still looking for the other stupid glove and sunglasses for the kid who can’t go anywhere without sunglasses and scarves and ya’ll peed, right, because I’m not taking all this off again and ah-HA! there is that other stupid glove and what do you mean you lost the first glove, it was literally on your hand, and coats with stuck zippers and I told you the other snowboots were probably by the door and push harder, when did your feet grow, why are you growing all the time, and HEY, I found the glove, it was in mommy and daddy’s room, I told you stay out of our room.

Finally everyone is ready. 

Everyone has to pee. 

Repeat. Repeat it ALL. 

Now if you have a big backyard and can simply open the door and release these loud toddling bundles into the wintry wild, stop reading here. Go contentedly sigh and enjoy a glass of wine in your dumb peaceful house or something.

For those of you who are like me and have small children in a city and thus need to “go somewhere” such as a park to play in the snow, the worst is yet to come. 

Once you finally “get somewhere” (which, regardless of how you get there, will include many complaints and gritted teeth threats) there will be approximately ten minutes of pure, unadulterated joy. This is the brief moment in time where you remember why you decided to have children in the first place and why you love them and your family and your life and how did you possibly get so lucky as to be able to share a life with these people? 

Then, just like the cheap plastic sled they sit upon, it all swiftly goes downhill. 

Soon, someone will run over someone else with their sled because the kid on the sled didn’t listen and the kid climbing back up the hill didn’t listen. Everyone is crying. 

They need a distraction. LET’S BUILD A SNOWMAN! Is there any activity that is more wholesome? Nope. At least for the next three minutes, after which you realize that you are the only one actually building the snowman and you can no longer feel your fingers. 

Luckily, someone will always, inevitably, suggest a snowball fight. What could go wrong? 

No aiming for the face, you yell over and over again. Surprisingly the kids abide. Eventually, however, you will hit one of the children in the face. By “accident” of course and not some subconscious urge. They will cry. You will feel awful (mostly). You will offer cookies and hot chocolate as consolation when you go back home. They will accept and immediately pop up like nothing happened. 

You stay until both feet are completely numb and you’re pretty sure you’ve already lost three fingers to frostbite. When you finally can’t take it anymore, you give a five minute warning. May as well have been announcing you murdered Memaw AND Grandma AND Daniel Tiger. The wailing. The keening. The dramatic protestations that if you really loved them you would let them play for just a little longer. 

Through sheer force of will (and some light dragging), you eventually wrangle them home and inside. Everyone violently disrobes, snow and ice and boots and gloves and hats flying, everything wet and gross and dirty. You are too tired to gather them all up even though you know you will later regret this. 

It’s over. You survived. 

Only a thousand more days until spring. 

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20 Things To Be Thankful For in 2020

Posted on November 24, 2020 | Leave a comment

I’ve been reading a lot of pretty mom blogs lately. You know, those blogs written by moms with shiny hair and actual fruit bowls on their tables? (Filled with fruit they actually eat.) The moms who have probably never told their preschooler “oh, bite me” as a rebuttal during an argument. (She won, by the way.) The moms who actually earn money from their writing? (Dirty accusing glare to all the people not reading this.) 

And right now, all the pretty mom blogs are doing a “what I’m thankful for” post. All of which have some version of this sentence: “This year, perhaps more than any other year, it’s important to focus on what matters most in life and remember that we should be thankful for these things, not just on Thanksgiving day, but every day.” 

Pfft. LAME. 

However, they’re not wrong. This has been a rough year for all of us. So maybe it couldn’t hurt to focus on what really matters, even though it goes against the very most basic core of my entire personality. 

And thus, I present, the 20 things I’m thankful for in 2020.

  1. My health. Which is good. Despite my body being composed mostly of coffee and whiskey.
  2. My husband and our two wonderful children. They mean everything to me. It’s so nice to have everyone home all the time, working and learning remotely. And I mean, all the time. All the time. ALL. THE. TIME. And even though the little one threatened to kill me the other day (it was veiled but it was definitely a death threat) we couldn’t be closer. So close. All the close. 
  3. A roof over my head. And it doesn’t even leak. And below that roof are walls and floors. Filled with mice. City mice. Who will never leave because nothing scares them and they are much, much smarter than we are. Although I haven’t ruled out making them chip in for rent.
  4. My dog, Buffy. Who at 15 is alive and healthy(-ish) and still loves to go on walks. I know you’re expecting me to say something snarky here about him but honestly, what kind of monster makes fun of a beloved elderly dog that has been a constant companion and who has farts so rancid they make rotten eggs smell appetizing. 
  5. Nature. Majestic, beautiful nature. So majestic and beautiful that I don’t even mind the mountains of Claritin I have to snort like cocaine every morning in order to step outside.
  6. Technology. For all it has done, especially during this pandemic, but mostly because it has allowed me to lock myself in the attic and have happy hour over Zoom with my friends while my children wail and bang on the door. 
  7. Speaking of which, my friends, both near and far. All of whom don’t bat an eye when my humor goes to a dark, dark place. 
  8. The sound of my children’s laughter. 
  9. The sound of my children sleeping.
  10. The sound of my husband yelling at my children because they won’t listen to me.  
  11. Wine.
  12. Did I say coffee yet?
  13. Food. Because it’s good. I don’t know. I’m losing steam. Twenty is a big number. 
  14. Oh! Peace. That’s a thing that’s always on these lists, right?
  15. Deep fried stuffing balls. They are the best thing I’ve ever created in my life (my kids coming in at a really close second though). 
  16. Alton Brown’s Thanksgiving turkey recipe. 
  17. Alton Brown.
  18. Oceans. They’re super cool. 
  19. That 2020 is slowly marching toward its death. 
  20. All y’all. The ones who read these ridiculous things week after week. And on purpose, no less. Thank you, truly, from the bottom of the pit where my heart should be. 

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Posted in cooking, Family, Food, funny, Health, Holidays, Humor, Marriage, nature, Parenting, Writing

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Not all that glitters is marigold

Posted on June 23, 2020 | 1 comment

I once was very mean to a marigold. It wasn’t anything personal. It was merely in the name of science.

Specifically, that name was the Fourth Grade Science Fair. The birthplace of so many childhood wrongs. Somehow I had convinced my teacher of the merit of the hypothetical question “Does Being Nice to Plants Help Them Grow?” A fantastic scientific query when you are both lazy but insecure about being lazy and want to make it kind of seem like you care while doing minimal work. 

So I planted two marigold seeds. Once I day I would sing to one and read it books and was on my best behavior. The “grandma is over for a visit and it’s her birthday” behavior. 

And to the other one I was verbally abusive in that unique, dark, unholy way that only a 10-year-old girl can be. 

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I don’t remember my official “results” or even my grade. The only conclusion I took away was the knowledge that the entirety of this one marigold’s life was having a freckled brat angrily try out new curse words on it when her mother wasn’t around. 

This lingering guilt likely explains my current awkward relationship to plants. Why I have never gardened. Why house plants stress me out. Why I prefer to let plants run wild and free in nature. I do not, under any circumstance, want to be responsible for them. As soon as they are in my care, I feel the crushing burden of having to keep them not only alive, but happy. And I don’t necessarily trust myself with the weight of this commitment considering I have seen the immoral results of my former mad scientist self. 

I killed a flower WITH WORDS.

I’m a monster. 

Which brings me to last week. There are always consequences when one tries to play God with Nature. Mine came in the form of my friend Melissa, who very sweetly and generously surprised my kids with their very own starter vegetable garden kit. Complete with 15 different seed pods. It was one of those enrichment activities I’d heard so much about but have never, ever done with my children. I wasn’t worried though. At least at first. I assumed like most other things that were good for us, my family and I would talk excitedly about it for 15 minutes and then forget about it completely. 

Oh, but then how their eyes lit up. For the first time in a long time. They were engaged. They were getting along. They were happy in a way I hadn’t seen since school shut down. 

Sigh. 

So we planted the tiny seeds in the tiny pods while the kids peppered me with one thousand questions. All of which I enthusiastically answered wrong because I know zero about gardening but still wanted to encourage their newfound passion.

“Momma! What are turnips!?”

“Sad onions!”

“How did turnips get their name!?”

“They were discovered by Joe Turnip of Indiana!”

“What do leeks taste like?”

“Like celery that is wearing a bow tie!” 

And from there things started to spin out of control. I casually asked my mom to help me find something to put all these seed pods in because she knows more about gardening than her marigold murdering daughter. Before I knew it, a large garden bed, a toolkit, adorable tiny gardening gloves and four giant bags of soil were making their way to my house. Because a Memaw who misses her grandchildren and who has an Amazon Prime account at her disposal is a dangerous creature. 

Then my husband started talking about how we’ll need a trellis for the tomato plants and maybe a tiny fence to keep out the bunnies and maybe we could plant some sunflowers too. 

And daisies, added my daughter.

And tulips, added my son. 

And, lo and behold, I am now the reluctant owner of a garden. Responsible for the health and happiness of dozens of tiny lives. Which means I’m obsessively watching them and constantly questioning if I’m over or under watering and following my husband around the house telling him about all the awful things I learned on Google today.

“Did you know some ancient religions thought plants had souls?”

“Did you know trees make cries for help? Like when they’re in danger or thirsty?”

“Did you know plants know when they’re being eaten? They send out defense mechanisms to try to stop it.”

Sigh. 

I guess the punishment fits the crime. As they say, the arc of history bends toward justice. 

But as they also say, you can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her like it. 

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Posted in Education, Family, Food, funny, Humor, nature, Parenting, science

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Honey, I screwed up the kids

Posted on April 14, 2020 | Leave a comment

We are living through historic times. Unprecedented times. And with any luck my family and I will make it out of these times and, many years from now, my great grandkids will gather around and ask to hear all about the time Gam Gam lived through the Great Coronavirus of 2020. And I will tell them, my voice dripping in rich sepia tones, tales of staying up late into the night writing novels to stave off the insanity, the feasts I cooked to stave off the boredom, the endless books the children and I read to stave off the despair. And how we all hugged each other a little tighter each day to remember why isolation, as hard as it was, was important. 

I will tell them all these things and many more because I am going to lie. Lie so hard. All the lies. 

Because here’s the thing. Saying I ate my weight in delivery pizza and wine while battling depression and insomnia just doesn’t have quite the same ring to it. 

“And late one night, children, Gam Gam had so much to drink that she went on Amazon and bought roller skates for herself, completely forgetting she was 38-years-old and this activity would likely kill her. Oh no, I wasn’t a hero. Just a proud patriot doing her duty.”

This is all assuming, of course, that I eventually have great grandchildren. That I don’t screw up my children so thoroughly during this isolation period that they are able to eventually turn into semi-functioning adults who have families of their own. 

It ain’t looking too good so far. My kids are looking to me for structure, for guidance, for how to handle all the Very Big Feelings they are going through. And I, in my raggedy pajamas and roller skates, am looking back at them while eating an entire wheel of cheese and crying a little bit. 

There’s a reason why they say it takes a village to raise a child. It’s so that a child has multiple people to model for them how to survive in this world. People who don’t have a special Math Homework Cocktail she invented. 

It also doesn’t help that we can no longer do the things all those “parenting experts” hammered into our heads that we absolutely had to do in order to raise happy, healthy children.

Get your kids out in nature as much as possible!

Our yard is the size of a postage stamp and the parks are overrun with everyone else whose backyards are the size of postage stamps. 

Kids need unsupervised and unstructured play time!

Fantastic. Will you tell them that? Because they won’t leave me alone and I have nowhere to hide.

Be the calm in their storm! 

I respond to tantrums in only one of two ways anymore, depending on how little sleep I’ve gotten. It’s either dramatically screaming back or responding calmly that I will set their tablets on fire if they don’t knock it off. 

Limit screen time!

My son spends roughly three hours on screens doing school work, which means his younger sister is also in front of a screen for three hours unless I want to deal with a three hour long tantrum. And then when my son is done with school he wants more screen time because his screen time was school screen time, not fun screen time like his sister, so he gets fun screen time, which means his sister gets more screen time because I don’t know what I’m doing and can never seem to win these arguments. 

All of this, of course, with no end in sight.

Then, one morning after another sleepless night spent pointlessly worrying, I was helping my son with his reading assignment online. Every time he completed a task, a small snippet of a song would play. Just maybe ten seconds or so long. I happened to look over at him at that moment and saw that he was crying. 

“What’s wrong, baby!?” I asked, immediately assuming it was the stress from the schoolwork and ready to set the laptop on fire if so (I might have a problem). 

“It’s just so beautiful.”

“What is?”

“The song. It’s just a really beautiful song.” And a few more crocodile tears squeezed out. 

It wasn’t a beautiful song. In fact, I’m pretty sure it included bagpipes. But I started crying too. Because as I looked at him, I remembered that my kids have complicated emotions and deep intelligence and vast interior lives that I’m not privy to (even though on certain days it feels like they do, in fact, tell me every single thought in their heads). That they are strong and resilient and adaptable. That they are fantastic creatures that can be moved to tears by the beauty of music. 

And I realized it’s going to take a lot more than this to ruin them. All of them. The kids will be alright after all.  

 

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A Nightmare in Elm Trees

Posted on September 3, 2019 | Leave a comment

It was a cloudless blue day in late summer. The kind of blue that made the heart ache with possibility. The kind of day made for adventures. 

And it was in that spirit of happy potentiality that the little family began packing up their car for a weekend away in the woods. Backpacks full of toys, a small suitcase filled with hoodies and bug spray, a cooler loaded with beer and marshmallows. The father grunting as he loaded the trunk, the children squealing and chasing each other, the mother watching fondly but also desperately trying to remember what she forgot because it was definitely something. 

How could they possibly know under that perfect sky that they were walking into a horror story? (Other than the fact it’s the premise for an entire genre of horror stories?).

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The drive passed quickly and uneventfully. The cabin was small and cozy. They only had one neighbor in this isolated part of the New Hampshire woods. A lone man wearing flannel staying at the other cabin across a copse of trees. The mother joked that he looked like Ted Bundy. The father laughed. Because it’s all fun and games until someone gets murdered. 

For now, it was peaceful. Quiet. Which is probably why the mother was able to hear it. Barely perceptible, but definitely there. She had just sat down and opened her book when a low moan rose up out of the woods. She looked around but when she didn’t see anything, decided to ignore it, managing to read three whole sentences before hearing it again. Only it was a little louder this time. 

“…oooooooommmmmm….”

“Hello?” she practically whispered. “Is…is someone there?”

The woods answered back with the light rustling of leaves in the wind. After a few more moments, she turned her attention back to her book. Finding time to read was a luxury and she refused to waste it. But just when she had finally relaxed, releasing the tension in her shoulders that had been there since the birth of her oldest, there was that sound again. Louder. Much louder. An unearthly wail. 

“MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!” 

No. No, it can’t be, she thought. But it was. Suddenly, like a pop-up book from hell, her two children appeared on either side of her, loudly complaining that they were already bored. 

They had only arrived 20 minutes ago. 

The mother screamed. 

Meanwhile, the father was in the cabin unpacking. Although beautiful late afternoon sunlight filtered in through the windows, the man couldn’t shake the black, foreboding feeling that something wasn’t right. He checked and double-checked all the bags. Everything seemed in order. When suddenly…

“Honey!” he screamed in terror. “We forgot the graham crackers!” 

There are some who say the inhuman wails of the children upon learning this news could be heard as far away as Vermont. 

After that, it was as though the children were possessed. “S’MORES!” they screeched while clawing, grabbing, tearing at their parents with small but freakishly strong hands. “S’MORES!”

Somehow the father managed to escape, fleeing in dread to the car. Twenty minutes later, he was running blindly through the streets of the only nearby town.

“Help! Someone help! I need graham crackers!” His words echoed off the empty buildings. “PLEASE! I left my wife alone with the kids! I don’t know how long she can hold out!”

By the time he returned, a box of horrifyingly overpriced crackers in hand, he found the children dancing around the fire, having gone completely feral in his absence, dirt smudged on their faces like so much war paint. The mother lay in the fetal position to one side, quietly whispering over and over again “he’ll be back soon, he’ll be back soon, he’ll be back soon…” 

Quickly, the father got to work, roasting marshmallows but trying in his panic not to burn them. May the good Lord have mercy on his soul if he burned them. With shaking hands, he assembled the dark snacks that had turned his children into unrecognizable fiends. But just as quickly as he made them, the children tore into them like a pack of wolves, quickly disemboweling the father’s careful work, discarding the crackers and marshmallows over their shoulders and only eating the chocolate. 

“MORE.” they bellowed. 

The parents quietly wept. 

A few hours later, determined to salvage this family trip, the parents announced in perky but trembling voices, “let’s go for a walk in the woods!” To their surprise, the children agreed, chocolate still ominously smeared across their faces. And for a few glorious minutes, it appeared all might be ok. The children happily scampered ahead, collecting acorns and pine cones. They even let out a few genuine laughs of delight. 

But then the couple made the fatal mistake of enjoying themselves, triggering in the offspring all their most evil and depraved impulses. Because while the children typically loved nature, could spend hours staring at a dead leaf while in the city, they could not stand that very same nature when their parents paid $100 for a cabin completely surrounded by it. 

“This is dumb. Can we go home?”

“My feet hurt. Will you carry me?”

“I SAW A BUG!”

“Can we get an Uber?”

“I hate trees.”

“Did you bring any s’mores? I WANT A S’MORE!”

The parents didn’t die that day. But there are some who say they can still see the ghosts of their expectations haunting the woods to this very day.

On the plus side, the family never did get murdered by their neighbor Ted Bundy. Likely because the children scared him away. Even serial killers have their limits. 

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A time to laugh, a time to weep (but mostly weeping)

Posted on March 18, 2019 | Leave a comment

They say to every thing there is a season. Which is why I suspect we have winter. Misery, depression and blanket fort binge-drinking need a season too.

But, and I think I speak for most of us when I say this, it is high time to turn, turn, turn onto a new season. Before I burn, burn, burn Mother Nature TO THE GROUND.

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It’s the same thing every year. Winter overstays its welcome until I get so frustrated that I physically start trying to punch the arctic wind as it hits me in the face. Thus making ME look like the crazy one. But I’m not crazy. Winter is crazy. I’m not crazy. HahAhaAhhaA! It’s winter’s fault I’m karate chopping the air and scaring small children who pass by.

I JUST WANT TO FEEL MY FINGERTIPS AGAIN.

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And that’s when it happened. Right when I was on the brink (or perhaps just a little past it), it came. Did you guys smell it? Taste it? In the air? As soon as I opened my eyes that morning, I knew. Everything was the same and yet, subtly different. It wasn’t even that much warmer. Ten degrees, tops. But it was a DIFFERENT kind of warm. The kind of warmth that makes you remember that you used to be more than just a bag of freezing flesh stuffed into flannel pajamas and wrapped in a Snuggie burrito.

The first spring-like day had finally arrived. The first day where the sun wasn’t just a distant ornament hanging in the sky, but an actual star producing light and heat. The first day where everyone poured out of their houses, blinking in bewilderment at their neighbors, like “Hey, I vaguely remember you!” The first day of the rest of our lives because we were all, at long last, free from the icy grip of that monster, Father Winter.

And yes, I hear you. Okay? I hear you. “Um, well, you know, technically spring doesn’t start until the equinox on Mar…”

SHUT UP. Let me have this. I have been walking my kids to school through a winter wasteland for four and a half months. I don’t remember what it’s like to not have thermal leggings on underneath my regular mom leggings. I need to believe winter is over.

NEED.  

“Sure, but I mean, don’t get your hopes up. It’ll definitely snow at least one more time.”

OH, WHAT’S THAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF FLOWERS SPROUTING AND BIRDS CHIRPING. AND NOT THAT SAD WINTER CHIRPING EITHER. HAPPY FREAKING WARM SPRING CHIRPING.

“But you realize that spring is an extremely volatile season, right? We are in for months of sleet and mud and generally unpleasantness.”

Oh, I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening again. Too busy admiring these brand new flip-flops I just bought.

“The forecast for tomorrow is calling for hail and a high of 43.”

Oh, burn in hell.

At least it’s warm there.

Shoot, I might join you.

Look, you can throw facts and forecasts and freezing rain down on my delusional parade all you want. But I’m staying firm in my belief that winter is now over. I got a taste of what life used to be like a million years ago where a quick trip somewhere didn’t involve 20 minutes of shoving squirmy toddler limbs into elaborate outerwear. And it tasted delicious.

It tasted like hope.

Hope of a new world. A brighter, greener world. A world where my pale face turns slightly less pale and people stop asking me if I’m sick.

And I am eating it up until I vomit.

Then going back for seconds.

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Posted in Family, funny, Humor, nature

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I’m one of them

Posted on September 28, 2014 | 2 comments

I don’t know who she is. I don’t know her name or what she looks like. All I know is that she ruined everything. 

She just couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Just had to declare it from every virtual rooftop she had downloaded on her phone. And then all the others joined in. And now, they are the laughingstock of the Internet. 

It didn’t have to be this way. There was no need to go public with how basic they were. No one had to know how they bought a pumpkin spice latte when it was still 85 degrees. No one had to be privy to their almost slavish devotion to leggings paired with boots. Let alone their adoration for faux fur-lined vests. 

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Which is why if I ever find out who the first woman was to openly declare how much she loves fall, I’m going to strangle her with my infinity scarf. 

Why do I care so much, you ask? Because…(*whispers*) I’m one of them. 

And now, thanks to one million Instagram accounts overloaded with photos of ladies holding up a red leaf to their eye while they coyly smile at the camera (#snuggleweather), the world knows we all exist. And just how ridiculous we are. 

And they hate us. 

Oh sure, you could argue (and you would, in fact, be correct in arguing this) that I’m part of the problem. That just because I try to keep my basic-ness a secret doesn’t make me any better than the rest. But I didn’t ask to be this way.

Do you think this Aprill spelled with two L’s wants to be lumped in with all the Britanni’s spelled with an “i” and Megyn’s spelled with a “y”? That I want to wear vintage T-shirts featuring movies I’ve never seen or bands I’ve never listened to underneath my cozy knee-length cardigan (a knee-length cardigan that is just one of the 67 in my collection)? 

Do you think I want to race to my closet as soon as September 1st arrives and pull out my favorite furry slippers while wrapping both of my hands around a mug of green tea and sighing contentedly while I look out a window? Or that I want to curl up with a good book and read all day as soon as the temperature drops below 70 (my moleskin notebook and fancy pen placed just so beside me)? That I want to waste time scouring Pinterest for decorating ideas before realizing I suck at decorating and end up just shoving some sunflowers into a pumpkin? 

Do you think I want to be the person who only eats gourd-flavored baked goods for three months straight? Or that I want to be the person who snort lines of cinnamon like it’s cocaine while chugging apple cider martinis?

No. I don’t. I don’t want to be a part of this cliche. But here I am, frolicking in the pumpkin patch with the rest of my basic brethren. 

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I wasn’t raised this way. I was raised in a home where hoodies were merely something you threw on when it got cold. Where coffee was something you drank black. Where fall was simply just another season. My mom didn’t own Ugg boots or oversized, non-prescription, black frame glasses. No one in my family drank beer that was any flavor other than beer. The only candles that burned inside our house were birthday candles.

As a young girl growing up in the ‘90’s, wearing my torn flannel shirt and purple lipstick with my Nirvana CD blasting from my gigantic boombox, I never dreamed that I’d turn into that grown woman who lights 43 pumpkin-scented candles and asks her husband to cuddle on the couch in our Halloween jammies while we watch a “Gilmore Girls” marathon. In fact, I’m pretty sure that young girl would kick my ass with her Doc Marten boots if she knew what I became. 

But I can’t help myself. I don’t know if it’s nature or nurture. If I was brainwashed by the powerful pumpkin farmer lobby in Washington or if Eve herself made an apple-scented candle with the forbidden fruit and then knitted a cozy yet stylish hat out of fig leaves. All I know is that, as much as I try to fight it, I love all this fall crap. And now, courtesy of Hayleigh and Bayleigh and Jyssycah, I am the butt of several thousand Internet jokes.

So, thanks a lot, ladies. You just couldn’t keep quiet, could you? Couldn’t just let us all continue to worship this time of year secretly in the privacy of our own homes. Had to blast it out there, with no thought of all the shrapnel that would rain down on the rest of us.  

I swear, I’d throw this venti Salted Caramel Mocha latte in all your faces…

…if only it didn’t taste so good.

…(Sip)…

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Posted in Humor, nature, Pop Culture, Women

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