We’re on week two of a stomach bug at my house. Three-quarters of us have been hit, one person every three or four days. My fourth grader, who we’ll call Patient Zero, had a mild case. No big deal, I thought. Four days later, I nearly died, followed in three days by the first grader getting slammed.

Only Mark has escaped the bug. I lie awake every night waiting for him to fall victim, even though he claims a super immunity. I won’t relax until he makes it a full two weeks from Sunday without barfing. I know this is a waste of my energy, to worry about Mark catching the bug. I know I should close my eyes and get some sleep. I know.

So here we are, three weeks of summer left, and the past 10 days lost to a never-ending loop of sickness, cleaning, washing, disinfecting. I started thinking about the best way to use these last few weeks, and decided now would be a good time to update you on how well we managed summer expectations this year.

(I assume you’ve all spent a good deal of your summers wondering about mine. No? Okay. I’m still forging ahead with this update.)

You may recall that I had expectations going into the summer, and concerns that all would devolve into chaos. You can revisit that post here if you need a refresher – I’m not wasting space by pasting it in this post, so go ahead and commit the unrealistic schedule to memory before you pop back over. Got it memorized?

Now, let’s see how reality looked.

Most mornings – not every morning, let’s not be crazy – I was up before the boys, walked the dog, and ate a real breakfast. This is a breakthrough for me. Mornings are not my favorite. Or, they weren’t my favorite. I embraced them, and we’re getting chummy, me and the a.m. hours.

The kids still ate their fair share of cereal (organic, but still, cereal) and frozen waffles. As for the pleasant conversation, does “he’s looking at me!” and “why are you so gross when you eat?” and “this yogurt looks weird!” count?

We did do “school,” but we didn’t do it well. There was some math fact practicing, some reading and writing practice. I doubt anyone made big leaps in their grasp of basic educational concepts, but perhaps their brains aren’t entirely atrophied. If knowledge of every American Ninja Warrior counts for anything, the boys are going to be fine in school this year.

The kids actually did their chores every day. I may have donned my crazy mom face, and announced, through gritted teeth, that “I will not tolerate any whining or complaining about chores, under penalty of… well, something awful, I promise.” For once, it worked. They even earned enough Stevens Bucks to buy a new Xbox game they wanted.

They did not, however, do a quality job on all of their chores. I decided to let this go. For now. When school starts, I’ll put on the hazmat suit and tackle things; until then, there are worse things than sub-par dusting by elementary school students.

We did not excel at enriching fun time! activities. We did some stuff, sure. A lot of days we did… nothing of significance. It rained frequently during the first half of summer, so we hung out inside. There was more screen time than I wanted, especially during our recent plague.

The screen usage will likely result in residual mush-brain. If the number of times I heard “Boom Beach” or “Disney Infinity Marvel” or “can I get that app?” or “why do I have parental controls? I’m not a baby!” is any indication, then good luck, teachers. Re-programming their little brains to focus on school is going to take some effort.

I tried. I did. And I also gave up a few times. Summer is hard work, screens make it easier sometimes.

There was, at least, a lot of reading for all of us. Maybe I’ll do a What I Read post soon. Yet, the first grader still tells people he can’t read at all. That’s always a proud moment for me. He can read, but he cannot tackle Harry Potter or War and Peace yet, so in his mind, he cannot read. At all.

We ate dinner every night! That’s all I have to say about that.

Mark and I did a 21-day elimination diet (more on that another time), so we did, in fact, eat a clean diet most of the summer. Even now we primarily stick to our clean eating plan. Primarily, but not entirely.

As for bedtime and teeth brushing, I’m kind of dreading the pediatric dentist appointment in a couple weeks. They brushed. Didn’t they? I’m sure they did. And that school bedtime schedule is going to hurt us all, for sure.

My personal goals for the summer were lofty. Drum roll, please… I did not finish the book. I barely worked on the book. But I made some progress, and some progress is better than no progress. I did, however, exercise most days. By exercise, I mean “took a walk.” Better than nothing? I’m saying yes.

That’s going to be title of my memoir: Better Than Nothing! (I hope the cover looks like the Jeb! logo.)

The photos are still a mess. Not a bit of headway made there.

We – mainly Mark, honestly – have made a big dent on the home improvement front. There’s a lot still to do, but I can see the end. I can also see ladders and tools everywhere. Soon, I’ll have an office (I’m sitting in it now!), though at the moment it’s serving as storage for all of the displaced items we packed up until construction and painting end. Mark has built bookcases, installed wainscoting, built a bar, and more. He’s a rock star.

It wasn’t all chores, screen time, and halfhearted educational efforts. We took a family trip to Chicago, where the boys learned how to hail a cab and hop on the L. I learned that they might as well lick the floor of every cab, because they touched the entire city… and then touched their faces. Repeatedly.

The boys spent a week at Pine Cove Camp in the City, which they loved. We had a fantastic swim season, and a lot of fun at VBS one week. Only one person went to the ER for a head wound. We call that winning around here.

There you have it, our summer in a rather large nutshell. Like a Brazil nut-sized shell. But we still have three weeks to go, including one, last summer hurrah at the beach. There’s still time to cram in more memories, and maybe practice a few more math facts.

I bet I’ll even get those photos organized, scanned, framed, and album-ed.*

*No. Probably not.

In the summer of 2005 I was pregnant, but didn’t know it yet. I was in Minneapolis-St. Paul for a family wedding, and all I could think about was taking a nap. And then another nap. I assumed I was dying, though in the back of my mind I knew I could be growing a person.

The Twin Cities were in the middle of a heat wave. Mark and I left hot, humid Houston, where the air conditioner was our best friend, for are-you-kidding-me-it’s-hotter Minnesota, where the air conditioners could not handle the heat. I take heat waves with me everywhere I go, by the way. I’ve melted snow in Denver, and suffered a sunburn in Seattle. If you’re looking to escape the Texas heat, you probably should not plan a trip with me.

In between showering off the sweat and napping, I was on a mission. I heard that the cast of the upcoming A Prairie Home Companion movie was staying in our hotel. I was obsessed. I’m a huge Garrison Keillor fan, not to mention that the movie cast was worth a bit of stalking. If you aren’t familiar with the movie, go take a look at the cast. I mean. It’s a good one.

I’d met Tommy Lee Jones before, and he did not buy me a drink or regale me with stories of his life and career, so I didn’t really care if I saw him again. But the rest of them? I wanted a look. And yes, I wanted them to buy me a drink (maybe a ginger ale, just in case it was a baby and not impending death making me sleepy?), and regale me with stories… and possibly exchange email addresses.

While I, like almost every other woman in the world, love Meryl Streep, the person I most wanted to become BFFs with was Lily Tomlin. When I was a little girl and saw Edith Ann in that giant chair, I was smitten, and remained a fan all of my life.

I don’t know why I was watching Edith Ann when I was a small child, because she may be five-and-a-half years old, but she is not for children. This was the seventies, though, and cartoons were only on once a week, so the rest of the time we watched what the adults watched. Once, in the eighties (not that different from the 1970s where parenting is concerned, just with bigger hair and shoulder pads), when it snowed three times in one winter – in Austin, Texas, where it does not snow – my parents rented Stripes. They said if we would just lie down and be quiet for 117 minutes we could watch the inappropriate movie. And thus, my love affair with Bill Murray began, but that’s another story.

So there I was in 2005, sweating profusely and puffy-faced from my most recent nap. It had been a doozy, too, the kind of nap that leaves you unsure of your name, the date, or who the president is. I think it’s important for you to know that the nap occurred about 1.32 hours after waking up from a night of sleep. I basically ate breakfast, attempted to take a walk in the sweltering heat, and went back to bed. I was thinking if this exhaustion is not due to pregnancy, I will certainly be dead by lunch. If it is pregnancy, I’m going to have to quit my job, because I don’t think I can nap for the next nine months and still get paid. (True story: I had to quit my job in month seven.)

Back to our story. In case you have already forgotten, it’s 2005, and napping has reduced my eyes to slits. Mark, concerned about my cat-like sleep schedule, and I, not even pretending to be all the way awake, were waiting for the hotel valet to bring our car around when I heard her. Behind me, waiting for her car, was Lily Tomlin. She was wearing sunglasses and talking on her cell phone. I don’t want to betray her confidence – you know, the unspoken bond we created as I stared at her, jaw agape, dried nap drool on my chin – and tell you what she was saying. It was clearly a personal conversation and not a business call.

Lily – I don’t call her Ms. Tomlin anymore, after our moment under the portico – was talking to a friend, and offering advice. She was warm and no-nonsense, exactly as I expected her to be. It was a long conversation and Lily was completely focused on the person at the other end of the call. I considered that she could have been faking the whole thing, to keep sleep-goop-eyed strangers from approaching her. Either way, she sounded like a good friend, imaginary or otherwise.

I kept one eye and ear on Lily, waiting for my opportunity to stand before her and mutter nonsense like, “Fan… Edith Ann… Laugh In… Funny… You… All of Me… Nice lady…”

Our car arrived before her call ended, so Mark took my elbow, gently but with a grip that said move along now, crazy lady. He installed me inside the car and whispered, “You’re kind of staring.” Minutes later, we drove away and I never saw Lily Tomlin again. I did not get her email address or even have the chance to smile and nod at her, what with her honed ability to ignore potentially insane fans.

I think about that one-sided encounter every now and then, and I wonder what I might have done if she were not on the phone. Would I really have spoken to her? I don’t know. I’m of the mind that famous people deserve to be outside without being hassled, so I suspect a smile and a nod would have been it. Possibly a smile and nod accompanied by a nervous giggle, and me silently mouthing, I love you, while Ms. Lily Tomlin ducked back inside the hotel to request a security presence outside.

Still, this was a missed opportunity to tell someone I value her work. What a shame. The odds that we will run into each other again some day are not in my favor (lucky for Lily), so she will never know how fabulous I think she is.

When I remember the hot, Minnesota day that I spent alternately drooling on myself during dreamless sleep, and (not so subtly) eye-balling Lily Tomlin, I think about missed opportunities. I should not be so guarded with the people in my life. While most people will have the good fortune to see me – I mean, while I will have the good fortune to see most people in my life – over and over again, we never know when an encounter will be our last. I don’t always do a good job of this, but thinking about the time I didn’t meet Lily reminds me to tell people how great they are, and how much I appreciate them.

Thinking about Lily also reminds me of the most epic naps of my life, and the dear life that was just beginning to grow in me. I may need to lie down for a bit. After a short nap, let’s all wipe the drool off of our chins and say a silent thank you to Lily Tomlin, while we promise some out-loud “you rocks” to everyone else we love.

Step 1: Start a new Pinterest account. The old one is full of inspirational quotes and complicated recipes. This new account will be useful. You will not pin anything frivolous or overly complicated. You definitely won’t pin pictures of rooms you don’t even have in your house, like a sun porch connected to a giant, outdoor kitchen.

Step 2: Pin 873 pictures of rooms you don’t even have in your house, like enormous laundry/work rooms with built-in dog condos and wrapping paper stations.

Step 3: Search “fall wreaths” on Pinterest. Pin roughly 137 wreaths, but do not look at any of the tutorials. Who has time for tutorials?

Step 4: Head to the craft store with a general idea of what you need, but under no circumstances are you to take a specific list. Lists are for sissies.

Step 5: Wander around the craft store for so long that the plain clothes security guard, meant to look like an average craft store shopper (if the average craft store shopper is a middle-aged man), begins to shadow you. Ask Mr. Security if he prefers a straw wreath form or a Styrofoam one, and launch into a seven-minute monologue about the difficulty of choosing the correct form.

Step 6: Watch Mr. Security shuffle off. Victory over the tyranny of craft store security is yours!

Step 7: Really, what kind of wreath form does one buy? WHAT KIND??

Step 8: Go with straw. No, wire. No, Styrofoam. Ew, the foam breaks off everywhere. Back to wire. No, probably straw. But what diameter? How big is your front door? Not that big.

Step 9: Choose fall colored silk flowers. Put them back, because they’re all wrong. Pick them up again, because they’re on sale today.

Step 10: Burlap ribbon. It’s everywhere. You’ve seen it on at least three different aisles in three different sections of the store. Burlap must be a big deal in the crafting world, and now, you must have some. Put seven different colors and styles of burlap ribbon in your basket.

Step 11: Spot burlap hydrangeas. That’s right, hydrangeas made of burlap. OMG! Grab those babies before some other crafty miss gets them.

Step 12: Return ugly silk flowers to their original location. Or to any location with silk flowers. There are so many silk flowers in here. You’re now disoriented from spending three hours wandering the aisles of the craft store.

Step 13: Grab any and all other ribbons (It’s all on sale! On sale!) and accessories you may need, ever, like for your entire life.

Step 14: Hand over your credit card to pay the exorbitant total. It’s possible buying a pre-made wreath would be cheaper, but don’t think about that. You’re about to make something with your own hands.

Step 15: Return home, and take a short break with the beverage of your choice. Craft stores are exhausting.

Step 16: Find your glue gun.

Step 17: Gather your other tools and materials. Huh. What exactly do you need to make a wreath?

Step 18: Wire cutters. Definitely need wire cutters to lop off the long stems on the burlap hydrangeas.

Step 19: Find a wad of cash in your husband’s tool chest while looking for the wire cutters. Wonder why there’s a wad of cash in the tool chest, but decide not to dwell upon it. Instead, keep the cash and feel better about the exorbitant amount of money you just dropped at the craft store.

Step 20: Wrap wreath in burlap ribbon. Be thankful you bought two rolls, and feel silly for ever doubting yourself. Feel even sillier about the 27 minutes you stood in front of the burlap ribbon section, picking up and putting down the same roll, trying to decide if you need one or two rolls. Note: You’ll need about 30 feet of burlap to cover your straw wreath form. (Look at that! Actual helpful information!)

Step 21: Glue down that ribbon with enough hot glue to hold the Titanic together. Too bad they didn’t have glue guns back then, right? Too soon?

Step 22: Forget that hot glue is hot. Really beeping hot. Shake burned fingers and cuss for a minute.

Step 23: Time to attach the hydrangeas.

Step 24: Look for giant pruning shears, because wire cutters are not strong enough to cut off fake flower stems.

Step 25: Consider that it’s probably not a bad thing you aren’t able to locate the giant pruning shears, because you just dropped the wire cutters near your foot. Things probably would not end well with you, fake flowers, and giant pruning tools.

Step 26: Decide to wait for your husband to get home. He can cut off these stems that are apparently made of iron.

Step 27: Whatever. You are woman, hear you roar. Remove stem number one. Do fist pump.

Step 28: Jam the hydrangea into your straw wreath. Now apply globs of glue, just in case the wire isn’t enough to maintain flower-to-wreath bonding.

Step 29: Forget how hot the glue is. Again.

Step 30: Look at your progress and your mess. Debate calling it quits.

Step 31: Repeat steps 28 through 30 for the next two flowers.

Step 32: Be glad you only bought three stupid burlap hydrangeas.

Step 33: Attach adorable letter ‘S’ (Or whatever letter your last name starts with – you don’t have to have an ‘S’ name to make this wreath. This is a project everyone can tackle!) with super cute ribbon that was, say it with me, ON SALE.

Step 34: Apply even more hot glue. Wait, why won’t the glue come out?

Step 35: This doesn’t look right, either.

Step 36: Finally get enough glue on the wreath to withstand the apocolypse. Zombies don’t eat wreaths, do they?

Step 37: Allow glue to dry. Thirty seconds should do it. Who has time to wait around for glue to dry?

Step 38: Think about saving your ribbon scraps for future projects.

Step 39: Laugh and laugh. Future projects!

Step 40: Hang up that wreath! It looks okay from 10-15 feet away!

Total time: 23 hours. Hands-on time: 1-ish hours. Expect your time to be spent approximately like this, although you may need more time on Pinterest:

13 hours on Pinterest
7 hours in the craft store
1 hour making the wreath
1 hour doctoring hot glue gun burns
1 hour rocking quietly back and forth wondering, Why, why is crafting so hard?

Despite such efforts, things like this happen on the regular:

I’m not going to talk to you, but I may tweet about you.

I wasn’t going to chat her up, because ain’t nothin’ gonna to break my stride, nobody’s gonna slow me down, oh-no I got to keep on movin’* (or: I do not have time to stop. I wasted half the morning staring into space, and now I have to get this walk done so I’m not late to pick up my kids.).

I’m not planning to corner you at the mailbox so I can blather about the school carnival and, like, whether we should get the kids a 20-punch game card or a 15-punch game card? Probably 20, because they’ll totally use up 20 punches in like an hour and then be begging us for more anyway, so why even waste time on the 15-punch card, right?

Whether I want to talk right then or not, it stings a bit to think people are avoiding me. Lately I’ve developed a theory on why I receive some side eyes in the PTA room. See, I listen to stuff when I go on walks. Not music, usually, because I can listen to that any time. When I walk, I catch up on podcasts and comedy albums.

(I’m not trying to sound smart, and if you read all the way to the end, I think we’ll all agree that’s impossible anyway.)

My favorite podcasts right now include quiz shows like Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!, and Ask Me Another, as well as shows like Nerdist Writer’s Panel, This American Life, and Pop Culture Happy Hour. Typically, This American Life and Nerdist Writer’s Panel are relegated to the car. I don’t know why, don’t make me give you a made up reason. Quiz shows, however, are great for walks, because they’re zippy and humorous and not overly thinky. Same goes for comedy.

The other day a neighbor I recognize, but don’t know well, drove by. I gave a small wave, and she looked bewildered. At first I thought, how unfortunate to have your resting face be one of bewilderment. Then I realized she wasn’t so much bewildered as openly staring at me. I do not think it was my kicky neon yellow sneakers that caught her eye.

I’d been walking along, answering quiz questions. Now, it could have looked like I was talking to myself, silently, moving my lips. Odd enough, yes? Yet here I was, talking out loud, but not to myself. I was talking to Ophira Eisenberg. Never mind that Ophira lives in my phone, or in Brooklyn, depending on how you look at things.

Today I listened to Maria Bamford on my walk. I missed her stop in Austin last week and have been consoling myself by listening to every one of her albums. (Are they still called albums?) Having Maria in my phone is like a salve on the disappointment suffered when saying, Hey, I’d love to see Maria! did not result in my husband rushing out to buy tickets. Also the disappointment I feel in myself for even expecting that to work. We all know I buy the tickets around here.

Back to walking with Maria. During today’s walk I laughed hard. And often. And loud. Walking became not only a physical exercise, but also a mental exercise in self control, of which I have little. I tried to remember, Laugh inside, Missy. To yourself. In your head, dingbat.

I think it’s important to stop here and point out a couple things.

1. I despise ear buds or headphones of any kind. I carry my phone set to a volume that seems to disturb the tai chi practicing octogenarian around the corner. To the casual observer, I do not appear to be listening to anything. That’s right. I’m a woman, walking along, listening to nothing, laughing and talking loudly. Addled suburbanite or one of our nation’s criminally insane? It’s hard to know.

2. I usually have my dog, Piper, with me. Piper is afraid of stuff. She’s not fearful of normal things like bigger dogs, bears, or strangers with candy. Piper’s afraid of small rocks, or lone roller skates abandoned on the sidewalk. Even the sidewalk itself can be unnerving. Transitions are terrifying. At home she frequently turns around so she can walk backwards over the transitions between tile and wood flooring.

Anyone watching us may see Piper suddenly jump to the side, or come to dead stop for no obvious reason. It’s totally obvious why she jumped if you can see the single, dead, dried up worm in our path, but you probably can’t see that from the window of your home office.

Let’s pause for a minute while you create a mind picture of my daily walk.

Got a mental image?

It’s a picture of a woman who may be talking to herself and cracking up. In fairness, I do sometimes think up stuff that kills me. Like my good (imaginary) friend Arthur Bach, sometimes I just think funny things.

It’s a picture of a woman who may be laughing out loud at her dog. True, Piper is bizarre and hilarious. She can’t talk but I know what she’s thinking, because dog people are like that. We’re canine mind readers.

It’s a picture of a woman who may be teetering ever closer to the proverbial edge. Don’t even pretend you don’t know of the edge. We’re all walking right up next to it, baby.

This picture is, I think, a major clue in the great suburban mystery of why that lady who lives two streets over ran from me.

*Thank you, Matthew Wilder, for your 1983 reggae hit, Break My Stride, that now provides a soundtrack to my casual acquaintance avoidance issues.

Not feeling rosy?

I’ve got a bone to pick with, well, everyone and everything. Oh, you know what you did.

Do you ever feel this way? If not, move along, because we can’t be friends. You’re lovely, but honestly, you never get irrationally angry at the entire world?

The rest of you people can hang around, because we’re absolutely going to be best friends. Crazy people got to stick together.

I didn’t have time to do the extensive research I usually do when I’m wondering about something. You know, like Google it and spend minutes at a time skimming the search results. I’m super busy this week. No, really, I am. Not Murder, She Wrote marathon busy, but actual real life stuff busy.

Therefore, instead of in-depth reporting, I read just one site: Yahoo! Answers. Completely reliable, that site. One hundred percent legit. Plus, there’s an exclamation point in the name of the site. Solid! Advice! NPR’s Ask Me Another sometimes plays a game using Yahoo! Answers responses, and NPR is the real deal. I know what they’re doing and what I’m doing is not at all the same, but I don’t care.

Here’s what the wise folk of Yahoo! Answers had to say about irrational irritability, along with my responses in red (color! Ooooo!). The answers have not been edited for grammar, spelling, or punctuation, because that would take away from the complete dependability of the fine people of Yahoo! Answers. I did not include answer writers’s names, because now that? That would be mean.

You don’t need to calm down, you need a vent.

Like an air vent? A dryer vent? Armpit vents in a ski jacket? Cool. Got all those things.

Jean-Paul Sartre said it best – “Hell is other people”

Googled it. According to the internet, he did say that, although with a period after people. Jean-Paul saying it or not, this is not helpful advice. Thanks for nothing.

Check you blood pressure.

Check you blood pressure, dopes. Say I do check it and it’s fine, because I have excellent blood pressure. Now what do you have to say? Huh? Now what? Hold on… feeling lightheaded. Perhaps I should check my blood pressure again.

Buy a carton of ice cream and eat it all.

Check.

Try writing your feelings down in a journal.

Who needs a journal when you have the entire internet? Check.

Try drumming, beating the hell out of some drums might make you feel better

My family did not appreciate this suggestion. My kids thought they should be allowed to drum. No freaking way does drum playing kids help a negative mood.

Bad moods are infectious and need to be addressed immediately.

But how? How do I address it? Dear Infectious Mood? Ms. Infectious Mood? Your Highness, The Most Infectious of Moods?

I know the following admission is going to discount this entire post (so what?), but the truth is I only felt this irritated for a few minutes today. Please don’t be concerned that I’m walking around in a state of permanent anger and malaise. Mostly, I’m a happy person. It’s amazing, though, how many annoying things I can think of or encounter in such a short span of time. If you’re looking for things to be angry about it’s pret-ty easy to find them.

According to an article from Huffpost Healthy Living, we are designed to look for the negative. Being aware of bad stuff saved our skins in times when we battled the elements and sharp-toothed creatures daily.

“If you have a penchant for detecting and dwelling on the negative, it’s no cause for alarm. In fact, you are simply a product of intelligent human design whereby bad overpowers good. That’s right — humans were designed to be keenly aware of negative circumstances and consequences as it helped our ancestors survive.”

(Yeah, so I spent a few minutes really reading about irritability and bad attitudes, but only a few.)

Designed this way or not – and hoooo, boy, am I ever designed to start with the bad and slowly work my way around to the good – I greatly prefer seeing the best in people and situations. Because my natural inclination is to look at the world and say, meh, I have to actively seek the good.

I look for the funny and the kind and the beautiful. The more I seek those things, the easier it becomes to find them. It’s less about looking and more about seeing. It’s easier, but not natural. I guess that’s why for a five minute span of time today I was Googling I hate everything!

The upshot here is, thanks to my inborn will to survive, I’m probably going to sense the saber-toothed cat before it eats us. My hope is that I was at least enjoying the beautiful sunrise before the mean kitty started chasing us.

I’m wondering about this today:

How is it we seem to be wired for unreasonable optimism (see my last post) and a negative outlook all at the same time? I’m constantly looking at the world with wide-eyed wonder, and saying, man, people are crazy! Perhaps this is why. Perhaps all of our pre-wired wires are criss-crossed and confused. Thoughts?

(Bonus for today! Like my friend Joann, I’m going to give you a song to go with this post. One of my favorites – Something So Right by Paul Simon. Go have a listen.)

*Photo credit

At least three times a week Piper sits in what I call the Cry For Help Corner, near the couch, and chomps as loudly as she can. This is our sign that she has snapped up a small item that does not belong to her. Before you question why there are small items for her to snap, I’m going to stop you. I have kids. The end.

Piper T. (the T is for Trouble) sits there and chomps until I notice her. Every time it goes a little like this:

“Piper, what do you have?”

Dog lies down and looks sorry-ish. I kneel down, and dog teeth tighten around the contraband.

“Open up, girlfriend.”

Dog does not willingly open up. I pry open her jaws, and remove a Lego, or part of the Little People nativity, or an army man. Today, it was an outlet cover that I forgot to replace after vacuuming yesterday. So much for blaming the kids.

This process, annoying though it is, never fails to make me laugh. This dog knows better. She knows she is not supposed to chew the treasure she scarfed off the floor. She knows, but she cannot stop herself. The temptation is too strong.

Sorry, not sorry.

I can’t get mad at Piper. To be angry at the dog for giving in to the siren call of Lego men would make me a hypocrite.

I spend huge chunks of time fighting my own siren calls. Whether it’s lurking around on Facebook for more minutes (hours?) than necessary, or eating a(nother) doughnut, I know what is and isn’t good for me, and I don’t seem to care. My jaws are clamped tightly around my personal outlet covers.

I did a Google search on Why do we do things that we know are bad for us? There were 1,290,000,000 results in 4.8 seconds. I’ll be honest, I only read half… of one article. But it’s clear that I’m not the only one wondering about this.

Truthfully, I read several whole articles, and it seems that we humans are not bright. You can arm us with facts and figures, but we’re only going to take away from those facts and figures what we want to take away. We twist and turn the statistics to suit our needs. Not everyone who smokes gets cancer. Not everyone who drinks and drives has an accident. Not everyone who saves back copies of the newspaper ends up on Hoarders. Certainly, we are in the not everyone contingent.

An article by Susan McQuillan in Psychology Today claims all of these bad decisions that lead to bad habits are impossible to fully shake.

“For one thing, once a habit is established, you will never completely ‘unlearn’ it. You can stop overindulging, you can pointedly replace bad habits with better ones, but every habit you’ve ever picked up is there, somewhere in your neural network, just waiting to be rediscovered,” says McQuillan.

Fabulous. But it’s not all bad news. Even though those negative habits linger, oh, forever, we can work hard to write over that file. We can arm ourselves with coping mechanisms, and learn to redirect our brains.

In a 2009 New York Times opinion piece, Noreena Hertz says that we are wired to optimism, which is why we assume we’ll be the one positive statistic in a world of less than good news.

“The dangerous allure of the information we want to hear is something we need to be more vigilant about,” she says.

Hertz concludes that we need to “actively push ourselves to hear the bad as well as the good,” so that we can acknowledge all sides of an issue, or a bad habit. What does that mean? It means you have to not only accept the bad news, you have to continually remind yourself of that bad news. Smoking does cause cancer. Drunk driving is dangerous. I’m never going to read all these newspapers and they are a fire hazard.

Piper, I suppose, is wired to optimistically believe that one day, just maybe, I’m going to say, “Oh, that Lego? That one, you can eat.” She’s not engaging in realistic self-talk, such as, “I have my own toys and chewing on Legos is inappropriate.”

I am wired to think I can still eat like I am 20, or waste hours on social media without ramifications. I choose to fool myself, because it’s happier in Bad Decisionville. There are doughnuts in Bad Decisionville. People there work no more than 37 minutes each day and still manage to meet all of their deadlines. I’m not accepting the truths that I know.

It’s hard to say whether my Google search and subsequent knowledge makes me feel better about my bad decisions. I feel like I’m not alone, and now know there are science-y reasons for my failures. So I got that goin’ for me, which is nice, as Carl Spackler says.

Understanding why I do stupid things, however, does not take away the frustration I feel after – and sometimes during – the doing of the stupid things. Being human is so lame. Yet, what’s the alternative? Perfection, and a world in which everyone makes  the right decision every time.

No, thank you. Piper and I will keep our quirks and continue to make some questionable choices. Making the occasional not-so-fabulous decision is, after all, a symptom of the human condition. Apart from shaking hands with Jesus, there is no cure for that condition, so there’s no point in fighting it.

Sure, I am going to work on making better decisions. I cannot keep eating the doughnuts. Simply cannot. I’m not going to beat myself up when I slip, though, because it’s just science and brain stuff.

Now as for Piper, and whether she’s going to accept her pre-wired brain while trying to make a few better decisions, I can’t say. She can’t say, either. Because she’s a dog and does not talk.

*image source

Hooo-boy. I am beat. This week I stayed up late, watching athletes wrangle mushy, Russian snow. My days were jam-packed with pre-eating the Valentine’s Day candy. I even eked out a few hours to look at Not Another Snow Day! pictures and posts.

Though it’s 70 degrees and sunny here today, I get what my snowed upon friends are going through. Hey, stop throwing rotten tomatoes at your screen! I’m not in charge of the weather, and remember my frostbitten friends, in August the thermometers will be on the other foot.

The weather is lovely now, but we’ve had days – more than six! – of freezing weather in Austin. And on each of those days the schools were delayed or closed. When the elementary school delays, the preschool closes. My four-year-old attended four hours of school last week. FOUR HOURS. Yes, I’m aware this is a blip compared to the bombogenesis’d among you. All I’m saying is I feel you, sister. I honestly do not know how you haven’t run, screaming, down the street. I guess the piles of snow help keep you in the house?

The point is, I’m so very busy and you’re so very chilly, that we’re having a hard time keeping up online. Miss some blog posts and social media updates this week? I got you covered. Also, in case the hearts and flowers and candy filling your Facebook feed did not tip you off, it’s Valentine’s Day. Because I love you all so much, this summary is my gift to you. It’s more than I got my husband.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is a list of everything that happened on the internet this week, last week, and since 2009:

• We’re all bad moms with a messy houses that ironically make us the most wonderful moms ever because we’re not wasting time on trivialities like cleaning.
• Bucket Lists!
• We’re all on Pinterest doing the organizing and crafting and cooking and pretending to be Martha 2.0s (minus the jail time) and that is so awesome except what are you doing on Pinterest instead of bonding with your family?
• We’re all conflicted because we work full time or part time or in an office or at home or on a spaceship, or we don’t work at all and we feel empty or full or nothing and we were perfectly happy with things before the internet, except some people were so unhappy until they found the other people inside the computer.
• We’re all here for our friends even though we’re busy but will totally be there any time we need each other as long as it’s not over the phone, because we all hate the phone.
• Selfies!
• We all suffer from something and there are other people online suffering from the same stuff and that is so comforting except when people are mean and then we feel angry and depressed in the one place we felt comforted just five minutes ago.
• Marriage is hard and beautiful and it takes so much work and talking and more work and more talking and sex, it takes that, too, and ohmygosh people online love to talk about sex, and we’re so glad because it makes us feel normal and not, all at the same time.
• Social media is cool and amazing and time sucking and it hurts our real life relationships, but also makes them better, and the friendships on social media are real, but don’t spend too much time on that computer, because you have to look up and out at the world around you.
• Reverse Bucket Lists!
• We are all outraged – outraged, I tell you and tell you and tell you – by [insert outrageous, completely wrong-thinking sign, show, politician, advertisement, product, song, parenting style, fashion item here]!
• Babies are miracles, boobs are miracles, and we all have many thoughts on miracles.
• Women can do anything and everything and motherhood doesn’t equal weakness, and ohmygoodness you’re so condescending for saying women can do anything. Yep, we’re outraged by your condescension!
• Squee! Totes! OMG! Adorbs! Luv! I die! Right?!
• There are a lot of ways to raise children, and probably you are doing it all wrong according to much of the internet, and according to the rest of the internet you are a genius parent with the best ideas ever and why oh why didn’t we all think of that?
• 200 Resources to Make You A Better [Insert Topic Here, examples include, but are not limited to: Blog Designer, Home Designer, Writer, Photographer, Mother, Wife, Friend, Closet Organizer, Sunscreen Buyer, Daily Dinner Cooker, Lunch Maker, Makeup Put-Er-On-Er, Pet Parent, Movie Goer]
• 200 Things to Never, Ever Do If You Are A [See topics above! Add your own!]
• Feminist Selfies!

There you have it. Did I miss anything? Add it below, but please, don’t write me an open letter.

*Image Source

Don’t get swept away by your imagination, kids. (Photo credit.)

Listen, kids, it’s that time of year when spooky, creepy, and eerie are at the forefront of your minds.

The other day, you were certain you saw “a ninja, or a bad guy, or maybe a monster dressed all in black” leaping from rooftop-to-rooftop in the ‘hood. Never mind that it was 3:30 p.m., and even the dumbest monster knows that wearing all black isn’t going to hide them in the middle of the afternoon. A true criminal mastermind would get an outfit made of roofing shingles (Note to bad guys and monsters: you can work mid-day if you develop Suburban Rooftop Shingle Camo.).

Your imaginations are running wild, the scarier the better. Here’s the thing, kids – it’s Friday night, and it may get a little noisy around here after you go to bed. We don’t want worry to keep you awake; it’s been a long week and you need your rest. Any noises you may hear can be explained.

You’ll probably hear us banging… the drawers shut as we put away laundry.

You might hear some roars… out of the vacuum cleaner.

Don’t worry if you hear something that sounds like moans… it’s only the loose handle on the mop.

That panting-like breathing sound… is the broken spray bottle of bathroom cleaner (Note to self: get a new spray bottle.).

If you hear a squeak from Mom and Dad’s room, that is us… flipping the mattress and fixing a loose screw in the headboard.

When you hear groaning… it’s Mom, stretching as tall as possible to make her Swiffer duster reach the spider webs on the light fixtures.

All that sweaty work is going to make us thirsty, so you may hear a crash from the kitchen… it’s the wonky ice-maker, hurling cubes at us (Note to self #2: have ice-maker checked out.).

Because kids? As I mentioned, it’s Friday night after a very busy week. This house is a wreck, and we don’t have time to worry with it on Saturday or Sunday. That means tonight, Mom and Dad have to get busy… cleaning.

It’s true kids, few things are more frightening than the Friday night plans of married people with children.

My brain won’t chill out when I get home from class. It also seems that my children have gotten together and decided to that Tuesday night/Wednesday morning will be when their alarms accidentally go off at 2 a.m., or their covers get bunchy at 4 a.m., or they have a bad dream at 4:07 a.m.

Therefore, for the next seven Wednesdays, I will be tired. And irrational. Here are some examples of things that made me cry this morning…

:: Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton singing together.

I didn’t see them live or anything; it was a clip on Today. Yep, I cried at 15-second clip of a song I don’t care for or about. But you know, it’s Kenny and Dolly. A not-so-brief history:

I was in the Dolly Parton Fan Club when I was a child. I may still be in the fan club if it’s a lifetime kind of thing. I love her. She’s the reason I have a healthy distrust of all boss-type people. No 9-5 jobs for me, because, “I swear sometimes that man is out to get me.”

And Kenny? Well, The Gambler is our song, mine and Mark’s. We honeymooned in the British Virgin Islands, on a private island owned by Amway. Seriously. Every night there was music in the courtyard outside the restaurant, and on our first night there the first song we heard was a steel drum version of The Gambler. Now it’s our song, and we always sing it in our best island accents.

:: Dolly and Kenny are made almost entirely of plastic now, and he is unrecognizable.

So I cried a little.

:: No cinnamon-raisin Ezekiel bread.

We’re out. I didn’t have any toast for my breakfast, and got misty-eyed.

:: A sense of accomplishment.

We keep all vitamins, allergy meds, etc. in one cabinet. Except we don’t.

I looked around this morning and found my supplements on one counter, fever reducers left out after the preschooler’s weekend virus on a different counter. There was a box in the pantry full of expired Immodium and Airborne tablets, and the cabinet where it’s all supposed to live was crammed with every other medicine or vitamin I have ever purchased.

I cleaned up that craziness. Then I got sort of verklempt when I realized A) I’d accomplished a big task before 8 a.m. and B) I probably won’t accomplish much else today.

:: Sappy commercials.

Do you know which one I’m talking about? It’s narrated by a little girl who says, “The day I became yours, you became mine.”

Damn. I’m ugly crying again.

If you’ve learned anything from the absurdity above, it should be this: On Wednesdays, I think it’s best to approach me with caution. Some guidelines…

Please don’t say anything mean to me.

Or nice.

Or sappy.

Maybe it’s best not to talk to me.

Please don’t look at me in any way that could be perceived as judgmental.

Or kind.

Or angry.

Just don’t look at me.

See you on Thursday.

No, it’s not. This is Texas. Sweat is in the air. And on my upper lip.

But still, the first week of school. Mothers everywhere are rejoicing in a few kid-free hours each day. And other mothers everywhere are judging them for rejoicing. And the first set of mothers is muttering, “Ha. I just painted all 10 fingernails at one time, rather than over the course of nine hours like I have to do when I’m the snack supplier, sunscreen applier.”

Wait right there. This is not a parenting styles or school choices debate. You won’t find that kind of thing here, because it’s rotten when anyone is self-righteous about their choice or judgmental about someone else’s choice. We all know we’re the right one anyway, so why bother? (You could read that as a deep thought, as in: you’re always right because it’s your choice and nobody should make you feel wrong. Or you can read it sarcastically. Either way, you’re right.)

Whether you are in favor of home school, traditional school, or the school of hard knocks is none of my business. I’m not here to be self-righteous. I’m certainly not speaking out against home schooling. In fact, if you are doing it and your family is happy, then I think you’re amazing. My family – and by family, I mean me – would be in jail if we attempted it, so more power to you.

I’m also not speaking out in favor of traditional schooling. It’s our choice right now, and there are a lot of upsides (for us), but there are also things like ineffectual administrators that make me want to scream. I believe that’s another post for another day.

So. What am I speaking out in favor of here?

Nail polish, for one. I’ve been doing my own nails, trying to save a little cash. I was never much of a mani/pedi girl to begin with, so Mark argues that this sudden interest in my nails is actually costing us money. I saw him eyeing my new bottle of the perfect fall-ish pink polish. I don’t think it was a “That is going to look amazing on my beautiful wife” eye, either. Well, he can just deal with it, because now I have time to paint my nails and he can’t stop me with his side eye.

I didn’t say I was good at this.

What else am I in favor of?

Learning new things. By mid-November I’m going to be an improv comic. Now that, right there, is the best joke ever, isn’t it? Seriously, though, I’m taking an improv class with my friend, Carol. I don’t have my heart set on Second City. Don’t worry. I’m taking the class to develop my voice (creatively, not vocally), and work on character, story, timing.

I have a grand total of seven more hours each week than I had last fall and spring, thanks to some extra preschool days for the little dude. It’s not a ton of time, but I plan to spend those hours working at my craft (read that sentence with some oozing pretense, okay?). I realize, especially if you’re not in a creative field, that what I just told you sounds like bunk. That’s alright. It’s my bunk and I like it.

What else am I in favor of?

I’m in favor of quite a bit, actually. So much, in fact, that I often think, oooohhhh, I want to try that (or buy that or do that or be that). I hope my extra seven hours each week help me silence some of the noise. Maybe I’ll finally decide what it is I’m most in favor of doing, being, trying, buying.

So even though it doesn’t feel like fall yet, and likely never really will because this is the land of two seasons (hot and hotter, har har), I’m feeling good. Aside from the sweat, that is. I’m feeling good, looking forward to learning new stuff, to tackling the school year alongside my kids. And to painting my nails in peace.

Oh, gosh, just thought of one last thing I need to tell you today.

I’m in favor of saying goodbye to Wonder, Friend. You read that right, sister. I don’t have an exact date for you, but Wonder, Friend is going to the big archive in the sky – or Al Gore’s house or wherever it is the internet lives – and I’m moving my blog to a new site. It’s simply time to move on.

I’ll keep you posted (literally, as in I’ll write a post about it, not the new figurative literal. What is up with that?). When the time comes, I’ll do all those annoying blog-related things, like ask you to like my Facebook page, subscribe to the new blog, etc., etc. And then I’ll do all of that again in case you miss it the first time. I may even do it all a third time.

And with that, I’m in favor of ending this post. All that fall sweat in the air means that, whether I’m in favor of it or not, I have a lot of laundry to do right now. As soon as my nails dry.