…or how I tried to donate big bucks to Victoria’s Secret.

Saturday we got an alert from our bank that there was a withdrawal for a large sum. It was a very large sum to Victoria’s Secret. “Holy crap!” I thought, “someone got that Christmas BIG-Wish List catalog from VS and just bought the diamond studded bra. With our money!” Oh no they di-unt! I was instantly peeved that someone was going to steal our information and then go shopping at Victoria’s Secret. At 7:30 on a Saturday morning even.

We made calls to our bank. Panicky calls. We made calls to Victoria’s Secret. Panicky calls. I was ready to do my duty and become a detective. I was going to find this person and personally rearrange some body parts. They would not be able to wear or give away a diamond studded bra after I was finished with them.

That was until the bank person told us, “someone with account access scheduled a bill to be paid to a Victoria’s Secret credit card account.”

Uh. Oops…

Technology is a double-edged sword that cuts through the archaic methods of yesteryear yet comes dangerously close to dealing the fatal blow to your credit rating.

Technology is fire, necessary for sustaining life and yet so capable of consuming life if it gets out of hand.

Technology is a two-faced woman who is ready to be your best friend one minute and then rip you to shreds the next only to have you find out a day or two after once your reputation has been tarnished and you have to work feverishly to repair the damage.

Technology is what we use to pay our bills. We don’t write checks anymore. A couple of clicks at the beginning of each month and I don’t have to think about bills again for the rest of the month. It really is a time saver. If you use it properly.

Or you could be an idiot like me. On the bank site we use, all of our bills (current and ancient) are listed alphabetically. One of our credit cards is right above the Victoria’s Secret account.

Pause.

Yes, I had a VS account. Their undies are the only ones that fit properly. Ahem. The account has not, however, been active for several years, so I do not know, for the life of me, why the VS account information is still on our list.

But it is. And this is where my idiocy comes in. I’ve gotten so proficient at bill paying that I can just point and click my way down the list now. I’m so fast and sure of myself that I don’t even double-check my work. Pride comes before a fall, shall we say. And I no longer have anyone’s butt to kick but my own.

P.S. I did a little research to see if VS still does that outrageous Christmas Catalog. I found out they indeed have a diamond studded bra for sale this holiday season. I choked a little. It costs just a teeny bit more than the amount taken from our account. (Don’t click on that link unless you’re a girl.)

When something’s stolen from you, right off your feet practically, there’s only one thing to do.

Go shopping.

I was notified of an amazing sale on 6pm.com the other day. The RSVP brand was going to list all of their shoes at $6.95 precisely at midnight. It was only 10:30 at the time so I immediately went over there to scope out the situation. I wasn’t in love with any of the shoes I saw, but lo and behold! their boots were going to be on sale too! I could find me some boots that looked half decent for $6.95.

The first issue was finding any styles that were still available in my size. This sale must have been to completely eliminate their stock because I could barely find anything to fit. One pair of boots remained in my size, that looked remotely cute. They were something like this:

Minutes.

ticked.

by.

Finally! It was midnight! I refreshed the page! The boots were still in my cart! Wait. Wha? The sale wasn’t on. What was going on?

I waited until 12:01. No sale.

12:05. No sale.

I had been dreading this in the back of my mind and now my fears were being realized. The sale was not going to begin until midnight, Pacific time. That’s 3:00 am for me. Resigned at the horrible misfortune of living on the East Coast (and I will never say or write that again. Get a good look.) I closed my computer and decided not to wake up in the middle of the night to get these $6.95 boots.

I know. Sometimes I don’t think things through enough. Sometimes I’m just not smart. Sometimes I’m a horrible sale shopper. I need therapy (wait).

I woke up, earlier than normal, but still not at 3am. This computer doesn’t take long to boot up at all so it didn’t take me but one minute to realize my mistake. And my boots had been stolen from me, almost right off my feet. I am painfully aware that what you place in your online basket is not really yours until the electronic payment has made its way through the ether. Especially if it was really good sale stuff. Just ask Gymboree why I will never shop online with them ever again (I do get bitter every once in a while).

So, when something’s stolen from you, practically right off your feet, there’s only one thing to do.

I went shopping.

DSW was kind enough to send me a consolation email. They had no clue they were consoling me, but I give them all the credit. A cute little clutch purse was mine for the taking.

All I had to do was buy $20 worth of product. At a shoe website?

Not. a. problem.

I quickly forgot the what’sthename boots from my shopping brain fart and found these babies:

Not quite $7. But I did get them majorly on sale anyway (over half off). And I got that cute clutch for free (in that cool grey color). And I got free shipping. Yay me!

So, all’s well that ends well. And all’s fair in love and shopping wars. Let bygones be bygones. And all those other sayings.

I can’t wait to rock these out.

Twitter is a lot of fun. I enjoy getting everyone’s updates, from celebrities to political figures to homegrown friends. It’s a great way to stay on top of things…until there’s a hashtag party I’m not involved in. Then my twitter page gets filled with all these stupid tweets about crayons and gno’s (girls night out) and Nestle products. Now, I love crayons and Nestle products and definitely girls’ nights out and I like the people who tweet about them. I just don’t want to see all the tweets.

Hashtags, for those of you uninitiated with Twitter (yet), are a way for people to find what you’re tweeting about. It’s like tagging blog posts so your content is easier found. If you place a hashtag in your tweet then it becomes easier to search and find. For instance, if I wanted to congratulate Sugarland for their win last night I could tweet something like: “Congrats on another win Sugarland! You owe it all to Agnes Scott, right!? #CMA”

Just say Crayola decided to have a Twitter party and everyone involved would use the hashtag #Crayola. I would get a lot of freaking tweets about how “crayons are awesome! #Crayola” or “crayons were all I got to play with growing up. #Crayola” or “did you know they’re the perfect size to fit up kids’ nostrils? #Crayola.” Just supposing…not insinuating that this actually happened (but it did).

I am begging Twitter to come up with a way to hide those hashtag subjects! It would make me, and others, a whole lot happier. And it wouldn’t hurt in the slightest the people who were wanting to play along. Truthfully, they’re all talking to and amongst themselves anyway. I’m forced to be eavesdropping. I Googled to see if there was a way to hide certain hashtags and there are plenty of people in internetland who are as sick of it as me. No luck though on a solution.

Twitter…or one of you Twitter-based softwares out there, come up with an option to hide those hashtags we don’t want to be eavesdropping in on. Get with the 21st century! #hidethehashtags!

Alternate title: Sometimes sitting your kids in front of the tv for a multi-day movie marathon can be a life saver.

Our girls normally get to watch one movie a day and sometimes they even forget to ask for one. Since we don’t have cable or the new antenna thingy to watch HD tv there’s not a lot of tv watching going on here on a regular basis.

Until someone gets sick.

Last week Ashlyn was feverish for two days and so I let her watch several movies each day as Reagan and I did school. This week it was my and Reagan’s turns. Tuesday afternoon the body ache started and by Wednesday morning I felt a little like death warmed over. That has continued throughout today. Reagan has bounced around in regards to how she’s feeling. Wednesday she spent most of the day passed out on the couch not aware that there was a rare movie marathon going on. Today she felt better though and partook fully.

So while I’m in bed feeling like I’ve been hit by a WMATA bus (which isn’t all that uncommon around here) I think it’s ok to stick the kids in front of the tv with several…dozen…ahem movies. What’s crazy to me is that they choose the exact. same. movies. to watch over and over again. Hello, I’m ready to shove Barbie Mermadia down the toilet and plunge it until it dissolves into a thousand tiny pieces. I could quote the movie by now if I actually paid attention to it. The same goes for Barbie and the Diamond Castle or whatever the stupid name is.

In fact, I hate Barbie right now, but she and the Veggie Tales gang are babysitting my kids so I can’t complain too much. Maybe I’ll use those DVDs for skeet shooting practice once I’m all better.

Recently Virginia has been in the homeschool news for refusing to give homeschooled children the H1N1 vaccine. I’m going to rant a little. May I remind the state of Virginia that just because we choose to keep our children out of public school (and that includes privately schooled children, however, I do not know if they faced the same discrimination) doesn’t mean we are exempt from paying taxes. My husband’s tax dollars have a chunk taken out so each public schooled child can receive an average of $9,963 for schooling. We get NONE of that. His tax dollars also go towards the research and development of the vaccine itself.

And since when is it even ethical to prevent some children from receiving a vaccine, when other children of the same age, grade, and health status can receive it? To deny a child the access to a vaccine just because he isn’t schooled in the public system is morally wrong. Deny pencils? Sure. Deny something that the government thinks can save lives? Outrageous.

Alexandria officials claimed, “that it was the school’s property, and they could decide who comes on it.” That is completely ridiculous. We’re not talking about soccer games here. A southwest Virginia area official told one mom, “We’re saving the vaccine for public school students.” Again, horrifying! What if they had said, “we’re saving the vaccine for students who can see” or “we’re saving the vaccine for white students.” All three are discriminatory since no one can claim ownership of a public vaccine. We are not second-class citizens. Their reactions should have been, “oh wow, you’re right, we need to figure out a way for every eligible child to be vaccinated.” But it’s not their problem is it? Let someone else worry about that.

I don’t know the true motives of these officials in Virginia, but to me it seems like some people are brooding (and breeding) some hatred towards kids who don’t follow the leader or go with the flow. OR, maybe they just have their heads in the sand and don’t think broadly enough about issues. I cannot see any excuse or explanation as being a valid one on this issue.

Whether I choose to vaccinate my homeschooled child is my choice. But if other kids have the ability to be vaccinated mine should have that exact same ability. End of story. Am I missing something? I would welcome any official from Virginia to try to give me an explanation as to why it is ok to deny some children the right to receive a public vaccine.

If you are interested in the full context and the follow-up of the issue please read the article below. It is taken in its entirety from the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) Website and can be found here: “We’re Saving the Vaccine For Public School Students” It states that as of now homeschooled children should be able to get the vaccine at public health departments. But should it have even been an issue to begin with?

A southwest Virginia mother of two brought her children to the public health department for an H1N1 vaccination. They told her, “We’re saving the vaccine for public school students.” A northern Virginia mom asked the Alexandria school system if her kids could be vaccinated with the others. They promptly rebuffed her.

What does HSLDA have to do with flu vaccinations? Everything—if homeschoolers are being discriminated against.

HSLDA Senior Counsel Scott Woodruff called the Alexandria officials, but they refused to budge, insisting that it was the school’s property, and they could decide who comes on it. For the mom at the other end of the state, Woodruff called a state health department official, who promptly placed a call to southwest Virginia, and the homeschooled children got the vaccinations. One of her children had a respiratory issue.

Woodruff followed up with the state official and asked if unvaccinated children would get priority treatment at local public health departments consistent with their status as members of a “target group” the Center for Disease Control has identified. The surprising answer: no. She said that homeschooled children—who don’t have access to all the convenient public school vaccination events—would have to get in line and be treated like people who are not in a target group.

Confronted with this totally unsatisfactory situation, Woodruff sent a memo to the state commissioner of health.

This began a chain of events that lead to a statewide conference call with Woodruff, Yvonne Bunn of Home Educators Association of Virginia, Parish Mort of Organization of Virginia Homeschoolers, Dr. Karen Remley, state commissioner of health, Dr. Diane Helentjaris, state office of epidemiology, and others. Woodruff asked Remley to instruct local public health departments to set aside special times each week when unvaccinated children would receive priority treatment. Bunn and Mort agreed that more needed to be done for homeschooled children.

Remley made no commitment during the conference call, but a few days later she agreed with Woodruff’s request and began instructing public health departments to set up (at least) weekly pediatric vaccination clinics.

Many parents have good reasons to not vaccinate their children. But for those who want it, they can now expect their children, as members of a target group, to have equitable access when the vaccine is available at public health departments.

In a follow up conference call, Remley said that she expects there will be enough vaccine for everyone who wants it by December. Until then, the key word is patience.

When I was growing up I never missed a day of school because I was sick. Not that I never was sick, mind you. In order for me to miss school there had to be blood, or a dangling eyeball, or something kind of serious like that. And unfortunately there never was.

I remember times when I was in class and I’d start coughing. Not just the light, once or twice, clearing your throat kind of cough, but the kind where you cough so hard you gag. I never actually let it get that bad in class, because by then I had bolted into the hallway to get a drink from the water fountain. And, of course, what would happen as soon as I left the room? I’d stop coughing, get some water anyway and then head back to class. But as soon as I got settled and comfortable back into my seat the cough would return.

It still happens to me to this day. In church. In line at stores. On the bus/metro. Generally places where it’s quiet, I’m trapped, and people are crammed around me. My kids are the same way. Stupid genes. So when I was thinking about the title of this post I wasn’t really thinking of my own childhood though. I was thinking about my own progeny who tend to get sick every once in a while. And by sick I mean coughing like it’s a contest. Who can cough the loudest, the longest, the fastest, right in my face, etc. I’m left with the dilemma of how far I spread their germs. We. are. busy. Two dance classes, two gymnastics classes, AWANA, church, my Bible study, grocery shopping. We’re out every day of the week.

Making all of those public appearances puts us around lots of people. So we have to cancel a lot of those appearances. I cringe because of the money we’re losing for each missed class (who’da thunk teaching little kids how to point their toes was so expensive).

There’s one thing Reagan doesn’t have to miss because of any illnesses: school. She has the good fortune of being able to go to school whether she’s completely healthy or coughing up her lungs through her nostrils. The only time we don’t do school when she is sick is when she can’t even sit up in bed, and that rarely happens. We miss more school doing field trips than being sick. There’s no incentive to pull a Ferris Bueller-style trick to get out of going to school. When you live in your school room there’s not much you can do to get away from it. Not that she ever complains much, but if she ever does…I don’t care, you’re still going to school.

1. I was thinking last week about blogging about my favorite shoes. Because, you are just dying to know about them, I know. You just didn’t know it. Then last night Tori started tweeting about buying some shoes. And I tried to convince her to buy them. And now I’m thinking about my favorite shoes again.

So here they are:

But one angle won’t do. Because these shoes are iridescent. I know! Look at them from a different angle and you see:

That Jessica Simpson is smarter than she makes out to be. I love these because they are unexpected and can really go with lots of things. I told Tori last night that I wear them with any candy colored top. That makes me seem fun.

I’ve had these shoes for probably a year now and I think they’re still looking pretty darn good.

2. In other fashion news, I was going to show you a dress I fell in love with in the December issue of Town & Country. I looked it up on the designer’s website, however, and fell out of love with it. Hard. Sometimes it’s necessary to see how clothes will hang on an actual body. So, no picture here. I will, instead, remind you of the dress I fell in love with last year…and would gladly take it as a hand-me-down. As proven above, I have no issues with wearing last year’s fashion.

Dang I look good in it (thanks Tori)!

3. In still more fashion news. I used to feel naked without a watch. But then the battery died (and I’ve been too cheap to get it replaced) and I haven’t worn a watch since. I obviously got over the feeling naked part. Today I received a temptation email from Rue La La. These watches are on sale right now:

You know what’s absurd, that I would consider buying a new watch and abandon the old one that just needs its battery replaced. Sometimes I wonder about myself.

4. Last, but certainly not least, as it is giving me a whole new outlook on fashion, two recent blog posts are making me think totally new things about fashion. The first post was my own about the Uniform Project. Daja replied including this remark:

I heard a wardrobe consultant say that we should spend something like 30% of our clothing budget on clothes and 70% on accessories. She said that accessories made all the difference and we could dress for much cheaper if we knew how to accessorize better.

Um, where has that little piece of advice been all my life? I rarely buy accessories, which brings me to the second post. Lula posted about Summer of Le Musings of Moi. Summer is what I look like to myself in my head. Too bad the mirror rarely reflects such stylish style. AND she’s a thrift shopper. True genius. Lula and I were emailing and talking about accessories and I was noting how I am too cheap frugal to buy accessories every season.

So for my new outlook on fashion I will attempt to spend less on clothes and more on accessories. If I were to buy one dress and then just accessorize that everyday I think I’d be off to a good start…if only my clothing budget weren’t so miniscule.

I am reproducing this article in its entirety. The advice is definitely something to keep in mind as our children get closer to graduating!

I’m loving this blog/site:

I’m am all for capitalism, especially the making money part and spending money part. Well, that pretty much sums capitalism up, but I am a big fan. I do think though there is a limit as to how much I personally can obtain and own before I start feeling a little selfish and indifferent to others, to the world, to my own desires to teach my children that happiness does not come from gathering and owning things. Capitalism is a fabulous means to an end. And that end shouldn’t really be trying to fill my house with every imaginable thing. I mean, do I need twenty sweaters and nineteen pairs of shoes? (I didn’t just go and count those by the way.) Do I need an everyday set of dinnerware and a special set that I forget to take out during special occasions anyway? Do I need another candle to set out and collect dust because that’s all it’s good for in my house, I forget to burn them. Do I need more stuff? Because where does all that stuff go when we’re done with it? If it doesn’t stay in our house it either gets donated to Good Will or goes straight into the dump.

In my life, we move every two or three years. This has turned me into a purger and I’ve become very good at saying no to a lot of the physical trappings of capitalism. I like to throw things out instead of bringing more into the house. In fact I’m very good at saying no to toys, especially the landfill crap that comes in kids’ meals at nameyourclosestgreasepit. Did I just type that? My weakness though would be clothing. I have a very hard time getting rid of things hanging in my closet. Because I can see myself wearing “it” in my mind. Even if I’ve never actually worn it in real life. I have a top that I bought in NYC that I have yet to wear. But I cannot part with it. Because I just might wear it once on a date night. Please help me.

This is what intrigues me about the Uniform Project. Sheena is taking one dress and wearing it for 365 days, making it different each day with accessories, etc. Before you say gross, because I know you’re already thinking it, I did, she actually has seven of the same dress. It’s a good thing she has a designer friend who designed the dress with her and helped her sew seven of them! She’s accessorizing with various vintage finds and things people donate to her. I love the idea of taking a really well-made item and wearing it over and over again (while maintaining its freshness obviously). I wish I had the guts to do it.

My hangup, in being able to do this myself, is personal. Growing up, all the popular girls never wore anything twice to school. I swear I never saw them wear the same thing twice. That was my insecure twisted brain telling myself that I needed to be able to do the same thing. There was even a point in junior high when I wrote down what I wore everyday so I wouldn’t rewear something too soon. So, I’m coming from the background of if I’m having to wear an item over and over again it’s because I don’t have enough money or enough sense to go out and get something else.

That is insane. Go ahead and judge. I am growing out of that though if only out of necessity. There are some days when I can’t even pull a complete thought together, much less a cute outfit. But, wait a minute. I sure did wear something cute yesterday! And I didn’t sweat. And my girls didn’t smear any food on it. And I’m going to be seen by different people today than I was seen by yesterday…

For some reason jeans are a different story. I’ll wear the same pair of jeans over and over and not care who sees. If you’re staring hard enough to notice these are the same jeans I’ve had on several days in a row then come a little closer so I can slap you. Jeans are kind of the background to an outfit so they’re allowed that.

I am sure the Europeans are already practicing this “sustainable fashion” idea as Sheena puts it, or at least they were when I lived over there. Those women can pull together some pretty crazy looking outfits, but they end up looking cool because they just act cool. This leads me to believe that they don’t have as many clothes hanging in their closets as I do and so they form (seemingly odd) combinations in order to get more mileage out of their items. I don’t know though, they have a pretty crazy design aesthetic when it comes to automobile upholstery and eyeglasses so maybe they do think they’re on the cutting edge of fashion. If it sounds like I’m being derogatory I’m really not. I like the fact that they have their own individual senses of style and just wear what they want to. If only I could be so bold.

I think I’d have to move to New York to be able to pull off some of the things Sheena has worn so far. D.C. is still pretty conservative. When it comes to dress that is. Lord knows there are only two conservatives in D.C. right now and they’re both under this roof. Add to that the stigma of being a SAHM and a somewhat suburban one at that. A suburban SAHM’s outfit is chosen for her whether she likes it or not. I try to buck the system every once in a while, but then I just feel like I’m trying to be younger than I really am. And then the other mommies don’t ask me to play.

So here’s what I need to do. Come up with a core wardrobe of well-made items, preferably sewn by me (but that would throw out the well-made part so hmm…) that I can “change” by layering different tops or bottoms or scarves or hats (boy, wouldn’t people look at me then!). Then maybe I’d feel confident enough to throw out the 80% of my wardrobe that gets worn maybe once a year.

Or I could just look at Sheena’s blog and dream about owning a dress that I could wear backwards and forwards. Two dresses in one. Or 14 if I could have seven of them like she does. If only her designer friend had made it reversible as well. Four dresses in one. Or 28.

Initially I had a criticism about the Uniform Project, and that was that Sheena accessorizes with different things everyday. So her wardrobe isn’t actually decreasing in size. The “sustainability” factor flies out the window. I don’t really like that word though. It’s a buzz word that everyone uses now to make us think that what they are doing or trying to sell us is somehow better for the environment. Well, wearing 365 actual different outfits is not sustainable for the environment (nor is it easy on the wallet). It IS sustainable for capitalism though, so I’m not really criticizing her right or ability to wear 365 different outfits, if that’s what she wants. After all, that was my goal as a youth! Her goal, however,is the idea that she’s getting across–that we can take ONE dress and wear it many different ways–that matters. She’s the lucky one that gets to model the 365 ways.

Some people get all hot and bothered about meeting celebrities. I probably would too if I knew who half of the current celebrities out there today were. I get all excited when I get to meet my own personal celebrities: politicians…and grammar icons. Oh yes. Who are we kidding, I just see them and I tweet and facebook the sighting quicker than a DC stoplight.

And tonight I got to do both. I’m in some kind of DC heaven. As we were on our way to a DC Borders we somehow were stuck in gridlock traffic. Imagine that. It was on Embassy Row or some other shi shi la la road, so I got to stare at lots of pretty buildings. There were lots of people out and about walking to dinner or to home or jogging. For some reason though this one man caught my eye, walking by himself, carrying a heavy brief case and looking kind of tired. Good thing Du was with me because I thought it was a tv news guy. I said, “I’ve seen that guy on tv before!” all jazzed that I was having a celebrity sighting. Du said, “yeah (as in duh), that’s Dick Gephardt.” Du’s cool because he can actually place the face with the name. Me? I just think they’ve all been on tv.

So I tweeted and fb-ed that I just saw Dick Gephardt. And I heard crickets chirping.

After dinner we got to Borders for my intentional personal celebrity sighting of the night. Grammar Girl!! She is the guru of grammar and uses social media, and interesting examples, to make it cool. I’m a closet grammar geek. I stay in the closet though because I don’t consider myself well-versed on the minutia of grammar. I am in no way prepared to correct other’s grammar when I myself cannot manage to use it properly. Me and commas (sic, haha) do not get along. I either overuse or underuse them and have been accused of both by professors. And I just started using semicolons, incorrectly most likely. The little grammar tidbits I get from Mignon help me feel like I’m actually getting a grip on the English language though.

I follow Grammar Girl. Almost in the truest sense of the word. I follow her on Twitter and Facebook. I listen to her podcast. Tonight she said to me, “you look familiar.” “Oh gawd!!!” I thought. Am I stalker? She has lots of fans and I somehow have stuck out in her mind…crap. “Uh, I follow you on Twitter,” I manage to get out. Only, I forgot that my Twitter picture is of the girls, not me. She must have seen that comment I left her on fb last night. Oh crap, I am a stalker! She was very nice though and spelled my name correctly when she signed my book. Maybe I’m not a stalker. Maybe I’m just a

I always seem to make a fool of myself though when I meet my own personal celebrities. After the fact. I get home, download the pictures, and shudder in sheer horror. Did I really look like that!? Tonight I remembered my propensity and warned Du, “please don’t let me look like I’m about to stab her with a knife.” He knew exactly what I was talking about. And he laughed. “No, really. I want a normal picture of me with a famous person.” When the time came to get my picture taken with GG I totally forgot to try to smile normally. But Du took a picture with two different phones. “I think, with two, maybe one of the pictures came out normal,” he said. It’s a good thing I love him. I think this time it actually worked out though.

This is me with Grammar Girl, Mignon Fogarty. She looks all nice and normal and I finally look somewhat normal.

But here’s what I mean about getting psychotic looking:

This is me with Joyce Rumsfeld. She looks all nice and normal. Me? It looks like I’m probably holding a knife behind my back and am maniacally laughing. To myself.

This is me with Sarah Palin. She looks all nice and normal. Me? It looks like I’m probably holding a knife behind my back and am maniacally laughing. To myself.

This is me with Mike Huckabee. He looks all nice and normal. Me? It looks like I’m probably holding a knife behind my back and am maniacally laughing. To myself.

It’s like I’m trying to see how many teeth I can show off at the same time. LOOK! I HAVE TEETH! ALL OF THEM!

There’s only one other personal celebrity picture in which I do not look like I’m a serial killer:

Uh. This is me. And that’s Sean Hannity. And I’m not even looking. That’s apparently a good thing.

Defining what motherhood means is almost impossible. To each woman the name and the role means something different. As varied as we are so will our answers be about what being a mother means to us. What defines me will not define you and what issues you face in being a mother will not be the same ones I face.

The fact is though is that we as mothers all have ideas that define us and we all have struggles that we go through during the season of raising little ones. I think it’s safe to say that every mother spends some time thinking about, if not stressing over, identity and being and the possibility of losing oneself in the roll of mother. Who am I? Who am I compared to who I thought I was going to be? How do I continue to be true to myself all the while placing other’s needs before mine?

I was fortunate enough to be able to screen the new Motherhood film earlier this week. I have to say it is spot on in expressing any mother’s struggle with identity and being. Spot. On. Eliza is a mother in New York City who left a career to stay at home and raise her two children (with father, Goose…I mean Anthony Edwards), but she might as well have been a mother in D.C., or Atlanta, or rural Alabama. Her life is busy and chaotic and messy and frustrating and her attentions are focused mainly on the lives of her two children out of necessity, not because she is an overly doting mother who doesn’t want a moment’s harm to befall her child (that woman is in the movie too and she is hilarious). This includes things we all know very well: making sure the household is running properly and schedules coordinate and friendships are maintained and neighbors are looked after and maybe, just maybe, she can have a moment to herself.

Can you relate? I’ll say that I thought they had filmed my life and Uma Thurman was doing her interpretation of me. That was me on the screen in a lot of the film. Although I did not leave a career to be a mother I still could so relate to her daily grind and how that affected her as a person–as a human who loves being a mother but also longs for her “other than mother” identity to remain intact as well. There were numerous times when my husband (he came with me, brave man) would look at me or squeeze my hand, knowing I was relating with what was happening on-screen. There were times when I caught myself raising my hand in complete agreement, admitting that was totally me. There were times when I cried because I knew exactly what Eliza was feeling and how hard it is periodically to just keep going. There were times when I laughed because I have said the exact same thing she does (when will I ever be able to form a complex sentence again?).

Eliza’s life is also fun and exciting and filled with moments so precious that she wants to capture them as to be able to remember them forever (in fact, she is much better at that than I am). She doesn’t despair of being a mother;  the “job” is too important and honoring and fulfilling. The burdens that begin to weigh on her weren’t troublesome because she didn’t want to be a mom. She needed a way beyond motherhood to define herself. She had been a writer pre-children and her only outlet at the time of the movie was to maintain her own mommy blog. How could she feel fulfilled again? I wonder the same thing sometimes.

As women with children, the fact is that motherhood does define us. The choice is how we are going to let it define us. How are we going to take our God-given talents and desires and gifts and use those beyond being a mother only. How can we balance the struggle of meeting everyone’s needs (before our own many times) and yet still make sure our basic need of fulfillment is met?

Go see Motherhood if you’re in one of the opening markets (NY, LA, San Francisco, Chicago and Boston). Pray that it comes to a town near you if you have to wait. I wasn’t paid or compensated in any way to write this review. In fact, I wasn’t even asked to write the review. It’s such a good movie though and hits the nail squarely on the head about what I’m certain most mothers go through at least some time in their career as a mom. I know ours isn’t the first generation to be dealing with these complexities. I’m sure Eve struggled with what “mom” meant to her. Ours is the first though to blog about every single runny nose and poopy diaper. We are the first to go a little too far sometimes in describing our wants and needs (or our friend’s…watch the movie) to a readership that spans the globe. We are the first who can seek guidance and compassion from thousands of moms who know exactly what we are going through even though we may feel like we’re the only ones. We are the first generation who has really been able to connect with one another on such a large scale and attempt to have our collective mommy voice heard and understood. The Motherhood film is an advocate for our struggles and heroics and doldrums that we face daily. It’s a great date night to start a discussion with our other half about what we may be going through. If anything it’s a great two hours away from the progenies that first defined us and our life of “motherhood”.

So sorry if I annoy you with my continued use of the word “lobstah”. That’s how I pronounce it in my head now. Lobstah, chowdah, pahk the cah at Hahvahd Yahd. I kid you not. I am quickly slipping into a New England, and most likely Bostonian, accent. So come along with me and read this post with your best Bahston accent.

We said our goodbyes to Bahston. I think I’m going to miss that area; it really is the cradle of our nation. And people were nice too. While we were there we tried to be as Bostonian as we could. We had Sam Adams Boston Lager. We ate New England Clam Chowdah. We ate Boston Cream Pie. We tried to find Boston Baked Beans, but that delicacy wasn’t on the menus. So either the beans have gone out of style or they weren’t that good. We’ll never know.

Today we headed up to Maine. Quick! What’s the first thing you think of when you think of Maine? Lobstah right? That’s what I thought of because I’d never been to Maine and could only associate it with what I’ve heard about. For instance, I had no idea they call themselves Vacationland because who vacations in Maine…except the Bushes. And my friend Gretchen. Well, my friend Pepper lives there and one of my previous Sunday School teacher’s whole family is from there…but you get the idea. Right?

So, we’re going up to Maine because we’ve never been there before and it’s only an hour north of Boston. How could we not? Well, we actually passed up our chance five years ago when we were on our Fruity Pebble Tour (our fall foliage tour through New England. Look at the side of a mountain in full glory of changing leaves and tell me it doesn’t look like a bowl of Fruity Pebbles). We were in New Hampshire, ten minutes from the Maine border. It was our last day of the trip though and neither of us were wanting to take any amount of time away from the road to home. Not so this time. Seeing that we were going to be in the state where the lobstah was invented there’s no way we could leave without tasting some of this sea gold.

I don’t eat lobstah very much in real life. It’s too expensive and we all know I’m cheap frugal. If something on the menu has “market price” next to it you can guarantee that the market doesn’t include me. What’s the old saying? “If you have to ask then you can’t afford it?” I don’t even get shrimp very often and shrimp is like the poor man’s crustacean. I thought for sure that since we were going to be in the state that prides itself in all things lobstah that it would be cheaper. I got a lesson in economics today.

Lobstah is not cheapah in Maine. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they charged more for it because we were getting the privilege of eating it in Maine. The whole experience. Maybe it was the fact we were Kennebunkport and everyone who visits there obviously doesn’t have to ask what the market price of their main staple is.

The restaurant we ate at looked like one of those small marina restaurants that prides itself more in the taste of the food rather than the taste of the decor. Actually, I need to eat my words there. I found nothing wrong with the decor. The Bushes frequent Bartley’s when they are at their second home (or is it their third?) and there are pictures of them all over with various niceties written to Mrs. B (who makes a killer blueberry pie).

(that’s Bush 41 jumping on his 85th birthday)

We were in the mood for a light snack because it was in between lunch and dinner times. A friend recommended I try a lobstah roll so I searched the menu for that. $17.95. $17.95! 17 dollars and 95 cents. Swallowing all that might be Scottish in my ancestry (the Scots are known to be “mean”, or cheap) I decided to go ahead and try it. Other lobstah dishes were market price and we know that means it’s too much for me. Du ordered the clam chowdah and we ordered the girls french fries.

I had no idea what a lobstah roll was. In my mind was a sort of rouladen where the meat is rolled with other things (kinda like a jelly roll). What came was a lightly toasted piece of thick buttered toast with about a cup of lobster meat mixed with seasonings. I tell you it was delicious. But worth eighteen dollars? Not to me. Maybe it was the whole Kennebunkport experience we were being charged for. After all, if you could actually buy lobstah for cheapah in Maine then it would quit being a delicacy. And maybe people would quit paying market price for a bottom feeder.

Something interesting I just found out by searching on wikipedia: lobstah wasn’t a delicacy until recently. It used to be poor man’s food and even indentured servants were sick of having to eat it more than two or three times a week. People would bury lobstah shells instead of throwing them away so as not to be caught having to eat lobstah. Oh, the horror. Oh what a little positive propaganda and spin will do to turn something into a hot commodity.

Tonight we’re spending the night in Vermont. Do you think we’ll be able to get some pure Vermont maple syrup for cheaper than I can get it back at my local DC grocery store? I’m not holding my breath any longer.

PS. It wasn’t just the lobstah that was overpriced. Ashlyn’s chocolate milk, all 7 ounces of it, was $4.50. $4.50! Do they not have cows in Maine? Can they not import that milk at a price cheaper than the going rate of per ounce gold? I was more than a little incensed.

And PPS. There is more to Maine than lobstahs. It has a beautiful coastline of which we were only to able to take in a small bit. We visited Olgunquit before Kennebunkport and took a walk on the Marginal Walk. Breathtaking. This picture doesn’t do justice.

History is fascinating, and I think it takes getting through high school and possibly college history courses for most of us until we actually begin appreciating it. Am I alone?

It took me moving to Germany and having the ability to see places in person. And they may have been just local castles or centuries-old churches, but placing them in America’s timeline (“whoa, this church was built before America was even discovered!”) made things make a little more sense.

Now, being able to see history’s sites in person is the best history lesson I could ever get. Why can’t every student be able to do this? To see Jamestown and learn about how time can change the borders of a river and therefore “hide” part of the original fort. To learn that colonists dumped their chamber pots right outside their front doors (everything just stank back then). To visit Mount Vernon and understand that George Washington was probably a micromanager (my own observation) when it came to farming. To tour James Monroe’s house and learn that the language they spoke at home was French. To visit Monticello and learn that there was quite a bit of interracial “relations” happening back then (and not only with Jefferson). To visit Boston and learn that grave sites were used to the fullest (multiple people buried in one spot) and that Samuel Adams was one of America’s original spin doctors and not the originator of Sam Adams beer. To visit Lexington and learn that Paul Revere was across the street from Lexington Green when the battle took place that morning. To go to Concord and learn that several of America’s beloved authors all lived in that area and went to church together.

Reading books, especially when you’re “forced” to for school, gets you just about nowhere. Unless you have an overactive imagination it’s almost impossible to see the historical accounts for what they truly were: everyday life for someone that happened to become pieces of history for us. Being able to visit the actual places, listen to guides who have read all the books and done all the studying, and being able to visually imagine things makes history come to life.

I guess watching History Channel programs are the next best thing. Only so much information can be imparted in an hour though. And it has to be severely edited. You don’t normally get little historical nuances, or human interest stories from background figures that really makes a story so much more complex.

I’m praying that Reagan gets a little more out of these history vacations than what she would get out of just reading a book or watching a school video. We’ll do those as well, but I’m hoping that since she has actually visited the places that we’re reading about she will take a more active interest in digging deeper and remembering and loving history. I just want to grab her sometimes and implore her to “get it”. To know how incredibly fortunate she is to be able to see these sites first hand.

And I do think we are so blessed to be able to travel to all these historical sites. I do thank God for that ability, and for the small things like cheap hotel rooms and discounted entries. By the end of this school year we will have finished studying the Civil War. As a family, however, we will continue throughout the summer to visit as many of the historical Civil War sites in our part of the country that we can. I will continue to remember or learn things for the first time about our great nation, and hopefully Reagan will gain a love of history that it took me decades to find.

Mini history lesson: This is Lexington Green. The Battle of Lexington took place on here in the morning hours of 19 April, 1775. There were no trees back then because King George III required that all large timber (I believe it was 24″ wide or more) became the crown’s property and had to be shipped to England. Also, the soil is very rocky around there and many trees were felled in order to find fertile soil. So, from the pastor’s house where Sam Adams and John Hancock were hidden away (because the royal governor had wanted them arrested), about 50 acres away, you could see directly to the Green. There is a tavern directly across the street in which John Hancock had left a trunk containing all of his important papers. He was the president of the Provincial Congress and had papers of colonial dealings that could jeopardize the lives of many men with the English crown. Once Paul Revere convinced Hancock and Adams to leave the area and find safety in another town he went back to the tavern to get the trunk and keep it safe. Revere was in this tavern when the battle on Lexington Green happened. In his account he claims he heard the first shot to be fired as that of a pistol. Our guide said that this meant it would be a British officer then who fired first (no one knows who fired the first shot). However, the leaders of the revolutionary cause were great at spinning the details and whether Revere was telling the truth is questionable. After the Regulars left the green and headed towards Concord some family members from the pastor’s house, and others from town, quickly took the bodies of the men from the green, fashioned coffins (our guide made it seem that some were already prepared because the colonists knew war would be coming sooner or later), and buried their relatives, neighbors and friends before the British troops came back through on their retreat back to Boston.

Also, before the battle of Lexington Green, and before Revere went to Buckman Tavern to secure Hancock’s trunk, he and Dawes attempted to ride to Concord to warn the town that the Regulars were on their way. They were riding at about 1:00 am. On their way they met Dr. Prescott who lived in Concord and was heading back that way from Lexington.  Why was he on the road in the middle of the night? He was engaged to a woman who lived in Lexington and he had been courting her. Interesting, right! Of course, Prescott was the only one able to evade the British patrol that had been set up on the road in between the two cities, because he knew the lay of the land.

You may have already known about these stories, but I had not heard them, or didn’t remember them. It’s the details like these that make history so fascinating and being able to learn about them “in person” make it so much more real. Give me more!

I thought I’d have time to post every night about our activities of the day. But this is no relaxing vacation and we do not usually get in until wee hours of the night. Wee enough to prevent me from posting regularly because I have added the pressure onto myself to post pictures. And then I have to get my phone out, and hook it up, and figure out iPhoto, and get the regular camera out, and refigure out iPhoto, and then figure out how I can get the photos from my computer to the post on the internet. I really should have it figured out by now, but as of yet, it weighs on me every night and therefore I put off posting like it’s a burden.

BAH! You will get no pictures tonight. You may not even get a coherent sentence.

Here’s what we’ve done the last couple of days:

• we toured the Samuel Adams brewery in Boston. We tasted three different kinds of malted barley. Tastes like cereal for a reason. Then we were provided with 7oz glasses and three different Sam Adams brews to taste.
• we took another walking tour of Boston. Same tour guide, different part of town. This time we went up into the northern part of Boston to see Old North Church and talk a lot about Paul Revere. And Increase and Cotton Mather (think Salem Witch Trials). This is also the Italian section of Boston so our senses were bombarded with wonderful smells and promises of authentic, Italian family style food. I mentioned last time that our tour guide was awesome. He was this time as well. Great entertainment and great stories. What I forgot to mention is that he’s almost rabid when it comes to people outside of the tour group taking his picture. He gets down right mean! He started off his tours by letting us know that everything he says is copyrighted material and therefore could we please only take still photos and if we must video then please make it less than 20 seconds per segment. All righty. And that’s being nice. When people on the street would hear him talk they would naturally be drawn to him. His voice carries, he’s dressed funnily, and he’s giving the history of the surrounding areas. The unsuspecting passers-by would gather around to hear. If he caught someone listening in he would let them know they were welcome to stay, but that this is a paid tour, and they would need to either settle up with him now or at the end of the tour. Every single person he said that to walked away and then he would make fun of them for not wanting to pay as they were walking away. And God forbid them trying to take a picture. He would hold his hat towards the camera so the tourist couldn’t get a picture of him. Most people didn’t persist, but some did and he got louder and louder asking them to please stop taking pictures. I was kind of wanting someone to challenge him to see how far he would actually go to get them to not take pictures. It was funny and scary at the same time. Because I was on his side.
• we watched GA Tech whoop up on VA Tech at a dear friend’s house. She and her family are living in this area so we got together Saturday evening some good food and football. Our girls loved her, of course, and have been asking to go over to Miss Diamme’s house ever since. Well, Reagan pronounces her name correctly, but the way Ashlyn says it is pretty cute.
• we drove down to Plymouth and toured the Plimoth Plantation. We were one of several idiotic families that braved an odd nor’easter and the freezing, driving wind and rain that it brought. We were rewarded richly though as we were the only family to visit each Wampanoag house and got one on one attention to ask as many questions we wanted of the native people. Same at the English settlement. We even got to sit a spell with William Bradford himself and take part in a Pilgrim-style worship service (where some Arian youth tried to debate the paid actor who was pretending to be a priest). If you are ever up this way it is well worth the trip to Plymouth to experience the Plimoth Plantation.
• Reagan and I braved the nor’easter once more to climb atop Old Burial Hill to find William Bradford’s grave and the site of the first fort of 1621.
• It is well worth the trip to eat at Wood’s Seafood too. Those lobster couldn’t have been any fresher. I guess we could have eaten them live, but they weren’t long from the ocean when we enjoyed them.
• we toured the Kennedy Presidential Library. My favorite part, and I suspect Reagan would say the same as well, was the information on Jacqueline Kennedy. She lived in McLean for a time (that’s in NoVa, near where we live). Actually my favorite part was eating lunch overlooking Boston Harbor and watching the planes approach Logan Airport.
• we then toured the exhibit at the Massachusetts Archives. AMAZING. Do I say that word too much? This does qualify though. We saw the original Massachusetts Bay charters of 1629 and 1691. Do the math! We saw the original Massachusetts Constitution, the oldest continually used constitution in the world (the US Constitution was ratified shortly after this one). We saw the copy of the Declaration of Independence that came from Philadelphia and was read on the balcony of the Old State House on 18 July 1776. There was a great interactive, kid-friendly exhibit leading up to these documents. I love seeing the first-hand documents.
• we dropped the girls off at Dianne’s house and went on a date night. We almost didn’t know what to do. I had won tickets to prescreen the new movie Motherhood though and so we went to Cambridge to watch that (more about that after the movie is released). We then got to discuss it at Starbucks in Harvard Yard.
• Did I mention in a previous post that we also walked around Harvard? And Harvard Square? It was nice being around a college but not having to worry about studying. I did stress a little for all the students milling about when they should have been studying in their dorm rooms. I got over it. I need to watch Good Will Hunting again though now that I might recognize some of the scenery. Or was that all staged?

Are you still reading? Wipe the drool please. In the next couple of days we’ll visit:

• Lexington
• Concord
• Bunker Hill
• USS Constitution
• and drive by a house that many authors lived in or are associated with. Did you know that so many famous American authors are from around here? Alcott, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Emerson. Maybe it will inspire me to get back out those classics that I was trying to read at one point.

Sorry to bore. I wanted to get this down for posterity. Oh, and we’re going to try to get up to Maine as well.