The wonderful designer who created the beauty that is GoodApple is having a contest for a blog re-design. Click here!

She is very easy to work with and I swear she's an intuitive because it only took her one try to get a great design on this blog and my other blog.

Go! Enter!

Today is my first wedding anniversary with Major Man.

Dear Love Of My Life,

I would have married you 10 years ago, when we first met. You were worth waiting for. I remember when you said "I've never won anything" and I said "but honey... you won ME!" You said, "I didn't win you... I just stopped running."

If I ask a question, I had better be prepared for full disclosure. I have never, ever thought that you might be lying to me. Not even when you say you like my butt.

When we met again in 2003 you still had the presents for me that you bought me in 1996 and didn't have the chance to give me. And they were too big on me. That rocks.

For a guy who only just became a parent, you continue to teach me about parenting, even when you tell me a story about your childhood and I'm reminded what NOT to do.

Even my family loves you. A relative was having some issues with her spouse and she wanted to call YOU of all people. She knew you'd give her a straight story.

Marriage was very scary for you. You were very brave.

I knew you'd be all squishy and in love with your daughter. And you are. You may not always show it, but you are. No one laughs when a baby farts and poops unless they love that baby.

You stop chewing your nails when you know it bothers me. Or when you get the evil-death-glare-of-doom.

You know how to do laundry. You may not put mine away, but whenever there's a pile of clean clothes jumbled on the bed... I know that none of your clothes will be in that pile.

You read body language very well whether it's my smile or my evil-death-glare-of-doom.

You know how to wrestle with little boys and burp babies.

I have writing deadlines to meet and yet I'm going to waste my daughter's nap to blog. What else would you expect from an old procrastinating pro?

I was watching Elizabethtown today. Well, I was sort of watching it while sort of packing and sort of reading the newspaper and cursing the fact that I have to move in with a family member and wondering WHY bother live in a booming freaking city when my husband isn't legally allowed to work and why not just move to the states tomorrow.. but I digress...

One line popped out at me.

"Sadness is easier because it's a surrender."

The rest of the movie was kind of lame, but that line made sense. It's true. I've spent a couple of days being sad about the state of things. I spent two days being in a serious funk... not the best state of mind to be in when you are the mom of a brand new baby.

Sadness is a surrender, it's a loss of hope and a feeling that all you can possibly do effectively is crawl under the covers and maybe die. But when you crawl under there, you don't actually die, you sleep and even that makes you feel like you failed a little. Geez, I couldn't even die of sadness. I don't like the thought of surrender. I do not surrender. I move up and on. I push through. I do it the hard way on purpose. So why was I letting this get me down?

The short answer is: I'm not.

I'll take a page from my favourite dead guy ever:

“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense”
~Sir Winston Churchill~

I will do what I need to do, we'll get through what we must.

I got my House fix the other night. It was pretty good. Although House was FAR too happy in this one. I like my House all grumpy and evil in a hard-on-outside-soft-on-inside kind of way.

Only 12 days left until the Grey's Anatomy season opener. I CANNOT WAIT.

In preparation, I'm thinking about buying myself some new clothes:

Because you just can't say "seriously." enough in this world.

Even my five-year-old son is saying it.

Although I think I'll take mine in blue or something ... red clashes with my hair.

Seriously.









And for those of us strongly in George's corner (death to McDreamy!!) we can show our support with a cute little t.



















And of course there has to be room for the McDreamy lovers, like G.G. whose other half thinks we are losers, just because we happen to call each other at the end of every show.

I refrained from posting the entire email from the publisher who responded when I asked to be removed from his email list for the fourth time. Mainly because I hesitate to give idiots too much air time. It only encourages them. But click the title and read about our discussion.

H/T to The Editor's Desk:

Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central is getting kudos for coining two TV buzzwords this year. A group called Global Language Monitor points to these Colbert creations as among the biggies for 2006:

"Truthiness," meaning "truth unencumbered by the facts."

"Wikiality," meaning "reality as determined by majority vote."

The first day of kindergarten was not as emotional as all the hype would lead you to believe. I wasn't weeping at the door, I wasn't mourning his growing up.

No, it was more like leaping for joy and thanking God that the K-day is finally here. M. has been totally bored out of his skull being at home with his boring mother. He's a child that needs interaction, needs more guidance, needs other children.

I remember when I was pregnant with him. I thought I'd be all about the homeschooling. By the time he turned three I was over that fantasy in a big way. This kid is too much for me. He's the book that "Parenting Your Strong Willed Child" was written for. He's a complete extrovert and he's outgoing and he's ALL ME.

Or so Major Man likes to remind me. It is the truth. He is so much like me that we would probably strangle each other if we tried the homeschooling thing. I've had to really reassess my parenting in the last few months. M. has been testing some limits and I find myself being drawn in to arguments with him. I let my emotions get the better of me and sometimes I find myself in an argument with a five year old. You can't argue with a five year old... the teeny-tiny underdeveloped logical part of my brain knows that.

Ah, I remember when I used to watch Supernanny and Nanny911 with such smugness. This weekend Major Man suggested that we actually CALL one of the nannies and I knew my reign as Super Smug Mother had come to an end.

I blogged over at The Writing Mother about a recent experience in which I stressed myself out about a certain task I'd taken on... and how it turned out to be not as big a deal.

I have a habit of taking on one too many things at once. While watching a show tonight, nursing my daughter and making notes on a book I have to read... (see what I mean?) I heard a line that summed it up perfectly.

"I don't think about taking on too much, I just know there are other things for me to do so I just do them."

I'm not sure where I decided to be an overachiever. I am not a big fan of overachievers. I'd like to aspire to being ok with being lazy, but I can't. If I have spare time, I wonder what I should be doing with it. If I can't come up with something then I plan something to take on...

This has been the case recently. I stressed out majorly when I realized that in a three week period I had to take four plane rides (two with both kids and two with just one) be in two different cities across the country, research and write several articles, get some info into some publishers about my book... all the while balancing this thing called Being the Mother of Two Children.

Then we got the news about the rent increase and decided to move.

I seriously thought my head was going to pop right off. But I've managed to tackle the one task that was causing me the most stress. I also politely withdrew myself from another committment I had with very little stress.

Now I feel better, I feel like I have breathing room.

And that old demon creeps up... what else can I cram into my life? What else can I take on? I found myself searching online for a local Toastmaster's club to join... and at the same time I was looking for a bible study to maybe start... hello? McFly? Just get through September with the move and the articles and the travel... and THEN re-assess.