January 2012

Being Angry Baker: Full Disclosure

Jan

Right now I should be dealing with the return home/Christmas stuff explosion covering all three floors of my house. I’m not into it right now and the kids seem to be engaged in hide and go seek or something somewhat harmless.

Instead, let me tell you a story. A story about a 30 something mother with 3 children and a penchant for crazy hair, baked goods, and locked doors.

Okay, let’s not do that because it gets really boring writing in the 3rd person about myself. Let me tell you some stuff. All true. Most of it I don’t want to mention, but there is a really funny part I think you’ll enjoy. And as you know, I just want to be funny.

This past summer I noticed days were getting harder for me. I felt like I had to claw my way through each one. I began avoiding people, phone calls, and social interactions. I faced insomnia night after night. I didn’t want to go anywhere. I was just surviving. Just getting the kids fed. Just managing to do laundry. And that was all.

There was no uncontrollable crying, no cowering in bed, but there was a lot of snappish, unpleasant, and sometimes mean interactions with my family. The social worker in me saw the flashing red lights. I took online depression tests every day for a week and scored pretty high. (We have a depression winner!! ding ding ding!)

I doubled my efforts. I forced myself to go to mandatory social events, I kept up my exercising, and I gave the happy thoughts a try. I remained unhappy. [click to continue…]

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Being Angry Baker: An Introduction

Jan

I’m working on a series of posts about the deep inner workings of my mind. It’s kind of like a bad reality show, so I know you’ll probably be interested on the basest of levels. You are guaranteed to feel vastly superior to me. It’s a lot of writing, thus I feel compelled to give you fair warning.

Warning: I am writing a lot.

So for those of you that like pretty pictures and short, pithy life bites – I’m fresh out. It’s just reading. Oh the stories I’ve been keeping! It will be neurotic, depressing, amusing, weird, and I apologize ahead of time for any mental images you may conjure.

In the meantime, think about pretty flowers and go to your happy place.

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This One’s for you, Sel

Jan

Meme alert, meme alert. Beep. Beep: 7 Links

Owing to the fact that I truly don’t know if it’s Thursday or Friday and just had to hop over to my google calendar to find out, and that I have nothing funny or snarky to say (well I do, but I have to wait til I can be diplomatic about it), and that I would do anything to avoid any more cleaning, let us review. Okay, I’ll review and you go grab a snack and pin something real quick.

My Most Beautiful Post: Um, I have no clue. Beautiful? I’m all irreverence and navel gazing. But I did go to Paris and Amsterdam last summer.

My Most Popular Post: Hard to say, I’m gonna go with the one that got the most hits from the regular crowd. Shaving my head keeps ‘em coming back.

My Most Controversial Post: Easy. Anything to do with being Mormon. Or not being Mormon anymore. Both of which are fine. But I do not like cats.

My Most Helpful Post: How to use google image search. Seriously, i love searching by image and it has found me so many things and saved me so much time. I therefore assume that you all owe me a big fat thank you.

A Post, The Success Of Which Surprised Me: The one about baby names. It was a total filler post. I remember thinking to myself that it was stupid to even publish it. But apparently you guys want to talk about names.

A Post That Didn’t Get The Attention I Think It Deserved: I suppose the real question is do any of them deserve attention? I really think you guys need to pay more attention to my posts about boogers and farts.I also think you should send me money.

The Post I’m Most Proud Of: Probably the one I deleted from the public domain, because I made myself disclose something meaningful and private. I do have my top ten favorites down at the footer, though I haven’t updated it in a while….. Let’s all just be friends.

And now if you feel moved, or you are lacking in blog post ideas, consider yourself tagged.

You’re it.

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The Testy Threes

Jan

Forget two, it’s three that’s terrible. Three is when my kids turn into little nightmares that torture me all day long. I was hoping Dutch would continue along her mellow and easy going path, but it seems she has been seized by an acute case of ornery. I was completely unprepared. Seriously, can I get witness? She’s a fairly pleasant kid, right? She says thanks without being prompted. She prances. She is sincerely grateful (and strangely excited) when I launder her clothes. But the last few weeks she’s decided that she’d like The Grumpiest Kid alive sash. Her birthday is coming up obviously.

Hello, tantrums. Hello, bi-polar moods. Hello, using mean words.

She sat on my lap yesterday, asking to be holeled (held), and I kissed her forehead in rapid fire succession.

“Mom – no kisses! Don’t kiss me!”

“But I love you and I won’t stop,” and I kept going.

“I don like choo, I like daddy.”

“I like Daddy too.”

“No! I like Daddy, not choo!”

And on and on until she she informed me that Daddy is good and I am (the lowest of all insults) a meanie meanie.

I think I’ve been blaming it on all of the transitions – potty training, then the Christmas road trip, and moving into her sister’s bunk bed. I’ve made a lot of excuses for that little munchkin. But today, she gave me the stink eye and muttered, “I hay-tch you.”

I suppose I’ll have to think about parenting again. Sigh.

It’s just that it’s really hard to discipline this little face.

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Project Therapy

Jan

Yesterday someone asked me how I get used to people leaving all of the time, and then the list of previous good byes was recited. Ouch. I confessed I’m taking a new approach and explained my plan of late: I’m considering a self-imposed depressive episode. I’ll stay in bed, eat only chocolate, and read books. (And finish the second season of Downton Abbey, but I can do that in bed.) An extended absence from social life seems like the perfect coping mechanism to me. It’s not just the revolving friendship door, there are other things definitely listed in the “not happy” column.

While I’m ensconced in my house, perhaps I’ll lose the melodrama and get started on the the office/sewing room I have in mind. I started a board for it yesterday (which is about the only thing I did yesterday). We just have to get rid of the crib and move Dutch’s toys and clothing to the other room to free up the room. (Anybody want a crib???) The walls in there are already a dark chocolate, so I’m feeling the need to take the plunge and do black. I’m thinking dark walls, crisp white modern accents, and one smaller wall with damask stencils in a pale turquoise.

To tell you the truth, I’ve been a bit obsessed with the interiors of the new BBC Sherlock. I love the Baker Street living room with the main wall and the skull print.

So it’s not much of a surprise that my board ended up looking like this:

I’m hoping a new project will keep me distracted and free from gnashing handfuls of prozac.

Peace out.

UPDATE: You can see how it turned out here.

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Battle Scarred

Jan

She lives to cluck another day. Ballerina has survived her tussle with a raccoon and she looks it. Her comb has healed up nicely, she is back at the top of the pecking order, and she now comes out of the coop to follow me around.

We probably should have amputated her comb to avoid the risk of infection, but by the time we realized that she seemed to be mending. She slept in the coop for three days, barely moving and not eating. Now, she’s a bona fide fight club chicken. We’re kinda digging the way her messed up comb gives her street cred.

Tangent: the hens do not like walking in the snow. Cracks me up. It’s like watching kids on hot sand. You’ll notice she’s just standing on one foot – she does have both, she’s just taking turns.

Hopefully you can see how it just flops over to the side now. It looks like some of my former hair styles, if we’re being honest.

Have a great weekend. Watch out for racoons.

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Date Night Threads

Jan

We’ve hit a new low – work functions as date night. What are you gonna do when there’s free food and all you have to pay for is a babysitter? You’re going to get yourself in your fancy casual outfit and get yourself downtown. That’s what. You’re going to mingle and smile and explain for the umpteenth time why you don’t drink. No one will understand why you are there until they discover you have 3 kids and then they will nod and give you pity eyes. [click to continue…]

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Hey Girl

Jan

Not being on FB means that I’m usually the last to catch onto internet memes. Which is fine. But please tell me you’ve all seen the Hey Girl stuff floating around on Pinterest?

Started by the Feminist Ryan Gosling tumblr – writer Danielle Henderson features “feminist theory flashcards from your favorite sensitive movie dude-turned-meme.” And then the crafty people caught on.

I always call MB over to check them out. And then last night I wondered aloud if Mr. Gosling was aware of this particular fan obsession. He is – and he’s pretty cute when he’s asked to read them.

Let this post be an indicator of how productive and focused I am today.

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Hungover

Jan

I got home from the dance party and immediately put on my robe, which I’ve bee wearing for 36 hours straight. I’m recuperating. Is it possible to have a root beer hangover? Or maybe it was all of the dancing. Regardless, I’ve heard that someone went home and threw up, things were left behind, disco balls were broken, and someone suffered a back injury. All good signs of a fun party in my book.

I love how willing the guys look in this picture. My apologies to those of you that didn’t make this shot. Either because MB didn’t know how to fit you into the frame, or you were one of the 5 people in the way back, or because you had already left.

Seriously though, I am still in my bathrobe. And I did hurt my back. My entire body aches. What is going on? It’s not like I turned 65 (nothing against those of you in your 60s). I reek of tiger balm and buttered popcorn (my heating pad has taken on the microwave smells). The keg has finally been emptied and is floating is a sticky, stained, misappropriated plastic storage bin in the kitchen. The christmas lights will also need to be dealt with. [click to continue…]

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An Angry Baker Recap

Jan

The Golden Globes were lame. I always say I’m not going to watch, but am somehow lured in by the chance that someone will go off script, or trip, or just say something really genuine, or better yet, something absolutely crazy. I’ll pass on politics – they always do politics as if we care.

Here’s my best dressed short list. And by best, I mean something I would wear.

Claire was so obviously not wearing a bra, love her for it. Geometric and modern – that’s what she said on the red carpet and yes (!). While Madonna wears her ego better than anything else (and this dress makes her boobs look plastic, and no one can figure out why she’s wearing one fingerless black glove), this dress is über cool.

30 minutes was all I could handle (perhaps even that was too much). I watched most of it on FF, pausing to check out dresses and then stopping for Best Actress to make sure that Claire Danes won, because she is so awesome in Homeland. She pulled through with a genuinely heartfelt acceptance. I didn’t realize she won when she was 15 (15!) for My So Called Life. Plus, since MB thinks she’s my celebrity doppelgänger I’m sure we share some sort of cosmic connection that she would realize if she just go the chance to meet me in person. Then I turned it off, because Hollywood is awkward. Ricky Gervais was totally making fun of all of them and none of them would really laugh (and we all know it’s true that a GG is nowhere near as prestigious as an Oscar which he said outright. Props to Jodie Foster for being the only celeb that laughed at herself). And none of them know how to talk naturally, which you think an actor could manage without a teleprompter. I’ll have to look at the rest of the dresses online some time today. Tina Fey kept making intentionally awkward faces into the camera (my hero). Also, there’s money to be made offering a class prior to the show on how to walk up to the stage in your dress. Madonna is freakishly toned. Both her and Johnny Depp have unidentifiable accents. I suppose Depp has lived in France too long, but really guys, let’s remember where you started – 21 Jump Street and Desperately Seeking Susan.

There. It’s just like you got to hang out next to me on the couch. Although you didn’t get to see my awesome bathrobe or watch me hog the licorice.