I was pregnant with our oldest daughter when Garth (not his real name) and I bought our house, which makes for an awesome timeline…because our oldest daughter turned 21 in November…and now I don’t have to worry about doing too much math, to figure out that we bought this house 21 years ago and…YES!!!…I’m an awesome planner, like that.
3 more kids later, not so much.
This house was supposed to be our starter home. What?!? Okay, fine. I guess it’s safe to say that we’re just really sloooooooooooow starters…ahem…aaaaaanyway, a modest 3 bedroom home would fit us perfectly.
3 more kids later, not so much.
Now that the kids are mostly grown and 2 are very nearly out of the house, there’s really no reason for us to upgrade to a larger home. See how that ALL worked out?!? Besides, our 3 girls have grown used to sharing a bedroom for this long, what’s another year or twenty, right?!?
Note to our girls, if any of you are reading this post right now: that was totally a rhetorical question.
Anyway, here’s the really, really, best…I mean like totally AWESOME…part of having ALL 4 kids STILL living at home:
It’s 38 degrees and sunny out, ALL HANDS ON DECK!
FREE LABOR, enough said! Oh, and if you’re wondering where kidlet #4 is?
Hope likes to organize stuff, she gets it from her Dad!
I’ve put her organizational skills to good use — she’s already gone through the ENORMOUS stack of filing that’s been piling up since I don’t remember when and is waiting for permission to shred!
The Christmas tree, on the other hand, will most likely stay up until around sometime in February…because I’m also easy-breezy, like that.
Contrary to what the rest of my family feels (except for my son, who celebrates his birthday on the 23rd), January is one of my most favorite months of the year. For me, waking up on New Year’s Day is sort of like turning to a fresh page in a brand new notebook or purchasing a novel I’ve been aching to read.
Half the excitement is in the anticipation of the journey, equaled only by the endless possibilities in watching the progression of a story unfold.
Personal blogging is a lot like that: I have ALL the words in January, but then life begins to quickly insist on equal (if not more) facetime and, well, trying to weed through all the suckage…day in and day out…has a way of knocking even the most coherent sentences…senseless.
Case in point, see previous paragraph.
Long story short: My kids and I have literally grown up in this space and celebrating the start of 2015 also means I’ve now entered into my 12th year of blogging, however, I’m personally finding it increasingly difficult to write — not without feeling as if I’m being kept behind the border of some imaginary line of what is or isn’t blog-worthy.
Excuse my Jersey, but FRIG THAT!
I take a lot of pictures, every day. I also share a lot of photos on social media, because they are moments that have either given me a good laugh or moved me in some way and…honestly…I enjoy sharing laughs and movements are good, too.
Photos have always been an inspiration to the stories I’ve shared here at This Full House, in fact, this blog has morphed into a timeline of sorts for…oh, I don’t know…like settling family disputes or dating our appliances.
Garth (not his real name): When did we get this &%#$ing water heater, anyways?!?!
Me: Wait, let me check the blog.
[one beat, two beats]
Me: We got the &%#$ing water heater in September 2009, when I posted about Our Date night on Twitter.
Social media is awesome, but it will never replace blogging…not completely…because you can squeeze only so much awesome into 140 characters, right?!? RIGHT?!?
[sound of crickets, chirping]
Right. Soooo, for my first blog post in 2015, I grabbed my phone…looked out my kitchen window…and grabbed a shot of the very first thing I saw, you know, for inspiration:
It’s a photo of my husband, Garth (not his real name) and he’s painting the house…again.
So, besides explaining to you why he is painting the house in January, I can also prove to our insurance company that:
Being a mom is hard. Being a mom of teens is…uhhhhhhhh…excuse me for a moment…HEY! DID I NOT JUST SAY THE DISHWASHER IS DIRTY?!? GET YOUR PLATES OUT OF THE SINK, DAMMIT!!!…ummmmmm….what were we talking about, again?!?
[takes another sip of coffee, blows bangs out of eyes, plays with chin hair]
Oh yeah, NOW I REMEMBER! So, I was thinking. Dangerous, for a dork like me, I know. Still. I’ve been reading lots of blog posts and articles online about what we should or shouldn’t be saying to a pregnant woman…EVUH!!!…because, DUH!!!! She’s probably NOT in the mood for silly shenanigans, like asking her if it was a planned pregnancy.
Well, it’s actually…NONE OF YOUR FRIGGIN’ BUSINESS!!!!…but thanks for asking.
That being said, I think it’s also equally important to realize that saying one or more of the following, to a peri-menopausal woman, may or may not get you some serious hurt:
1. Daaaaang, it’s cold in here
Shuddup and turn down the thermostat, would ya’?
2. Why are you so moody?
Ohhhhhh, other than my uterus feeling like it’s on fire and attempting to strangle the rest of my internal organs, AND IT’S HOT IN HERE, no reason, really.
3. Meh, sounds a lot like PMS.
Yes, now with EXTRA BLOAT and saggy-boob sweat…HUZZAH!
4. Relax, you’re just being overly-sensitive.
Oh, my gosh, I’m soooooo sorry…here, you better put some ice on that and don’t worry…the swelling should go down in a couple of days, mostly.
5. All you need to do is change your diet and exercise.
Good idea, I’ll go get MORE ICE!
6. Sorry, we’re all out of cherry limeade.
Oh okay, and here’s my mailing address, just bill me for the damages.
7. You look too young to be going through menopause.
[blank stare]
8. I’m so sorry, but we don’t carry that particular shoe in wide.
Right…soooooo…do you know of anyone else who stocks YETI?!?!
9. The bathrooms are for employees, only.
WE NEED A MOP ON AISLE 6, PLEASE!
10. Let’s go bathing suit shopping!
We’re gonna need a bigger mop, AND MORE ICE!!!
11. Let’s go jeans shopping!
See number 10.
12. Maybe you just need a nap.
YES!!! And turn down the thermostat on your way…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
13. Do you remember where you put…
No, is the air-conditioner even working?
14. Do you remember where I put my…
NO!!!! WHY IS IT SO FRIGGIN’ HOT IN HERE?!?!
15. At least you don’t have to worry about getting pregnant.
I’m very proud to partner with the good folks at Sauder, a manufacturer of affordable furniture you assemble yourself, and participate in the Sauder challenge: to share our experience(s) with Sauder and, hopefully, inspire other families (like mine) who have very little extra and literally, no room, or time to spare.
I’ve been writing online for 11 years — my first blog post went live on September 2, 2003 — which is like forever ago, in the evolution of the blogging community. Today, I enjoy working to help others find online publishing opportunities and, hopefully, help further their blogging endeavors, as well.
buh-bye ugly old folding table. oh and we bought that sauder cabinet 10 years ago, it’s a keeper.
I also telecommute from home. Which, with 6 people living in our 7 room house, is no easy feat (especially, during the summertime, when the kids are ALL home and probably bored) trust me!
So, I’ve claimed a small area in the play room/laundry room/den and it’s worked out pretty well — my teens sharing an old folding table, because the legs on the old kitchen table we re-purposed as a desk finally broke, not so much.
It was exactly one week ago today, after boarding the first of two flights it would take for me to get to the 10th Anniversary BlogHer Conference in San Jose (because California is about as far away as you can get, from Jersey!), I thought I was going to vomit on my flip flops.
I blamed lack of sleep…a nervous stomach…finishing work well after my husband had fallen asleep…on the couch…for the last month…or two…with the dog…he also has a REAL nervous stomach…the dog, too.
This morning, after another unsuccessful night of readjusting to post-conference life, I read my first BlogHer ’14 recap and felt that oh so familiar churning in the pit of my stomach.
Personally, one of my FAVORITE moments from this year’s conference happened pretty quickly: the BlogHer ’14 opening video: I am BlogHer, where bloggers show us what it means to be a community utilizing two of my favorite online mediums — in words and in pictures.
Sense of community, finding your tribe, being with your people — these catchphrases, in my opinion, are the very foundation of BlogHer and what organizers have continued to build on, the last 8 conferences I’ve attended, anyway.
Words are powerful, like that.
On the other hand: this is my 3rd conference actually working behind the scenes, so I feel it safe to say reading feedback that borders on personal and attacks the integrity of our work…(thanks for helping me with that sentence, Melisa)…well, excuse my Jersey…it’s a friggin’ punch in the gut.
Words have impact, like that.
On the OTHER other hand: what you may or may not know is many of the BlogHer team are bloggers and some of us have been a part of the blogging community for many years, too.
Many of us are also members of the BlogHer Ad Network; some of us have been from the very beginning **raises hand** and I’m pretty sure it’s why I was hired in the first place — especially, when talking with brands about recruiting bloggers for their special events.
Blogging is complicated, like that.
Explaining the process wasn’t always easy and there were mistakes made, for certain…(stupid Eventbrite!)…but now, misinformation is being tossed around like expletives on a hot summer night…(here, in Jersey anway!)…so, yeah, it’s REAL tough not to take these sort of things to heart.
Moving on, it’s no secret, rather than believing that there is a behind-the-scenes conspiracy…(that one is mine AND Melisa’s)…that is meant to encourage a society based on exclusivity…trust me when I tell you, no there isn’t.
These are real people…trying to do a good job…and, more importantly, do right by their community.
after visiting each and every conference attendee’s blog and social media accounts, you guys sure can write about a lot of stuff.
Oh, and she probably looks a lot like this: still in pajamas, all glassy-eyed, wearing a matching set of heavy eye baggage and complimentary stress zits on her chin…YO!!!
It’s been 2 years since we’ve had kids roaming the halls of the elementary school; wondering how they can get out of going to gym class (mostly the girls) or losing track of time on their way back from the bathroom (probably my son) and just where in the heck DID they put down their lunch bags (ALL of them) or coats (my son, again) seriously?!?
Hint: claim cramps, it’s on the kitchen table, and there’s a bit of comfort that goes along with my believing there are warm and toasty kids out there, who are probably still wearing my son’s coats.
Aaaaanyway, although my husband and I do NOT miss the daily grind of school drop-offs and pick-ups, there’s a calm sort of “Yeah, we’ve got teens and haven’t burned-out all of our gray cells, YET” sort of feeling that goes along with raising older kids.
Somethings I do miss:
Sitting outside at the school playground
For at least a few minutes, every day
Waiting for the kids to burn off some steam
While I go through their backpacks
Finding little drawings of the most random stuff imaginable
Seriously, I don’t EVER remember inviting a five-armed alien, with big orange eyes and three heads, to dinner
Although, it was probably meant to be a picture of me
My kids draw good
Then there would be this guy. His pants were always too short, his shoes sometimes didn’t match and he always seemed to be arguing with someone, who wasn’t actually really there, and it used to scare the kids to hear him holler at…well…no one.
Quite frankly, me too.
Not because I was afraid he was going to hurt us (okay, with four kids hanging onto every one of my body parts within their reach, maybe a little), but because he always seemed to be so…you know…angry.
Years passed, our kids started taking the bus to their schools, but we still sometimes saw “the scary man” walk by the front of our house — same too short pants and mismatched shoes.
Fast forward to this morning: we ran out of milk. Okay, so in the large scope of things, not a really big deal. Unless, you’ve only had one cup of coffee and cannot…and I mean NOT…function properly without at least one more cup of coffee, like me.
I asked my oldest daughter if she’d mind driving down to the corner to grab a gallon, but she was running late for work….GASP!!!!….not so much because she was running late for work (honestly, I’d be checking for pods in the crawl space, if she wasn’t), but it meant that I would have to go down to the corner and get my own danged milk….GASP!!!!
Long story, short: my car isn’t feeling very well, at the moment (because the washing machine is broken and the car has sympathy pains, OF COURSE!) so I decided to walk and, as it often times happens when I am alone, I started talking to myself:
A friggin’ second cup of coffee
Is all I want, dammit
Stupid car
Dumbass washing machine
Daaaaang, but it’s too hot for this sweatshirt
Gah, BOOB SWEAT!!!!
Probably be ALL out of milk, anyways
I meant the store, NOT my boobs
Because those puppies have been empty FOR YEARS!!!
SNORT
That’s what SHE said
Aaaaaand, then it hit me, like a dried-up boob upside the head: all those poor people driving by, as I’m literally arguing with myself, I must look like a fright. Then I glanced down at my feet.
enough said
You know, I haven’t seen the scary man in a while. Gosh, but I hope he’s okay.
If given the choice ten years ago: I would rather push an old-fashioned reel lawn mower through a field of sticky balls…barefoot…than spend half the day dodging other shopping carts at the supermarket, while simultaneously attempting to put ALL the stuff my kids threw into OUR cart…accidentally on purpose…back on the shelf.
Now that my kids are older? I still hate…Hate…HAte…HATe…HATE food shopping. Unless I am with my husband (date night at the supermarket, FTW!) and most especially if I happen to be shopping with one of my teenagers.
“Are you Facebooking, again?!?”
“Maaaaaaaaaybeeeeeeeee?”
The kids were off on Friday (the winter daze have sort of melded together, I forget why) so I asked my son to go food shopping with me (he lives with 3 sisters, enough said!) and, now that he’s getting older (me too, DAMMIT!) I’m beginning to realize that not ONLY is my son the spitting image of GarthNHRN, the kid rolls his eyes at me….just like his dad…too.
“Put your phone away, Mom!”
Long story, short: raising teenagers can be sort of fun, sometimes.
“Can you load the conveyor belt, while I go ahead and bag?”
Aaaaaand, very rarely…like in, almost never…do we experience any drama at the check-out line, unless I’m shopping with my youngest (who NEVER seems to have ANY gum in her pocket, because I am the meanest mom EVER) and especially if:
The store you normally shop in is wicked-busy
So you head to the one across the street
Where there are only two cash registers open EVER (don’tcha HATE that?!?)
And you happen to pick the teenage cashier with an attitude
(see previous parenthesis)
Who clearly heard “I’ll go ahead and bag”
As “You just go ahead and scan ALL that stuff, REAL FAST” dammit!
Because, of course!
“Gah…the bread…the eggs…GAH!!!”
I don’t do ANYTHING, real fast…but I do tend to drop stuff, OFTEN…especially when I’m expected to do stuff…REAL FAST!!!
Oh, and shopping bags that tend to tear…REAL FAST…do NOT help.
KABOOM!!! WHOOSH!!!
And hollering at your 15yo son, after YOU were the one who just dropped AND spilled an entire bottle of juice…most definitely does NOT help…NOT ONE BIT.
“Don’t just stand there, PICK IT UP!!!”
In my defense, it was an expensive bottle of juice that happened to be on sale…dammit…but my poor son was clearly too embarrassed to acknowledge that…you know…he was actually shopping with me…and NO!!!…I do NOT blame him…but would you believe that the cashier just stood there and watched it GLUG-GLUG-GLUG all over the floor.
Okay, I lied. She crossed her arms and then started popping her gum.
“Clean up at register 2!!!”
Good thing this was NOT my first rodeo…or juice spilling, for that matter…oh, and I was wearing my glasses, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to holler out which aisle was now drowning in juice…REAL FAST.
“DAMMIT!!!”
Now, to keep the rest of this blog post short and sweet, here’s the bulleted version of what happened next:
I picked up the almost-empty juice bottle
And then dropped it again
Because, wet juice bottle
And then kicked the now even-more-empty bottle of juice
Creating two rivers of juice
So I asked my son to move the shopping cart closer
Okay…fine…some SCREAMING may have been involved
While he calmly continued to load the belt
And tried NOT to slip on the river of juice
That had now formed between us
But he forgot about the second river of juice
And did a real crazy side-step
Because he is almost 7 feet tall
Or something
And kicked over the even-more-empty bottle of juice
Which then spilled, again
Creating a friggin’ ocean of juice
With the juice bottle cap floating right in the middle
So I bent over to pick it up, because that is a law suit just waiting to happen
But I kicked the cap
Which then ricocheted off the now empty bottle of juice
And slid across the floor
Right into the bank kiosk
Which caused the woman
Who was woman-ing the bank kiosk
To laugh, hysterically
And then start to look for a camera
Insisting that my son and I were punking the store
Or something
Because NOTHING like this EVER happens
Not in real life, anyways
And this is when the cashier started bagging stuff
Because she wanted us to get out of there, REAL FAST, too!
Aaaaaaand then we left, end scene. The real kicker to this story?!? One of the reasons why I even bothered to stop at this particular store, in the first place?!? Was because…
…wait…
…for…
…it…
…their juice was on sale.
[rolling eyes, like a GarthNHRN]
Thinking on it some more, we never DID get out replacement bottle of juice, which also means we paid double the price, for one bottle of juice, dammit.
My dad has been on “the Facebook” for a little over a year and it’s been fun to watch him reconnect with friends and family here and in Hungary, but he was a little worried about leaving comments for his English-speaking friends…in English…so, of course, I tried to encourage him (because I am ALL about social media engagement, yo) by insisting that Bing translator would help them out.
Then again, some of my Facebook friends seem to be having fun trying to make sense of the Hungarian to English translation, my favorite being: if there is no love there is no semi swaddling you.
Until, this particular conversation:
Then, my Dad commented on my Facebook: Nalunk ho, legalab is eszt montak.
And I commented back: Nalunk is, Apu…sok ho.
Dad: By us snow, at least this is what they said.
Me: By us too, Dad…lots of snow.
Then, there’s what Bing said:
Dad: We offer you, ho.
Me: We offer you, Dad…a lot of ho.
Right. Go home, Bing. You’re drunk. And who you callin’ a ho?!?
[sound of crickets, chirping]
So, yeah, I can’t WAIT to see what Bing says, he says, next. Oh, and now I am also thinking about changing my blog’s tagline to:
…6 people, living in a 7 room house, and a lot of ho.
This week: we’re expecting another snow storm (seriously, enough with the polar vortex, it’s called winter!) and I tend to spend my off hours worrying, rather than sleeping, especially during snow storms, because kids with their driver’s licenses, yo.
Aaaaaand, sometimes they sort of forget to call me, whenever they get to wherever it is they are going, because parents don’t sleep…period.
So, I’d like to share with you one of my favorite ways of getting the message of “CALL ME WHEN YOU GET THERE, DAMMIT!!!” across.
**offers a plate of cookies, passes over the clicker**
My maternal grandparents were married on June 9, 1935 in UjDombovar (pronounced oo-yuh-dome-bo-vah-r) Hungary. My grandfather Istvan was the oldest of 7 children and my grandmother Maria was born on a farmstead in a small Hungarian village bordering present day Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia.
Through my father’s own childhood memories, I now know my grandfather became the patriarch of his family, following the sudden death of his father, and (albeit, very unwillingly) took on the responsibility of supporting his mother and his 6 siblings: 2 years into World War I, my grandfather was 16 years-old, at the time.
My grandmother was a quintessential “old country” girl, pulled out of school around the 3rd or 4th grade (just enough to learn simple math and proficient to write your name in longhand), she spoke with, what we here in the states would also consider, a very heavy Southern accent and my father will tell you that she loved to sing old folk songs, especially when she thought no one was listening.
What neither he or I can tell you is how my grandmother met my grandfather.
What drew them together? How did they fall in love? Did my grandfather seek her family’s permission? Or, in my ridiculously romantic imagination, did they meet by chance? On a stormy afternoon, when her day in the fields was cut short and his motorbike broke down in the rain, as she shyly pointed him towards a shortcut and they shared the muddy path back to her village, perhaps?
As the family genealogist, I couldn’t help but become very frustrated when interviewing family members and almost always received the same response: people just didn’t talk about themselves, or even know anything about their own families, back then.
I never met my grandmother (she died a few months after my brother and I were born) and the memories I have of my grandfather are very different from that of his son’s.
So, it’s days like this, when images of hearts and flowers abound, I wish someone would hurry up and invent a time machine. Because one of the very first things I would do is go back, sit with my grandparents and listen to THEIR story.
And then I would try to explain why bloggers (like me) share such stories on the internet: I don’t want their great-grandchildren to EVER forget where they came from…me either.
On a muddy path, somewhere in between heartache and a folksong.
In the meantime, I’ll just pretend that they are both smiling at me…JUST ME…and perhaps even thinking to themselves, “Boldog Valentin nap, kis Sziszikem”.
