Later oh-nine! Tomorrow night I'm gonna kiss 2009 goodbye with fervor (score one for the hubby). I’m actually coming out of the year relatively unscathed — though I can’t say that for a lot of folks. One of the hardest things I recall, other than stock losses, is the number of friends I have lost to divorce. One, two, three, four, five… and that’s only those involving infidelity, I haven’t even gotten to the mutually unhappy couples that decided it was time to throw in the monogrammed towel. I suppose when you live in the U.S. (with the highest divorce rate in the world) and you’re over 40, you can expect to start seeing your friends jimmy the old wedlock. Divorce (and cheating) isn’t big news — Tiger Woods, anyone?— until it starts happening to your own circle of friends. Then, life gets a little more complicated. Who do you invite to your next barbeque, Jon or Kate?
I’m certainly no expert on commitment, and truth be told, the “D-word” may have leaked out in those really bad, sleep deprived new more...
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Tags:Express Male: Hubby Talk, On The Career Track, WoMoLists
Okay, it's been about a week since the last post and if anyone is wondering, it's because at least one of us is officially on vacation this week. Yep, in Maui (I know, I know - not adventurous and extremely family-friendly, but that's how we roll these days) and I am not exactly tied to the laptop the way I am during a typical week. Trying to untether myself from technology a bit (in between clearing out the inbox via iPhone once a day) and remember one of the reasons I do work ... to afford tropical island getaways and gorgeous sunsets with my family. Oh, and it's a little hard to remember where all that angst was coming from while sipping a Mai Tai at the Lahaina Harbor. I am sure as soon as I hop on that conference call tomorrow that somehow could not wait until my return stateside next week some of this idyllic mood will fade but for now it's quite heavenly. Aloha!
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Tags:Travel Tales: Are We There Yet?
December 21st, 2009, posted by Marcie
I had to provide an epilogue to my post from last week because I'm sitting at my desk laughing at myself. After a complete purging only days ago, my purse has already collected an interesting mix of unwanted items (though obviously most were necessary at some point). I reached in to pay for lunch this afternoon and noticed a kiddie spoon, a feathery bird ornament, a Lego tree, a big rubber spider, a pair of flip flops (seriously?) and a large wine opener... Apparently, all I needed was the blanket and I could have skipped the burger joint and had myself an office picnic.
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Can I just take a moment to vent about my purse? It’s completely absurd. I’ve been having shoulder problems lately and I just realized it’s probably due to the extra 25-pounds I’ve been lugging around. Some people gain weight around their middle during the holiday season. Me? I carry it in a bag (and a few in the bum). The shopping and gifting chaos of the past month has caused my purse to become, quite frankly, obscenely obese.
Here’s the deal with a typical WoMo bag: it, like you, leads a double-duty life (part brief case, part diaper bag). It’s a catch-all receptacle that goes everywhere we go, which is a lot of places. Not to mention, we never have the time to clean it out. I reached in today to dig for my phone and pulled out a full-size bottle of shampoo (a gift from my hair salon). And, if that wasn’t bad enough, I followed that find with an umbrella…did I mention that I live in Los Angeles? I didn’t even know I owned an umbrella! So with more...
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Tags:Just For Laughs, Looks: Is This Mirror Working?
Monday mornings and Friday afternoons: These are the two times of every week when the gaping difference between my home life and that of my mostly female, mostly twenty-something colleagues reveals itself most glaringly. The rest of the week we can dish about R-Patz, “New Moon,” and “Project Runway,” and I can almost pass as a peer. But it’s the early week water cooler conversations that rip the mask right off my charade:
Coworker: “So, did you have a good weekend?”
Me: “Yeah, sure! Hmm, I think. We had went the park and um, got pizza. What else? There was something else ….”
Coworker: “Cool …[turning] Hey, Tim, how was the Lady Gaga show? Your text was hilarious!”
And while I am still pondering where the past 48 hours went (how hard could it be to remember, given it most likely involved pizza, a playdate, grocery shopping and maybe a birthday party or a museum), my coworker has already moved on to another more interesting colleague with amusing adventures involving drunken escapes, live music and crazy more...
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Tags:Colleagues & Coworkers, Party Girl
For those of you who read "Kindness" post part one (12/07/09, below)... Our little friend who sacrificed gifts on his eighth birthday ended up generating an entire farm of animals for a needy family. The donations at his party equated to a llama, goat and water buffalo! An entirely new definition for party animal.
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Tags:Girlfriend Gab, Juggling & Struggling, Time Is A Four Letter Word
1 - Tallies up in her head the number of hours her nanny spends with the kids vs. the number of hours she spends with them
2 - Gives her kid decidedly non-organic goldfish crackers just to get through an entire Target run sans temper tantrum
3 - Sneaks in a scan of PerezHilton, TMZ or Facebook (or all three) on lunch break
4 - Slaps on deodorant and spritzes dry shampoo to stretch that shower/blow-out for a third day in a row just to snag an extra half-hour past the snooze button
5 - Not only allows her kid to watch far more than the prescribed 20 minutes per day of TV, but actually actively seeks new shows and movies that can serve as “instant-sitter” for the next conference call
6 - Checks out the size of the stay-at-home mom’s butts when she goes to pick her son up from preschool – to reassure herself that even though they may have more time to work out, but she probably still has a better ass
7 - Hides her fingernails more...
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Tags:Juggling & Struggling, SAHM Sisters, WoMoLists
We forget. Who can blame us? With the myriad of holiday events and the mass commercialization of buying "stuff," we get caught up in it all. But then, thank goodness, along comes someone that reminds us of how good it should feel to give. And, best of all (especially for us overworked and overtired WoMos), it doesn’t have to be a huge production — giving can be simple so long as it comes from the heart, and maybe not Toys R Us. No cliché Scrooge scripts, no overblown Hollywood-esque tearful moments. A very simple act of kindness can pull even the most harried of us out of the holiday madness and remind us that sometimes, less is more.
The 7-year old has a birthday party this Sunday. I’ve been to Target three times in the last week, each a frenzied 30-minute window — zooming down every aisle I can possibly get to before needing to get home or to the office, throwing in toys with a free-for-all of bathroom items, frozen foods, toddler clothing and hardware. In three visits, more...
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Tags:Girlfriend Gab, Juggling & Struggling
Maybe it’s the fact that I have a December birthday and so from the time I was little, this month has always been my favorite of the year. From the parties and the gifts to the overall sense of good will and cheer – and not to mention a handful of extra days off from work thrown in there – what’s not to like about the holiday season? That’s not to say, however, that the countdown to Christmas can’t be a little stressful … particularly for us WoMos. In the spirit of the season, then … The Twelve Days of a WoMo Christmas, Aimee-style.”
On the first day of Christmas, (i.e., Cyber Monday) jump on Amazon.com and about a hundred other sites searching frantically for what’s being touted as the “it toy of the year,” Zhu zhu pet hamsters. No luck, unless you want to pay $80 for a tiny faux rodent that usually retails for a few bucks.
On the second day of Christmas, remember you have yet to order holiday cards. For the next two more...
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Tags:Colleagues & Coworkers, Juggling & Struggling, Looks: Is This Mirror Working?, Party Girl, School Daze, WoMoLists
I just returned from a much needed family vacay. Dare I say? It was a blissful, storm-free week. Relaxing. Peaceful, even. Well, maybe I’m getting carried away. I never picked up my book (wishful thinking), I only made it to the gym twice (again, wishful thinking) and despite my best attempts to “unplug,” I did have calls and emails to attend to. But these days my expectations for family trips are quite low, so scoring a five star stay is pretty easy. (Given the 3-year old’s talent for screaming and throwing things, we’ve been a little timid about leaving the safety and security of our home for more than two or three days).
Did I mention that pre-kids I had the travel bug? Giving up foreign jaunts hasn’t been easy. So maybe it’s a good thing that I spent much of my twenties adventuring my way onto every continent except Antarctica (MF cold). In 2000, my last hurrah with the hubby was rambling down the east coast of Africa for a month. We got home, then got preggers…bye-bye exotic foreign more...
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Tags:Express Male: Hubby Talk, Time Is A Four Letter Word, Travel Tales: Are We There Yet?
