Diary of a Metal Mommy

Let me just say that great Rabbinical minds think alike. Or, great Rabbinical butts–eh Steph?? Last night during the lastest Feminine Hijinx show, Stephanie and I both revealed surprises….and they were both Love’s Baby Soft perfume!!!!!! Unbelievable, how many ways Stephanie and I are alike. Things are coming up all the time and we just shake our head and laugh. Of course with my brain being the way it is I can’t think of anything right now, but there are many similarities. Oh, one was that we had the same Gunny Sax prom dress. Kind of scary. Last night Stephanie went a notch above and also pulled out Jean Nate–both of these fragrances we have reminisced and laughed about on previous podcasts. We all sprayed it on ourselves and I swear I can still smell it wafting up from the basement. Actually, Stephanie didn’t even put any on herself, but I’m sure she still reeked just from being in the same vicinity. Cory came down at one point and choked–hilarious. I guess he wouldn’t have wanted to be around me in Junior High then, since I practically bathed in the stuff. Ahhhh, memories.

Man, what a day! Another PERFECT day of spring. We all dragged our butts out of bed early this morning to get to Vivian’s school for a family breakfast. Fun! Then Sullivan and I made our way over to my friend Lisa’s house for some play! Sullivan and Quinn happily played out in the back yard, baby Auden napped, and Lisa and I sat in the sun and gabbed. Those are the days I especially love my job. (sorry, Pat, but I had to do it!)

Unfortunately though, as much as it’s killing me not to partake of gorgeous weather by being outside every moment, I can also barely keep my eyes open. Those nights with my ladies wear me out! (and I wouldn’t have it any other way!!!) So, whilst Sullivan is at school and Vivian is with Cory at the ‘Take Your Daughter to Work Day’, I may just have to lay down for a little nap. The second best thing to being outside on a perfect day and watching your children happily play. Yeah!

So my lovely sister Barb gives me the most incredible necklace for my birthday last year. It’s a beautiful vintage chain, with this incredible pendant–one side is a carved intaglio, I believe in carnelian, and the other was just empty–obviously looking like it once had something in it. Along with the necklace she sent me a crystal that fits perfectly over that space, and some glue…with the idea of finding something special and putting it in there. I love that! A personalized necklace! So not only do I love love love the intaglio dude, but the other side will be just as special when I figure out what the heck to get in there.

Now this is not an easy task for someone like me. Getting something in there is just so…permanent. I am always changing my mind about things, so that is a daunting task indeed! My sister suggested a 4 leaf clover. Now where in the world does one find one of those?? At least for me, it’s not so easy to go out and find one. I remember combing through the clover as a kid, but never any luck. (obviously no luck, I never found the 4 leaf clover!) I could have put my kids’ hair in there or something, but eeeeu. Besides, that’s the kind of thing you do when someone dies. Thank goodness, no one is dead, so I’m not doing that. I had thought about putting some sort of pretty material in there, but what? Then it dawned on me…I had bought some beautiful Asian silk to cover my keyboard that’s up in my little song-writing studio. It’s black with beautifully stitched butterflies. It’s a long story, but butterflies are my thing and of course black goes with everything. Plus that material sort of symbolizes success to me, since I have sold a song I had written for the first time in my life, on that keyboard! Hey! This actually has MEANING, and God knows whatever goes in that locket has to have MEANING. Nevertheless I STILL hemmed and hawed over this idea…until I saw some amazing glass pendants in a jewelry case yesterday that had that sort of material in them. That made up my mind, and this very morning I got to work.

It just so happened that there was the perfect sized tiny butterfly I could cut out of that material that fit exactly in the circle of that locket. I carefully cut it out, glued it in just right, snapped that crystal into place with complete satisfaction. Gorgeous! It’s exactly what I want–a beautiful colorful butterfly on silky black fabric, absolutely stunning encased in glass surrounded by a sort of rose-colored vintage gold. (anyone who knows me well also knows that I LOVE something inside of something….it’s just magical…) I did it! I made the decision, it’s in, it’s perfect.

Then it dawns on me. I get a sick feeling in my stomach as I turn the locket back over and realize that when the intaglio is right side up, spinning it means the butterfly is–*gasp*–upside down!!!! I should have glued it upside down to have it come out right when it spins around. A sign in my adult life why I was never good at geometry. shit. The Virgo-must-have-order person in me is not happy.

Realizing this is messing with the entire order of the thing, I yahoo Cory with my tale of woe. His response is, “life”. At first I was irritated because, being the Coreman and the one who can figure anything out, I thought MAYBE he’d have a solution. But then I had to laugh… isn’t that just the perfect response?? That IS life, isn’t it?? Just when you think you have it all figured out, you realize that something will always be just a bit askew. That’s just the way it is, and we just have to learn to live with it. We must soldier on. We must learn to just shrug our shoulders and laugh a bit, as our butterflies are askew. (or our breasts, as the case may be) Man, am I deep this morning, or what? (Stephanie, I guess it’s my turn to have a rabbinical butt!)

I think I’ll have another cup of coffee and ponder this a bit. Then I’ll put on my flawed yet perfectly beautiful locket and go out into this crazy askew world.

Here I am AGAIN, on the patio. It’s sunny, a slight breeze, a lovely 68 degrees…how could I be anywhere BUT on my patio?? (Now Pat, you can’t get mad at me this time…it’s a SUNDAY and it’s very likely you are taking the opportunity to be on your patio as well. ) I even skipped church this morning to be outside–HEATHEN!–and took a nice long walk whilst listening to the latest Feminine Hijinx show. I am definitely my own best audience. I didn’t actually skip church on purpose, per se…my sweet husband let me sleep in this morning and I was literally conked out until 9:00. That’s rare for me. Normally after my little alarm clock wakes me at 7:00, even if Cory gets up with him, I can only lay in bed for another hour or so if I’m lucky, and I don’t normally fall back into a deep sleep. Not this time. I guess I was catching up after that girlie sleepover. (see previous post!)

Now Cory has the kids at his first softball practice of the season. He plays on the church team–isn’t that cute? I usually go to the games but there is no actual watching of the game with Sullivan. Of course he just wants to run around the nearby playground and has no interest in sitting still on the bleachers and yelling, “Canna Corn, Canna Corn”! (hear previous podcast, show #8!!)

I would have gone with them today but I have my rolfing appointment with the lovely Siana Goodwin. I haven’t been in to see her in WAY too long. Thanks to a nice tax return, I can hopefully get in the rest of my treatments in the next few weeks! For those of you wondering, don’t ask me to explain what rolfing is, exactly. That’s why I included that link. All I know is that I lay on a table for about an hour and a half, Siana gently pokes, prods and messages me from head to toe (now now, don’t let your mind go there…this is totally legit!!) and when I leave there I feel great. The changes rolfing has made for me and my chronic back trouble have been incredible. I would not say I am 100% cured–I still wake up stiff sometimes in the morning and still will find myself in a hitch every so often–but whenever that happens I recover so much more quickly and overall, it is SO much better than it used to be. I totally recommend Siana. She is amazing, and a very fun and relaxing person to be with for an hour and a half while she’s poking, prodding and messaging. And it DOESN’T HURT! I know rolfing sounds like a scary word to many, and maybe some people that practice it do make it painful–but not Siana.

What a lovely way to end a week. A morning walk, a lovely patio visit, relaxing back-work and conversation with Siana, then probably more outside time with the fam. Hooray! Then on to another week already. Whew!

Can I just say how impressed I am? My daughter had 5 girls over last night for a birthday/slumber party. Yes, they were loud, yes they were giggly–but I gave them a lights out at 1:00 AM (just call me June Cleaver with an iron fist) and right around then, it got pretty quiet and I just heard the low drone of quiet talking above me (to be expected, of course!–I’m not THAT mean!) until probably around 2:00. Of course the goils were up at the crack of dawn–how the heck do they DO that?!–and they all padded downstairs for their morning cartoons. I giggled to myself as I frosted cinnamon rolls–don’t be too impressed, they’re Pop’N'Fresh…no June Cleaver there–and listened to them trying to decide on ‘regular’ TV or a movie, and then WHAT movie. 6 girls, trying to agree on something–not an easy task. They had a lot to choose from–Harry Potter, Shrek, Holes, Spongebob…but all of a sudden I heard the sweet sound of a single violin. The well-known tune of none other than “Fiddler on the Roof“. ! Whoa, talk about discriminating taste and culture at 7:00 AM! Impressive!

So, the girls will leave around 10:00, and I suppose I’ll spend the rest of the day getting this house in some kind of order. Then around 5:00 Vivian and I will be heading over to the church, as I signed us both up for this month’s youth event, “Mission Impossible”. I have no clue what that entails, hopefully I’ll just have to serve some pizza and that will be the extent of my job. I just hope we can both stay awake for it. Kim and Emily signed up, too. Should be interesting! I figured I should volunteer for at least ONE of these events, since they are always looking for parents to help out. This one was easy, all I have to do is walk a few feet to the church and I’m there. Talk about your Lazy Jewthran. Of course this is assuming that I won’t have to be a part of whatever this Mission Impossible thing is. Oy. Now I’m a little afraid…!

Here’s my little girl, the second girl back getting ready to take her place at the mic and sing a solo for her 4th grade concert that I attended last night. (Coreman was too busy filming a movie clip to actually get a photo of her singing) As soon as the first note left her mouth, the water works were flowing. Man, that girl has a voice. It’s so sweet and pure–she said at some point afterward someone told her they thought she had an angel stuck in her throat! I was the proud Mom, indeed. The whole concert was so cute, all of the kids did such a great job!

And now here is my little angel, on the bottom of a hog-pile of giggling 10 year old girls. Whew, we’re in for a long night–they are all having a slumber party as I type! I have a sneaking suspition that there is not going to be much slumber going on, however. The party started out with a couple of boys here, too, with all of them downstairs screaming, laughing and dancing. Oh, the Din! Now the girls have all moved upstairs into Vivian’s room, and it’s a bit quiet. I’ll have to sneak up there in a bit.

Coreman told me the funniest thing today. Some guy called about the Montero he’s attempting to sell. I guess at some point he asked Cory something like, “So, will I be flossin’ in that car?” He actually used the word ‘flossin’, in complete seriousness. I think he even asked Cory if he was flossin’ in the car. Cory kind of chuckled and said, yeah, he guessed he was flossin’. I had called Cory from IKEA (yes, I attempted IKEA again and I must say it was a rather nice IKEA experience) and he told me this on the phone–I literally had a throw-the-head-back-and-howl right there. I turned a few heads, I did.

Now, I always thought flossin’ meant showing something off in a proud way, but Cory looked it up and he thought it meant ‘posing’. Hmmmm. Well, I guess maybe it did mean the latter because the guy was supposed to come look at the car tonight and he hasn’t called. Who knew we’d need to brush up on our slang in order to sell our car?! Hilarious.

Well, I’m hearing a few shrieks up there, so, it’s not all THAT quiet. It will be amazing if any of us get sleep tonight. Did I agree to this?? And when the heck did my daughter turn TEN???