The Queen's Rambles

Day 12 – Tell us about the first time you got drunk or tipsy (as far as you can remember…) Do you ever stop yourself from telling too much when you write on-line or do you think you tell too much?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood

I guess I skipped a couple of days, there. I will go back if the prompts are interesting. I’m sure you all want to hear about the first time I got tipsy. On my honeymoon. My group honeymoon.

That’s not as kinky as it sounds.

Huh. Looks like I am going to talk about that since you can’t say group honeymoon and not explain, especially if you are not a polygamist.

Mike and I lived alone in Sweden in our little love nest so we had plenty of honeymoon type opportunities for three years. We never got to see our book club friends. We met in this online book club; we are a very tight knit group.

Several of our book club members were able to come to our wedding in my hometown in OR. Instead of going off to Hawaii or doing something super romantic, we thought it would be more fun to hang out with our friends that we never, ever get to see. A big group of us went to Brookings, OR, a typical chilly Oregon beach town, for our honeymoon. I was 29, I think? And I had a margarita and got tipsy and I became very talkative and apparently funny.

I’d only had alcohol on a couple of occasions prior to my honeymoon. Having an alcoholic father made me terrified of drinking. Being heavily involved in a fundamentalist church didn’t help, either. Even now I rarely drink. I never developed a taste for it, plus I have enough addiction problems with chocolate. I don’t need to add alcohol to the mix. I know first hand how that can destroy a family.

As for the second part of the question, yes I do stop myself from writing certain things. I have been doing this a long, long time and have learned some hard lessons about writing for the public. I have learned to be a lot more tolerant and not talk out of my ass so much. There’s always someone who is going to be offended by my opinion. That’s one of the good things about being an unknown blog.

I try not to talk about my friends on here because that’s a good way to lose friends. I used to tell lots of fun stories about the crazy people I know, but it’s just not worth it. Sometimes I have to get those stories out, so those stories go on LiveJournal under a friends lock. My blog was a lot more fun when I was young and naive and writing about people is a not always complimentary way.

Unrelated, but I just have to mention it: The other day I forgot to answer a question about blogging in education. I’ve been going around and reading a lot of the summer camp posts and am surprised by the number of people who don’t think blogging has a role in education. I didn’t answer the question because I forgot, but also because the answer is so obviously yes.

As a former teacher I can think of tons of uses for blogging. First and foremost, a classroom blog that lets parents know what’s happening would be super useful. You could remind parents of when big assignments are due, when progress reports go out, and so on.

I can think of tons of other uses just off the top of my head. I taught English so anything that would get a kid to write would be a good thing. Of course the problem would be making sure bullying didn’t happen on any public blog you allowed your students to take part in. There’d have to be serious consequences in place and checks and re-checks before posts went live. Blogging would be a good way to get the kids to write about what they are reading or to share their writing and to get some sort of feedback. Writing in a vacuum is hard, which is why I love blogging. Writing workshops don’t work in a HS setting because the kids usually refuse to give any criticism, negative or otherwise. Maybe a blog entry could get the students to talk a little. It is a form they are used to growing up in the digital age.

In elementary schools you could use blogs to have different kids report on happenings in the classroom.

I’m sure there’s a ton more ways to use blogging in education, but I’m too tired to think of them. Anyone who does lesson planning day in and day out could come up with several uses.

This girl loves to sit on things that have a seat. She can make the plasma car go, which is thrilling even though we have a very small space that it will actually “go” on. It requires smooth surfaces for the physics to work. This Kettcar is not nearly as thrilling, though every kid in the neighborhood wants to take it for a spin (and none want to bring it back when they realize it kind of sucks).

She had her Lyme Disease follow-up appointment today. Things are fine, I guess. She is no longer on antibiotics. She still has a red mark where the tick was attached and I am probably imagining it, but it seems like the rash might be coming back. She has her 15 month check-up next week so we’ll keep an eye on it until then.

The girl loves books. I admit, when I used to see people posting about their kids loving books I thought they might be exaggerating or making things up. It was very hard for me to picture since Erik never wanted anything to do with books. He might rip them up or chew them, but he absolutely would not sit still and look at them.

Elsa constantly wants to be looking at books and she has very specific pages that she wants to look at, mainly animal pages. She can say bunny and meow, so it thrills her to no end to say those things while looking at the pictures. She’s usually so thrilled that she throws her arms around and knocks the book out of my hand.

Also, she insists on looking at a book while nursing. Sure, why not twist mama’s boobies in a complete 360?

She’s not as physically capable as her brother, but she still does all right for herself. I suppose it’s not exactly normal for a 10 month old to be able to run full tilt. Elsa can sort of run, but isn’t all that great at it. She can climb up just about anything, including our bed. I am quite sure she is going to kill herself because she doesn’t have Erik’s sense of balance.

She loves baby dolls, but not white baby dolls. She has one of Erik’s old Dora baby super twin dolls that she carts around. Today she saw a black baby doll at Target and went nuts. She had to have it and kept hugging it, kissing it, and calling it baby. She was not totally happy, though, until she took all it’s clothes off. I offered her white babies of the same type just to see what she would do (I don’t care what color baby she plays with), but she threw them on the ground. I was laughing pretty hard. Erik is the same way when it comes to people. I don’t understand why, but he has always been attracted to darker people. If there’s a diverse crowd, you can almost guarantee that he’ll be playing with someone who is African or African-American. The only reason I find it strange is because I’ve read that research shows children prefer to be around people who look like them. I guess Erik didn’t get the memo.

I suppose it is unfair that I keep comparing her to Erik, but they are so different that I can’t help but notice.

I can’t remember what Erik was like at 15 months and what expectations I had for him. I was probably a lot tougher on him than I am on her since she still feels like a baby, but at 15 months he was feeling like a big boy. She is actually a pretty good listener and is very good at making her needs known. When she wants her diaper changed, first she’ll start pulling at her clothes. If you don’t get the message, she’ll grab your finger and climb up the stairs. If you still don’t understand she’ll try to climb onto the changing table.

We can tell her no about things and sometimes she’ll listen. She loves to pick up random things, so I usually say “yuck yuck” and she’ll leave them. In the past I would step on things like cigarette butts or trash so she couldn’t get to them, so now when I say “yuck yuck” she goes and steps on the thing she’s not supposed to have.

I guess that’s enough about Elsa for tonight. She is such a funny, sweet girl. Erik was always a funny little guy, but his humor was a little different. He was (and is) so serious that you couldn’t help but laugh. She is more funny with intent to be funny. She is very happy and full of laughs. She’s in that age where she is exploring things that make her body feel different, so she likes to bang her head, stand on her head, spin, do flips and all that fun toddler stuff. She is so much taller than Erik that it is kind of hard to flip her on my lap. She’s so tall my arms aren’t long enough if she doesn’t bend her knees.

I suppose to be fair I’ll have to do a post about Erik later this week, or at least post a picture of him (if he’ll let me take one).

Elsa is totally loving this sprinkler beach ball but Erik is not a fan. I guess I have to find the slip ‘n side. Last year he’d play with the slip ‘n slide for hours, but the beach ball only holds his attention for five minutes. It’s not worth the mess for five measly minutes.

I am feeling quite accomplished because I finally finished my cousin’s daughter’s quilt and have it all packaged up to be mailed out!

I don’t know why it took forever. The quilt itself was fast and easy. Can you believe I made the whole thing standing up? My back is so bad that I’ve moved my machine to a high dresser so I can stand and quilt. Works for me, even if it is strange.

I am also sending her a doll, and the hard part was finding a box that would fit the doll box. Then when I looked at the quilt one last time I found a problem with one of the corners. I finally figured out a way to patch it. It’s far from perfect, but it’s done. It will be a very usable quilt. My skill set does not include heirlooms.

The Summer Camp prompt for today is to share a recipe or two. I have all my recipes over at my kitchen blog although I haven’t updated it in a long while. I feel guilty posting recipes from cook books unless I change them a lot.

Here’s what we had for dinner last night. Twas yummy.

Tarragon Chicken in a Pot

Ingredients:
Boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into small pieces
salt
pepper
1 T. dried tarragon
1 onion, diced
about a cup of carrots, sliced. I use quartered baby carrots
1 zuchinni, sliced
olive oil
2 T. flour
1 cup milk
1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
4 country or peasant rolls

Step 1:
Mix together flour, milk, chicken broth and wine into a slurry. We used red wine last night because we didn’t have white. It actually tasted a lot better, but the presentation was def. lacking. Very ugly and grey looking.

Step 2:
Salt and pepper chicken pieces to taste. Heat olive oil in pan over med-high heat. Brown chicken and onion until onion is translucent.

Step 3: Add in the slurry and the rest of the ingredients to the pan (except the rolls). Bring to a boil, then put on a lid and simmer about 10 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Step 4: Cut the tops off the rolls and hollow out the centers so you have little bread bowls. When chicken is down cooking and the sauce is saucy, pour some into each little bowl. So yummy!

What is the most important lesson you learned from your own mother (or other primary caretaker)? What do you imagine the name of your Grandmother’s blog would be and what would she write about?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood

This is a tough one. I was always a self-learning. My mom did not have a life that I wanted. She stayed in an abusive marriage for years. She couldn’t control her own daughter. She hated talking on the phone and taught us that people don’t want to be bothered. That, in particular, was a trait that I am still working on getting rid of. People do want to be bothered if they like you and you have a fun idea.

I am not meaning to be down on her. I love my mom, and she did a good job with what she had but she didn’t have many resources and she was the queen of bad decisions.

She did teach me the value of hard work. I knew I wasn’t going to get anywhere in life if I didn’t apply myself and work my ass off. Nothing would be handed to me.

In a way, she also taught me not to take any shit off anyone. I looked at the way she lived her life and decided I didn’t want to be a doormat.

She also took great care to always tell me that I was smart and could accomplish anything. I didn’t always believe that I could accomplish anything, but I always believed I could at least take care of myself.

When I was miserable in my teaching job, she was the one who told me that there were other jobs out there. She gave me the courage to decide that I could make a new life plan; that I didn’t have to be miserable just because I wasted four years becoming a teacher. I was going to quit and try to get a government job or a job at an office. Anything would have been better than teaching.

Of course, that plan changed when I met Mike and moved to Sweden as a kept woman. I don’t think my mom was too pleased with that plan.

Now for the fun part: what would my grandma has blogged about?

Her blog probably would have been called “Two Inches.” Every single day of her life she lamented her height. If she had just been two inches taller she could have been a movie star or a secretary. She was OBSESSED.

She was probably the most negative, self-conscious person I’ve ever met. It’s no wonder my mom was so messed up. She didn’t have a chance with my grandma’s constant critiques running through her head. My grandma was such a perfectionist that she couldn’t enjoy a moment of life. My mom once was whipped for wearing her day of the week underwear on the wrong day.

My grandma never would have blogged. She did not value education, writing or reading. She would have seen blogging as a colossal waste of time. All of us bloggers would have been lazy, no-good sods. She used to vacuum every room of her house every single day. She didn’t have any pets or children at home. There was no dirt. But she was not lazy, so vacuuming had to be done.

I have no idea what my paternal grandma was like. She died in childbirth with my dad and his twin. The twin also died. She had 8 children, the first couple out of wedlock. She was married to a mentally ill alcoholic. I can only guess that her life was pretty miserable.

My biggest worry for my children is that they will inherit the mental illness that runs in my dad’s family. My sister clearly has issues. Every time I see my kids do something that reminds me of my sister I worry.

I sound really down on my family, don’t I? They are just so dysfunctional.

I do have good family! My grandma’s youngest brother and his wife took care of me when I went to college. They lived a couple hours from my school so I would go visit them on vacations. They really loved each other and had a very functional life. There was no alcohol, no drugs. There was only happiness and laughter. They are the ones who showed me what a happy marriage could look like. I will always thank them for giving me a taste of normal and a refuge from my immediate family. When I was done with college I wanted to live with them instead of moving back to OR, but it didn’t seem like a real possibility.

I guess that’s a tangent, eh? That’s why I’m the Queen of Rambles.

Day 8 – If you had to teach something, what would you teach? (If you DO teach, when did you discover your love for teaching/the subject?) Do you think blogs can play a role in education?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood

I taught high school English for a few years. I quickly discovered that I did not have a passion for teaching. I loved reading. I loved writing. I did not love trying to get a bunch of teenagers to love reading or writing.

The first year was quite a wake-up call. Teaching high school is damned hard work. The lesson planning and grading can consume your life if you let it, especially the first few years. It’s also very repetitive. One year I had five classes of freshman English. That meant I stood in front of the class and gave the same speech five times in a two day span (block scheduling). Soooooo boring.

Oddly enough, I really enjoy substitute teaching. The pay is crap, but there is very little responsibility and every day is new. If things don’t go well you never have to go back to that classroom or school again. Perfect! Except for the whole pay thing.

If I had to teach professionally again I’d choose 3rd or 4th grade (assuming I could get certified). At that age the kids still love learning. It’s not all sunshine and roses, but it’s a lot easier dealing with kids who mostly want to be there and are eager for new information.

If I could teach anything, I would probably teach quilting. I love quilting and would love to spread that love around. I would actually make a terrible quilting teacher becuase I don’t now enough about it. I can make a baby quilt (that might be debatable if you saw the ugly mess I’ve made out of the binding of the current baby quilt I’m working on), but I don’t now very many fancy methods or even “correct” methods. I could probably use a few classes, frankly.

I’m going to skip summer camp again today. The prompt is all about food, and as much as I love to eat my food preferences are pretty boring. I could never be a proper food blogger because I eat the same things over and over again. I do have a recipe blog over HERE, but it’s more like a personal reminder blog than a real blog of any sort.

Instead, I’ll tell you about our latest adventure.

Our MOMS Club service project involves going to a church and making lunches for homeless people. We had 90 minutes and three moms budgeted to make the lunches, so I figured we would probably be making at 100 or more. Wrong! We only make 40. They usually give out around 35.

My family and another mom arrived right on schedule. We found our way into the church and located the kitchen right away. We were surprised to see a group of old ladies already making the lunches. They were quite surprised to see us, as well.

Later we found out that the lady in charge of the kitchen knew we were coming and had everything set out for us. These old ladies sometimes work the kitchen and came in on their own volition and just started putting stuff together because they were bored, I guess. Who knows.

Either way, it was fine. Our third person never showed up and I spent most of the time chasing Elsa. It would have been fine if it was just two of us, even with Elsa in the kitchen. We could have just shut the door and let her run around.

Have you ever stood by while an 80 year old woman tried to make a bunch of peanut butter sandwiches? My job was to bag the sandwiches after she made them. People. I try to be nice. I am nice. But standing there waiting for her to make a sandwich was torture. I wanted to just jump in and do it, but she was very proud of her sandwiches. She spread peanut butter on both slices of bread, then put a dollop of jelly right in the center so it would “be a surprise.” It was excruciating to watch.

We fiddled around with loading cookies and other stuff. Erik was a great little helper and got along well with a younger old lady. I did have to give her the hairy eyeball when she told Erik to only put two Oreos in each bag because “we don’t want our guests to get fat.”

I was good and didn’t say anything to an old lady who wouldn’t have a frickin’ clue why that was bad, but it was hard. I work SO HARD to get Erik not to call people fat or worry about being fat or worry about other people being fat. Then people like that (let’s face it, the majority of Americans) say something so thoughtless and leave him with a negative impression about fat people (like his very own mother).

With five of us working, the meals were done in about a half hour and we were able to leave. The old ladies wanted to sit around and gossip with us, but the other mom and I had deer in the headlights looks and managed to escape. I didn’t want to be rude, but I jerked Erik out of there so fast his head was spinning. They started talking about the Casey Anthony trial and all that jazz. It’s bad enough that I’ve had to turn off my car radio so he doesn’t hear about child skulls and a mommy who would murder her own baby. You’d think real, live people would look at the child in the room and realize that it isn’t an appropriate topic.

So there you go. I’m mostly glad they were there because it made our job really fast and easy, but they annoyed me greatly. Also, the church smelled exactly like I remember my old church smelling: musty and dank.

Our club has three more service project dates this summer. I hope other members will sign up to do it so I won’t have to go back. I don’t mind doing it, but with 28 club members we should have enough people that no one person needs to do it all. We shall see.

I am skipping Summer Camp today. I can’t think of a single thing to say about the prompt (what new thing have you tried lately: buying a Pokemon), probably because my brain is old and befuddled. I saw a commercial the other day about some vitamin or drug you can take to increase adult memory retention. I need some of that stuff. The sad thing is I can’t remember what it’s called. I’m not even making that up to be funny.

We had our meeting today and I was able to pull a craft out of my brain in between dropping Erik off at camp and arriving at the meeting. Bethany offered to help brainstorm a craft, but I didn’t see the comment until after the meeting was over. In the end I did something super simple that I remembered from a craft camp I went to when I was a kid. One year our town decided to be fancy and have little craft classes in the park (maybe they always did this and we could only afford it one year). I vividly remember drawing fish on a piece of white paper, then going over the whole paper with cotton balls dipped in water color paints. I don’t know why that stuck with me and why I thought it was totally awesome, but that’s the craft we did today. The two elementary aged girls were equally enamored with it and made a ton of pictures (some aquariums, some alien landscapes, one princess being destroyed by a dragon). The two elementary aged boys refused to try it.

Any ideas for cheap and easy crafts are always appreciated. I am anti-craft. It’s messy, my kid won’t sit still for it and I have terrible fine motor skills. I also don’t want to spend a lot of my own money. Since our club is a non-profit we are only allowed to spend 15% of our income on things that directly benefit our club members. We usually reserve that 15% for a party at the end of the year. This year our party barely qualified–we went out to dessert at Applebees.

I finally have the gigantic box of moms club paperwork that comes with being president and it’s really interesting to read through the history. Our club was busted in 2007 for spending waaaaaay over the limit on fun stuff just for our club.

Basically we give most of our money away to charity. We get a free meeting place, so we don’t have many regular expenses. We can host an open house to try to get members to join, so I’m planning on doing that and using some of our money that way. It is frustrating to have the money to do things, but not be allowed to spend the money. It all goes back to taxes, I guess.

You want to hear what stupid thing I did today?

I finished a quilt for my new 2nd cousin (or whatever you call the daughter of your cousin) a few months ago, but never clipped the threads. Today I decided that thing was going in the mail, so I clipped the threads and gave it a look over. I noticed one of the corners wasn’t bound well so I thought I could fix it. I undid the binding on the corner. And now I have no freakin’ clue how I am going to re-bind it because it’s a hot mess. I hopehopehopehopehope I can come up with a plan when I am fresh and un-cranky tomorrow. I do not want to have to tear off the whole binding and start over. It’s a really cute quilt and I need to get it and the accompanying presents out of my house. They are in the way and bound to get ruined with the Menace and her brother roaming around.

Speaking of her brother.

He’s been wishing and wishing and wishing he could do a craft to make himself a pokemon. I am not a horrible mother who refuses to let my child do a craft. I am a forgetful mother who never remembers his bedtime wishes. If he would mention it during the day we would make it happen.

Today, shock of all shocks, I remembered. Possibly because I had been brainstorming crafts all night.

He decided he wanted to make a stuffed Pokemon, so I had him draw something out and then we went up to pick out the fabric.

He said all my fabric was for girls! Can you imagine??? Why wouldn’t Pokemon have batik flowers all over?

In the end I kind of threw my hands up in the air and went and bought him a Pokemon thing at Target after encouraging him to craft a few paper Pokemon things. Win-win, I’d say. He got to craft and he got his Pokemon. I didn’t have to use my precious fabric on a Pokemon, nor did I have to curse all night long, trying to make his design come to life. Maybe someday we will make a stuffed creature together, but 3 pm in the afternoon is not the time to go to the fabric store to find an acceptable fabric. Life revolves around traffic patterns around here and the fabric store is just far enough out that I want to avoid rush hour.

Day 5 – What would you prefer to do on your birthday?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood Summer Camp

How sad is it that I don’t even know? We are not big celebrators around here. Does that mean our life is so fabulous on a regular basis that we don’t have to do anything special on special days? Ha.

For several years, I vowed not to eat any processed sugar from Jan. 1 until my birthday (March 26), so I would spend 3 months planning the type of birthday cake I would make. Eventually I realized that no cake I could bake could compare to some of the cakes I can buy, so lately I’ve just been buying a triple chocolate mousse cake from Safeway. I’m a good baker, but cakes are not my forte. The last two years I didn’t do my no sugar thing, so thinking about birthday cake didn’t take up such a huge part of my thought process.

One year we went to a big quilt show in Lancaster County and that was really awesome. Mike took Erik and I got to go hang out with all the old ladies (and a few young ones). I spent way too much money on fabric that is mostly still sitting up in my craft room, but I had a wonderful time. Plus, Amish fried chicken! Who can beat that?

I guess what I would really prefer to do is open a box with a big, shiny ring. I love shiny things. But they need to be big shiny things because I have big man hands. Jerry Seinfeld would not approve.

In completely unrelated business: ugh. Why am I MOMS Club president? Just because I am bossy and like to make things happen? I need to learn to go with the flow and let other people do things. I have been president for a month and I’m already tired of it. I knew better, but I felt like I was the best candidate. Humble, much?

We have our business meeting tomorrow, but everyone is out of town. There might be two of us. I would cancel it, but we need to use our free room or the bank will give our slot to someone else. I found a fun sounding craft in an old Family Fun magazine, but decided I better test it out first. Good thing I did because it was a major fail. I need to come up with a plan in the next 12 hours.

I just hope I get some sleep tonight. Elsa was snorting and kicking and being a general pain all night. Why are we co-sleeping, again? I hear about these babies that sleep in cribs, but I am not sure how to accomplish the goal. I’ve heard that you put them down in the crib either awake or asleep and they lay there and sleep. I put my kid in a crib, either awake or asleep, and they stand up with a look of terror and scream for a solid hour. I can’t handle baby screaming. She’ll be out of our bed eventually. I know this. Deep breaths.

Also, I was having stupid freakin’ nightmares about stupid, dumb skitters and Dr. Carter and the rest of the plot from “Falling Skies.” Anyone else watching this show? If not, don’t start. It is terrible. Really, really terrible. It had promise at first, but four episodes in and I’m rooting for the aliens. Our band of survivors are too stupid to live.

I know I would probably be killed in the first wave of attacks if there was a true alien invasion. I’m not very fast and I don’t have any survival skills. However, if I managed to survive and join a band of rebels I would hope I would be smart enough to not store an alien prisoner of war right in middle of our camp. And I sure as hell wouldn’t be sticking my arm in the cage.

And out of 300 people, the only person who knows how to bake a loaf of bread is a racist ex-con? Seriously? They are staying in a high school. The library doesn’t have any cookbooks?

The show is ridiculous. I think it is getting booted from the DVR, much like “The Killing” was booted. From what I understand, “The Killing” didn’t even reveal who the killer was. Whaaaaa? Glad I stopped watching.

Not that I have time for TV anymore. I used to watch during Elsa’s nap, but those days are long gone as she either doesn’t nap much or she naps in the bed instead of on my lap.

She is such a silly girl. I had no idea she knew how to unscrew a lid, so when I saw her playing with a jar of peanut butter I thought it was perfectly safe.

WRONG!

I found her covered from head to toe in peanut butter. We were supposed to go to the gym for BodyPump, but I couldn’t take a peanut bomb to the gym. She’d likely have killed every allergic kid in the place. I thought maybe I could just go do a cardio workout after I gave her a shower, but then she fell asleep so that kind of shot our whole morning (though the nap was much needed). I guess being a Menace is hard work.

Day 4 – What has most surprised you about being an adult? What have you learned about yourself through blogging?

Read more: 31 Days of Blog Juice at Creating Motherhood Summer Camp

When I was a kid I had the standard fantasy of being rich, living in a fancy house, having a nice husband and all that. I never really understood how any of that worked. I never knew anyone who had the type of job that allowed them to be rich, which meant no fancy house. I never knew a nice husband, so I really didn’t understand that.

Even though I had fantasies, I knew the reality was simple. I would find a job, work hard, and live all alone. I hoped I would have enough money to keep afloat. I might have a dog. I would absolutely NOT have a cat because I wasn’t going to be a crazy cat lady*. I would never marry. There would be no reason to marry. Men were alcoholics who expected the women to do everything around the house. They might be able to provide money, but money was not nearly as important as my freedom. No way was I going to be taking care of a drunk and his children.

Besides, who would ever love me? The marriage point was moot, even if I did have Harlequin romance fantasies.

So I suppose you could say Mike has been the most surprising thing of my adult life. Mike, and other men like him. Most of my good friends, both in person and in blog-land, have excellent husbands who help around the house, take an active part in child rearing, love their families and are not raging alcoholics. Who knew?

And one of these excellent men loves me. Who knew?

What have I learned about myself through blogging?

I’ve learned so much, but I don’t know how much of it is through blogging and how much of it is just growing up. I’m coming up on my ten year blog-a-versary in September. Ten years. Diaz. Tio. Ten.

When I started this blog I had just moved to Sweden sight unseen to live with Mike. I didn’t even know what a blog was. In fact, it wasn’t a blog. It was an online diary. Shortly after someone termed the phrase weblog. I’ve lived in two countries and three states since then. I’ve gotten married, had a miscarriage, had two children, lost my grandma and father, and had several jobs since then. I was bound to discover something about myself.

Of course writing every stray thought and receiving feedback from a diverse group of people would have to lead to some sort of enlightenment, too.

I learned that I’m funny. Other people appreciate my jokes and my point of view. Other people think I am worth knowing and being around. I don’t have to hide everything. I’ve always been a big hider of things. People are just people. We are all insecure.

Without blogging, I never would have been able to change my life.

In 2008 my New Year’s Resolution was simple: Be Vivacious.

I’ve been shy all my life, but I decided I was going to bring my online persona into the real world and make friends. I was desperate for friends. I had several acquaintances who were a bad fit. Nothing against them, but they just weren’t kindred spirits. I needed real friends.

I about died inside, but I started striking up conversations with strangers. I started sending out e-mails. I initiated events. I made plans. I talked.

It was so scary at first, but it soon became second nature. Years of blogging and years of watching students interact had taught me that the only difference between a popular person and a non-popular person is that a popular person acts popular (not counting really weird people. We all know those types and I hope I’m not one of them. They somehow miss social cues, but still keep talking.).

Now I’m the president of my MOMS Club (not that it was a tough competition. I was the only sucker.) I have several really good friends, I am scheduled so tightly with meeting people I want to see that I barely have time to fit it all in. I never imagined life could be like this, but I’m enjoying it.

I’ve scaled way back on the vivaciousness because I’m tired. Really tired. Once Elsa isn’t keeping me awake so much I hope I will get with the program. It’s hard to be cheerful and friendly and full of fun when you just want to sleep.

*I didn’t know about my cat allergy until I was in my 20s because my grandma had a cat phobia.

It’s Day 3 of Summer Camp and we’ve been asked to tell you our guilty pleasures.

My first thought is immediately “chocolate sodas, s’mores, Suzy Qs. . . ” and so on. But really? Why should those be guilty pleasures? Why should the word guilt immediately bring up the foods I most enjoy?

Yes, I’m fat.

No, I don’t like being fat.

But I like to eat and I am active (or at least getting back to being active now that Elsa allows me to drop her off at the gym) and who cares if I’m fat? Mike loves me. I don’t need to impress anyone else.

Ah, the lovely food issues.

So what do I do that really causes guilt?

Shop for little girl clothes, especially dresses.

Dresses are entirely impractical. Elsa has a hard time going up and down the stairs when I put her in a dress. We live in a three story townhouse, so that tends to be a problem. But they are cute! So cute!

When Erik needs clothes, I go to a couple of stores, stock up on a bunch of clothes that won’t make me poke my eyes out and will meet his needs and we’re done until the season changes or his pants start looking like high waters.

Elsa basically never needs clothes because I am always shopping for her. I have weaned myself away from the deal-a-day sites, but I still manage to find myself at the mall or Kohl’s a little more often than necessary.

I want to say that hand-me-downs are just fine for her and they are just fine for her. She had a million cute little things her first year, most of them hand-me-downs. I really do like picking out her clothes myself, though.

And shhhhhhhhhh. . . don’t tell anyone. Yesterday at Kohl’s there was an irresistible dress only available in size 4T. She currently wears size 24 month (2T is too slender for her). Ummm. Yeah. that dress is now hanging in her closet. It will be perfect for dress-up occasions in a year or two.

Hey! I had a 30% off coupon. They were basically giving it to me, right?