On NOT Having It All

I stumbled across this article on motherhood, which, as you all know by now, is (along with fatherhood, of course) the main focus in our household recently. For obvious reasons, I've been thinking a lot about the stress of motherhood (or really, parenthood), lately. Our baby hasn't even been born yet, and I'm already stressed about the choices we're making for her. What with the planning, registering, research and well-intentioned advice (both solicited and otherwise), I can attest to the overwhelmed feeling. And we're still four months away from the real stress. So when I saw that article on the Huffington Post, I took a deep breath and realized I needed to stop stressing, that everything would be OK. 

Right now, a (very) large number of my friends, coworkers, and neighbors are pregnant (I’m attributing this to some sort of strange epidemic). All of us have different living and financial situations, career aspirations, and family resources to work with when it comes to having and raising children. And we are all making different choices, whether those choices are guided by financial restraints or simply by choice. And here’s the thing, that’s ok. It’s still shocking to me that in this day and age, women are judged both for being working mothers AND for staying at home. I know plenty of people raised by working moms and they turned out just fine. And likewise, those of us raised by stay-at-home moms turned out just fine too. In fact, if you looked at our lives, accomplishments and academic records, I bet you wouldn’t even be able to tell who was raised by which.

Which brings us to the notion of having it all. It’s such a silly thing. In what other aspect of our lives do we feel we could ever “have it all”? And is this problem specific to the female sex? I don’t seem to hear many men stress about having it all or being absolutely perfect in every way. So why do we women feel that pressure? I think it may come from our past societal roles and the roles we now take on. The feminist movement wasn’t that long ago, relatively speaking, and maybe we’re still feeling the effects of that change; an inconsistency, a dissonance between what we “should” be doing and what we want or need to be doing. Because, even with the strides we’ve made, for the most part, our society still thinks that raising children is a woman’s role, even when that woman also needs and/or wants to be contributing financially to the family.

(This is something I noticed my grandmother had problems with. She was proud of her granddaughters; that we were going to college, getting an education, finding good jobs and taking care of ourselves. We were taking advantage of the opportunities she was never given. But she also expected us to get married, make babies, have dinner on the table every night, and maintain a spotless home. In her mind, there was no compromise. Because we’re girls, we should do all the things girls are supposed to do, even when we’re doing everything else, as well. And maybe, just maybe, a little of that thinking rubbed off on me when I wasn't looking.)

This is not a rant on our society’s views because, believe me, I could go on about this forever, but instead, a call to mothers everywhere to give up the guilt and the ridiculous notion of having it all. Like the Huffington Post article says: as a mother, you are never failing (Unless of course you’re one of those crazy extreme cases, but still, I’m not judging here. You were probably just under a lot of stress that day because all your friends posted on facebook how wonderful their children are, how put-together their lives are, and just how easy it is to have it all).

In this world of over-sharing and DIY-ing, it’s easy to feel like everyone else is doing it better than we are, to feel like we're being judged. And let’s face it, it’s pretty easy to judge, too. I know I’m as guilty of that as the next person. Maybe that’s why there’s so much pressure felt by parents everywhere to be perfect; to have the perfect children, to send them to the perfect schools, to give them the perfect sippy cup that will somehow give them the brainpower to compose the next great symphony. 

This about sums up my feelings on parenting pretty well: 1: we don’t need to be perfect to raise decent, well-adjusted children, 2: we do need to be more forgiving when it comes to parenting choices, both our own and others, and 3: we need to learn to ask for help. That whole "it takes a village" mentality has become lost in the modern world. It's time to bring it back. I'm no expert, but I'm going to take a stab and say raising children is not and has never been easy. I am sure of that. Another thing I’m sure of? NO ONE, not one person in this entire world, has it all. The ones that seem as though they do? They're the ones not focused on having it all. They're focused on what they ARE doing, not what they should be doing, on how much time they ARE spending with their children, instead of how much time they're not. Or they're lying. One or the other. Either way, we need to stop comparing ourselves to them. Easier said than done, I'm sure, but I'll give it a shot if you will.

Book Review: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I just finished one of the best books I’ve read in a long time. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn has been a hot topic lately. It’s on the New York Times Bestsellers List and was recommended to me by multiple friends. I finally got the chance to pick it up about two weeks ago. And now I can’t recommend this book enough. It’s incredibly well-written. It’s funny, dark, suspenseful, and smart. For those of you in my book club or anyone who hasn’t finished it yet, stop reading here and go finish it. The plot starts out simple enough: wife goes missing, marriage is rocky, husband is suspected. Typical crime novel stuff. The point of view switches back and forth between the husband in present-day and the missing wife through her diary from the day they met to just before she goes missing. Her diary paints one picture of her husband and their relationship, while the husband’s point of view paints another one. The husband readily admits to the reader he is flawed...and lying to the police. His lies are not revealed until late into the novel, leaving you constantly questioning whether or not he did it. Through her diary entries, the wife is giddy and sweet, eager to please her husband - in a word, likeable. A little more than halfway through the novel, after you've made your decision about how you feel about each one of them, Flynn offers up such an unexpected, brilliant twist, it sends you reeling.

While this is a crime novel at the surface (complete with psychopath), on a deeper level, the book explores the difference between loving someone and loving the idea of him or her. Of the fine line between love and hate and the dependency both emotions can create. How all consuming both can be. If you love/hate someone so deeply that it becomes part of your sense of self, who are you without that person? Who do you become? It's a brilliant underlying theme that takes this novel to a higher level.

The twist in this book is so great that I already want to go back and reread the first part, knowing what I know now, which, to me, is the sign of a great book. I won’t give away the ending, but it’s one of the most frustrating endings of any book I’ve ever read. Part of me absolutely hated it and another part of me absolutely loved it. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat until you finish. And you’ll either hate the ending or love it, (or both, like me). But no matter your feelings on the ending, this book will make you think, it’ll suck you in, make you invested in the characters and plot, and then turn everything on its head, twice. And the ride will be totally worth it, I promise.

Strangers in Our Home

This weekend, Kurt and I FINALLY finished painting the front porch and windows (no more 2-tone blue windows!). We bought some new house numbers and re-hung our flag. Our place is finally looking decent from the outside (if you ignore the severe lack of landscaping – that’s to come). While there are still a few things to work on on the exterior of the house, we’re starting to focus our attention on the interior. Many of our walls are still blank and boring, so we decided to hang some pictures.

For me, hanging pictures is a stressful activity, mainly because the holes in the wall are pretty permanent. I like knowing exactly what I want to hang, exactly where I want to hang it. Kurt is more of a fly by the seat of your pants picture-hanger. I stress over the perfect placement, while he just picks a spot and hangs a picture. While it stresses me to no end, I’ve learned we make a good team. I spend time assessing, moving, re-moving, arranging on the floor, while he pushes me to just hang a damn picture already. The thing is, without his pressure (ahem, encouragement), our walls would still be blank. So here is a picture of the fruits of our teamwork: our new and improved stairwell (yes, some of these frames still have the stock photos in them, but we figured we’d hang them anyway and find pictures for them as we go). What do you think? I think it finally looks like actual people live in this house, even if those people are stock models/strangers.

Food Rules

I have a confession to make: I don’t like different foods on my plate to touch. It’s one of my many neuroses or "quirks" as I like to refer to them. My father has the same one, so I'll assume it was learned. The basis is this: I want each food item to taste like itself and that’s it. I don’t want mashed potatoes on my peas or gravy on my asparagus. The only exception is when foods are meant to go together, like spaghetti and meatballs or stir fry. Adding to this quirk is (surprise!) another one: I typically eat one food item at a time. I’ve been trying to overcome this one, but it’s been difficult. I usually eat the vegetables first, then the meat, then the carb. I don’t know why. Perhaps it goes back to the first one about different foods touching. We could say it's because I want to be able to appreciate each ingredient for what it is, so I focus all my attention on it until it's gone. Yea, let's go with that one.

I realized a few weeks ago that both of these are evident when I eat and make salad. One night, a few weeks ago, Kurt made dinner. He is normal and so doesn’t have the same strange food obsessions I do. In the salad, he put greens, peppers, and cheese. While it was very good, it brought up some issues for me. #1: since I don’t like my foods to touch, I don’t eat salad the way a normal person would. At salad bars, for instance, I will separate each ingredient on my plate and eat my salad one ingredient at a time. When I make salad, it has lettuce, tomato and cucumber, and that’s it. #2: I don’t like everything on my fork at once. When new, fun ingredients are added, I pick them out and eat them separately, because in my mind, they don’t belong in a salad. With a mixed salad, I’m forced to pick out the cheese first, and then the peppers and then the greens. And here is why: to me, tomatoes, cucumber and greens go together, so they can be eaten together. Cheese does not go with salad, so it must be eaten separately. I know, this little insight into my wacko mind is scary, but I can't be the only one, right? Other than this, I'm actually not a very picky eater. I can feel the collective eye-roll and "suuuure" you're all giving me right now, but seriously. Tomorrow, at Thanksgiving, I'll be busy making sure the turkey isn't touching the mashed potatoes isn't touching the green beans and so on and eating them one at a time, while you're living with your own weird quirks. Right?

I'm sure you all must have some strange tendencies to share that'll make me feel better about mine. So feel free to share. Please.

A Guest Post: Shelter from the Storm

When Hurricane Sandy hit, I think we were all a little ill-prepared. Hurricanes like that just don't happen in New Jersey...at least, they didn't used to. Sure, we filled our bathtub with water to flush the toilets and filled pitchers of drinking water, but that was about it. We were among the very lucky. We lost power for two days. Many of our friends and family members lost power for over a week and some are still out. What's worse is the damage it caused in the coastal areas. The Jersey Shore's iconic boardwalks and piers were destroyed, communities were devastated, and homes were flooded and torn apart. People lost their homes and everything they own, some even their lives. It's something I honestly can't imagine. 

In the aftermath of the storm, we've found ways to help: giving to the Red Cross, donating food and supplies. Yesterday, Kurt rounded up a bunch of people from work and headed to the shore to help out. The rest of this post is written by him, since I think it'll come best from him:

Kurt: I want to first thank everyone who has already donated supplies, money or their time to help those affected by this disaster.  There is a lot of work to be done and your help is of utmost importance. 

Last week, I helped organize a donation of food and supplies to a shelter in Forked River, NJ and put together a group of volunteers to deliver them to the shelter and spend the day helping however we could.
 
Having now seen some of the shore with my own eyes there is more devastation than I even could have imagined.  It will be a very long road to recovery and an even longer road to rebuild the communities that were decimated.

The moment we got to the Lacey United Methodist Church and began carrying in the donated supplies in two things became very evident: 1) There were many people in the shelter thankful for a warm meal on a cold day and still looking around in disbelief that their homes have been destroyed and they have nowhere else to go and 2) The amount of supplies and food and toiletries piled up around the shelter was a great start in helping these people recover.

We went to the church yesterday with the expectation that we would be serving food inside the shelter.  After carrying in all our supplies, I found a guy who looked like he might be in charge and asked him where we should start helping.  He brought us all upstairs into the church sanctuary, gave us volunteer insurance waivers to fill out and then asked us to sit down for a half-hour training class that he would run.  I filled out the form and couldn't wait to help but I was confused by the training class. Was he going to teach us how to pick up a piece of bacon with tongs and put it on someone's plate?  It quickly became clear that this was a training class about going out into the devastated communities and helping homeowners clear out their houses and throw away all the furniture and personal items that the flooding took from them.  When I realized this I started glancing at our other teammates seriously worried that they only signed up to serve food and didn't want to do this kind of manual labor.  And as I looked at each one of their faces I realized they were thinking the same thing I was, serving food would be nice but getting out into the neighborhoods and helping people is even better.  So I relaxed and just paid attention to the advice the coordinator gave us knowing I was about to go do something I had never done before.  The training ended, we packed up some tools and supplies into a coworker's van and headed out into Bayville, NJ where we got to see firsthand just how violent these flood waters were.

First we went to the house of an older man named Jim.  The flood waters came well over three feet deep in every room and destroyed basically everything they touched.  We removed all the carpet and carpet padding from the entire house while making sure to not damage any of his personal effects (like two urns containing the remains of his two sisters and a glass cabinet filled with hundreds of breakable glass figurines).  After cleaning out everything we could from his house we drove around the neighborhood looking for others in need.  We handed out FEMA information and advised them they could go back to Lacey United Methodist for warm meals or a warm place to sleep.  Finally we found another house and spent the remainder of the afternoon helping an amazingly strong and loving couple (Larry and Claire) clear out their house.  Not only did they lose everything within four feet of the floor in their house but they also have very obvious damage on their roof that will require the back of their house to be rebuilt.

We ended the day with sore backs and some ruined sneakers but also with an understanding that it was worth losing some shoes for what we were able to accomplish as a team (keep in mind we were dressed for serving bacon and Ramen noodles all day!).
 If you want to donate or volunteer to the church we worked with they are gladly accepting any and all volunteers.  And just to be clear, none of us are affiliated with Lacey United Methodist Church, that is not something they care about when finding volunteers to help with this effort.  The church is running a free shelter, providing free meals and coordinating free assistance with any volunteer willing to drive down there and give their time.  If you get the chance, donate some food, water, clothing, pillows or blankets.  And if you want to take it a step farther, contact a local shelter and go make your own memory.  The satisfaction you get from reaching out and helping someone in need is payment enough...but the gratefulness in the eyes of Jim, Claire or Larry at a time when their lives have been turned completely upside down was enough for me to go do it again.  See you next week Bayville, I'll be back next week with even more friends to do whatever we can for you. 

If you would like to donate supplies, let me know.  I'd be happy to pick them up from you and deliver them personally to the shelter at:
 
Lacey United Methodist Church
203 Lacey Road
Forked River, NJ 08731
(609) 693-5222

You can also donate to the Red Cross here.

What to Expect

It’s been about 3 months since my last post. I’ve been silent for a couple reasons: 1. I’ve been waiting until we’re “finished” with a room to show you before and afters of the house. 2. About 3 months ago, I learned some exciting news that I couldn’t share and was so focused on that I didn’t know what else to write about.

The big news, for those of you aren’t on facebook and don’t check your emails, (and of course for all 2 of you who don’t actually know me) is that I’m pregnant. We're thrilled and feel very, very fortunate. I’m 17 weeks now and starting to show quite a bit. We had decided not to announce the news until I was out of the 1st trimester, just in case. (Of course I blabbed to a few close friends and family members). And I'll be honest, hiding such huge news from everyone we know was very difficult. And between the fatigue, nausea, and lying to everyone we know, it was an interesting couple of months. I’m feeling great now – pretty much back to normal – which has been an issue I didn’t foresee, mainly because I keep forgetting I’m pregnant.

While I’ll try not to turn this into a pregnancy and mothering blog, I will warn you all that some of those posts will definitely be coming, since that’s what’s new in my life. I’ll try to keep them to a minimum though.

So for those of you not interested in hearing about my thoughts on the early stages of pregnancy, you can stop reading here (or scroll down to the book review). No hard feelings, I promise.

My sister-in-law recently sent me a blogpost on pregnancy written by Elisa Donovan (AKA “Amber” from Clueless) and while her symptoms seemed to be much worse than mine, I found it to be pretty accurate. All of a sudden, your body isn’t just yours anymore. It does new things you have no control over. It changes in ways you would normally hate in any other circumstance, but have to learn to accept now. And if you thought you were in touch with your body before, you’re in for a rude awakening, since you’ll have NO idea what’s going on half the time. Google becomes your encyclopedia. TheBump.com is your Bible. Pregnant friends or those with small children are on speed dial. You feel like this weird alien creature that needs to pretend to be human. You feel fat, but you know your belly is supposed to be growing. Your pants don’t fit, so you reluctantly buy a belly band – and then grow to love it. As your belly grows, you have to fight that instinct to suck it in that we’ve all succumbed to at some point in our lives. You forget things. You hate foods you used to love. Your sense of smell is heightened to almost comical levels (I say “almost” because you learn pretty quickly that there are way more horrible smells than there are good ones). The perpetual nausea is annoying and the fatigue is mind-blowing (I never knew I could be THAT tired, all the time). But then you get to see the fruits of your body’s labor at the first trimester ultrasound and that thing that was just a collection of cells a few weeks ago is moving around, kicking its legs, and rolling over. And every ache, every minute spent struggling to stay awake, every second of nausea is worth it. And while I know that sounds cheesy, it's totally true. 

On My Nightstand:

When JK Rowling announced she was writing another book, I was thrilled and immediately pre-ordered it from Amazon. The Casual Vacancy came a couple of months ago, just after it was released and I've slowly been reading my way through it. I love Rowling's style of writing. It was one of the things I loved most about the Harry Potter books. And this book did not disappoint on that front. It did, however, take me awhile to get into it. It was a long book, with a lot of characters, and much of the book was spent on character development and plot buildup. If you're willing to stick through it and understand that the story is about the characters themselves and their relationships to one another, it ends up being enjoyable. It just took awhile to get there. By the end though, I found myself invested in the characters and their lives and wanted to read more and more. So, while this wasn't the compelling creative and magical wonderland that was the Harry Potter series, it was well written, well developed, and an overall good read.

Random Acts

A few nights ago, a friend of mine and her husband came home to find half a dozen roses on their porch. There was no note, nothing to identify the giver. They live in a fairly rural area, so someone would have had to drive to their house. When she told us, asking if any of us were the anonymous culprit, I told her I found it creepy and she agreed. Not long ago, another stranger (or perhaps the same one?) left a note on their door to tell them how much they enjoy driving by their house since they’ve renovated it. I thought that was sweet at the time. I still think it’s sweet, as long as it’s not the same person who left the flowers.*

But it got me thinking, have you ever done something for someone anonymously? Or something that someone couldn’t pay back? Not all random acts of kindness have to be creepy. When I was a senior in high school, I found myself underdressed and under-budgeted in a very expensive restaurant with a friend. After hearing us express our concerns to each other over the price of the menu and our t-shirt and jeans attire, a woman at the next table paid for our dinner. The sweetest part about it was, we didn’t know she’d footed the bill until we asked for it, long after she had left. To top it off, it had been her birthday and she had told the server she “just wanted to do something nice for someone else.” There was no way to thank her, she hadn’t spoken to us at all during the dinner, (but we knew she had noticed us as we’d heard her comment to her friends how cute we were for ordering iced teas) and left no way for us to repay the favor or even thank her. It struck me as such an unselfish gift. She didn't need or want the satisfaction of seeing our faces, or hearing a "Thank you", like so many of us (myself included) do when giving gifts.

That night, my friend and I vowed to pay it forward. One day, when we were able, we’d do the same for someone else. Whenever I can, I try to pay some stranger a kindness that can’t be repaid. That night is one I’ll never forget because of that woman’s anonymous gift. After we’d recovered from our shock, the server told us, “she told me to tell you to never worry about how you’re dressed or about spending a little money, and to just enjoy life.” Words to live by.

*For the record, it turned out the roses were a random act of kindness (and not creepiness). A day or two after they found the roses, they found out they were from their neighbor.