2008 Vapid List

Despite my grandmother-in-law calling me St. Erin, I do fall prey to several cosmetic and self-absorbed ideas and debates every once in a while.

As such, I bring you the 2008 Vapid list:

Should I highlight my hair a sunny blonde? I saw a "Made" show on MTV yesterday about a girl who wanted to become a model. She had dark hair and before the modeling gig it was highlighted a fabulous sunny blonde shade. She looked so free and fun. It made me want to highlight my hair, too.

Should I get hair extensions? I think long hair looks hot. Right now I have a very suburban bob. I'm tired of being blah looking. I want to look hot.

Should I get a spray tan? I have a "geek tan"; the only rays I get are the ones off the computer screen. My peaches'n'cream complexion has more cream than it does peach. I almost look like a corpse I'm so pale. I want to get a safe tan so I'm thinking of doing the spray kind to look more sun-kissed.

Toe Ring or No Ring? I think toe rings are impossibly cute. I've had several crappy ones in the past but I want a nice one. I think.

Make me over? I've never learned to put on makeup; at least not in the sense that I can apply makeup with the greatest of ease. I wish I knew someone, not connected to a salon or a makeup counter, that would show me how to put on makeup once in for all. I want to look stunning. Even when I sleep.

There you have it. The most self-absorbed should-I-or-shouldn't-I? list that's marinating in my brain right now.

ciao!

Lemon Law

You know that saying "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade"? I'm calling 2008 the year of my lemonade. I'm eschewing the crap that made 2007 feel like the year I'd rather forget. I'm forging ahead with a list of to-do's I resolve to take care of in 2008:

2008 To-Do list:

1. Be content with who I am. Success is in the eye of the beholder darnit.
2. Reconnect with my friends. Somehow in the midst of all of us living our own lives, many of my friends and I have lost the bond we had before. I miss my friendships. I want them back.
3. Be a little more selfish. Momma wants something for herself? Momma's taking the day off/getting the manicure/watching tv if she wants to so long as there is time and money in the bank. I'm not reckless with money or with other people's hearts. I do, however, deny myself enjoyment sometimes because I'm afraid someone will get mad at me if I do.
4. Learn to be less uptight about clutter. I cringe at the sight of papers laying around on our kitchen counter. Don't even get me started on the countless arguments my husband and I have gotten into because I "tidied up" and accidentally misplaced something. I need to embrace the inner voice that says "its okay if you leave a few things laying around."
5. Conquer my fear of tarantulas. gaaaahhhhh. Even writing the word makes me cringe. My husband and I want to move to Colorado or Arizona after my stepson graduates high school. I'm so sick of winter right now that Arizona is looking very tempting. The only thing I can't stand that prohibits me from moving there is tarantulas. I hate them. They give me the creeps and I fear death by heart attack should one ever start crawling up my chest, leg or arm.
6. Learn to do a pole inversion. This is a modified way of saying lose 20 pounds so that I can hoist my chubby but cute butt upside down on the pole.
7. Take a minibreak by myself. I love my husband dearly but we differ on what we consider enjoyable downtime: He likes to drive, I like to veg poolside; he likes the great, open outdoors, I like walking around a city's streets looking for museums. I'd like to figure out a place I can visit for a three-day weekend where it's just me and a hotel room with an awesome view. That way I can come back home, tell my husband about it and bring him back with me.
8. Accept my fertility fate. I have a deal with myself: if I am not with child by January 1, 2009 then that chapter of my life is closed. Time to move on, time to make peace.
9. Begin at least one of the online projects I've dreamed up in 2007. There have been several ideas I've cooked up that would make for a good start-up. I'd like to put rubber to the road and actually make one of them happen.
10. Dance. Dance more in my kitchen while I'm cooking dinner; dance with my husband at weddings (or in the kitchen); dance around my hip-hop class on Tuesdays; dance around the pole on Sundays. I just want to shut up and dance.

Goodbye Pole Kitten...Hello Princess

I can't believe I didn't write about this sooner.

December 1 marked my graduation from pole kitten to pole princess. Yes ladies and gentleman, I am no longer a pole-dance beginner.

Thanks to my Christmas present/basement pole, I can practice and perfect my tartish routine. Too bad I haven't actually been doing much of that since I got the pole over a month ago.

Thankfully my next session starts in a few weeks. I'll be back on the pole and back in action.

Yey me!

Santa: The ironic comedian

As I suspected, my doctor asked me on Friday if my husband and I were planning on continuing on the baby quest.

She didn't ask me so much as she told me "Given your history, unfortunately, if you want to conceive, we'll need to put you on Clomid." My mom had been on Clomid and several friends of mine have used it as well. It didn't send shivers down my spine; in fact, I was pretty much expecting this to be the case.

Four vials of blood later, my doctor mentioned she'd call on Wednesday with the results of all of my blood work. Maybe I have a thyroid condition, maybe it's a faulty FSH; odds are it's just my PCOS not sending the signal down to the ovaries to release an egg.

I told my husband the prognosis. His response: "I hope everything is okay with your body. We'll just have to see how it goes."

This whole month I've searched my soul to find the reason why I've wanted to get pregnant again. I've looked for logic in an otherwise emotional decision. And yesterday, I had the epiphany. I haven't even shared it with my husband yet at this point. I figured we'd talk about it before the doctor calls back on Wednesday to ask me: are we going to induce a period and do the clomid now or are we going to wait?

But then Santa -- or God -- stepped in.

As if on cue, the complete opposite thing that forced Mary and Joseph to find shelter in Bethlehem happened: I got my period...Christmas Eve morning.

That's the ironic part: on the eve of the day we celebrate the result of the immaculate conception I get the one signal that testifies my non-pregnant status. The fun(ny) part is that my husband probably got one of his Christmas wishes: to not get me pregnant quite yet.

While I know a few people that have been on Clomid, I wasn't entirely sure what, when or how you started on it. For those who don't know, you start taking a pill once a day days 5 through 9 of your menstrual cycle. That's supposed to help cue your hormones to ovulate a few days later.

The doctor and I thought we'd have to induce a cycle so I thought I'd have a least a month to decide if I wanted to stay on the medicine that would keep me shedding or start taking the medicine to get me ovulating.

Now when the doctor calls on Wednesday, I'll be on day 3 of the cycle....

Talk about a go/no-go decision.

Me, My Elf and I

Sorry I haven't been more communicative lately. I've been busy visiting the North Pole with my husband and stepkids.

Check out our vacation video.


Thanks to OfficeMax for helping me put this together :-)

To love and honor and sometimes disobey

I'm a goody-goody when it comes to adhering to most rules.

Don't park here after 2 a.m. No problem, I'll be out by 1:45. Line jumping? I spit at the thought of it. Accept a service offer for less than I'd planned? No dear, you're right, I should have given 'em hell.

I'm a goody goody if there ever was one which is why I'm amused at myself when I scoff at the GPS navigation system I recently put in my car.

"Turn right in two-tenths of a mile," she says in a voice that reminds me of a mix between Carol Brady and the Moviefone guy.

"Nah, I don't think I wanna," I reply smirking at this little electronic device. If only I could stand up to the people that irritate me with such fortitude.

I think the GPS navigation system might become my new outlet for things that piss me off. I rarely get to mouth off to anything so this might help me curb that urge to haul off and smack something.

Success is in the eye of the beholder

Like its cousin beauty, success is in the eye of the beholder.

While I've spent the last half of 2007 downplaying my accomplishments and wondering if I'd ever do anything great, I seem to have forgotten that I'm not exactly non-great.

It took a blog post by my husband and a conversation this week with someone else to open up my eyes: Perhaps I'm doing that great thing; it just doesn't feel that way.

My husband, in addition to sharing my first and last name, is probably my biggest inspiration/competitor. I don't consider myself a "gotta win" type broad but I find myself always wanting to keep up with my husband success-wise. Not that I want to out-do him; I just want to be considered an equal from both his point of view and my own. I'd rather be up on the pedestal, too, rather than look up at it.

As for my husband, he's received a coveted industry award this year, travelled to India for work and is likely going to get at least one, if not two, promotions in early 2008. He's really smart. He's also, as he would admit, been really lucky this year.

Because I'm my harshest critic, it's hard for me to remember that this year I've been a finalist for a business industry-type-Pulitzer journalism award, I've managed to not get laid off despite the fact that I work in journalism writing about home building and I'm on several teams and committees where I'm hardly a quiet church mouse. I also pen 5 blogs, read 3-4 books at a time, work full time and, oh yeah, am a parent to two stepchildren.

So what does all of these mean? That I need to stop beating up myself up for not having taken over the world yet. I'm already pondering my 2008 resolutions; I'm considering making "be content with yourself" the number 1 resolution for 2008.

What do you do? Stepmoms and the will I or won't I baby game

My stepson, the little one-liner gem that he is, mentioned this to me this morning:

"If you don't have your own baby, you'll never be a real mother"

I've learned to not take his one-line matter-of-fact statements too personally. He's 6 and he calls 'em like he sees 'em. His timing somewhat apropos; I'm due to go to the doctor next week and have her evaluate my apparently-on-vacation girly parts. I have a feeling, at some point during the appointment, she'll ask me if my husband and I are planning on trying again to have a baby.

I can answer confidently: "I'm not sure."

My husband and I both suffer from a case of Iamnotsureism. I, having gotten pregnant and then miscarrying, worry that another round of pregnancy might end in the same fate. I'm also a little scared about the loss of independence and my inability to lolly gag quietly on the weekends. My husband, having partnered for two births already, can almost see the light at the end of the parental tunnel.

Our timing couldn't be more off. In the four years we've been together, my husband and I have had a plan that we've followed almost religiously: 2 years of dating/living together before we would get married; 2 more years of marriage before we would have a baby. We've had a 2008 baby planned in the Money file since we moved in together in 2003.

Here we are, on the eve of 2008 and my husband and I are at a crossroads. I don't want to be in will-we or won't-we baby purgatory throughout my 30s: I want to set a deadline and move on our lives. My husband doesn't want to commit to a baby unless he's 100% sure he's up for it. I completely understand that. He's fathered a few already; he's been a member of Dads'R'Us since 1996.

So what's a couple to do?

I suppose any woman who marries a guy with kids runs into this quandary. What do you do if you've imagined having your own child but your husband is content with the one(s) he has. Do you reassess your goals? Do you wait it out and see if there is a change of heart (yours or his)?

In the case of my husband and I; we've had this on our agenda for four years. It's been jarring to say the least to be reconsidering this at the last minute. It makes me wonder if there are any other items on my 5-year, 10-year, 20-year outlook that I might reconsider right before I plan to take action. Cooking school sounds like a dream right now but will I really board the plane to Italy for the 5-week course come my 40th birthday?

Who knows what will happen this next year. I wouldn't turn down the chance to see my husband turn on his coo-tastic charms; however, I don't want to wreck my marriage in the name of carrying on my gene pool.

Ladies, stepmoms...have you ever been faced with this decision? What did you do?

World's Hottest Stepmother

I don't blog for notoriety or fame.

Sure, I wouldn't mind it if someone saw my blog and said "what a witty woman; let's ask her to write for us," but I don't string keywords together on purpose in hopes that people will land on my page hoping to find a recipe for blintzes.

That said, I grow ever-amused when I see that people have come to my page by typing some iteration of "hot stepmom" into their search engine.

My husband considers me attractive and on most days I'd say I wasn't too bad looking, but hot?

Obviously, somewhere along the way I've used the word "hot" and "stepmother" in this blog and it is amusing to see that paired together, the SEO gods being what they are have rendered my name near the first few pages of the list.

Regardless of how I got to be the world's hottest stepmom, it's a title I'll proudly wear the sash for. God knows I've got the high heels for the job.

Yet another reason why my pole dance classes may pay off

According to the New York Times' Lap Dance Science article

While ovulating — and therefore the most fertile — strippers made an average of $30 per hour more than menstruating women and $15 per hour more than women
elsewhere in their cycles.

Cool. Doesn't matter much to me; I'm not ovulating (apparently); however, if I start to it's good to know I could make more money with my lap and pole tricks.

Even more assuring was this quote...

"'The findings that estrus impacts earnings could have implications for women selling cars or giving big presentations as C.E.O.’s,' Miller says. 'Should women schedule big job interviews during certain weeks of the month? We don’t
know. But maybe.'"

Rock on. Good to know something might come out of my future ovulation.

Change of scenery

"I wish that I could fly
Into the sky
So very high
Just like a dragonfly

I'd fly above the trees
Over the seas in all degrees
To anywhere I please

Oh I want to get away
I want to fly away
Yeah yeah yeah" -- Lenny Kravitz

I'm with Lenny. I want to go away; to travel to someplace warm and forget about things like deadlines and cleaning up the cats' litter boxes.

I need a destination. Readers; my boyfriend, the Internet; anyone and everyone:
Where should I go and why?

I bet their registry isn't at Target

What do you get the couple that can afford nearly anything?

And what happened to my invite?

You might as well just throw me in jail now

States examine giving "personhood" rights to embryos.

"Others warn that granting 'personhood' and full legal rights to embryos and fetuses could have consequences extending well beyond abortion to areas such as birth control and assisted reproduction.

Any contraceptive that interfered with the ability of a fertilized egg to implant in the womb could be considered person-destroying and banned, reproductive rights groups suggested. Examples include intrauterine devices and birth-control pills, which may affect implantation in some cases."

Regardless of the future of my fertility or whether or not my husband and I ever choose to try and have a baby again, this is just so absurd that I'm proposing the Conservative right just throw me in jail right now 'cuz I'm going to commit the crime if this becomes legal.

My husband and I were considering moving to Colorado in about 15 years when we retire. This article changed my mind.

BREAKING NEWS...

I think I've conquered my pole trick fear!!!

Using a mixture of sandpaper (to rough up my hands); a tiny drop of syrup (to make my hands sticky); and Windex (to add traction to the pole) I think I have finally mastered my Peter Pan Pole trick.

I went downstairs to start dragging up Christmas decorations and decided, what the heck. I'm going to try it.

Oh yeah...did I tell you lovely ladies that I bought a pole? I did. A few weeks ago. It's black and shiny and up until today it was only used once a week for a couple of weeks because I was too scared to try anything.

Today: pole trick; tomorrow: the world

;-)

This blog has PMS too

I wasn't in love with the layout of the blog.

So I changed it.

Enjoy.

It's beginning to look a lot like crap now....

"It's beginning to look a lot like crap now
Eeevverywhere I drive..."

I was born and raised in Illinois. After 31 years you'd think I'd grow to like the joys of a Midwestern Winter. I mean come on, who doesn't love a first snowfall that's filled with sleet, freezing rain, snow and a Dopplar Radar that looks like this:

Yes Little Angel, that's all snow cover.