Ok, so maybe my cleaning is good enough

This article caught my eye today, particularly in light of my recent admission that I worry too much about how clean and organized my house is.

Flaming Lips

My lips have been hijacked by an infection.

I'm working from home for the remainder of the week because I have a bad case of impetigo. Which is to say that I have a huge red, dry rash around my lips. It's God awful to look at, painful and totally contagious. I actually apologized to my stepdaughter this morning prior to dropping her off at a camp because I know it can be embarrassing to have a parent with such a hideous physical defect.

I've had this off and on for the past week but it got incredibly worse since Monday morning. After an emergency appointment with the doctor yesterday I discovered that not only do I get a doctor's note to work from home for the rest of the week but I also get to take medicines that are supposed to be strong enough to overcome Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) infection a.k.a. "The Superbug."

This couldn't be more untimely. My wedding anniversary is next week and as it is, I haven't kissed my husband in over a week. The medication I'm on prevents me from being in the sun yet I have a ton of yardwork that needs to be done and I'm heading down to Austin.

Yuck. Yuck. Yuck. I want my lips back.

I'm such a Tease...

Leave it to being on vacation to lead to thoughts of what will make me Happy Erin.

One of the things that makes me happy is/was my pole dancing class. I may have stopped short of going upside down or stripping down to my bra and panties for the sake of sex appeal but I felt good about myself inside and out and the workout was insanely good. I'm signing back up for the summer/fall session and am finally going to start training at the gym to get my abs into upside-down-on-the-pole shape.

For anyone living in the Chicago area that my be interested in pole dancing, I go to Tease Workout in Naperville. If you're not from Chicago but are still interested, shoot me an e-mail and I'll check with my instructors to see if they know of studios around the country.

Yey...I can feel the adrenaline pumping back into my stiletto-heeled calves.

Today's Lesson: How to define Irony

Irony is one of those literature terms that many people easily confuse with metaphors or symbolism. Based on my own, real-life experience, I give you my vacation-based definition of Irony:

Vacation plans are rearranged with inlaws because a 32-year-old women who hasn't had the chicken pox or the vaccine finds out one of the inlaws has Shingles. The shingled inlaw is sequestered in another home south of vacation home. Upon getting to final vacation destination, said 32-year-old develops a highly contagious bacterial infection that requires her to stay someone isolated from everyone else.

That, my friends, is irony.

On my summer vacation, I...

• Got to start the trip off with my husband's birthday. Woo hoo 3-6!!!!
• Got to see my husband's college friends, both of whom I love and adore. Both have small, well-behaved children who we spent way too little time with.
• Got to ride 4 hours in the car up to the Pacific Northwest coast. I'm sure the part of the drive near the water was beautiful but I was asleep.
• Got to wake up to see a mom and baby deer walk right past the window at 7 a.m.
• Got to walk on the beach picking up shells and my latest addiction, flat, black rocks
• Got to read a HILARIOUSly good book by a Chicago-based author. It's a book after my own heart -- a woman who is trying to lose weight. The book is Such a Pretty Fat, the Author is Jen Lancaster. Her blog, like the book, is hilarious. Read her, love her, never go to bed angry again.
• Got to head to the local pharmacy to pick up polysporin because guess which blogger has apparently contracted impetigo. Yeah, it's a bacterial infection normally found in small children who don't wash well. Grrrrreeeeaaaat. It's on my lips right now and I hate it. I look like a clown with herpes.
• Got to relax in a beautiful home where you can hear the ocean when you're outside but can't watch television because there isn't one.

That's all I've done on the summer vacation that's lasted 36 hours so far. I'll try to write more later.

Read. Reflect. Relax.

As a kid, I think I visited every kind of house of worship there was. During her divorce, my mom would occasionally seek refuge in one of God's many houses. We went to a Mormon church; a Lutheran Church and I think a Baptist church.

During this time, my father was also finding religion, he was officially confirmed Catholic somewhere around my 11th birthday. I also had a few Jewish friends who let me come to Temple with them so let's add that one on to my list.

I think church centered my parents during a tough time in their lives. Me, on the otherhand, I've developed an aversion to houses of worship. I've never really felt comfortable congregating for the sake of religious affirmation.

Please don't get me wrong, I think God and religious devotion are beautiful and I'm truly jealous of people who put so much faith in religion.

All of this might sound a bit contradictory when I declare that I sometimes think I'd like to pray to Elizabeth Gilbert.

She's not God or a god of any sort; she's an author who went on a spiritual journey in 2003-2004 and wrote about her pursuit of pleasure and devotion.

Her journey, and her book, take her from divorce-contemplating hysterical tears on her bathroom floor to Rome (to pursue pleasure) to India (to pursue devotion at an Ashram) and to Indonesia (to pursue balance of devotion and pleasure).

I read the book last year on vacation. It all seemed so fitting last year. We were the same age and despite the marital difference (she was divorcing, I didn't and don't have plans for divorce), we both seemed to need to pursue happiness.

I read the book in 3 days and started to find new meaning in things. Shortly after, I got pregnant so I've got to believe there was something in that book that put me at peace.

During a recent bookshelf purge, I rediscovered the book. I remembered how peaceful and calm I felt after reading it so I started reading it again this year and, again, the peace and calm have returned; sort of like two grade school buddies who you miss terribly and wish they'd stay for longer periods of time.

I'm reading the book slowly this year, careful to chew up every morsel of text like it's the last chocolate chip cookie in the world. I've stopped and attempted to chant the same Yogic chant she recites in the book, I've tried to forgive my own trespasses and have even started to meditate even if it's only for 60 seconds on my bathroom floor every morning.

I've read this book almost like it's a bible, carefully reading each of its chapters and reevaluating my own life. I've almost become religious about this book.

Maybe it's the quiet house tonight or the fact that the kids are with their mom this week but I feel a peace I haven't felt in a while.

It's nice.....

Pretty Pictures

I heart my Canon PowerShot and some of the things that take place around my house and around my life...
















This is Puppy Cat hiding under a curtain. He's as precocious as the day is long. I love this cat like a kid...only without the cute sweaters.

















This is the rose bush I planted this Spring that I'm excited to say actually bloomed. I have a 50/50 record when it comes to plant maintenance. This one actually lived.





















The tree by the pond behind our house. While our sunsets don't compare to Tuscany's, every once in a while there will be such a rich, golden hue outside that it's impossible not to take pictures. Everything always looks so much richer in that light.

The pond grass that, for once in 3 years, doesn't look dead. Again, more rich colors.

I love summer.

Today's Oxymoron: Soy Milk

I'm going in tomorrow for an abdominal ultrasound to see if my gall bladder is perforated or sitting wonky or something.

The instructions before the procedure call for: "a fat free dinner (NO FRIED FOODS or DAIRY PRODUCTS). Patient should have nothing to eat or drink 6-8 hours prior to procedure."

I made my stepson mac' n cheese with soy milk (we don't have regular moo juice in the house) and had a few spoonfuls myself.

Have I violated the instructions or am I in the clear because technically soy milk isn't really milk?

discuss

Fresh start

Okay, so in looking back at my blog posts lately, I've noticed a trend: I've been whining and bellyaching.

First rule about positive mental attitude is you have a positive mental attitude; or as my mom would say "positive likes positive; negative attracts negative"

So I'm beating the negativity with the ugly stick right now. Be gone whining! Be gone complaining!

I may give the blog a makeover in honor of the whine-free environment; maybe a new name...how does the Whine and Cheese blog sound? tee hee hee

On a slightly more uplifting note...

Part of my job requires me to scan articles on the Internet to see if they'd be relevant to one of the websites I manage.

This Reuters article caught my eye this morning: Parenting style reflected in how children are fed. The article describes how parents who are generally permissive with their parenting will often be permissive with their children's food intake; same thing for authoritarian parents.

There is apparently a third group that, I'm happy to say, I think I fall into. According to the article, the "'authoritative' parents. These parents set limits on their children's diets, but often used more positive approaches -- like following a healthy diet themselves -- to get their kids to eat well."

My husband and I both try to eat healthy and that is reflected in our meal choices both when the kids are with us or when they're not.

I may gripe about my lack of exercising, but at least I can feed my kids a healthy meal.

How much stress is too much?

I finally heeded everyone's -- including my own -- advice and saw a doctor about my chest pain/fatigue issues. In the 90 minutes I was there, I had an EKG and a full panel of blood work done; I'd also been given instructions to not consume alcohol, caffeine or ibuprofen and to schedule a gall bladder ultrasound.

I was also told to try to eliminate stress where ever I could.

This piece of advice almost always prompts me to ask, "how much stress is too much?"

When the doctor was asking me if I had reasons to be stressed, I told her "nothing out of the ordinary." I admitted during the course of the exam that I'd just changed jobs in the last few months and had decided in the last 6 weeks not to continue to try and have a baby. When I mentioned something about having two stepkids, a travelling husband and his ex-wife, my doctor looked at me as if my face were painted purple and I had a gorilla suit on. "Based on what you've said, I'd say you've got plenty of stressors there."

Yes, it's true that my new job has had stressful moments and that my husband, his kids and his ex-wife do make me want to pull out my hair half the time, but that's my every day life. Unless I'm supposed to dump the job and the husband, I don't see that part of my life changing any time soon.

What she said about the miscarriage and not having children...everyone has been asking me about that lately. Two doctors, a handful of friends and my mom have asked me if I've grieved enough. I like to think I have, but then I wonder if I'm just fooling myself. I guess we'll see in a couple of weeks when the whole brood will be out in Oregon; we'll be visiting with my husband's best friends -- one who just had a baby and one who is due in a month. I'm already nervous that I'll break down and start crying in a back room.

All of this brings me back to the original question: how much stress is too much? What is the barometer for being too stressed? Rapid heartbeat? No rest? Having more than three commitments in one day?

I'd love to know what, or if, there is a stress indicator that I can benchmark myself against.

Should I? Today's parental question

My almost 12-year-old stepdaughter likes to read my Women's Health magazines. While I'm mostly happy to loan her the back issues, there are a few articles I don't think her innocent eyes need to see. Case in point, July/August's The Art of Masturbation or, say, The Guide to your Vagina that was in an issue a few years ago.

I'm all for educating pre-teens on sex-related matters. I'd rather they ask questions in the confines of home rather than experiment in some guy's basement. On some level, it's as though Women's Health is sort of letting the parental tripod off the hook by answer questions she may not have knew she had.

But I still wonder, should I censor her reading of these magazines because they talk about matters a little above her right now? I give Women's Health credit in that it shows healthy body images and isn't a glamorous magazine. I'm comfortable with her learning about healthy portions and exercise techniques from the magazine; I just don't know if we're all ready yet for her to learn the why's and how's of the humming behind the birds and the bees.

Given I know Mom and Dad don't want her growing up too fast and we all want her to have a healthy outlook on everything, I ask, ladies, what would you do?

Would you censor the magazines all together?
Let her read them but ask her if she has any questions about what she reads?
Or wait and see if this presents a negative effect and otherwise leave it alone?