My life in bullet points...February 2010 edition

Hi. I'm Erin and I'm a chronic bullet pointer. I'm a natural list maker and as a byproduct of that I tend to communicate in bullet points. In fact, during an e-mail exchange with my stepkids' mom this week, we went an entire half-day talking strictly in bullet points. It was hilarious, particularly when we started cracking jokes.

I find writing in bullet points streamlines my thought process. Maybe it will help with the all-overness of my blog post today.

• My grandmother made it to her 83rd birthday on Friday and is now resting somewhat comfortably in a home that is not her apartment but is not the hospital either. I've decided the woman must have some sort of super natural power or at least nine lives because she continues to astound me with her resilience. 
• On Monday, Feb. 1, Peggy Nolan and I will be talking about ex-wife issues on our Stepmom's Toolbox Radio Show. Tune in at 8 p.m. EST to hear our guests answer questions. A few people have e-mailed me privately to pose questions to our guests. Keep those questions coming! You can post them in the comments section here, on Stepchicks, or you can e-mail me a question.
• Speaking of issues, there continues to be very little drama in our house (big yey!). Sure, we have the occasional flare up or paranoid scare, but all-in-all, we be drama free. 
• I'm finding one of the keys to drama free is to step back and observe rather than jump in and respond right away. I always tended to be the parent that tried to overstep and be just like one of the bio-parents.  I'm finding that by taking a half-parent/half-aunt like role that I'm less stressed these days.
• My birthday is coming up on February 7. I've traditionally been a huge birthday celebrator (thanks Mom!) and this year isn't much different. Mom and I will be spending a gloriously relaxing, sans-husbands, weekend in Austin, Texas next weekend. 
• Part of my weekend readiness includes figuring out what to wear in Austin where the temperature difference is at least 30 degrees warmer than my native Chicago. If you have any suggestions for what a cute but overweight pole-dancing karate-chopping vivacious soon-to-be 34 year old can wear in Texas please drop me a line or leave a comment.
• Speaking of pole dancing, I've recently purchased a pair of the sexiest black shoes ever imagined. (picture to come). I got the shoes as an early birthday present/pole dance graduation gift. I just graduated with my second "Master" degree in pole danceology. I'm trying to decide if I should bring la sexy shoes down to Austin with me. 
• I"m also contemplating nail polish. Is it just me or doesn't Texas just beg for red nails? My toes are currently painted Revlon Red...my fingers -- well, I still can't decide. 
• My husband is back home this week and will be home and watching the super bowl while I'm bar hopping next Sunday. My mom and I have a goal to see how many bars will give me a birthday cupcake to blow out. Given it's Superbowl, who the heck knows. 
• I recently finished reading the book Cleaving  by Julie Powell. (this is her follow-up book after the Julie & Julia which I'd also read). While her writing is snarky with a hint of self deprecating humor, I couldn't help but wonder when she'd finally wake up and start accepting blame for a lot of what she'd done to get to the position she was in. 
• I've now moved on to Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert (like Powell, this is a follow-up book to Gilbert's very popular Eat, Pray, Love memoir which, like J/J is being made into a movie). yes, I've noticed a theme to my reading too. Gilbert's writing and self-introspection are a welcome change to Powell's writing. Seeing the changes of writing style almost makes me want to get back to my own project. 
• Speaking of which, I'd been writing a book but paused for a while to sort out things about my marriage. Then I was focused on my grandmother and supporting my mother. Now that things seem to be settling down, I think it might be time to concentrate again on my book. 
• Now's a good time to write because Chicago is fracking cold this time of year. I think our high today is 20. That basically translates into stay-inside-the-house-because-it's-too-cold-to-breath-outdoors weather.
• The cold weather, while aggravating when you want to get out and walk in fresh air, is a wonderful reason to wear my incredibly warm (and new) pajamas all day long while under a blanket which is topped off with two of three tabby cats. (My own personal version of heaven). I think I may have talked my husband into giving me a foot massage later on tonight (after he's made dinner out of Donald Duck). 

Yes, that's my life in bullet points. What's going on in your life? 

Having Ex-Wife Issues? Tune in to Stepmoms Toolbox on February 1

We're tackling a huge issue on this month's The Stepmom's Toolbox Radio Show: Handling Ex-Wife issues.




We'll have guests Cathryn Bond-Doyle of Stepmoms on a Mission (SMOMS) and Tricia Powe of Stepfamily Systems talking about how stepmoms and bio-moms can get along better. You can listen in to the show (and future shows) or bookmark us using that handy dandy widget above (and also in the right column).

If you have any questions you'd like for us to ask Cathryn or Tricia, please be sure to leave them in the comments section below or on the Erin Experiment Facebook Fan page.

Dear God

I have what some might consider a startling revelation: I don't believe in God.

At some point in my life I believed, but skepticism and cynicism about one thing or one man being in charge of all that is good and evil just didn't sit well with me.

In my mid-20s I decided to go from a God-believer to spiritual agnostic.

I'm a higher power kind of girl -- I believe in karma, destiny and luck. My beliefs trend toward the ideology that if you're a good person during your life, you'll spend your afterlife in your own personal version of heaven. Vice versa if you're a bad person, you'll spend your afterlife in your own personal version of hell. I suppose my beliefs sound a little similar to religious beliefs; however, in the Church of Erin, I pray at the alter that is my brain, heart and soul and not a cross.

My spiritual beliefs have put me at a bit of a crossroads this weekend, however. My grandmother is dying and I want her to be at peace. I want her to make it to her birthday on Friday so that she can come home from the hospital and be able to die in her sleep in her favorite red chair. For her sake, that's what I'd like to happen; however to whom I should talk to about this remains a mystery to me.

For the more religious people, I imagine this is when you ask God to take his daughter home. When you don't believe in God, who do you talk to about this?

The Stepmom's Guide to a Low-Drama Marriage

This weekend, my mother, sister and I are driving down to visit my ailing grandmother. It's my grandmother's birthday next Friday and she'll be 83. Sadly, this is probably her last birthday. On Thursday, my mom and my aunts' attendance is required at the oncologist's office. The outlook right now? Not so good.

This is my only remaining grandmother and she's the woman that is most like me in our family. She's stubborn and strong and she is fiercely independent. She holds a special place in my heart to say the least.

Despite her probable rapid decline in health, I'm just as upset by the fact that I won't get to be with my husband this weekend. I love my weekends because they are the only time I get to see my husband. Even more, I was looking forward to the fact that this one of our few kid-free/event-free weekends. By my calculations, we won't have another weekend like this until sometime  in mid-March.   

Up until a month ago, I wouldn't have been this happy to have him home. Our constant anger toward one another made it difficult to be around each other even after he'd been away from the house for a couple of weeks. We weren't outwardly mean, but you could tell we'd lost that lovin' feeling. By all calculations and observations, we'd reached that 7-year itch mark where a lot of couples either split or stay.

We were on the verge of splitting, but after a huge blow-out around Christmas, we both transformed into these can't-get-enough-of-you-baby creatures who suddenly refused to allow drama to enter into our married life.

Like all things, opting for a low-drama marriage has a bit of a learning curve. For one thing, step/ex-drama sometimes inflicts itself whether we want it to or not. How we've dealt with is what I'm going to share with you now.

The following is a list of things I've done to try to maintain the low-drama marriage*.

• Let it go. I used to be really upset with my husband for agreeing to an engagement that took him 2,000 miles away from us Sunday through Friday; when he accepted a new job that wound up doing the same thing, I got even madder. When we entered this low-drama phase (LDP) of our marriage, I decided to let it go. So my husband isn't home during the week and I help their mom take care of the kids.You know what? It's okay. He's doing what he needs to do to keep our family to the lifestyle to which we've become accustomed while I'm deciding to no longer be angry. 
• Don't sweat the small stuff. It used to bug the living shit out of me when one of the kids would leave a damp bathroom towel on their bedroom floor for an entire week. It really aggravated me when my husband couldn't adhere to my Dad's-not-here-on-the-weekdays organization process. I used to be  a humongous pain in the ass to be around if the house wasn't cleaned to my standards. Once we entered the LDP, I realized a lot of that stuff didn't matter in the long-run. Rather than expect everyone to conform to my expectations, I just recalibrate my own. If I didn't want our towels getting moldy,  I picked them up; if my husband wasn't going to remember to put the checkbook back in the drawer I'd just do it once he left again; and I came to realize that a pristine house doesn't look very warm or loving.
• Bite your tongue and swallow your pride. The first two bullet points seem fairly easy. This one is slightly more difficult particularly if you really want to succeed with the low-drama marriage. My stepkids are incredibly cool kids about 95% of the time. The other 5%, I'm almost afraid to admit, they drive me insane. From their bickering to their "I want this....no, I want that" to the "But you're not a real mom" -- it's enough to drive even Mary Poppins to drinking. Their mom is somewhat similar -- 95% of the time she's a really fascinating human being to know, the other 5% I just want to plug my ears and march around the house screaming "NoNoNoNoNoNoNoNoYouCan'tMakeMeNoNoNoNo." I used to tell my husband all about how unfairly I thought I was being treated until I realized it put more pressure on him to hear it and figure out how to deal with it than it did for me to just bite my tongue and process it (my thoughts, not my tongue). A brief sidenote:  My stepkids and their mom can still push my buttons on occasion. When I really need to let it out, I head on to Stepchicks to talk it out or I take a long hot bath or indulge myself by reading a good book in  my room -- anything to keep myself from telling or taking it out on my husband. 
• Know what it is you want from your marriage and accept it. I credit Alissa Bowman with this one. She's the genius behind ProjectHappilyEverAfter.com, a marriage help and advice blog. I read Alissa religiously and sometimes felt like her posts were directed right at me. One of her biggest tenets is to know what you want from your marriage. Do you want a companion or someone who is going to make you breakfast in bed every morning?  She also encourages self-reflection, particularly when it comes to taking responsibility for your own faults and the decline of your marriage. I was, admittedly, a huge Complainasaurus Rex when it came to my husband's abscence and my watching the kids and not having a life. In hindsight, I now see that had to be hell to talk to every night and come home to every weekend. Once I accepted that my husband was actually a flawed man and that I could be a huge pain in the ass, the drama seemed to high-tail it out of our lives.
  
• You scratch my back; I'll scratch yours. My husband and I have gotten into a groove where he'll do something nice for me which makes me want to do something nice for him which makes him want to return the favor again and do something nice for me....(you get the picture, right?) This has had a profound effect on the drama quotient. We find ourselves in a fairly good mood with one another because we know we both genuinely want to help each other out (even if we can't always figure out how).
• Be there even if "there" is a cup of coffee and a 20 minute gripe session. My husband is an amazing and successful guy who carries a lot of responsibilities on his shoulders. It used to bug me that he rarely asked me what was going on in my life. But then I realized half the time I was only half-listening to him. I wasn't even giving him what I wanted in return. I figured out if I put aside my crap for 20 minutes and listened to him then he'd feel better and would eventually ask me about my day. These days, he calls me every evening to wish me a good night and to ask how my day was. Even if nothing happened worth reporting, he'll still ask what good things happened. It warms my cockles so much that he does that, that I want to indulge him the same luxury. 

That's why I've done in the name of low-drama marriage. How about you? Is your marriage low-drama or high drama? What have you done to lessen the drama?

*I realize some people might read this and shake their heads in frustration while wondering how many years I set back the feminist and/or the stepmom movement. All I can say is sometimes you've got to take one for the team in the name of happiness. 

My Road to the Low-Drama Marriage

If the tone of my 2009 blog posts had any sort of prediction qualities for my 2010 life, I would be sitting in my own one-bedroom apartment right now with my three cats bugging me for attention while I sip chamomile and wonder if separating from my husband was the right thing.

Things had gotten that dire in Erinland. In fact, there was a particular argument that my husband and I got in during the second half of December where we actually told each other: "I think we should divorce." I'd had it up to my eyeballs dealing with his emotional unavailability, never mind his physical absence. I loathed him because I felt like he treated me like a nanny and a maid rather than a wife. In nearly every argument we got into last year, I always had the same message: Please treat me like a respected partner in this marriage (like we used to be)  not looked down upon or corrected at every corner.

I don't remember the specifics of that argument very well anymore but I do remember that I wept and I held on to my keys while my husband told me he wanted a drama free marriage. I remember thinking it was impossible to have a drama-free marriage.

"I don't want to argue anymore. If we argue anymore, I can't stay in this marriage," he said

"Well I think arguing equals passion," I replied

"I don't agree. I think that someone made that line up because they argued all the time and wanted to feel justified. Seriously, I can't argue anymore and stay married. I won't do it."

I held my keys a little tighter and started to envision what I would pack first and what I'd do with my cats while I found a place to live.

Like all of our arguments, we talked...and talked.....and talked until we felt so talked out we had to go to sleep. As if we were in a movie, the next morning we both woke up and something was different.

My husband prepared my coffee just how I liked it while I took a shower. He asked my opinion about something and volunteered to vacuum while I went to pole dancing class. I, in turn, took care of a few things without grunting my typical "woe is my sorry taken-for-granted Wife/Stepmom ass" hmpfs and grrrrrs. Eventually, our behavior shifted from "we just put up with one another" to "we actually love each other and will do what we need to do to make this marriage work."

From that day forward, we've managed a low-to-zero drama marriage. We haven't argued and we've actually started missing each other again when he goes on his business trips. Right now, I think I'm more in love with him than the day I married him (I know....sappier than a horny Sequoya).

Without being inside his brain, all I can think of is that something flipped while he slept and he saw what being a respected partner meant to me. Dare I think he dreamt about what an Erin-free life would be like and he didn't like the outcome.

I've noticed the change in him and try to tell him how much I appreciate it every chance I get. I like to think he appreciates that as much as I appreciate the gestures. It's a lovey-dovey cycle that I hope never gets turned off.

As for tips and tricks to getting to that point...tune in later on this week for the Stepmom's Guide to a Low-Drama Marriage.

Hello....This is the Erin Experiment....What can I do you for?

So my husband and I recently adopted a "No Drama" clause as it relates to our marriage and, subsequently, our family life.We purposefully try to limit the amount of drama we let into our house and we're finding it's having amazing success. The ND clause combined with my husband's random (yet more frequent) acts of romance have made me fall in love with my fella all over again. Feeling in love with my husband again has also made little step-scuffles seem unworthy of dwelling upon.

So, dear blog readers, if you've noticed a decline in my blog posting the No Drama clause might have something to do with it. It's hard to write about drama that doesn't exist.

That doesn't mean I don't want to blog -- I'm just not sure what to blog about which is where you come in. Using the handy-dandy PollDaddy.com polling software, I'm going to leave a poll up on the blog until March 1. I want to find out from y'all what you'd like to read on the Erin Experiment. I've included a few items below but feel free to add more.

As a natural-born helper, I can't can't help but want to continue to write blog posts that may actually help somebody....so I'm leaving some of the blog post content up to you.

Law and Order: Stepmom's Victim Unit

As the person who posts the letters and approves the comments on the Stepfamily Letter Project, I see a lot of mother and stepmother anger. I don't have precise numbers on who gets in more jabs, but I'd say stepmoms tend to be the most angry when it comes to their letters. The mothers tend to be angrier in the comments.

A similar thing happens on this blog (although not nearly as often). My fellow stepmoms tend to agree with each other while also offering words of encouragement -- even if one stepmom is angry at the bio-mom in her situation. I'll ocassionaly get a comment from a mom or a non-stepmom telling me (and anyone else who reads) to get over ourselves or to look at it from the mom's point of view. We (the collective stepmom unit) are intruders. We make the mom feel ill at ease. We invaded what is rightfully her space and tried to push our way into her childrens' hearts.

Essentially we should just stay out of the hearts of those that weren't ours to begin with.

Let's pause for a sec so I can go off on a tangent...

This anger-laced excitement reminds me of a few family dramas I've been privy to over the years. Someone feels less loved than the other and therefore strikes out at the "more loved" one. A yelling match, a telephone hang-up, and a few days, weeks (or years) of silent treatment ensues and before you know it, the family member you once thought you loved more than God itself is now the emotional equivalent of dirt to you.

I'm fairly certain my family isn't the only one this has happened to. I know it's not the only family because Oprah, Dr. Phil and a bunch of other armchair pychologists call the role of the one feeling less loved The Victim.

The Victim is the one for whom nothing ever goes right. The Victim's mom/dad/ex-spouse didn't love them enough; The Victim's ex-spouse went and remarried and forgot all about them; The Victim feels fat and unloved and oh-by-the-way isn't getting enough child support to keep up her Gucci-A-Day habit. 

Whether most stepmoms want it or like it, their Victim is most often the mother of their stepkids. Your Victim will most likely try to make you feel bad about yourself and/or your marriage because you've tried to be a loving person in your stepkids' lives. Your Victim will likely want you to not tell her children what to do because, let's face it, they're her children; you're just some interloper who couldn't keep your hands off a man that is no longer married.

I don't know about you, but in my life I tend to avoid a Victim like the plague*. I won't indulge their "woe is me" behavior nor will I let it affect me. It is, after all, their issue; not mine. I will continue to channel my inner Miep Gies and do the right think because it's necessary. I will love such-and-such a person because I genuinely do, not just to spite you.

Stepmoms out there: if you find yourself at the mercy of your Victim Bio-mom, remember that it's her problem, not yours. I have yet to find anys tudies that say a child can be loved by too many people; however, there are studies that indicate moms that act helpless, rude and eratic toward their stepmoms and dad can have lasting effects on the child's behavior.

I don't know how many strictly bio-moms read this blog, but if you're reading the above and wanting to write a terse comment right about now, stop for a second. Yes, Stepmoms do tend to act like victims themselves sometimes and yes, as a general group we do tend to profess how difficult it is to put up with bio-moms, but think for a second about your reaction. Is there an element of truth in it? Do you act like a victim?  I've lost count of the number of Stepfamily Letter project posts and comments I've approved, from moms, telling Stepmoms to essentially fuck off and shut up if they try to act like a parent to their children.

*Yes, I'm aware that in parts of 2008 and 2009 I had a firm grip on the Victim role. I've since seen the error of my ways and corrected them thankyouverymuch.

Could Miep Gies be the Patron Saint of Stepmoms?

The lovely Miss Stepalicious recently wrote a blog post about Miep Gies, the amazing humanitarian -- dare I say saint -- that helped keep Anne Frank and her family in hiding during the holocaust.

Steplicious posted a quote from Gies that really got me thinking about stepmotherhood

“I am not a hero. There is nothing special about me. I have never wanted special attention. I was only willing to do what was asked of me and what seemed necessary at the time.” ~Miep Gies

In my own life, I've gone back and forth about my Stepmom role. I'm perplexed about what I should or shouldn't be doing. Am I giving away too much of myself if I try to fill a role that may not need to be filled? Am I asking for trouble if I try to be the kind of parent I'm legally not?

And then I see quotes like Gies'. She never considered herself a hero. She didn't do what she did for the sake of notoriety or to be thanked in the end. She did it because it's what felt right.

I want to be like Miep Gies. I want to be the kind of Stepmom who did what was asked of her. I don't ever want to enter into a frame of mind where I feel like I'm the victim of a vicious parental plot.

I may continue to struggle with my feelings of not knowing what to do when, but I suspect Gies might have felt that way sometimes too. She may have felt like what she was doing wasn't enough or that she could have done more. Then again, she may have felt like she was doing all that she could and that was enough. Who knows. We'll probably never know.

That being said, I like to think of Miep Gies as the patron Saint of Stepmoms. She did what she did because it was necessary. She risked her life and her livelihood for people whom she wasn't related to and she did it because it seemed like the right thing to do.

Stepmoms of the world, couldn't we all take a lesson from Miep Gies?

You can learn more about Miep Gies on the Miep Gies: Her Own Story website.

Whose Job is it Anyway? Dealing with my Stepmom Role issues

step·moth·er (stěp'mŭth'ər)  n.  The wife of one's father and not one's natural mother. 

Dictionary.com makes stepmotherhood sound so clean and easy. "Wife" and "not one's natural mother" certainly seem like simple expectations to put on someone who did not birth her husband or partner's children, right?

If only.

I've been at odds with myself lately over my Stepmom role. From how friendly I am with the kids' mom to how involved I get in the kids' lives, I swear it feels like there's a Stepmom Inqusition going on inside of my head and no amount of contemplating will stop it.

One of the side effects of being a stepmom whom everyone gets along with is that the Stepmom is usually the one who has no clue what her role is in the family.

Some of the roles I'm familar with in my family are:

• Ace's/Dad's wife
• Debby and Ker's daughter; Kate and AC's sister
• Puppy Cat, Katy Bug and Hobbalita's Human Mom (and vet-taker, food-giver, toy-buyer, cuddle-provider)
• Mortgage and bill co-payor 
  
• Maid, garbage woman, gardener and handywoman

Through strong intestinal fortitude and a few bus marks down my back and head, I've established myself as a good role model to my stepkids and other parents and kids out there. I would hardly grant myself sainthood,  but I like to think if there were awards for Good Stepmomsship, I might actually be a contender.

But being a good role model and figuring out your role in your family's life are two completely different issues.

My issue has to do with where does my role as Dad's wife stop and where does Stepmom begin? 


I suppose part of the quandary began last year when my husband left the state for work and I stepped in to cover his parenting role. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake. I'm not saying I wouldn't parent again, but I think next time I'd reconsider how involved I got in the parenting dynamic.

Even writing that last sentence, I can't figure out if I'm saying the right thing. Part of me feels guilty and horrible for questioning how much parenting I should do or have done, but the other part of me understands the reality of the situation: I'm not Mom and I'm not Dad. I'm Stepmom.

Using my own stepfather as a guide, I assumed it was my job to step up and keep on task with raising the kids. Then again, my own father was hundreds of miles away most of the time and once I turned 18 only talked to me sporadically.

So I did what my stepfather did: I stayed on task. I filled in the role of doting parent who dished out compliments and punishments like they were part of my job. I did what my husband would have done: I picked the kids up from school every day, fed them dinner and helped them with homework for a couple of hours every night while we waited for their mom, I took them to doctor's appointments and kept them one night a week so their mom could have a night to herself. In a way, I sort of thought of myself as the Interim President to Erickson and Co.

But then my husband would call or come home and all of a sudden I had to leave the corner office of parenthood and shuffle back to my puny fortress of stepparenting solitude. When Dad came home, there was no question who was the main parent and who was the sub-parent. My role as interim main parent and sub-parent see-sawed for a confusing 10 months. Stepfamily experts like Wednesday Martin and Jacque Fletcher and StepMom Magazine's Brenda Ockun have provided a name for my kind of confusion, it's called role ambiguity. 

Shortly before my husband came home for a month in December, he and his ex-wife were at odds or something relating to the kids. Because I'm married to one and friends with the other, guess who was in the middle of the flying e-mails? It was at that point I decided to write a piece for StepMom magazine about being in the middle of it all.


As a special feature of the article, Martin and Jennifer Newcomb Marine lent their expertise to my plight. As if my Main Parent/Sub-Parent confusion wasn't enough, apparently by befriending the ex, I risked even more confusion for myself, the kids and my husband.

I almost wanted to scream. I felt damned if I friended and damned if I unfriended. Frankly, I still don't know if it's a good idea to be as good of friends with my kids' mom. The jury is still out. How do you remain friends without being too friendly? How do you stay close when one of you will always back someone else?

As I try to untangle myself a little from stepmom/bio-mom friendship web, I'm just as confused as to how to handle my ambiguous Stepmom role. Am I to go back to being the Main Parent Monday through Friday or do I finally take the backseat parenting role and throw my hands up in confusion when someone asks me to take the wheel? What do I do?

And how do I do it? (Frankly, Scarlet, that's fodder for another post).

Pieces of me: Talking points for one Stepmom's Life

Hi, I'm Erin, and I've neglected my blog for a week. Please don't call the department of blog and internet services. They already know I've dropped the ball on all things Internet since New Year's Eve.

I'll admit, I'm still in a post-holiday haze. I try to muster a cheery attitude whenever anyone asks me how my holidays were, but truth be told, they weren't all that cheerful (or depressing for that matter). I did receive some great presents from my mom and a really cool Lego set from my husband, but if I had to ascribe a label for the 2009-2010 holiday season, I'd call it blah.

I've grown antsy answering the "How were your holidays?" question. I'd rather produce a list of talking points that I can give people as a response to the question. My talking points would go something like this:

• Marriage. Going really well actually. For all of the death-spiralish talk I may have done in 2009, my marriage is one of the things in my life I have a lot of faith in right now. In fact, I think I love my husband more now than I did the day we got married. My husband is a loving man and I really am lucky to have him on my side. 
• Stepkids. They made out pretty well around the holidays this year. My husband and I both worked from home the week before Christmas and were both off of work the week after so we got a lot of Stepkid/Dad/Stepmom bonding accomplished. There were no tantrums or revolts and we spent most of our time off erecting the Lego city buildings Santa Dad bought for Christmas. 
• Family. My brother and sister fared well as well. They turned 16 a month ago and are starting to straddle the fine line between adulthood presents (car kit) and teen-ager gifts (make-up and video games). Unfortunately, the holiday wasn't all fun and presents. My 82 year old grandmother's health is deteriorating and my mom has been running back and forth from home to my grandmother's hospital room (2 hours away....in Illinois.....in the winter) every few days. I won't even get into the hot mess that is the family drama going on outside of the hospital but suffice it to say I'm going to be the best daughter and granddaughter I know how to be and make the pilgrimages to P-town with my mom going forward. 
• Blogs, websites and other Internet things. Sure, I've neglected my Internet Trinity -- Twitter, Facebook and my blog -- but I've been busy, I swear! Peggy Nolan and I launched our Stepmom's Toolbox Radio Show. We did a practice run January 1 and did our first official show on January 4, which you can download by checking out the little Diva Toolbox widget in the right column ---> We interviewed Jacquelyn Fletcher, who wrote the Career Girl's Guide to Becoming a Stepmom and we promise to have a bunch of other fun people on the show. (if you have a suggestion or would like to be a guest on the show, please shoot me an email). I also launched my own consulting website, which was a fun undertaking. If you need any help with social media, online project management or writing and editing, please check out the site!
• Me. My word for 2010 was improvement and I'm trying...each day at a time. My husband has left town for work again (in Dallas -- at least in the same time zone) and I miss him. I also miss the accountability that his presence provided. I was trying really hard to spend less money and eat fewer snacks (and healthier food), which I did when he was here. In the two days he's been gone, I've started using again -- I've munched when I shouldn't have and spent $25 that I probably didn't need to spend. On the upside, I've noticed a change in myself from this time last year. In January 2009, I was struggling with my depression and at odds with how to handle it. Being affected by both Season Affective Disorder and Depression, Midwestern winters are extremely difficult for me and I go beyond the Winter Blues most year. My mental state is more like a Winter Navy/Black. But this year, with my depression medication in hand, I can see a difference. Life doesn't seem so hopeless this winter. I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

How about you, my wonderful friends. How were your holidays?