There Ain't No Second Chance Against the Thing with 40 Eyes, Girl!

Do you believe in the things that go bump in the night?  Because I don’t.  Well, I mostly don’t.

These guys obviously aren't scared
of the boogie man!

I’m rational and fairly intelligent.  I’m a mom.  I scare the boogie man away. I don’t believe that if I go in the bathroom and say “Bloody Mary” three times and turn off the lights that some ghoul from beyond the grave will come out and get me… but I may not be sure enough to give it a try.

Something happens when I’m alone in the house over night.  I see things out of the corner of my eye that I know are just shadows.  I hear noises that are definitely just the house settling.  I feel shakes that I’m sure are coming from the clothes dryer being off-balance or something.  Yet even still, those goose bumps crawl up my spine. 

I get a little jumpy sometimes.  Partially because I watch terrible TV like Criminal Minds.  Partially because I have watched way too many scary movies in my life (I gave them up years ago, but they’re carved on my brain somewhere), and partially because I am used to having a big, strong man in my house.

Do you think this dude is
hiding under my bed?

Last night just after midnight,  I picked my tired (but still rational and mature) self off of the couch, turned off the TV and all the lights downstairs, and went upstairs to settle in for the evening.  As soon as I climbed into bed, I remembered something I’d left in the living room, so I crept back down into the deep, dark, abyss of downstairs.  Quiet… creepy… so, so dark (I’m not afraid of the dark, I’m 33 years old.  That’s silly).  So, I might have turned the TV back on, just long enough for me to find what I needed.  For the light, of course.  I’m nothing if not practical.

I found what I needed and took off full speed back upstairs (ahem… because I was so very tired and needed to hurry off to bed).  I was quickly brushing my teeth when I stepped forward just slightly and hit a squeaky floor board.  I nearly scared myself to death – literally!  I jumped and almost impaled myself through the roof of my mouth with my toothbrush.  Once I got past the sharp pain, I shook my head and giggled and got into bed.

What a silly girl I am!  Being scared in my own house.  Not tonight though!  Tonight I – wait!  What was that noise?  Did you hear it? 

See?  I’m not scared.  Now I’m going to go up and be not scared while hiding under the covers!

I Want to Change the World... Instead I Sleep

Recently I came across this quote in a pretty amazing book I’m reading –

“Is the REAL YOU getting lost because the FAKE YOU is so annoyingly impressive?”

My first reaction… Ouch.  Because maybe I identify a little with this remark.  However, upon further reflection, I’ve decided that the “Me” I sometimes present to people is not fake, but it’s the “Me” I really want to be, and the “Me” I would be if the REAL ME didn’t win out so much of the time.

For example, the Want-To-Be (W2B) Me stores up all her recycling because she loves the planet and wants to do her part.  The Real Me ends up throwing away said recycling because it’s piling up and taking up too much room and no one (read - the sweet husband) has taken it to wherever recycling needs to be taken.

It's what's for dinner!

W2B Me buys organic vegetables, free range chicken, and farm fresh eggs.  The Real Me stocks up on frozen spring rolls, sugary cereal and Hamburger Helper.

W2B Me wants to make better use of her Brita water pitcher.  The Real Me sure loves a cold Dr. Pepper.

W2B Me wants to read and expand her mind.  The Real Me would love to just sit and flip through People Magazine.

W2B Me cooks healthy meals for the people she loves, and they sit around the table and eat as a family.  The Real Me knows that more often than she cares to admit, her family’s meals come from a box, a can, or a drive-thru window.

W2B Me keeps her house picked up, maybe even meticulously organized.  The Real Me had to rewash her clothes this morning because she just couldn’t muster up the energy to put the laundry in the dryer last night.

W2B Me wants to go home after a long day of work and get on her elliptical machine.  The Real Me knows that there are still two whole seasons of Grey’s Anatomy on Netflix that she hasn’t seen… that gets her heart rate up too.

2 More Seasons!

W2B Me is patient with her child, she makes good decisions. She is creative and gentle.  She’s Mom of the Year.  The Real Me sometimes does things at the last minute.  She gets annoyed.  Sometimes she yells.  Sometimes she hopes her son will actually want to play video games so she can get some peace and quiet.

W2B Me is always a supportive wife, a suitable helper, a loving partner, and a seductress.  The REAL Me can be a nag, a grump, an exhausted mess that falls asleep in front of the television, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt with a hole in it (that at least says “I Love My Husband").

I don’t know if I’ll ever really be the Me I want to be, but I guess I will try again tomorrow because W2B Me knows it’s after midnight and thinks it’s time for bed.  (The Real Me knows I still have one more glance at Facebook, 20 minutes of mindless reading, and a pack of smarties before I get any shut-eye!)

Kisses!

I'm a Big Girl Now, See My Big Girl Shoes?

Today, I stopped my toilet from running.  Go ahead and be impressed.  No, really, go on. I’ll wait.

You know those kinds of girls who can change their own flat tire, drive across the country alone, and kill big scary spiders?

I am not that kind of girl. 

I’m the kind of girl you see out in the Walmart parking lot, walking around in the 100 degree weather with a cart full of groceries, crying because she can’t remember where she parked. 

I am a strange hybrid of grown-up and little girl.  In a lot of ways, I was born a fully grown woman.  I never watched cartoons.  I was not even that much for playing with toys (except for my Barbie and the Rockers, which, by the way, I’d totally play with right now if I had them).  I had younger siblings, and even at the age of ten years old, I was making sure they were fed dinner and did their homework.  In that way, I’ve always been grown up.



You know you want to play!



I am one of those rare girls in my generation who moved straight from her childhood home to her married home.  Jay and I got married at the tender age of 18, so I really never learned to be on my own.  I was never a single girl.

Jay is out of town this week, and before he left, I gave him a little list of things to do.  One of those things was to change the light bulb in our closet.  As the time approached for him to leave, and he had not gotten to the light bulb yet, I said to him, “Sweetie, don’t forget to change that light bulb.  Otherwise, I’ll be feeling around in the dark for clothes all week.”  A pretty evident third option never even occurred to me – I could change the light bulb myself!

I’m coming to realize that I may be too dependant on the wonderful man in my life (to be fair, Jay can count the number of times he’s done dishes in our 15 year marriage on his fingers and he still has to call me from the doctor’s office for help on filling out his family’s medical history. Don’t worry, I’m leaving a detailed brief for him in the event of my early demise). 

shaming independent woman everywhere
since 1997

Part of me loves that I have this great guy that I can count on (seriously, I rarely even have to fill my own gas tank), but I also love that feeling of accomplishment when I do things on my own.  I feel like shouting, “Look!  I’m a big girl now!”  So my goal is to learn (at least a little!) to be a do-it-yourself girl.  Every once in a while, I need to unload my own groceries, bring the trash out to the curb, and venture out on my own (did it all this week!). 

Of course, all these new jobs are going to keep me super busy, so I may have to lighten my regular load - Jay might want to start studying that brief now!

Jamie's Kisses....

When I was a little girl, I wanted to be writer.  I created characters and filled countless notebooks with stories and poems.  I loved that world of make-believe.

I love to hear the stories of others.  I want to know where they are coming from, what their journey has been like, how they’ve become who they are, how they got to where they are in life.  I love the stories.

I have been wanting to do a blog for a long time, but each time I get started, I hesitate because here’s the thing…when it comes to my own life, I’m not really sure what story I want to tell yet.

me and my goofball

I mean, when I look at my day-to-day life, I see it all.  My seven-year-old son is amazingly clever and so, so goofy, so comedy is plentiful in my world. There’s a bit of melodrama (I am a woman, after all).  There has been an epic journey – one of brokenness, discovery, and ultimately, faith.  There have been tragedies so great that I may never find the words to describe them.  And through it all, there has been one extraordinary romance.



I’m not sure what I will feel compelled to share… big things, little things, silly things.  But it’s nice to have an outlet to share.

So…. Once upon a time… there was me.  This is my story.

Oh, and by the way – a big shout out to the little-known 90’s group, Pep Squad.  They gave me the name for my blog.  I don’t know that they ever had any hits, but they were smart enough to know that “Jamie’s Kisses Are Like Candy Canes on Christmas.”

Check out the song here!