Smacksy Saturday Photo: Retro Bob

Backstage at House of Blues, New Orleans - Fall, 2006

About Next Tuesday

Hi Everyone. I'm honored to be a part of a powerful project to help raise awareness for an important cause. 

Please join Listen To Your Mother and +The Partnership at Drugfree.org this Tuesday night at 9PM CST for a live-streaming event of powerful personal stories to #EndMedicineAbuse

There will be a Google Hangout On Air Featuring 12 Inspiring Women for Powerful Story Sharing on the subject of medicine abuse – a health issue that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now calls an “epidemic.”

These readings will feature new and original work about each of the women’s personal connections to addiction, substance use, and/or what they want children to know about the medicine abuse epidemic in a powerful story-sharing hour. Join us at this engaging kickoff to a blog post tour featuring these wonderful writers. Watch the livestream broadcast at http://www.youtube.com/user/LTYMShow/live  beginning at 9 pm EST on Tuesday, September 10. A representative will be on-hand to field questions via the chatbox.

The event features:

Janelle Hatchet – http://www.renegademothering.com

Brandi Jeter – http://mamaknowsitall.com

Sherri Kuhn – http://oldtweener.com 

Heather King – http://www.extraordinary-ordinary.net

Lyz Lenz – http://www.lyzlenz.com/ 

Judy Miller – http://judymmiller.com 

Polly Pagenhart – http://www.lesbiandad.net/ 

Lisa Page Rosenberg – http://www.smacksy.com

Alexandra Rosas – http://www.gooddayregularpeople.com

Ellie Schoenberger – http://www.onecraftymother.com

Zakary Watson – http://www.raisingcolorado.com

Melisa Wells – http://suburbanscrawl.com 

Hope you can make it.

'Tis the Season

"How did you like soccer practice today?"

"It was really good, Mom."

"Yeah? That's great. What was the best part?"

"The best thing was that giant praying mantis by the drainage ditch."

5774

It's not good, people.

Tonight at sundown marks the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of Jewish New Year. In times past I have used this day to make resolutions for the year to come. This year, I have just one resolution. It will encompass a physical, intellectual, and spiritual problem that I have been avoiding for some time now: The floor of my bedroom closet.

My bedroom closet floor is stuffed with grocery bags. These bags, in turn, are stuffed with paper; miscellaneous paperwork, magazines, and unopened mail. In my daily efforts to "organize" the house, the inbox (our dining room table) is cleared of all paper and set in a stack on the counter. When the stack gets too high, it is moved to a grocery bag which is then slammed into the bottom of my closet to be dealt with at another time. That other time never comes. The shame spiral begins.

I can see a manila envelope peeking out of one of the bags that is labeled: Deal With ASAP. Clearly, that didn't happen.

I have tried unsuccessfully to deal with this issue before, moving the bag project from to-do list to to-do list, never being started. The bags are just so darn... heavy. Now, finally the emotional weight of the bags is pulling me backwards.

While I am tempted to throw away the bags and begin my new life, I know that I can't. Buried somewhere in my personal Hoarders episode is, among other things, our 2012 tax return, the Volvo registration, and Bob's passport. No, the only way out is through.

I resolve to go through these bags of crap and make actual files so that the important crap will have a new place to live and what's left will be tossed. In this way, I will let go of things that are no longer meant for me and I will be free. Perhaps this is a metaphor for other things in my life. Or not.

The Jewish Year is 5774. I will start it with a clean slate, my slate just happens to be a closet floor.

L'Shanah Tovah, everyone. 

Me and Pottery Barn

 Pottery Barn catalog, page 17

I will admit I enjoy the occasional spin through the Pottery Barn catalog. The drum-sized decorative votives, the fluffy reading-the-New-York-Times-with-tea-and-scones-on-a-Sunday-morning beds, the abundance of holiday specific tiny reindeer flocked linens, and the color coordinated books on bookshelves that resemble wee ladders, all serve as a reminder of what I might do if the real life of actual living wasn’t in the way.

In the decorator-calculated world of Pottery Barn I will never find the details that speak to me of my actual home. There are no marshmallow “projects” stuck to the dining table, no inside-out pants with the underpants still in them on the floor of the bathroom. The glossy pages are inspiration for an American life that never includes a dirty fishbowl. Pottery Barn dogs, do not shed. Some days, most days, I would like to crawl into the catalog for a moment and enjoy espresso in a tiny Parisian demitasse cup while luxuriating on a Solano Grand sofa.

My obsession with the catalog focuses most often on the kitchen chalkboards charting the PB lifestyle. Reminiscent of Martha Stewart’s monthly calendars, these To-Do lists include tasks like “Learn Portuguese,” “Install chandelier in barn,” “Book trip to Napa.” My own To-Do list is far from chalkboard worthy. “Check dog for ticks,” “Super-glue flip flop,” and “Pay past due moving violation before it becomes a bench warrant,” are specific to my dusty and loud reality.

I love my reality, but a girl can dream. And sometimes that dream involves Gabrielle's art opening and a really, really big candle.

*You guys, this is not a sponsored post.

We Are Not Getting A Lizard

"Mom, what should I do right now?"

"Find something to play with in your room."

"I don't like toys anymore."

"Right."

"No, really. I only like basketball and Minecraft and lizards and rocks."

"That seems problematic. What are you going to do with the other twenty-three and a half hours of your day?"

"See? That's why I'm asking you."

Smacksy Sunday Links

National flags created from the foods each country is commonly associated with.

Photo essay of people who look like twins, yet are not related.

And a couple with their pet hippo, Jessica.

Happy Sunday.