Category Archives: Jana

Beep Ditty F’in Beep Beep

Did you get that? You know, Beep Ditty Beep Beep (Beep Beep) That hideously annoying pattern is the car horn of a man who lovingly picks up his wife from the same commuter train that my daughter arrives on each evening.

I am pretty sure it is just a matter of days before sweet Jana unloads the misery of her entire work day upon this psycho spouse for beeping this pattern not once, not twice, but three times when he picks his wife up at the station. As if she does not see his car, front and center in the parking lot. As if he is not there in the same place EVERY day. As if they do not have a make and model that no one else in the lot has.

Here’s the thing; commuting is a pattern. There are basically the same people on each train, give or take, and you get to recognize the ebb and flow of their task of going to work. There is a sort of sedated routine respect that everyone falls into. Every morning we see tie not tied yet guy. And we see freshly curled hair woman. We love the familiarity of the groundhog’s day way they pass in front of our car. It is comforting to know that if we leave the house just after the school bus passes on the :39 we will comfortably make the :45 (unless of course the garbage truck is in the station lot blocking our way – can’t THEY figure out to come 4 minutes later and not disrupt the commuters?). We know we are cool if we pass the auto body shop before the gate is opened. And the second turn is better than the first because there is no traffic light.

Now I am sure that Mr. Beep Ditty is practicing this same kind of routine with his lovely wife. It is probably something that he has been doing forever and she finds it sweet and sort of cute. Or not and one day SHE will unload the misery of her day on him. But he has to stop and think for one moment that perhaps this might get on the last nerve of the other people getting off that train.

The thing is, I would normally advise Jana to just roll with it. But I am sort of into witnessing her haul off and shout “Are you KIDDING me?” just once.

Bad mothering or sport? You decide.

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Filed under absurdities, Jana

Parental Role Models

Today was our anniversary. This is the card we got from our kids:

This was what they wrote inside. And when I say ‘they’ I mean Jana. Sorry Dan but we know you had no idea it was our anniversary today.

Perhaps I need to be less candid with the kids.

 

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Filed under danny, gary, Jana

Twenty-three

My daughter is 23.

There I said it. That was not easy. How can this be? The curly-headed little girl that used to boss us all around is now really a grown up. Like taking the 6:45 train go to work everyday kind of grown up. Like getting back a tax refund kind of grown up (lucky girl).

I have always said that the first 5 years of parenting lasts forever and after that it flies by so fast you don’t know what hit you.

Happy birthday to the one who knows me best, keeps me in line, chills me out, shares the ups and downs and still makes me laugh every day. (well almost every day). 

For those who are saddened by the idea of their kids growing up, here is some wonderful news. It gets better every year.

Love you Petuney. May your dreams all come true, even if they are taking a little detour on the 6:45 right now.

Happy 23!

 

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Time to Cry Tuesday – Z Goes Home

Way back when, Gary started to call me Z. I am not sure how it started, but it was in college and it just sort of stuck. The only people who call me that besides him are my college friends and Mo and Jo. In fact, when certain people call me Amy it sounds weird.

Z. That is just me.

I don’t remember when I found the book in the picture in this post, but I had to own it. Doing some Spring cleaning it popped up again. I just love the illustration. It made me think not of this house I was cleaning, but of what home means. What the essence of Z coming home means to me.

It was so timely to find this book this weekend. Danny came home for Spring Break on Thursday night. As luck would have it (for us, not them I suppose) both of my kids decided to stay home on Saturday night. I cooked dinner and we just hung out as a family. And Sunday was a lazy family day with brunch at the diner and all 4 of us under the same roof. All this was topped off by Chinese food and some favorite TV shows.

Z Comes Home.

To me, home is being with the family we built. Not doing anything monumental, just being us. Back in the day of diapers and teething, then carpools and sports, who would have ever thought that the idea of all 4 of us together would be so rare? Or that the idea of a diner brunch and chinese food on Sunday night would feel so special.

Z Comes Home.

When Z came home she learned to savor every moment; especially the small ones.

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Filed under danny, family, gary, Jana, Time to Cry Tuesdays

I hate when I suck at something!

In the house of social media, nothing is sacred.

Last night Jana had the brilliant idea to make pizza. We have tried this more than once before and we are not very good at it. Riki is great at it. Riki is great at all things cooking. Riki is our kitchen idol.

First time around we used cookie sheets and the pizza sucked.

Second time I had gone to BB&B and bought pizza stones like Riki told me to. We did not realize we had to heat up the stones, so that pizza… you guessed it – sucked.

This time? This time we called Riki first. She coached us. We were golden. Preheat the stones, make the pizza on the back of a floured cookie sheet (which BTW we argued about what a cookie sheet was) and then…

Well then we realized a little too late that we should not have put the sauce and toppings on the rolled out dough on the cookie sheets. Ok, I know, we are severely pizza challenged. This does not make us bad people.

During the heat of sucking at this I heard my phone go off and there was the tweet above.

Apparently nothing is sacred in my kitchen.

Fyi, we baked them on the cookie sheets and they were not all that bad but I do have a pizza stone permanently wedged on the bottom rack of my 1939 Chambers stove. This could prove to be a problem when making brisket next week. Perhaps I need a handy man. Or maybe just…

Riki!

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Filed under humor, Jana

The Bitch is Back

Once again, I stumble upon the absurd. This time I had my girls with me – Jana and Natasha. They pointed her out and we could not believe our luck. Sitting innocently in the brand new 16 Handles in town, enjoying a little froyo delight, this woman comes walking in with 3 middle school boys. To be perfectly honest, we were first distracted by her definitely, but not intentionally, dyed magenta hair – this was a redhead gone bad situation. Then we were aghast at the size of the frozen yogurt with many toppings that she had chosen. I am not sure I could eat that much on a dare.

As she was perusing the extensive toppings bar the girls saw it; that unbelievable embroidered declaration on her left arm : The Bitch is Back.

Now let’s think about this. As always, I wonder who designs these things in hopes that someone will buy them. Then I want to know, did she buy this for herself as a warning to her spouse/family or was this a holiday gift from her husband who was merely stating the obvious? Yet this chick wore it proudly. And on a pink hoodie, no less.

Insult to injury.

I am guessing by the varied clientele moving through this 16 Handles I am going to spend some serious time there with a camera. And yes, my friends, this one gets the MFTA approval – the last one of 2011.

Looking forward to another year of bringing you the most ridiculous things that life has to offer. May you all be safe tonight and remember, if the bitch is back, wear it.

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Filed under absurdities, carry a camera, humor, Jana

New Puppy Joy

Nothing like a daughter on twitter who has funny friends, that’s what I always say.

Yeh, the time has come for sweet little Iko to be put in her adorable puppy place. It’s one thing when she bites the ass of a family member, but the poor housekeeper… I don’t think so!

The shedevil is tons of fun and we are loving (almost) every minute of her, but the ass biting… not so much. As I said to her the other day, “No one bites MY ass without permission, kiddo.” TMI?

So, she learned to sit at 9 weeks, is closing in on giving paw and has been housebroken since we brought her home except for the occasional excited peeing for Jana’s boyfriend. But the nipping needs to be nipped, so let the games begin.

Seriously, though, how could you be mad at this face?

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Filed under animals, humor, Iko, Jana, pets, twitter

Time to Cry Tuesday – Be Here Now

I might have written about this before, but you can never hear it too much. This time of year it is especially hard to stay in the moment. We are rushing from celebration to celebration, work is piling up, everyone is trying to pass things off to the next desk (tag you’re it) and we become generally hassled trying to ‘enjoy the season’.

Ridiculous.

In my real life I wear many hats. (actually, I rarely wear hats, I have a freakishly small head) One of my jobs is blog editor for a brand blog. It is one of the projects I am most proud of. I have 5 fabulous women writing for us each week on varied topics. Yesterday’s blog was written by Kim Ross, who also blogs at A Little Bit of the This and That. Kim is an amazing mom who has been able to strike a balance in her life and I feel honored to work with her. Today she wrote this post about enjoying the holidays. Go ahead and read it, I will wait.

Sweet right?

I had just finished reading her post when I came upstairs and found Jana with Iko on her lap. She said, “don’t you wish she could stay this little longer?” As she said that I could not help but remember feeling the same way about her when she was a baby. Seems like yesterday and 100 years ago at the same time.

I told her this,”Remember this feeling. Look at that puppy and never forget this moment of savoring her puppyhood. Look back on what this feels like with the puppy when you have a baby. Don’t rush its life away longing for all the things you can’t wait for it to do; smile, sit up, hold its bottle, crawl, walk. It all happens so fast and then all of the sudden you have a toddler and your baby is gone.”

The whole idea is to enjoy it all.

From my house to all of yours, I wish you a very happy holiday and the ability to sit back and savor the moments. Every one of them.

 

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Filed under family, holidays, Iko, Jana, Time to Cry Tuesdays

Time to Cry Tuesday – Halloween cupcakes

Yesterday I woke up at 4:30 and couldn’t sleep. I would like to say it was because I love halloween and I was so excited, but really folks, women of a certain age just don’t sleep all that regularly.

Usually I would lie in bed and just chill, but yesterday I decided to get up and bake the Funfetti Halloween cupcakes instead, because… well, because if I did not bake them then I would have to wait a whole year. (Funfetti is sort of a religion in these parts)

As I was making coffee and taking on this ridiculous task for no apparent reason, I realized that was the whole point. I was baking Halloween Funfetti cupcakes at 5AM… because I didn’t HAVE to. For so very many years – as a working mom – I found myself baking some ridiculous confection in the wee hours of the morning (the cowboy hat cupcakes at 2AM when Jana was in 4th grade come to mind. btw, these are cool, involving a cookie, an upside down cupcake and string licorice). But now, I was doing it because I wanted to, not to prove that I could do it all.

As I waited for the timer to go off, I sat drinking a cup of coffee while the sun came up and the household began to stir and got more than a little nostalgic about Halloween with younger kids. I have never been one to pine away for the past stages of parenting; but yesterday morning, in the quiet of my kitchen I could not help but remember the sweet chaos of those days. Did I fully appreciate them wile they were happening? I like to think so. But in reality I am sure they were tempered with the rushed obsession to make it all the perfect halloween for the kids and maybe I did not savor it as much as I should have.

I have this thing about the seasons; I wish we could have just one day of beautiful summer beach weather in the middle of the winter and one crisp snowy day in the middle of a heatwave in the summer. Just one day. That’s not asking too much. I feel the same way about parenting now. Yesterday morning, as I was sprinkling the ‘fetti’ on the top of those cupcakes, I wished for just one day with ‘Little Danny‘ and ‘Little Jana‘, as they like to refer to their childhood selves.

Even the year when the little guy insisted on being a cowboy and I stayed up all night making his costume for him to wake up on Halloween and tell me ‘I want to be a Ninja like Dougie’.

I suppose the imperfections of raising kids are what makes parenting so perfect.

(BTW, ‘Big Danny’, since I tortured your dad that we did not have enough candy, you and the boys will be the happy recipients of a big box of candy… watch the package room for it.)

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Filed under danny, holidays, Jana, parenting, Time to Cry Tuesdays

Creative Bathroom Signage

We came home the other night from a weekend away to find this sign on the bathroom. It was obvious that Jana had some friends over while we were away.

What I love about my kids’ friends is not only do they totally get my sense of humor, they spontaneously leave me notes in the oddest places. Thank you, Kate, for reminding us what we need to do and where to do it.

In the past I have also found notes in the cupcakes and a signed banana in the fruit bowl.

 

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Filed under humor, Jana, signage