I've moved

I know. It's been forever. I decided to start over with something new.

Catch me over at my new blog: anothermomblog.wordpress.com

See you there.

:)

Just Sayin'

So...I can ignore my taxes this year (and a few years more) and then just say I'm sorry, and it's all good, right?

;)

Credit Limit

I didn't get the sweater.

There's a cardigan that's been calling my name at one of my favorite stores. A soft, comfy, relaxed, cotton cardigan. Last week, it went on sale (finally!) and the store sent me a coupon for $25 off any order. I planned to order today.

But Saturday, the five-year-old came moping down the stairs with her music player. You remember--the CD player with two microphones we bought her for her birthday? The loud, headache-inducing kiddie karaoke machine? With the "High School Musical" CD? 

Dead. Dead music machine.

I replaced the batteries. Still dead. I shook it, poked at it, messed with it. Nothing.

Then I remembered. We'd tried to use an electric adapter with it during a recent playdate, when we ran out of C batteries (I rock that way), and it worked for a second, made a loud popping noise, and stopped. We fried it. And Saturday, my princess wanted to sing. 

This particular music machine has been discontinued. Hard to find, as they say. But I found one. God bless and keep Target. Course, it was $10 more than the last time I bought it. But fair and square, we were the ones who killed it--and that's an editorial "we," which means one person on particular is responsible.

This morning, I got online to buy my sweater. Saw the headlines--banks failing, companies closing. Thought about the one long-term contract I'm nervous about losing. Thought about saving vs. spending, and thought about how much my daughter loves to sing. Not play Wii, not mess with computers, not hole herself up with a cell phone and her thumbs to text all night long. Just sing. Loudly, and with abandon.

I ordered the music machine instead. It'll be here Thursday. In all its loud, headache-inducing glory.

There will be other sweaters. But she'll only be five this one time. 

Best Superbowl Commercial

Just for the record

Lil' Bill has zip to do with the cartoon. It's after Bill Clinton. Obama shook up Clinton's cabinet for his own, so I started calling him lil' Bill. See? Not horrible.

But just for you, I'll call him Billama. OK?

***smooch***

Listen Here, Newbie

Dear Lil' Bill:

You are cordially invited to come chip all the ice out of my driveway. Show me how big and bad you are, you manly Chicagoan! 

Pretty easy to throw 'round insults from a house that's totally cleared for you, isn't it? Pretty easy to dis the roads when you're all riding around in an armored, bionic limo with an escort of, what, 300 Suburbans?

Seriously, dude. I'm with you that we're wimpy in snow. But today isn't snow (you should step outside the gates sometimes...it'll do you good). It's ice. About a half-inch of the stuff, coating everything. 

Yesterday's snow day was crap. I have a theory about it, but that's for another day. Today's, though, was legit. Trust me. I had to go out and chip and bang and break and crack and shovel just so the dog could take a crap. Serious stuff, at least in this neighborhood. And at least one of your girls goes to school in this neighborhood.

You're pretty new in town, cowboy. Best to shush your mouth on the wisecracks and critiques 'til you get the lay of the land. Else, it'll be high noon with the pollsters before you know what even happened.

ps--Feel free to shuttle my kids around in your mega motorcade. Make my life easier. And then open the school.

XOXO

Kim, the mom

Not a Sermon

I know. Bruce Almighty was a comedy. Got it.

But there are some fantastic lessons in that movie, which is why it's one of my all-time favorites. One of the best scenes is a conversation between Bruce (Jim Carrey) and God (Morgan Freeman), shortly after Bruce parts a bowl of soup a la the Red Sea and declares that a miracle. God says:

Parting your soup is not a miracle, Bruce. It's a magic trick. A single mom who's working two jobs and still finds time to take her son to soccer practice, that's a miracle. A teenager who says "no" to drugs and "yes" to an education, that's a miracle. People want me to do everything for them. What they don't realize is *they* have the power. You want to see a miracle, son? Be the miracle.

That speaks to me. On a number of levels.

First, on a personal theology level, I do think miracles happen when people work to make them happen. None of this hocus-pocus nonsense--no burning bushes, no poofs of smoke, no Lazarus from the dead. Miracles are a mom working to bring her autistic kid back from the place he's vanished to...and there's a glimmer one day. A miracle is when a kid from the city gets help with his schoolwork...and goes on to college instead of to the corner to deal pills and powders. Miracles happen when people make them happen.

So that's the God part.

The other part is more political. You can stop rolling your eyes--this is good stuff! A lot of people, people I know and love, have this idea in their head that they're owed. They deserve a house. They should have designer clothes or new cars or new video games. They just should be able to stay home just because they should. 

It goes beyond. People are owed unemployment. The government needs to roll out this program or that benefit because that's its job.

Here's the deal, gang. Life doesn't owe you squat. Being born does not give you the right to claim stuff. You want a house? The luxury car? The Tommy jeans?

Work for them. 

You want more money in the bank?

Stop spending it.

You want television after the digital roll-out? Go buy the damn converter box. Get off your duff and do it. For yourself.

The bailouts...oh my word, the bailouts. And the stories coming from them--corporate retreats at five-diamond resorts, private jets. Because they're owed. They deserve it.

Pardon my French, but bullshit. If you can afford all that stuff and you've worked to earn it, then by all means. Enjoy. Caviar for breakfast, Jeeves.

But nobody should hand you that stuff. Not your mom, not the government, and not me via my taxes. Get up and get out and make it happen. Capitalism at its finest.

Be the miracle. Be your own miracle. You won't believe what you can do.