OhGAWD-- That's ME?!

My biggest fear about growing old was growing boring. As I watched my parents age, it seemed to me they never did ANYTHING. I mean, they went to school events and drove us places. They went to church. But they never actually DID anything, you know, FUN. And from my 13-year old perspective, it seemed like all the married couples I knew—like my parents friends who came over most Saturday nights for dinner—were exactly like my folks. They, too, eventually entered this great long boring phase, comprised solely of raising a family.

It felt like my parents had given up on life. Like suddenly, they didn’t care about the world, but rather, had become more content simply existing in it. They were always tired, always busy with horrible things like work and cleaning and my siblings. They didn’t do anything. They were just married. Therein lied the excitement of life: Wake, shuttle, work, home, clean, sleep. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Upon recognizing this pattern, my 13-year old self decided I would be different. I decided would not be like my parents—not in that way. There had to be more to life. I could be famous! I could live in foreign lands! I could DO ANYTHING!

Fast forward 25 years—to a time when I can actually reference my past in epoch-like chunks, aka, NOW.

My life does not revolve around my kids. It IS my kids. Lots and lots of kids. Whether driving kids, or attending functions for kids, or worrying over kids, or helping kids fall back to sleep or making food for kids or cleaning up after kids or shuttling kids from place to place… In general: Kids.

My life is also my partner, whom I am grateful to spend quality time with between the hours of 10:30 p.m. and 5:45 a.m. Time which sometimes includes conversation; usually about 5 minutes of reading; and generally 7 hours of near-constantly interrupted sleep (see previous paragraph).

My life is also work. Like most people, I work for money, which pays for living expenses. Living expenses, you know, like water and food and a place to live and gas and clothing, and more food. For kids.

I sometimes lay wake and examine our life, and I wonder how I missed the left at Albuquerque.

I didn’t understand that all the boring that I saw in my parents’ world was the gap created by what my parents had given up for me. They gave up on the FUN things and became dull because they were good parents.

I was late in this realization-- it came in labor, actually, mid-push-- that when you have kids, you are no longer the center of your universe. You simply cannot be your primary focus AND still be an engaged parent.

Because part of being an engaged parent means shuttling kids around. And worrying. And working so they have food and clothes. And cleaning and cooking so they grow and are fed and yadda yadda yadda.

And even though I do all these boring, boring, ungawdly boring things, I realize didn’t end up like my folks after all.

See, all those other married couples I knew? They were my parents’ friends. Yeah—my parents had FRIENDS. People that came over for dinner, or that went on family vacations with us. People they laughed with and with whom they enjoyed conversations—ACTUAL grown-up conversations.

When was the last time my partner-in-crime and I had anyone over for dinner?

When was the last time we were social outside our little family unit?

*crickets*

Our kids may be the sun in our world, but even the Earth needs the moon to function effectively.
Clearly, I need to start acting like my parents’ type-of boring.

Help a Mutha Out: Random notes on saving money

My ridiculous MUST SAVE MONEY FOR GAS price shopping has taken me across town to all kinds of stores, clipping coupons from the paper, scouring sales ads in print and online and hunting high and low in-market to find the best deals available.

It's not that I am cheap.

It's that I hate finding out I spent too much.

That, and... okay, I'm cheap.

Recent discoveries:

Inexpensive Vegetative Perfection
- The awesome fruit stand at Willow & Herndon: I do all my veg shopping at non-grocery outlets lately. This stand is my constant. Why? Fantastic quality. Amazingly low prices. Local fruits and veggies. From onions and garlic to strawberries --YES! STRAWBERRIES!-- to green beans and squash and tomatoes to nectarines and peaches, this stand has everything my family eats without having traveled across half the country to get to my table. It is actually RIPE. I mean, tomatoes are RED (not orange). And the price is excellent.

Food & FREE Family Entertainment
- Clovis Friday Night Farmers Market: I'm a little late with this, as it is apparently a summer activity and will be ending soon BUT, if you have a free night (like say, tonight), check it out. Old Town Clovis has an amazing, block-long farmers market with music and food stalls and lots and lots of produce. It's a great family event and, if you want to go indoors for a bit of history, check out the Clovis Museum on the corner of Pollasky and 4th.

COFFEE!
- Trader Joes: I like good coffee. Peets? Starbucks? Two words: OVER THEM! The coffee is nice, but expensive and frankly, I'm not THAT big of a fan. My best coffee-by-the-pound find in terms of quality, price, and good JuJu can be found at Trader Joes.

First, the coffee is Fair Trade, which means the middle man was removed from the haggling process, and the grower (who does all the work) actually gets more money for the product. Second, it's organic. I'm a fan of organic. 'Nuff said. Third, it is great coffee, availale in a variety of roasts all for about $5.99 per pound. And for a caffeine hound like me? That, friends, is the perfect coffee storm.

Cheap Finds
- Winco: Hunting for the best deals, grocery-wise, I've recently turned to two places for non-veg items. Winco is one of those awesome rediscoveries. First, for name-brand products and dairy items, they have really good prices (that are r-bst free, too). Second, I make lunches for my kids. I load up on chips here, as well as bread and now... LUNCH MEAT.

I don't do bologna or Oscar Meyer packaged sandwich meats, but not for snobbery or health reasons (which, for my character, either would be fitting). Truth be told, I love bologna, or did when I last had it at age 12. Nothing was quite as delicious as bologna on white bread with mayo and mustard, and a bit of green leaf lettuce. Unfortunately heath class ruined my ability to ingest such ambrosia, when I learned that scientific scrutiny of such meat revealed bits of cockroach and other non-meat items in said preformed "meat."

So if I wanted a deli sandwich, I relied on the roasted, sliced $5+ per pound items in the glass case.

Until recently.

In the meat case, one can find small hams and whole roasted turkey breasts available.These are much, MUCH cheaper than buying presliced deli meats. "Yes," you say, "but they are WHOLE. I like it sliced, and when I try to slice it, the meat ends up in slabs. Eew."

To you I say, "deli counter." And when your puzzled face makes that little-tilted, wde-eyed grunt of non-understanding, I say, "Take your small ham or roasted turkey breast to the deli counter and ASK THEM TO SLICE IT FOR YOU." Because they will. And cheese, too.

The price on Jennie-O whole turkey was $2 less per pound than the stuff in the deli case. And cheaper than the Oscar Meyer Deli select stuff by about the same margin.

The ham was also about that much less per pound.

I found better deals on brick cheese, too. The deli staff is more than happy to slice these items for you, and you will end up saving enough for maybe a gallon of gas... depending on how much you buy, of course.

- Vons: In short, MEAT. Watch for their sales. They have in-paper coupons and amazing 2-for-1 sales that, at the right time, are the best I've found. Recently, I got buy-one-get-one-free on packaged ground turkey.

So okay, Moms. I've shared my finds. But I NEED yours! If I'm going to be able to feed and clothe six kids in the current economic environment, i'll need all the help I can get.

Any advice you can share??

How not to manage your finances

1) Visualize that your ATM card is connected to a gigantic pit of money.

2) Use the little transaction record book to balance out the wobbly leg on your kitchen table.

3) Go out to movies, buy new clothes, and sign up for online services. Often.

4) Tattoo your social security number on your bicep and then just hold your arm steady in front of people as often as possible.

5) Open as many credit card accounts as is possible, and max them out instantly.

6) Repeat step 5.

7) Toward the end of the pay cycle, decide lack of food in the house means it is a good time to begin eating out. For every meal. Repeat loudly and often: Cooking? What’s that?

8) Make sure your spouse has similar spending habits (easier for finger pointing)

9) The day before payday, as your checking account is showing a balance of $1.06, vow to get super financially responsible.

10) Celebrate payday by taking the family to Flemmings.

Faces of Goodbye

The blood pulsed through my head like a bullet train.

I was sitting on the floor in the bathroom, staring at my wall but not really seeing it. The little plastic stick sat feather-like in my hand, yet the blue plus sign at its tip weighed a thousand tons. My vision was swirling as my world capsized: I was too young. I had nothing. I wasn’t ready. My largest dream come true stared at me, all I ever wanted poised, ready for the larger embrace-- the most perfect and frightening thing in the world-- and still my brain screamed WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?

I was 22. I’d just graduated from college as a drama major. I had a part-time job at a bank, I was living in Los Angeles, taking acting classes and attempting half-heartedly to get an agent.

Those dreams were gone with the wave of a wand (albeit through a stream of urine). I rose from the floor and splashed off my face. My eyes were huge and dilated with shock. “Goodbye,” I whispered, and walked out the bathroom door and into my new life.

___

It’s 1987. My sister has just burst into my bedroom and woken me from a light sleep; she squeals with delight and shoves her left hand in my face. The giant rock illuminates the darkness as she announces the news that she is planning a fall wedding.

And then we’re in the kitchen toasting the happy couple My father calls him “son.” We order a pizza and laugh over the proposal story and I watch my sister as she walks on air. Her dream has come true, she is marrying her prince.

My parents are elated for my sister’s happiness; their smiles are rich and genuine. We say our goodbyes as the couple drives off into the night, my sister high as a kite, and my parents now strangely silent.

___

Her eyes are large and teary. She lays on the gurney waiting for the orthopedic surgeon to come in and deliver the news which she knows can’t be good. Her largest fear, her darkest nightmare has come to pass and though she tries her best to lay still, the muscle spasms increase her pangs of anxiety.

Blind and permanently on oxygen, my 91 year-old grandma lays fearfully as the world speeds by. Her day began with the anticipation of church and lunch with my mother, and was interrupted by a fall and a trip to the emergency room.

Her fragility amazes and frustrates her all at the same time. And when the surgeon announces that she has broken her hip, not in one but in a few places, her heart monitor begins to beep rapidly. He gives her options: Do nothing, remain in pain and never walk again; or, attempt surgery with her enlarged heart and poor circulation. Yes, she could die; in fact, that is a distinct possibility. But there is a stronger possibility that she will live, and walk again, and be pain free.

A spasm hits.

She opts for the surgery.

Within an hour she is wheeled into pre-op; my mother and I sit with her as the nurse is somehow able to remove her wedding ring from her gnarled, arthritic hand. Unseeing, she begins to cry. She has never taken the ring off, and some part of her fears that it is an omen.

My mother and I, the eternal Pollyannas, tell her how much we love her and how we’ll bring her some dinner back from the café and of the plans we’ve made for her post-surgical therapy and oh, how she has the nicest nurse and goodness, aren’t we all lucky she was able to get into surgery so quickly and… anything else our fretting minds can conjure up behind our calm faces.

And when the man in the flouncy teal hat and matching scrubs begins to wheel her away, we reassure her of our love and her safety. She acquiesces, and says she will see us after surgery. But her eyes are wide and fearful when she says, “Goodbye.”

__

Tiny hands clutch my pant legs, tiny beet-red face presses into my thigh. “Please, mommy! Nooooo!!” my third child wails. The entire car ride was filled with the pronouncement, “I don’t want to go to school,” which turned into ear-piercing wailing and crocodile tears. I’ve seen this dozens of times in the faces of her older brothers, depending on the day, the angle of the sun, and how much breakfast was—or wasn’t—consumed that morning.

The beautiful spring day tugging at my desire wasn’t helping any; it was almost as strong as the crying face that deflated my spirit.

What kind of horrible mother was I? Look at this crying mess of a child! Couldn’t I just call in, perhaps, take a last-minute vacation day? We could go to the park and feed the ducks.

…except that I have 3 can’t-miss meetings this day. And deadlines. And we’ve been here before. I need to go to work. She needs to be at preschool. I need to get PAID. Being around other small people and coloring and learning the alphabet is not a bad thing for her.

I bend down to hug her, one final kiss before I head to work lugging my heart of stone. Her face is small and hot, and her runny-nosed kiss makes me want to die. “I love you baby,” I whisper, and the teacher’s overly enthusiastic voice suggests Syd wave to me from the window.

“Bye-bye,” I say as I wave at my small, frowny girl with tiny hands pressed against the glass. But my mind is saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

I hide. I watch. Almost instantly my little actress is smiling and laughing with some other girls, wiping the wet from her face. “Bye-bye,” I sigh.

Step one: I'm powerless. Step two: Nevermind.

Hello. My name is Traci and I’m an addict.

I realized my “problem” when I attempted to scarf down a frozen burrito this morning too-soon out of the microwave. The result: My tongue was charred beyond recognition. It’s this little black lump-like thing, now. Ouch. Let this be a lesson to you all: Addiction = BAD.

Naturally it didn’t stop me from continuing to eat the burrito via the hot-mouth dance: Alternating too-hot food (placed in the mouth so that the tongue *barely* touches it) with a flood of cool drink. Progress in the following manner: chew, flood, chew, flood, chew—until the coarsely masticated food is no longer scalding. Swallow; repeat. It’s not at all enjoyable, though I believe it does fit Einstein’s definition of insanity: “…doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” (“The food will get cooler! It will!! D’Oh!”)

My addiction of late is not hot food, per se, but the ambrosia that is the frozen burrito (which is eaten hot). It’s like the gods put their heads together and decided that one day, there would be a food that is both chewy and hot, the perfect texture and taste and would simultaneously encourage the human gullet to exude wood-chipper-like behavior. (Thank you, Dr. Phil, for the analogy.)

Our vending machines here at work are RIFE with frozen burritos. Abounding. Overflowing. Teeming with the suckers. And, YES, I am aware that I can buy a sack of ten for $2 at FoodMax, but it’s my ADDICTION that keeps me buying them here at work for $1 each.

Honestly: I don’t want ten burritos loitering in my humble abode —I’m adult enough to admit how that would be disastrous. I mean, I’d have to keep the sack at home and do you have any CLUE how many CHILDREN I have? SCADS and SCADS of children. My house is practically CRAWLING with them. Those Hoovers would scarf down my precious burritos inside of 30 seconds, and then where would I be??

(SIDE NOTE: What is it with kids and the constant EATING, eating, always EATING? And then the GROWING? It’s like some vicious, never ending, amazingly expensive cycle. Alas, I digress.)

And so yes, dear reader, it is to you (and to those that follow me on Twitter) that I profess my love for, and shameful addiction to, the frozen burrito. It has almost reached caffeine-sized proportions. NOTE I said ALMOST.

I therefore take the first step, and admit herein: I am powerless to the frozen burrito.

I also acknowledge that there is a power above myself that could restore my sanity.

This power is called Costco. I think I can get an ice chest for like $15 and keep the suckers at work.

Problem solved.

Addiction? What addiction?

European Travel: I spy a thumb in my eye while I fly...

JUNE 26: We were intensely, immensely excited for our trip to Europe. We started the day at 4 a.m.; the camera came out 45 minutes later. Above, the first picture of our European adventure: The exotic locale of McDonald’s in Kinsgburg. We felt so international!

It was a fairly brisk trip to the airport, minus the whole LA freeway driving thing. It could have definitely been worse, but thank GAWD we padded our travel time as much as we did. You never know what to expect at check in. In our case, it was pretty packed (a youth soccer league was ahead of us).

Notes from the plane:

· Thumbs up: Thank you, security agent, the only kind person in all of LAX (and coincidentally, NOT an employee of U.S. Airways), who was amazingly cool and funny. She got us excited for our trip.

· Thumbs up: I applaud the ambitious efforts of the ESL Asian woman who repeatedly attempted to understand the computer at the self-check- in kiosk.

· Thumbs down: Amazed and disgusted by the desk agent, standing directly behind said kiosk, who refused in every aspect to assist the Asian woman (even after my family and I spent 10 minutes trying to help her) in navigating her way. Of course the desk agent had no problem assisting us.

· Thumbs down: My body exudes waves of intense dislike aimed at the woman sitting behind me, who tapped me on the shoulder and immediately complained about me reclining my seat. Then complained again 2 minutes later, after I'd already repositioned it to accommodate her girth (to my great discomfort).

· Thumbs down: The woman who ends up in our row. She freaked out when she thought we were in her seat. In the end she was right, but we were sitting there unintentionally and tried to be kind about it. Her instant, over-the-top reaction was unnecessary.

· Thumbs up: Later, to the same woman when she turned out not to be a total arse, but someone desperately afraid of flying. Also, a talented cross-stitcher.

· SIDE NOTE: I still hate the woman behind me.

· SIDE NOTE: Prediction: The retro-cool gift coming to Target next X-mas will be the USB powered turn-table, available for $19.99. Of course it is on sale now via SkyMall for the low-low price of $229.95. Or thereabouts.

· Thumbs down: The cheap-ass airline who charges us hundreds of dollars for the ticket but refuses to serve free soda pop. Cheapos.

· Thumbs mid-point: There’s a lemon in my drink. I love lemons. But I read this story. GAH!

· Thumbs down: There’s a distinct lack of drink in my drink.

· SIDE NOTE: Even though First Class consists of the first 4 rows, and I am sitting in the 5^th row, I am not allowed to use their lavatory. The flight attendant did not evict me, however. Just almost. Why is it these flight attendants never smile?

· Thumbs up: The woman behind me has dozed off. I want to throw peanuts at her sleeping face.

· Thumbs down: The airlines no longer serves peanuts.

More than your Emo boyfriend.

On June 26, 2008, my partner, three nervous teenagers and I ventured off to Los Angeles, where we boarded a plane, and then another, and eventually woke up on a transatlantic flight headed for Dublin, Ireland. The whole vacation itself consisted of three cities—Dublin, London and Paris—and if you were to ask any of the teenagers, they would say the trip’s purpose was three-fold: First, to eventually catch up with Madeline, our oldest daughter, who was traveling with a student group in the British Isles; second, for each—our oldest son, Trevor, our nephew Colin and Madeline’s best-friend, Darlene—to see Europe; and third, to afford Trevor and Colin the joy of cramming in the faces of their peers (aka OTHER family members) they fact that they have been to Dublin FIRST.

Naturally, we adults had an agenda too.

DIGRESSION:
My partner in crime and I have many, many things in common. We each like the color blue. We each brush our teeth twice a day. And we each grew up with devoted, family-centric parents who—while offering untold numbers of family camping-trip-based vacations—themselves never traveled abroad until they hit their retirement years. And to both my partner and I, international travel was exactly that: Something we both yearned to do, yet felt only retirees were supposed to enjoy.

And that is when the swirling black cloud of death descended upon both of our lives.

First my father passed, and I was inaugurated into the Dead Dad’s Club (ooh! Matching jackets!).

Sometime later, my then-not-yet partner earned his Dead Mom’s Club lapel pin.

And sometime even later, after the easy laughter and puppy love of early dating, and after slightly-deeper monologues about child rearing, came the soul-baring conversations about these enormous, earth-shattering losses that had changed our lives in many startlingly similar ways.

Such conversations gave rise to various, life-altering realizations, the most profound of which being: Life is for the Living.

Why did we keep saying, “Someday, I will visit X,” when we could visit X now? Why did we compartmentalize all that we wanted to experience into a chunk of time not destined to occur until a series of far-reaching conditions were met?

It was a very scary, but very serious, question. Why did we keep putting off all the things we really wanted to do on a very-distant later? What if, after all the putting off, and more putting off, and STILL more putting off… what if there was never an “on”? What if later never happened?

We both saw firsthand: Death permanently invalidates all the dreams you have sitting out there.

And so we, my partner and I, began making different choices. We began redefining our lives in terms of the now, as opposed to the maybe later.

I planned a trip, an unconventional trip, and planned on taking my sons. After some time, my partner agreed to come along, to meet us on our unconventional trip and so it was that in June of 2006 we met up in Machu Picchu, Peru, and went on to see the Amazonian Rainforest together.

Okay so now we’re getting to the crux of this missive . (I know, finally, right? Bear with me.)

It was on this trip that we realized and saw—truly saw for the very first time—how enormous this great wide world is.

*forehead slap!*

Each of us had lived in many places over the course of our lives, and had always understood that there was more to life than what was in front of our faces. Our parents had said that very thing to us—WE had even said that very thing to our kids: THERE IS MORE TO LIFE THAN WHAT IS IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. Duh, right?

Still… it doesn’t really sink in until you actually have something different in your face.

For my boys, seeing how people in Cusco or Iquitos or deep within the rainforest live— that was life changing. We were old, seeing this, REALLY seeing this for the first time. But my boys, they were young. They got the realization early and maybe it would change who they became and how they lived their lives, how it affected their choices? Maybe they could avoid getting sucked into the “maybe later” rut, and live in the now?

We left to visit a small bit of the world, and came back with the understanding that there is MORE TO LIFE.

There is more to life than School. There is more to life than College. And Church. And Family. And Fresno and Clovis and CALIFORNIA. There is more than the United States of America, more than just the English language, more than the dollar and the Euro and Lays potato chips and your Emo boyfriend and your X-box. There is more than just YOU, in your little world, with your real and perceived, serious and not-so-serious, dilemmas. There is so much more than you’ll ever know or be able to understand unless you go out and see, really see it for yourself.

A whole wide world churns, grows, cries, laughs, buys, sells, produces, EXISTS just beyond your doorstep, and no matter how deeply involved you are in your own tiny little area, thinking that whatever is in your face is all there will ever be…

You’re wrong.

There’s more.

That was our agenda: To share this message with these up and comers, as they approach the next steps in their developing lives.

That, and to cram in the faces of our friends that we saw Dublin FIRST.