This is the third mother’s day I have been blogging. Amazing! I am proud to announce to my very loyal readers that I did NOT go to the grocery store today – unlike the last two years, which is what I blogged about for the last two years, which begs the question – what will I blog about today.

My old standbys – complain about how under appreciated I am, how chubby I am, how silly I am, how my mothering skills are lacking, how in my next life I will… well, today none of these seem to be working for me.

I awoke to breakfast in bed, showered with gifts – exactly what I asked for and some pleasant, on target gifts. I felt very appreciated.

I pulled out my summer shorts and they were, wait, wait for it – loose!

Everything out of my mouth was clever, edgy and generous.

My son made mature decisions about his future and spent the day NOT throwing me in the pool.

And in my next life, I’m pretty sure that I will remember this life as “the good ole days.”

So, what to blog about?

Don’t worry, this is NOT turning into a pollyanna blog. Oh, my life is wonderful. Follow these three easy steps and your life will be just as wonderful. Actually, buy my next book and which will outline the three easy steps, then buy my video which will go in depth of how to execute those three easy steps then pay thousands of dollars and I will be your life coach to help you reach the type of life – actually that would  interfere with my wonderful life, so never mind.

If it makes you feel better, my skin sags like wet tissue paper. I just wore long shorts and a cover up to hide it from me so I forgot about it.

But, that is not what this blog is about. And, like every week, I wonder, is anybody out there and am I really interesting enough to be blogging weekly?

The answer is probably no and no, but I am delusional enough to continue to hold to my commitments and to blog away.

Unfortunately, today’s blog is mostly blah, blah, blah. Or as I like to say, “blah, blog, blog.”

But it is mother’s day, and I am a mother so it is my day so I am allowed.

At least that is the story I am telling myself and I’m sticking to it.

So, if you are a mother, tell yourself a story and stick to it. Today is the only day this action is sanctified by Hallmark.

This week I will think of something very clever to blog about to blow away the mind’s of all my readers – all three of them.

Dear Rush Limbaugh,

This one’s for you!

http://www.exterminatingangel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=840&Itemid=667

Thanks for reading!

This week, I will fully accept the tension between the feminist me and the goddess me.

There is never enough time for all the things we want to do. So we have to prioritize. For instance, I spent the weekend weeding instead of lounging by the pool. Of course I did wear short-shorts and a halter top so I could also soak up the sun. Don’t worry, on my property no one can see me so the neighbors weren’t throwing up, or if they were it wasn’t my fault. And now I have lovely gardening gloves tan lines. You’ve heard of the farmer’s tan, well this is my version of it – the middle-aged woman with not enough time tan.

Prioritize! That is the name of the game, so when I was asked recently how I had time to write, I stared hopelessly at the woman who had asked such a simple question. When I failed to answer after several moments she said, “You do write, right? Or do you just plagiarize?”

Then I woke up. “Hey, even plagiarizing takes time.” Well, that didn’t help with my credibility.

In actuality, writing has been such a priority of mine for so long that it doesn’t even cross my mind that I might be spending my time otherwise. Now that I have contemplated the question for several weeks, I have figured out how I have time. And here’s the list:

1. Have only one child and teach him to entertain himself, eat whatever fits in the toaster and not to expect clean clothes but to be happy with Febreeze smelling clothes.

2. Hire a house cleaner and when the kitchen floor feels sticky underfoot or the dog has once again smeared the sliding door console yourself that it is only a few more days until everything will be clean again.

3. Marry a man who is content to sit in front of the television all day long or hang out with his best buddy instead of hanging out with you – who am I kidding, after twenty-six years of marriage, distance really does make the heart grow fonder.

4. Give up your shopping habit. This helps on several fronts – first, you have so much time to write when you are NOT shopping and second, as a writer you have very little money to spend any way.

5. Have an ego the size of an elephant – you know, the one in the room – which convinces you that you have something worth saying that no one else will say as eloquently, and that you are such a good writer someday you will write that best seller and become rich and then you’ll be able to look back on your struggling artists days with fondness.

6. Finally, quit writing several times telling  yourself it is not worth it only to return and realize that for you writing is like breathing – no one wonders how you have time to breath.

This week I will find the time to write!

If you’ve talked to me lately, you’ve probably heard me talk about trading old things in for new ones. Namely, my house.

I’ve been dreaming of a small house with a small yard, no, strike that, a condo with no yard.

Ten year old advice from a fellow soccer mom has been rattling around my empty skull. (Empty? you ask. Yes, I reply, because anyone with brains would never have moved from a house almost paid for and completely remodeled to my liking for a massive fixer upper on seven acres of unmolested remote wildlife habitat.) The advice, “You better love working in the yard because that is all you’ll be doing once you move there.”

Of course, I have had some other great advice, such as, “Stick with the one you have because you’ll take all your problems with you to the second one.” Maybe this was about marriage and not houses, but I think it still applies.

Some other advice I’ve received includes “Remember why you fell in love and do more of that.” Okay, that was about marriage too, but I’m feeling like it applies to my house too.

So I was hating my house because I was hating yard work. Silly me, I thought that by this time in my life I would be able to hire someone to do the grunt work around the yard. (No, never did I think hubby or cherub would help. It just isn’t in their DNA and they are way more expensive than hired help.)

I was so busy doing the grunt work that I was not able to do the yard work becoming of a middle aged chubby white woman, you know stuff like pruning roses and watering. I thought I was no longer up to the grunt work of pulling weeds or double digging planter areas. I figured it was time for my yard to trade me in for 2 twenty-year-olds, twenty-three-year-olds to be exact.

So I began dreaming of selling this old house and moving to a downtown condo. (No, there is no such thing in Cherry Valley, but somewhere nearby, like Chicago would work.)

Then, hubby invited tons of people to the house and I just couldn’t stand the idea of the yard being less than presentable. I resigned myself to sit-ups and a diet and maybe a chemical peel – wait, I mean to pulling weeds and trimming  bushes and even planting a few new flowers – or gopher feast as we call it here at the DB Ranch.

And I began to remember why I moved to this house on the hill.

Here’s why:

Sure, keeping the yard looking like  this is work, but some other advice I’ve been given – “Anything worth having is worth working for.” That advice was about marriage, but I also think it applies to my house.

This week I will relish my refound love of my home!

So Ashley Judd is upset because she was accused of having a puffy face http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/09/ashley-judd-slaps-media-in-the-face-for-speculation-over-her-puffy-appearance.html and struck back. With those most powerful of weapons, words.

I admit, I washed my hair this morning. And I used styling products and a blow dryer.

I brushed my teeth this morning with toothpaste meant to brighten my smile.

I wore flattering clothes today.

Last Thursday, I dyed my hair.

Every day this week I have exercised and ate healthy.

I have worn make-up most days this week.

I filed my nails.

And I am contemplating paying for these new wraps which are supposed to take toxins out of your fat cells, that sounds healthy, right, getting rid of toxins, but the bottom line is I’m interested in them because they are supposed to tighten your skin and help you drop inches from those areas wrapped.

Am I a slut for beauty? If I were on television or the movie screen, and could afford it, would I do more?

Am I complicit in the misogynist practice of objectifying women because I strive to be attractive?

Recently I decided that when Bill leaves me and I am back on the market for a man, I will lie about my age, except instead of the usual – telling people I am younger than I am – I am going to tell everyone I am ten years older. I look okay for my age, but I look fabulous for someone ten years older.

I have no plans to every wear a bikini again, so why do sit-ups? Because it’s good for my back.

I dye my hair because I have been gray since high school.

I wash my hair and brush my teeth and dress flatteringly because not to is just – well – gross.

So where is the fine line between having a healthy sense of striving to remain attractive and being vain?

It definitely is  not at the doctor’s office, having poison injected into my face to plump up my wrinkles. I kept thinking all those chocolate chip cookies were handling that, then I realized they were just dimpling my thighs.

I think every woman wants to age gracefully.  And this is not it:

Sorry Ashley, but I don’t think this is it either:

Now, this is how I want to age: Thanks Joan Walsh!

This week, I will continue to wash my hair, brush my teeth and dress, all in the name of vanity!

I can’t actually remember watching Gomer Pyle, but I can remember some of his pearls of wisdom. One of my favorites is “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” I try to live by that one. But today, I am channeling Gomer’s surprise in the deeds of others.

Often, things are happening behind our backs that we aren’t even aware of. Like, I’m hoping there’s an agent out there contemplating offering me representation as we speak. But, if that is not happening, I can at least rest assured that people are doing good deeds without my knowledge, and often without needing any acknowledgement.

And today, I had proof of such a thing, except it was not a person, but a dog.

The ground squirrels and gophers are well fed in  my yard and not on purpose!

Do you remember the Bugs Bunny cartoon where he went out to see holes where his carrots should be? Well, I live in that cartoon. Except it is not carrots that are gone, but begonias, petunias, and other flowering plants I spent hard earned money on. I’d like to think I’m smarter than a silly gopher, so I began to plant flowers gophers were not supposed to like, which was basically like setting out a feast for the little buggers.

We had a “gopher guy” who finally gave up.

I’ve done the cool Home Depot poison delivery system. Perhaps I should have filled it with Juicy Fruit gum instead of those blue pellets of gopher bait.

So, my next plan was to get another dog, a dog bred for gopher hunting. I was thinking of a Jack Russel Terrier. I know that Corgi’s

 are good for hunting rodents, but their porportions are all wrong for my aesthetics.

Unfortunately, I was afraid I might have to live out in the dog house with the new dog, since hubby is not on board with any new additions to our family.

So tonight, while planting all the lovely plants I received for Easter, I stomped down on the new gopher mounds and looked forlornly at my dogs, one of whom stared at me tiredly from his spot on the grass and the other whom was actually sniffing around the new gopher holes.

No one can accuse me of giving up. I planted away, figuring if I plant faster than the gopher eats, I might actually stay ahead of the game.

Then when I went back outside to pick up my tools, Roxy was chewing on something odd. I approached her tentatively and, lo and behold, she was chewing away on a fresh gopher.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

All this time I was bad mouthing poor Roxy – well, actually I never bad mouthed the sweetest dog we’ve ever owned, but I did wish she was a bit more helpful around the yard (this seems to be a theme with me and family members… hubby and cherub). And actually, Roxy was doing yard work the entire time, helping me out behind my back.

Now, if I could just get the other family members to pitch in, I could take up a hobby, I mean a hobby besides gardening that I can then expect hubby and cherub to help with, lucky them.

This week I will celebrate the good deeds I am aware of and those I am not aware of.

So I didn’t ask for permission to tell this story, but I figure, what the heck, Mom’s still mad at me about it 34 years later so I can’t do much more damage.

But, first the back story….

Recently, my writing group and I (hello Sandy, the rest of you have been invited!) have been feeling a bit under pressure to have something presentable each week for critique. Kind of like how you’re in the middle of a chemical peel and know your face is going to look ten years younger, in about seven more days (or so I’ve heard. I would never waste my hard earned money on someone burning the top layer of my skin off for vanity – at least not more than once!) but your friends have invited you over for a photo shoot today. You work all week on a piece, but really don’t want your writing group (hello Sandy) to see it with pieces of dead skin stuck in its eyebrows and a moustache of flaking but still connected old lady skin .

So, we decided to spend some time doing writing prompts. I picked the prompts one week. The second prompt was, “If you could pull a practical joke on someone, who would it be on and what would it be?” Actually, I picked this prompt out of a box of index cards of prompts, then spent my writing time ranting about how much I hate practical jokes, that they are mean-spirited. Luckily, my writing group concurred (hello Sandy) so I didn’t end up feeling like an emotional idiot who can’t take a joke.

And then today is April Fool’s Day. It’s already several hours into April Fool’s Day and I have no pranks planned and hope to survive the day unscathed.

Unscathed I say, because I am still nursing scars from being in so much trouble the one time I tried to pull a great April Fool’s joke on my mom.

We had horses. We were old enough to be home alone after school. We could call my mom to referee our fights from afar. So, on April 1, 1978 I called.

“May I speak with…?”

“I’ll transfer you…”

“Mom, Sandy was kicked in the mouth by Brandy. She’s bleeding pretty bad -”

Click.

“Uh, hello, uh, April Fool’s?”

I immediately hung up and called back, getting the receptionist to stop my mom from driving home frantically to save my sister, which would have turned into disciplining me severely, and instead turned into a slow, water dripping on your forehead torture.

Drip, “Aren’t you going to pull some April Fool’s joke on me, Diane?”

“No, Mom.”

Drip. “Why not, you’re so good at them.”

I wipe my forehead. “Ha, ha, Mom.”

Drip. “Still getting over that fabulous one you pulled on me -”

“I said I’m sorry, okay?”

Drip. “Yeah, okay.”

And that, my friends, must be the childhood trauma which ruined April Fool’s for me. Yes, I recognize I did it to myself. Yes, I recognize that with my maturity, I might be able to pull off a joke that does not scare anyone and result in years of serving a long, drawn out consequence. But, ultimately, I recognize, it’s just not worth it.

This week I will not be fooled into thinking that laughing at someone else’s expense is funny.

So, I’m a day late, at the most two, never posting later than Monday. It’s not like it’s one of those weeks when I wonder if anyone is reading my blogs.

As a matter of a fact, recently I’ve been feeling a bit like….

David Sedaris who writes about visiting her sister who proclaims she will tell him nothing because everything ends up in one of his books.

Alexandra Fuller whose mom tells her dad to tell Alexandra “nothing” or she will put it in another “awful book.”

Firoozeh Duman who explains that her dad just wishes that she had written about him in more flattering terms.

I mean recently a friend explicitly told me “Please don’t blog about this.”

And before that a friend was reprimanded for commenting on a blog about a situation in both our pasts.

And before that a friend decided she hated me for writing about her.

And this week I actually threatened a friend, jokingly of course, that she better be careful or I would blog about her. Jokingly, I say, jokingly.

Because honestly, you write and you write and you finally realize that no one is reading anything you’re writing so you might as well write the truth, tell it like you see it, because seriously, if past experience is the best predictor of future experience, no one will read anything you write.

I remember twenty years ago a writing instructor asking me, “But what really happened?” And I was flabbergasted. What I wrote was what really happened, just the G-rated version. And the response was G-rated too. As in so boring that no one wanted to read it.

So while you’re writing in the dark, alone, with no readers, you decide to begin to write for yourself, to tell your truth, and to send it out anyway; your way of playing the lotto, the publishing lotto – the chances for success are the same as getting struck by lightening or getting bit by a rattlesnake. So, you decide, you might as well.

And then you do get published, but it’s in such a small journal that no one is going to read it, and you write your blog but only your friends and the family members who like you are reading it and since you rarely write about your friends or the family member who like you, you’re safe.

But then people say to you, “Don’t blog about this” and you wonder, who will figure out it’s about so-and-so, but you are friends with so-and-so and would like to remain friends with so-and-so and it’s not like you don ‘t have a million other things to blog about, oh, that’s right, you don’t – so you wonder, if I change this detail and this detail, will so-and-so recognize himself (see, now you’re wondering who this is about because you thought it was about….).

And then you don’t blog on time and you wonder, does anyone miss you or are they just relieved that you didn’t write about them?

and you think, not blogging might be like blowing all the friends you have left a nice kiss.

or maybe not.

This week I will keep as many friends as possible and those family members who still like me on my good side by not blogging about them.

I have entered this part of my life that no one actually talks about, when my child rearing duties have ceased. Not exactly empty nest as the cherub is still home, but quite self-sufficient.

The cherub drives, has graduated from high school, and now is gainfully employed. Sure, he is still living at home, but there is no more driving him to football, baseball, soccer, cross country practice. There is no more accompanying him to the doctor, dentist or school appointments. There is no more attending his “performances” whether in sports or otherwise. There is only waiting for grandchildren, and that should be a long, responsible-on-his-part wait.

So weekday evenings and weekend days stretch out before me with possibility – the possibility of choosing to do whatever I want.

Yesterday, for instance, I stayed in bed until noon. I barely remember a phone conversation I had with my also pregnant friend, Linda, over twenty years ago when we lamented how obnoxious early morning phone calls were. A certain someone always called to ask, “Are you still in bed?” (Yeah, you know who you are but no one else does, unless of course you call and email all your friends and tell them “Diane blogged about me again…”)

“Don’t these people know that we only have a few more months of sleeping in?” Linda said, exasperated.

“And, we’re pregnant!” I concurred!

Luckily, over the last twenty years I have grown wiser and smarter. I have trained my friends not to call too early or too late for that matter. Well, actually, I have learned to turn off the ringer on the phone. Sure, there are times when it has been weeks since I have checked the messages and an exasperated someone is saying as calmly as possible, “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you for several weeks now….” but it’s a small price to pay for peace and quiet.

So yesterday when I stayed in bed until noon, I felt a bit guilty. I should be up and writing, exercising, cleaning, redecorating the house. Then I consoled myself with the memory of so many Saturdays when I got none of those things done because I was sitting in the bleachers waiting for my cherub to shine. For the last nineteen years none of these things got done on Saturdays, why must they now be done on a languid Saturday morning when my bed was so comfortable and my book was so good and there was no one harassing me about what I should be getting done.

Okay, there was the moment when the cherub tromped into my bedroom and asked, “What is the zip code for Morongo?”

“I don’t know.”

Then he tromped back out of my room mumbling, “Of course you don’t know.”

And, I want to add, I had no desire to know.

I rolled back over, refocused on my book and wished my dad was in the kitchen making pancakes like he used to do when I was a teenager.

I wonder if I can train the cherub to make me pancakes….?

And do my laundry?

This week I will relish the unscheduled time yawning before me like a great chasm full of blessings.

Wes is at that age. Perhaps you, too, are familiar with that age, the age when he regularly sneers at me, shakes his head in disgust toward me, or physically restrains me from embarrassing myself. Lucky me.

And I believe a good mother would have a child who willingly goes on family vacations because said mom has bestowed on the child a sense of familial communion heightened by time devoted to familial leisure activities. I am not that mother. I am the mom who works an angle.

So to get him to go on the family vacation last year, I sold the trip to his sense of future athletic accomplishments.

“Olympic athletes train in the area because of the altitude.”

His eyes betrayed his nonchalant attitude.

“You’ll be so much faster after a week of training at this elevation.”

He reluctantly agreed to tag along.

The first night of the trip, he sat in the backseat, pretending not to be listening to our conversation while he played his handheld electronic game. We stopped at a burger joint, only talking to Wes to ask what he wanted to drink with his triple animal style burger. We drove late into the night.

We got to our hotel and all went straight to sleep. The next day, he awoke late, after I had already been for my jog and spent hours journaling while hubby gambled as much as possible before leaving the legal state. Cherub got up to run. He returned, we all went out for a late breakfast and Wes announced as he stretched his hands over head, allowing his full belly to protrude in all of its fullness-glory and pronounced, “This vacation is a 10.”

We were overjoyed that our seventeen year old was having a great time on a family vacation.

I’m sure a good mother would accept that of course her child is having an excellent time, it’s a family vacation with a mom and dad. What’s not to love? My husband and I, on the other hand, both panicked. 10?

“Are you sure it’s a 10?” My husband asked in a high squeaky voice.

“Yeah, I’m so relaxed.”

With eight days left, there was no place to go but down. Or was there? “What would make it an 11?”

“There’s no 11 on a scale of 1 to10,”Wes said while simultaneously sneering, shaking his head in disgust, and bopping me up side the head to knock some sense into me.

As soon as he was out of ear shot, Bill and I conferred. How could we make sure the rest of the trip was a 10? What had we done so far? Left him alone. Talked to each other and completely ignored him. Allowed him to sleep as late as he wanted. Fed him well. Maybe we could pull this off. Deep breaths, I told myself. Maybe I could fake it till I make it into good mothering techniques.

Eight days later, on our drive home, one of us asked, I can’t remember who, “So, was this vacation a 10?”

“Sure, why not.”

Not really convincing, but we smiled at each other and rejoiced that we had had one more family vacation with our cherub.

This week I will work the angles needed to ensure familial tranquility.