Damn this money-based society

Typepad is so anal.

They expect me to pay for this pathetic excuse of a blog EVERY month. Even when I don't post!

Ah well, they have their money  now.

And June is over.

Good riddance June. Let's see what July brings.

Blog Action Day

I like the environment. I mean, I like to breathe, and I 'd like to think that we could keep Manhattan above water so that my son can enjoy all it has to offer when he gets older.

I watch Living with Ed and I love that we can get all kinds of funky, fun, recycled products now. Our only car is  a hybrid and I hope that if the time ever comes that we need a second car, that we will be able to afford an electric vehicle.

That being said, we live in a very small space (750 square feet) and lots of times convenience trumps being environmentally friendly. I would love to do the whole compost thing, but it just isn't allowed where we live. And even though I try to look for products that are better for the environment when I'm shopping, sometimes I just have to buy that bottle of Cascade because damn-it it's right there in the supermarket, it works and I don't have to wade through all the information on the internet to figure out which eco-friendly dishwasher detergent is best.

I guess my point is that I can't be Ed. I don't have the money to spend on the more expensive products, and I don't always have the time to find the alternatives to the mainstream products. But through the years I've found eco-friendly things that work for us and slowly I've tried to add more and more.

Here's a few:

Compact Fluorescent lightbulbs - they last a long time and save me money, so every time I replace a bulb I get one of these. I even got CF bulbs for my photography setup.

Household cleaning products- when my son was a baby, it occurred to me that I didn't want all those chemicals in my house so I got this book and threw out all of my cleaning supplies except dishwasher detergent and Clorox wipes. Everything in the house it turns out, can be cleaned with Dr. Bronner's, vinegar and baking soda in some combination or other. I even made the laundry detergent she has in the book and it worked really well, when I had a conventional washing machine. We saved a lot of money not buying all those cleaning products. Hundreds of dollars a year as it turned out.

When we moved, the washer and dryer stayed, so we had to get another set. I went with the front-loading washer and dryer that was the rated the best in terms of water and energy use, in the "I don't have much money to spare" category. I stopped using dryer sheets a while ago and got those dryer balls instead, and except for the fact that my husband misses that "Snuggle-soft" scent, I haven't noticed a difference.

I've cut way back on my consumption of red meat - For a while I didn't eat any at all, but now occasionally I eat beef when we go out. And my son won't try meat anyway, so...

I try to buy organic food - but it's a matter of economics. I can't always afford the prices for the organic produce. But if someone came out with organic non-gmo Cheez-its I would pay the extra money, because, you know, CHEEZ-ITS.

And of course we recycle to the extent that out town allows.

Could I do more? Yeah. And as time goes by, I'll add more eco-friendly products and routines to our family, but I think that what I'm already doing is a good start.

I'd love to have a house made from recycled shipping containers with solar panels and wind turbines on the roof and a garden watered with recycled gray water  (no, really. It's a dream of mine) - but I just don't see it happening in NJ.

Luckily, I've been able to combine saving money with eco-consciousness. Would I like a set of those organic cotton or bamboo sheets from Gaiam? Oh baby, you know I would. But I think it's better for my family if I can save us money while doing something for the environment at the same time. It "sticks" better, you know? Gives everyone more incentive to do the right thing, rather than just humoring the capriciousness of Mom.

But we talk about the environment at home just as a matter of course, and hopefully  it sinks in when I explain to my son why we do things in an eco-friendly way.  It's gotten easier to be kind to the environment, and for me that means I feel I should step up and do a little more.

I think it makes a big difference if we all just do a little more in our day to day life.

They grow up so fast

In just two days, this blog will be one year old.

If I was in Hawaii I would throw it a Baby Luau.

And I would invite all of you. And we would have Haupia, and Pipikaula and Kalua Pig and Malasadas and sushi and potato-mac salad and cucumber namasu and... oh sorry, this isn't a cooking blog.

But I do want to thank all of you who take the time to read and to comment here. I've felt the love so many times, through your public comments and your emails. I received a really nice email just the other day, talking about having a narcissistic parent and the struggles of dealing with that.

I don't think I would have been able to cover the ground that I have if it wasn't for all of you. Knowing that you are reading pushes me to go a little further than I otherwise would have. Writing about my experiences makes me think about them a little more. I spend more time processing what happens in my family and slightly less time just feeling crappy about it.

THANKS! You guys are way cheaper than therapy, and you'll still keep in touch even if you move to Florida, right?

And now you'll have to excuse me, because I have to get ready to spend my blog birthday driving many hours to an undisclosed location for an undisclosed event. (Well, I know where I'm going, but I'm still working on blocking certain IP addresses, if you know what I mean, so I'll have to keep mum about it for now)

Oh, and that cake up there? The super-cute one with the ballons? Flour Patch Bakery, for those of you in the Montclair area. That is the cake I would serve at my blog's baby luau.

I'm not above begging

Look! Over there! To the right! Don't you want to vote for me? Come on, I know you do....Please?

In which I completely wimp out on a post

A by-product of obsessively reading way too many blogs, is (besides not having any free time) finding something that someone else linked to, checking it out, liking it, and then recycling it into a lame excuse for a post, all without actually having to come up with any original material.

As an example: I was reading Defective Yeti who produced this little gem which is reminiscent of these guys.

And when I got up this morning at 6am to go to work (on a Saturday) I found it all quite droll and amusing.

But I bet you still want something in the way of eye candy, huh? Oh all right... hold on a minute.

Ok, so that took more than a minute, 40 to be exact. But you get 3 (count 'em three!) photos fresh from the photo-making oven (or some other methaphor that might work better here).

And I bet you thought it was gonna be another vomit post...

Sigh...

I would love to be all artsy tonight and write a deep and meaningful post about
motherhood
childhood
tragedy
triumph
heartbreak
breakthroughs
or anything else really

But I'm just getting used to the heightened stress level at my new job, and all I can manage right now are a series of heavy sighs.

When I picked Daniel up from school today I tried to explain to him how tired my mind was from work. He understood exactly what I was talking about:

"You feel just like I do, Mom. After all, I'm at school for six whole hours, and by the time it's done I'm exhausted."

Then he suggested that he watch a movie when we got home because "then you can take a nap, Mom." I love this kid.

Which is why I feel so lousy about the whole lying blog thing. I wish I could be open and honest with him and I wish I could share and celebrate my writing with him, but I don't write about things that a six year-old should read. I'm going to have to reconcile that in my own mind, somehow.

CANDY!

A few days ago I signed up with ScatteredMom over at Notes from a Cookie Jar to do an International Candy Swap.

I mean....International....Candy....Swap! As in candy that you don't get everyday - from another country!

And did I mention CANDY?!

And so, ScatteredMom, the picture above is a scan of the actual candy bars I have collected so far. Can you tell we went to the Japanese Market over the weekend?

And I've got more planned...oh yes!

Candy!

And now I'm going to try to set up a new blog that looks like this one, but isn't this one and doesn't include the name Liesel in it, because my son woke up this morning asking to look at my blog. I had to do some mighty fast tap-dancing to get out of that one. But I promised him he could see it when he gets home from school.

There goes my day.

End of an era

Update: posted in the  comments (to keep  small prying eyes from seeing)

When I started this blog 254 posts ago I knew that there would come a day that I would have to worry about Daniel "spilling the beans" as it were. I figured it would be in a year or two so I didn't concern myself with it at the time. I didn't think that it would happen just under seven months into my blog foray.

But today, dear readers, was the day that I had been dreading.

In the car today, Daniel started talking about my blog and listed off specific pictures that I've posted along with the themes of some of the posts. I tried to tell him that the things he was talking about were from OTHER blogs that I read, but he wasn't having any of it. "But mom, isn't your blog the one with the red and you've got blah blah blah blablablah?" (Pardon the blahs, but my head was interrupting with its own "holy crap!oh no! crap! crap! crap!" while he was saying that and I was driving, so I didn't catch everything that he said.)

Anyway, I think I have to make some changes, at least in terms of color. Plus he wants to know how to "get to" my blog so he can read it and "tell other people about it" NO!!!!! Its nice that he's proud of his mother and all, but I don't think he's old enough to learn about the whole pseudonym thing, because then he would want to know WHY I need a pseudonym, and  I don't want to tell him that his grandmother is evil - he likes her after all.

I've already talked to my husband about setting up a "dummy blog" that he can look at...it seems like so much work.

Clearly though, something MUST be done...and soon!

Photo by thespacesuitcatalyst.

Identity crisis

So...
as you know I use a pseudonym. For this blog and for my writing.

I am very careful to change the small details that might give away my true identity to those certain people closest to me, who must never know that I write. Not just this blog - any writing at all.

The pseudonym thing is really working for me. It's true that there are things I would love to talk about, but can't because of my need for anonymity. But on the whole, Liesel rocks.

Maybe I like Liesel a little TOO much though.

The other day I was out in the world without my computer, talking to other people face to face. People I know only very casually.

We started talking about things beyond the weather. More personal things. Like where we grew up. Nothing heavy like when and where we lost our virginity, (16 - Paris - with a Mormon. Totally true! My family has no idea about that one). But when this person asked where I grew up I must have looked like I was in the witness protection program, because I had to stop for a moment while I had an internal conversation with myself and determined whether I could tell the truth or not.

Luckily the smart part of my brain stepped up to the plate and gave me a slap upside the head while yelling "Dumbass, THIS is REAL LIFE. Pseudonyms are for the written word! Wise up!" So I told him the truth as I rubbed my sore head.

I definitely learned something from that experience. Which is...

I need to get out more.

Blog love

Several days ago MOM-NOS passed a Thinking Blogger Award onto me.

I have a hard time with praise, so instead of mucking everything up, I'll just say a heart-felt 'thank you'. It really made my day. ( I was smiling and everything!)

I was in the middle of the contest, so I decided to wait until it was finished before I wrote about the blogs that make me think. (There are rules!)

I'm very happy that I waited, because as a result of the contest I found not one, but two blogs that make me think. With no further ado and in no particular order, I give you five blogs that make me think:

 

LesbianDad has a very fine blog that I have already become quite fond of. Except for the fact that I do not know her, have never met her, and indeed no nothing of her except what she has put forth, I feel as if I have known her, if not now, then in my past at some point. Her posts are universally thoughtful and well written, but there was one post in particular that spoke to me in a familiar way, and yet made me think about my own life in a new way. That boy in the blue sweater is a girl, is a post about gender more than sexuality, mostly. The diagram that she produces on a napkin to illustrate her point to her father is brilliant. I think that this particular post speaks to me because it illustrates perfectly what I have been trying to explain to people about my marriage for the longest time. You see she might as well have been diagramming my husband and I on that napkin. (I would be in the Moi position and he would be in the Toi.) You think I would have come across something like this, what with all the Gender Studies books I slept on in grad school. Brilliant.

 

A Mom, a Blog, and the Life In-Between is another blog that I was introduced to during the contest.  One of the first posts I read from her was, The Everglades are Burning and it is wonderfully evocative. The only thing I know about Florida is what I have read in National Geographic. But none of that was able to do what she did, which was; to make me feel as if I was there, walking along with her taking in the smell of the burning. She talks about the destruction of the Everglades and the corresponding sprawl of development and her own childhood in which the smell and the destruction was peripheral and yet the smoke would sometimes cause recess to end early because it made it difficult to breathe. I loved her ending and I loved the post because it made me think about those things which we take for granted, which just “are”. We believe that someone else will be there to protect our environment and our health, but motherhood has taught me that you can not count on someone else to look out for your best interest.

 

This Mom is a blog which consistently makes me think. Kyra writes about her life and her son with such sensitivity and insight that it is truly a joy to read. So often I read her posts and then ruminate on my own life and my interactions with Daniel. A recent post of note is A Love of Quadrillion ( I am unable to link to the post directly, but it is from Feb. 9th). Now besides being brilliantly titled, it is also brilliantly introspective. She talks about Fluffy's birthday and the particular phase he is in right now and their attempts to deal with the chaos it has wrought. She talks about asperger's and then she shares a few vignettes of her son, however it isn't so much that she shares what he says, but rather that she shares a piece of him with us. I know that I, and I am sure all her other readers, thank her very much for sharing such a wonderfully special boy with us.

Notes from the Cookie Jar is a blog that I have been reading since I started this blog. She has written many things that make me think and because her son seems so similar to Daniel and is older, I often read what she has written and then attempt to file it away in my brain for when Daniel gets bigger. She is often supportive and offers helpful comments. And recently she wrote Writer's Block, a post that really made me think. In it she writes about writing - About writing letters to pen pals as a child and about writing a blog today -  About the nature of being honest and anonymous and about being in trouble for writing from your heart. She also writes about courage and her decision to continue blogging, no apologies needed, from her heart.

 

Notes to self, is a blog I discovered not that long ago and she is a true poet, (not a metaphor, she is in Ireland reading her poetry – right now!). She is a talented writer and I consistently enjoy her posts. But on Valentine's Day she wrote a post that even my husband commented on. There is no title I can give this that doesn't invoke Sonny and Cher, is a post about the nature of partnership. She speaks intimately, yet without detail about the ten years she and her husband share and how hard and wonderful that time has been. She writes beautiful lines that I will share because they are perfect in  their imagery:

Some things slip away with the years. There's no getting around it. There will never be another first kiss. Our eyes don't quite devour each other in passing. In the trenches of childrearing, there aren't enough relaxed, uncluttered hours where we can just bask in each other's presence. There is compensation, in that shared history we've acquired, in the deeper familiarity, in the way our outer layers have worn down from rubbing against each other. I don't want to trade any of that back.

The bare and beautiful honesty of this post sparked a lovely discussion between my husband and I for we too, are happiest right now with our small family and our shared history.

 

And finally, because this is truly a much longer post than I had anticipated, I want to speak of MOM-NOS, because if it wasn't she who had passed the award along to me, then I surely would have put her on my own list of Thinking Blogs. In particular, I want to pay special tribute to her recent post, Poetry in Motion. In it she talks about going to see a poetry reading in her son, Bud's, classroom. She describes how the class has accommodated Bud and his needs in a way that is nurturing for both Bud and the rest of the class. I have read it several times and each time I want to cry (and sometimes I do), for the sensitivity that the teacher shows Bud and the true generosity of spirit of the other children. I have thought a lot about my reaction to this post, and I think it boils down to this... seeing such caring children and adults in Bud's life touches a cord with the child in me who longed for such acceptance. And, of course, it is beautifully written.

 

Thank you MOM-NOS for giving me a chance to thank those who make me think.