Thanks, Rachel and Rachel and Brian

In September, my friend Rachel Hough said, "Hey! I've got a lake house--let's go!" So this weekend we did. 

I've spent the past few months trying to find my new balance. Briley is in the fifth grade (which is the worst grade ever invented if you ask me); Hadley's in her last year of middle school; Brian's busy with teaching and picking up the pieces that I drop as I try to juggle my life. The transition of having my mom at home with us has really been an easy one, but it's a change nonetheless. My last TMI Mom book, Girlfriend Rules, was just published and my next book, Life With Extra Cheese, was moving along slowly.

Normally, once the girls are in bed, I sit down and write a few chapters.

Lately, though, once the girls (including my mom) are in bed, I crawl into my own bed and essentially start drooling before my head hits the pillow. (Don't worry about it, though; the cats lick up my face for me.)

The most common question I'm asked when I am speaking or presenting is "How do you do it all?" Up until recently, I would just shrug my shoulders and say I didn't know. And I really didn't know. It just worked, and it just happened.

The past few months, though, I've felt literally drained. I needed to be revived. I needed some time--just time.

So with a ton of momma (and daughter) guilt, my mom went to stay with my sister, Rachel, Brian wrangled the kids (including one that developed strep throat) and I went to the lake with my friend, Rachel.

 

It was exactly what I needed. We didn't have wi-fi, which was a good thing. We had Taco Doritos and peanut M & Ms, which was also a good thing. I changed into yoga pants on Friday evening and didn't change out of them until this morning. This was a very good thing.

My mind cleared. My shoulders eased. My words flowed.

Ahhh ... it was  good weekend. Thanks, Rachel, Rachel and Brian for letting it happen.

Creating A Monster

My own momma needed a new phone. Her phone was a little over two years old and was a flip phone. A flip phone, y'all. She could call on it only--can you imagine? A phone that you could only use to place a call? She could have texted, but having to hit the 3-button twice to get an E was a little more technologically advanced than my own momma could handle. That and she used to sign up to get her horoscope online and that would charge her phone a gazillion dollars a month, so my sister and I had the texting package turned completely off. My own momma thought that was just one step away from the old folks' home ... but it was for her own good. Don't call human services. Yet.

 My Own Momma's toilet water? Not so recycled...
Source

Well, Friday night, my own momma dropped her circa 2002 flip phone down the commode. Down the crapper. She was literally up ... or down ... sh!t creek. She knew what to do because she reads Facebook religiously, and she fished that phone out and stuck it in her rice container. (Note: Do not eat the rice at my own momma's house.) The rice didn't work. So, she came to us.

She knew better than to go to my sister with this problem. My sister would have put her in the home or would have gotten her a firefly phone with dialing out privileges to only a very few people--my sister not included. So, she came to us.

Brian is very skilled in dealing with a certain phone company whose initials are AT&T; I know what my own momma would and wouldn't like in a phone (basically, she wanted to text, to call, to check the weather and listen to any police scanner in the world); My Own Momma just wanted a phone that hadn't been in the toilet. So, we set out to our local store.

Long story short--too late, I know--and three phone stores later, my own momma had a new phone, a texting plan and a data plan, all for just a few dollars more than she was paying for her one-trick pony, um, phone. She also had a pretty purple cover, a screen guard, an extra memory card, and a stylus. What more could an almost-75-year-old woman want in a phone?

The first order of business was to text my sister and let her know that she was moving up in the world. After about seven minutes, give or take a half hour, we figured out how to text, and we discovered that it had a talk-to-text option. That, my friends, is that route that led to my own momma's very first text to my sister:

My own momma: So, just press this microphone button?

Me: Yes.

My own momma: And it will go straight to your sister and no one else?

Me: After we press the send button, yes.

My own momma: Okay. Here we go [presses microphone button]

And this, my friends, is the complete text of my own momma's very first text message:

Guess what I'm doing. Guess what I've got. Oh wow! It's typing as I'm speaking. Why did it say as I'm  spackling? Heather. It's not saying what I am saying. Oh wait. Now it is. Did I send it? It says Guess what I'm doing. Guess what I've got. Oh wow! It's typing as I'm spackling. It says guess what I'm doing. Guess what I've got. Now it's just going crazy. Why did it say I'm spackling. It's still wrong. Wait. Now it's just on an endless loop typing the same thing over and over. Oh wait. Now it typed what I said. Oh my goodness. Did I send it yet? It typed did I send it yet. It typed did I send it yet again. I don't think it's working right. No, I don't think it's working right. It's not sending it. Why are you laughing? I can't understand you, Heather. What do I do to send it? Press send? Do I need to press pause? What does pause do? Does it pause my text message? So, just press send. Where's send? But will it send this whole thing? I just want a text that says guess what I got. I got a new phone. Call me. Oh wait. It did type that. It's right there. This phone is a smart phone. How wonderful. Well, tell me where the send button is and then show me how to use the scanner. [presses pause button then send]

My sister's not speaking to me any more.

Friday Flashback: Big hair

The summer I turned 16, someone could have paid me pennies on the dollar to drive a hearse around with warm bodies in it, and I'd have jumped at the chance. I had waited my whole life to drive and I couldn't drive enough.

One late summer afternoon, after my mom had returned to her job at the high school, but before school actually commenced, my sister and I were home alone.  She was a home body, and I couldn't convince her that we needed to go anywhere... well, anywhere that involved my driving.

After an afternoon of General Hospital, I hit a nerve with my entering-middle-school sister:  She needed a new hair cut.  I think I even offered to pay for it.  Anything to drive was my motto.  I drove her to the farthest away hair place I could think of.  It was a walk-in only place, and we sat in the waiting room browsing through the hundreds of hair magazines.  Finally, we settled on a cute little, short 'do, and Bambi called her back to "the chair".

Funny thing happened while she was in the chair (or shortly thereafter):  Puberty hit and her normally straight and compliant hair became curly and wily and unruly.  She came by it honestly as our daddy had naturally curly hair - it just never occurred to us that we'd have any of his wave... that is until her hair started to grow out.

It was the late 80s.  We should have just gone with it instead of trying to tame it.  But we didn't.  We fought with it and it fought back.  Picture day that year was a prime example of big hair getting bigger.

My sister was mortified.  In fact, I can hear her now screaming at me to remove this picture from The Internets.  If you listen very carefully, you can probably hear her too - wherever you are.

Of course, she's forgetting the big picture here:  It's not that her hair looked bad.  It's not that she spent her first year in middle school growing out the biggest 'fro ever to be seen on the whitest chick in a three-state area.  It's that I got to drive. 

She's always been self-absorbed that way.

Flashback Friday

When we would take family vacations when I was little and we would finally stop for the night at a road side motor inn, my little sister and I would always get stuck sharing a bed.  I totally didn't think this was fair because my sister always slept right up against me and would complain that I never gave her enough room.  She'd hold her hands against the bed and measure that she had about 24 inches.  By the time she'd hold her hands in the air, though, they'd be 3 centimeters apart.