idontbelieveingrammar

If you happen to stop beside me at a red light you might just get lucky to catch a free show. I sing along in the car.  In the shower. In class. Elevators. And occasionally even in the store when they are playing a good song. Sometimes I even dance. This is the part where I should tell you that I do NONE of these things well. I sing off key. I come in early. I sometimes make up words when I do not know them. My dancing could easily be mistaken for a seizure. But in the car and   the shower and pretty much everywhere else you catch me singing along to the radio…. I think I sound decent. Not great. But ok. That is usually because my car speakers are turned up so loud that no one can hear themselves think. Some of my friends have been trying to get us to karaoke for months now.  It sounded fun and terrible to me all at the same time.  Every one of my past karaoke experiences were in a packed bar with lots of drunk people who make for...

I started writing REAL Christmas letters about six years as ago. As a joke, in response to all the fake and cheesy ones people send out about how perfect their lives appeared on paper. A friend and I laughed about how refreshing it would be if people wrote real Christmas letters. Confessed to filing for bankruptcy or their kids straight C report card. A place where they shared the highs, but didn't ignore the lows. It would be way more honest and a whole lot more entertaining. Most people don't write Christmas letters any more, and the Christmas cards themselves have even started to dwindle. These days we do not save our perfect lives for yearly updates. We post them in our Facebook status and on Instagram 365 days a year. I am just as guilty. I post pics of all the fun places I go and eat, not all the nights I am in pjs before the evening news. So now every year I try to rewind, reflect and share the highs and a few honest moments as well.  So. Here it is. The ye...

If you aren unhip like me...they are supposed to be Dr. Who and his companion Rose Tyler. All that coolness was lost on me...but the ridiculous cuteness of seeing my son in a bowtie was not lost on me even a little bit. This afternoon Tess interrupted my post Halloween nap to ask if she could eat the king sized Kit Kat that she hauled in last night by hitting the Trick-Or-Treat jackpot. I insisted that she come snuggle with me a bit before rotting all her remaining teeth.  I’m not sure if it is all the costume changes in the last 24 hours but suddenly she is consumed with who she is going to be. Out of no where she tells me that she wants to be a teacher and a mommy when she grows up. Clearly, because it looks like I have the life of luxury since I have not washed my hair or put on real pants by three in the afternoon. My heart swells a bit, thinking that she wants to be just like me even though a little bit of me hopes that she will be more. I do not crush her dreams wit...

I have run more than my share of races. My tennis shoes have more miles on them than my parents' new car. But.  I still don’t really see myself as a runner.   I have friends who train for races by signing up for nutrition classes, printing off their run schedules and following them religiously. I think burbees and fartleks sound like intestinal distress, not something I want to do in a workout. I consider training making a really good playlist and getting out there and running until I want to throw up. pass out or both Doing that a few times a week logging as many miles as my knees will take. I carb load (read eat an entire box of girl scout cookies), drink plenty of water (read coffee) and buy expensive socks. The end.  Show up race day and try not to finish last. Or die. So far this has worked for me. Although not well enough for me to start sharing my finish times. A few months ago I had some friends sign up for a running training class. It was cheap...

I pick things up quickly. Usually. Well, except for conjugating French verbs, derivatives and any type of aerobic step. But, for the most part I am a quick learner. At least that is what my teachers used to write on notes they sent home. Right under the part that said I talked back. I could rush through my school homework while watching Full House, talking on the phone and listening to the radio. School came easy. Life lessons however, I mostly preferred to learn the hard way.  Sometimes over and over again. After a particularly trying afternoon…I finally got Tess to sit down and eat. Just as I was getting her a drink I watched her tag my kitchen table with a sharpie. She was through with the T and moving on to an E.  I dropped the drink and quickly wrestled the permanent marker away from her and hid in a drawer that I suddenly considered buying a lock for. She gave me a look that seemed to say, "What is the big deal already. This is art." I told her it w...

My son was so easy as a baby. He slept through the night at 8 weeks when I went back to work. As a toddler he was active and always on the move....but a first born pleaser. He ate broccoli and would play alone with Legos for hours. (He still will).  I was sure that Shaun and I were pros at parenting. Our kid was happy, easy going and so freaking cute that we figured we should bless this planet with another set of our genes. We could not have been more wrong. Not about blessing this planet with our genes or making the most adorbs babies around....just about being the world's best parents.  (The fact that I occasionally had to borrow diapers and wipes from complete strangers...because I couldn't be counted on to remember things like a diaper bag should have been my first clue.) My first shot at actually giving birth was not exactly fun.  Lots of labor. Lots of pushing. Lots of blood. An epidural that only seemed to take effect on one side of my body. And eventually a...

I teach high school. Which means that sometimes I am stuck in this never ending loop of homecomings, report cards, pep rallies and prom kings. Names, music and fashions change, but year after year so much is the same. One of the dress up days last week was college day, I played country music on Western day, a lot of Madonna and Micheal Jackson on 80s day….so on college day I figured I should play music I listened to in college. All day I spent a lot of time thinking about who I was in college. And frustrated that so much of me was exactly the same.  Give or take 25 lbs. The same issues I had in my twenties is the exact same baggage I carry around today. I am too much. I have boundary issues. I am oh so easily distracted. I hate limits and budgets and rules. I suck at driving. I like cute boys and beer and things that are not always good for me. I play my music too loud. I talk too loud. I still wear pajama pants and flip flops every chance I get. ...

Earlier this week Tess lost another tooth. And there is something about gaps in my kid’s smile that tug at my heart.  A gap that will be filled with a tooth slightly too big for their five year old face. Adult teeth look so funny on a little kid and it takes years to grow into them. When I say Tess lost her tooth, I do not mean she wiggled it out and tucked it snugly beneath her pillow for the tooth fairy to trade out with a dollar bill. I mean she lost it at the bottom of the swimming pool.  She was excited about the tooth, but sad that she had nothing to show for it. I assured her that the tooth fairy would be just as happy to take a drawing of her tooth. That the exchange rate for real and drawn teeth were exactly the same.  She was not so sure and drew 3 teeth just in case. Or was possibly hoping for 3X the payout. I remember snooping through my parents drawers as a kid and finding a few baby teeth. These baby teeth both fascinated and disgusted me. Even mor...