the cliff notes of my past few months – sort of….

I really try to talk in “cliff notes”.  Anyone who knows me well would laugh at that statement.  I know I talk way too much.  I try not to, I really do.  If I am going to a gathering with many people who are not my close friends who know me well, I actually give myself a ‘reverse pep talk’ before I go, reminding myself not too talk so much.  I tell myself I don’t always have to fill in the gaps of a conversation.  I remind myself it is not my responsibility to conquer the silence.   So, that said, I am going to try to give you the cliff notes of many (but of course not all) of my thoughts over the past few months in this blog entry.

I have wanted to write a really great blog after not writing for a few months.  I stopped writing for a while because I was focusing all my energy on a business opportunity in which I was representing a clothing line for women.  That was an interesting (and funny) experience.  On one hand, it was fun.  I had samples of clothing from an upscale casual women’s collection set up in a room in my house for a week.  Many of my friends and acquaintances came to see the clothes and try them on and it was just like playing dress up with your friends as a little girl.  The difference was, in this case, you could buy the clothes.  Like I said it was fun.  I got to revisit my business skills, take on a project and have a weeklong party at my house.  Unfortunately, I hated much of it.  I hated selling to people I knew.  I hated taking money from my friends.  I hated not being able to say, “you are right, in this economy, it is ridiculous to charge $150 for a simple knit black shirt.”  On the other hand, I got to see another side of many people – mostly good.  It was wonderful to feel the support from my friends.

Most of my friends quickly jumped at the chance to come see what I was up to.  I made a point – and meant it- of telling everyone I really wanted to share the experience but didn’t want anyone to feel pressure to purchase.  I hope no one did.   It means so much that some friends even bought something just to support me even if it was not something that she really wanted.  Yes, of course I have guilt over that but I am hoping they are enjoying their items.  Overall, the women who came to shop were great.  There were a few crazies too though.  I realized there is still a breed of woman who thinks her time is so much more valuable than anyone else’s time.  I am trying to figure out where that comes from.  Does she think she is more important because she perceives herself to be prettier, richer, thinner, have a more successful husband, smarter kids or a close personal relationship with Barbara Walters? This is definitely a topic we could have a lengthy discussion about but I will save more for another time.

Back to the point.  I tried the path of a business opportunity.  I gave it my all.  It was not for me.  I could not reconcile selling those high priced items in the back room of my house to my friends, neighbors and acquaintances when I feel they could find equally stylish flattering items for much less in every shopping mall in the country.  Mostly, I hated the idea that any new person I might meet while I was representing this line would think I was being nice just to sell them something!  I just want to be nice with no strings attached.

That is a good segue back to where I am today.  Here is the point, I took time off from writing and now that I want to write again, I have so much I want to say.  I wanted to write this blog as the cliff notes of my last few months BUT, that is just impossible because there are too many funny things that I have experienced.  I was hoping for one perfect topic but there were way too many to choose from.  So, instead of waiting until I could find the one perfect topic, I wanted to write this one as an “I’m back” kind of entry and share some thoughts of what I want to write about in the coming weeks.

So, here goes:

Aside from my short-lived business venture, life has thankfully been pretty much the same.  I spend my days balancing being a stay at home mom with three kids (who are all now in one school – Hallelujah), two dogs (we just adopted a stray dog who is the sweetest dog in the entire world and I am so not a dog lover but I love my dogs) and a husband who is willing to arrange his life around the family’s schedule (even though I really would be happy if he would find a hobby he enjoyed) AND, I still want to be a real person.

I strive to be the mom I want my kids to have and also be the person I always wanted to be.  One thought that describes me well is this, “It is not that I always wanted to be a stay at home mom, I have always known I wanted my kids to have a stay at home mom.”  And even though I am incredibly supportive of gay marriage, I am not a lesbian.  Therefore, if I want my kids to have a mom at home, that kind of just leaves me.

Wait, wait, wait, I have to interject a thought here which is a huge jump from finding yourself as a mom/women or maybe it is not…..

Speaking of love between two women here is another topic which I find intriguing.  I suppose it is pretty much common knowledge that it is hip and trendy for young girls to experiment with a dabbling of “Saturday night homosexuality” – meaning hetero girls making out with other girls just for fun.  What is very surprising to me is that I am discovering in my own social circles, this is happening too.  Like I said, I am very supportive of gay rights.  I do believe people are born one way or another.  So, like Jerry Seinfeld said, “not that there is anything wrong with it.”  I am just confused about this situation.  Are these women who are making out with their girlfriends after a few appletinis, closet lesbians or are they doing it for shock value?  I have some very beautiful friends.  I even envy and admire some of their bodies and I am able to acknowledge they have great breasts or that their butt looks great in the new True Religion jeans they grabbed at the big sale at Nordstrom’s.  BUT, it stops there.  I don’t want to feel their breasts or butts.  And while I may like that lipstick color she just bought, I don’t want her lips on mine!  Where is this coming from?  Am I completely square because this shocks me?  This topic really deserves more time but I want to get back to today’s point.

Let’s put this aside (I would love to hear comments and feedback from everyone on this – fake names acceptable for your comments.)

I think I was leading into some of my thoughts about being a stay at home mom….

I assume many women my age (I am still young enough to tell you my age – 39 as of this past Thanksgiving) feel like I do.  Life is a challenge of balancing two separate worlds.  On one hand, we give everything to the people around us and spend much of our day catering to others.  On the other hand, we are still individual people separate from the needs of our families who need a break from the monotony of being a mom and wife.  This is where I get opinionated and may have people disagree with me.  Whenever anyone dares to say that being a stay at home mom is not amazing and wonderful all the time, people get so upset.

Like I said, it is a balance.  On one hand, I spend my days being so grateful to have this life and praying everyday that my children stay healthy and grow up to be good people with good morals and good values.  And on the other hand, in that same day, I can look forward to bedtime so much that I am counting the minutes until I don’t have to hear the word “MOM” one more time.  Again, this is a topic I enjoy exploring and I enjoy opinions on this one too.  I do find that the opinions vary based on the ages of a woman’s children. 
So, I have managed to write all this and still haven’t even touched on my hilarious facebook experiences of the past few months.  Tell me, does everyone have at least one person on their friend list who has “friended” you yet still will not acknowledge you when you run into her in person?  What is up with that?  I also am very intrigued by the women I come across who seem to be on a different planet than the rest of us.  Is it a daily dose of Xanax or do they really just have a foreign object lodged inside somewhere it should not be?  See, I still have so many things to share.  And although I do disagree with a woman who recently told me I am the “most opinionated person she knows”, I do have the ability to look at events from many different angles and find humor in every single thing I see.

I hope I have managed to entertain you long enough to get to the end of this entry and now that my initial “coming back” entry is done, I feel much less pressure to write a perfect blog. 

I think I have used up all my “me” time and must go back to my mom duties as I hear knocking on my office door.  How long can I pretend I am not here????