How's Dem Apples?

We all have our comfort zones, and the self-help gurus that be would probably tell us to bust-a-move out of them.   The problem? They're called "comfort zones" for a reason.  We like our gooey-mac-n-cheese existance.  You know, until we find ourselves eating it five nights a week and would love to know how to make Indian food.  But do I have to shop someplace different?  And what do I do with all those spices? And the kids will turn up their noses and look at me all WTF, Mom?

That's just a culinary metaphor, but while I'm on it, it extends to apples.  Oh, I kind of know my Granny Smith (tart yummy-ness) from a Red Delicious (you are red, but deliciousness you're not, flour-y thing), but I'm talking Apple products.  (I'm sure I'm supposed to have a trademark thingie there; chalk that up as one more thing I don't know...yet.)

I have an iPhone.  I can call and receive emails, and do that texty thing, and take pictures, but that's about it.  Don't ask me how to share them pictures from my phone.  I think I'm using about 5% of it, much like the human brain.  I've never downloaded an app; the whole notion scares me and fills me with questions.  Does it cost money? What do I do with them? And why is my screen all full of dinks?  (I think I know that last one: keys.  Stupid case I bought doesn't save it from keys.) 

Most importantly, how do I learn this stuff?  (Sub-question: how much do I care?)  I don't go merrily off to Apple-school, where I nice teacher with pincurls and a shirt dress explains this all on a SmartBoard.  (Yeah, I watch too much Mad Men.  But at least I gave that teacher a 2012 SmartBoard.  Even if I am picturing her as white and 23.)

One possibility I've considered: go hang out in the Apple store.  There is a nice, glossy, slick one in a mall just minutes from here.  Even as things have gone south with other stores, they went double wide a year or so ago.  And I'm not lying a bit that it's slick: just shiny tables with smooth shiny surface and young gone-all-wireless folks in earbuds.  I don't think it gets dusty in there, and paper doesn't exist. 

I've wanted to go in it, but been, well, intimidated.  Like a fat person not wanting to join a gym of hard-bodies. 

But I was pretty sure they had a gizmo I need, a charger for my car.  Emboldened by my voting experience and wearing chic lookin' boots, I entered.  I passed the tables full of James-Bond-gadgets (sigh...your average toddler would never describe an iPad this way; they'd just start filming a documentary or something) to the accessories in back. 

"Where did you vote?" a voice asked me.

I felt hit-on by a younger guy--what a great business model! I told him where, and even went on to joke that I though he was asking who I voted for.  I got down to business, told him what I was looking for, was kindly brought over to the right merchandise, and passed over to some head-set clad woman who simply scanned my card with some iSomething.  Wow, this was so easy! Maybe I shouldn't be so scared of the Apple store! I asked if they have classes (because I have no idea how to use my tiny iNano music thingie which could probably somehow hold music or an audio version of Moby Dick or something...yep, I'm just.that.inept.)  Hmm...I've always braved entry into this new world, and no one laughed that I get all jiggly and sweaty on the Apple store treadmill.

Though I have a funny feeling that requesting the paper receipt over an emailed receipt is sort of like eating a Big Mac on the stairclimber.  But whatever.  A little bit of the apple is better than none at all, right?

Ungrateful Child

My mom stopped by this morning.  I'd forgotten she mentioned that she might do so.  I kind of wasn't down with it.

Apparently, while there are drawbacks to my being home alone, I dig the autonomy, and that messed my game.  Not that I really have much of a game.  But I did have some; it just didn't involve her.  It involved some mish-mash plan of making a lasagna and a piecrust and responding to an email I (bravely, I think) sent to some financial advisor-guy that I interviewed well over a year ago who mentioned well over a year ago that he worked with writers on putting together books profiling successful businesspersons, and so I researched (aka googled) what he'd been up to and basically asked if he's still taking on writers, and while he's currently not, he graciously asked for some info from me in case things change in the future, and I really want to get back to writing that email.

(Whew!  That was quite the run on.  So, some dude will now totally want to hire me for my killer writing skills.  Boo-ya!)

(I'm gonna call that run-on "stream of consiousness", folks.  Now it's all stylish and sophisticated, right?)

(And "gonna" is being colloquial.  Got it?  I'd like to believe I know what I'm doing.)

So back to my mom.  She's all into checking out the china cabinet I bought off my aunt and transported into our dining room.  (As an aside, I technically haven't bought it yet.  I'm not sure she even cares.  It was ready to go to Goodwill.)  I don't mention the we dropped it on the pavement in the move, but doesn't it still look great?  Mom has some $400 or so Steuben bowl for me.  It needs to be washed.  I go to wash it.  In my sink.  My awesome, super large, one bowl Silgranite sink that I love love love, and I think everyone should get.  Only once in a blue moon do I kind of wish it had two bowls.

This morning would be one of them.

Because I have spaghetti sauce thawing out in the sink.  (Remember aforementioned lasagna plan.  Weekends coming up; a lasagna would be a nice meal.)

When I go to wash the bowl, I forget about the sauce.  Shit!  Is that soap on the sauce?  Or just water bubbles?  (This probably wouldn't have occured in a two bowl sink.)

I don't know.  I "rinse" off the still-frozen sauce, but I don't know.

"It's fine," my mom says. 

Of course she says that.  But I'm not so sure.  I hate throwing away so much nice sauce, so I put it back in the freezer with some cryptic note that says it might be soapy, which means maybe I'll eat soapy spaghetti for a week, but not the rest of the family.  (I'm all martyr-y that way.)  Or maybe I'll eventually toss it, but I have to work my way up to that sad wastefullness. 

Meanwhile, guess I'm not making lasagna.

And I still haven't emailed that financial dude.

I'm still not sure what I even do, so it seems ungrateful to complain that my doing's have been messed with.

Oh, well.  There's always laundry.

What's Up?

Hi there.  I'm Debbie.  I've been thinking, on and off, about starting a blog now for a while.  I've also been chicken about it.  I've blogged before.  Back in 2004, when my (then) colicky daughter was born, I wrote a mommy-blog that pretty much nobody read, but it felt good to write.  I also wrote for while as part of a group with the WM Parenting blog.  (The WM stands for "Working Mommies."  No one ever seemed to know that.)

Now I'm a mom who's kids are in school during the day.  I'm still home.  This is a crazy amount of time suddenly dumped in my lap.  I'd be lying to say that in some way, I haven't been looking forward to this in one way or another.  But it does beg the question: What are you going to do all day? 

Hmm...good question.

I can say this: after 8 years of intense stay-at-home parenting (ie: some sort of kid underfoot except for maybe 2 hours or so in preschool, or an hour at the gym daycare), there are lots of things that have been neglected.  Pushed onto the back burner, so to speak.  These range anywhere from the home (a collection of toys, clothes, and scattered "crafts"), to a rather physical me (hmm...when is the last time I got a haircut? or met up with certain girlfriends?), to more elusive seeming things like my creative/writerly side.  Oh, and sometimes I think it would be nice to figure out a way to make money, even as everyone (myself included, at least for now) wants me to be stickin' around the actual home.

So far, I've signed up for school volunteer work, gone for a run, hit the gym, cut the lawn, met a friend/writer for coffee, queried a local parenting magazine, tried to put together various hot wheels sets, visited my grandparents, applied for about three innocuous sounding "gigs", freaked out looking at LinkedIn and wondered how people actually use it, vacuumed the upstairs, made a peach cobbler, donated some old clothes to the Veterans, called an old college pal, met up with my husband at lunch, used the library for myself, read a few books, investigated new eyeglasses, wasted time reading fun blogs, cleaned my desk, and blow-dryed my hair.  Phew!  Sounds like I'm busy.  Okay, maybe not really.  I feel like I should have a strategy.  Or not.  Maybe I should just relax for a bit. 

Oh, and one more thing: apparently, I've started a blog.  Maybe it will help me figure out what exactly I am up to.