Marriage Confessions | Marriage Confessions Marriage Confessions

It is so flippin’ hard to make friends as adults. It is especially hard to make friends as adults when you have wee ones. I meet a lot of moms through my kids, and those are really great friendships because it gives you someone to commiserate with through motherhood. That’s an absolute necessity for survival. But aside from our kids, I usually don’t have much in common with these women, so our friendship never really develops past “How are your kids doing?” “Great! How are yours?” “Great! Okay, bye!” And being friends with people who don’t have kids is kind of tricky sometimes because most of them want to have children someday and so I don’t want to scare them by showing them the full, unfiltered Brown Family Craze.

They’d never procreate.

What complicates friendships even more for me is being a working mom. One of the special challenges that come with working with a young family is that my free time becomes incredibly precious. (But isn’t everyone’s free time precious?) I can’t really get together with people on week nights because I don’t get home until 5:00, then there’s dinner, baths, bedtimes, and, hopefully, a little down time with Chris before I have to start blogging. Throw in a class or two of papers to grade and my weeknights keep me active until about 11:00 every night. Weekends are awesome, but my first priority is always spending time with my family. We don’t get to hang out and do stuff during the week, so weekends are when we are on the go together. It’s not that those plans can’t be changed, but I’m just not willing to give up parts of my weekend every weekend. And friendships (especially new ones) require some time and commitment. How will I ever get to know someone if I don’t make time for them? BUT WHAT TIME IS LEFT?!?!? I have started some really great friendships over the past year, but finding the time to grow and maintain them has been a real struggle.

All of these things are working against me these days and so I am friendless.

Well, except for Sarah.

And then, a friend appeared!

She is actually one of Chris’s co-workers and I kept seeing her at his work functions. Whenever we hung out at those events, we got along so great. She is my age, doesn’t have any kids, but her boyfriend that she lives with has a little girl about Bean’s age. So, she’s almost like a working mom, too, and – bonus! – our kids don’t even know each other! So, we got to know each other for, like, real!

I swear, making friends is the exact same process as dating someone. Seriously. It’s ridiculous how giddy I get about potential friends.

At Chris’s office Christmas party, we hung out and I got the distinct feeling that she was ready to take our friendship to the next level. So, I got her email address (which is like a phone number, these days…) from Chris and I emailed her an invitation to a jewelry party that I was going to at Sarah’s house.

I HAD A DATE!

I was so excited! My new friend is super chic and trendy. She reminds me a lot of my sister, actually. As all good friends should. So, I thought all week about what I was going to wear on our date.

(I settled on jeans and a long sleeve casual tee and a chunky sweater wrap, for those of you who are interested…)

Finally, date night came and my new friend came by my house so we could ride over to the jewelry party together. We had such a fun night! She got to meet a few of my co-workers, old friends from high school, and, of course, Sarah. It was critical that Sarah approve of my new friend. I kept sneaking looks at Sarah to see what she thought and finally she pulled me aside and gave me the big verdict, “She’s fantastic!” she whispered. “We have to all go to lunch soon!”

LUNCH! My new friend had officially been approved.

After such a successful first date, it was time to try out the next dreaded phase of forming new adult friendships. The foursome.

I invited my new friend and her long-time, live-in boyfriend over to our house for dinner one night. They brought her boyfriend’s daughter, who played awesome with Bean for hours, and dinner was really nice. We all seemed to get along great and the conversation flowed naturally. When they left that night, I turned to Chris (who, oddly, knows my new friend better than I do because they work together) and asked if he thought they’d had a good time.

“Definitely,” he said. “It was a good night.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “I think it went well.”

I went to sleep that night so excited about my new friendship. Things were going along swimmingly! Maybe our next date should be a dinner out. Alone. How exciting!!

And then the next morning when I got to work, Chris sent me an email that said after dinner the night before, my new friend and her boyfriend of several YEARS had gone home and broken up.

Uhhhhh…. what??????

Yep. They broke up.

“What the hell did you say to them when I was in the bathroom???” I replied to Chris’s email.

When I texted her that afternoon, she insisted it had been a long time coming and that it was not, in fact, my lasagna that had broken them up. But still.

WHAT KIND OF FRIEND AM I?!??!

34 comments | posted in Friendship, Just for Fun, Marriage Confessions | tags: Friendship, humor, life, making friends

Well, I have run out of things to blog, which can only mean one thing.

It’s time for a LIVE video chat!

Join me and Chris tomorrow night at 9:00PM EST for a live video chat. They are super easy to participate in and super fun for me and Chris because we get to hear directly from you! You can either show up tomorrow and grab a “seat” in the live chat room (come about 5 minutes early to make sure you get in) or you can head over to our channel on U-Stream now and RSVP your attendance, which saves you a seat. Like always, we’ll be answering your questions about whatever is on your mind – marriage, blogging, parenting, Girl Scout cookies.

So, show up with a lot of questions, a lot of patience, and a lot of popcorn and we’ll have a rootin’ tootin’ good time! I can’t wait to talk with you guys! Hope to see you there!

LIVE Chat Details:

Where? Click here, then scroll down to where it says, “Scheduled Events.”
When? Tuesday, January 24, at 9:00PM EST
What? Live video chat with Chris and me!
Why? Cause we’re bored. And I’m out of blog fodder. And I’m scared of meeting people in person, so this seemed like the next best thing.

7 comments | posted in blogging, Fun Things, Marriage Confessions, Videos | tags:

We have a lot of living beings in our house. Me and Chris, two wild two legged beasts, two wild four legged beasts, and a fish named Lt. Dan (cause he ain’t got no legs). When we’re all home and at full capacity, it’s a little overwhelming. And God help the person who calls me when all living beings in our house are hungry. It’s like World War 3 around here at meal times – every man (or beast) (or Bean) for themselves.

In all the hustle of our daily grind, I do feel bad for our dogs. They really get the shaft these days. Especially Lucy. Lucy has gone from my college days when she used to sleep in my bed with me every night, to married days when Chris kicked her out of bed at night, but let her back in to snuggle in the mornings, to parenting days where she’s shunned from all beds and is now forced to sleep on a pillow on the floor. Like some kind of animal. I feel for her. Truly.

As you can imagine, she is none too thrilled with her current living situation. And she lets us know this. Frequently. Lucy now barks at just about everything. The mailman, mothers walking babies down the street, the wind blowing leaves in the back yard… you name it and she will bark at it. Generally speaking, she walks around pissed off most of the time. She’s always been like an angry old lady, but these days she actually IS a cranky old lady.

Poor Lucy.

But it is actually Molly who I feel so guilty about tonight. I feel double guilty, really, because I didn’t even remember this terrible story I’m about to tell you that happened two nights ago until my sister reminded me about it today.

Double guilt is the worst.

So, two nights ago…

IN MY DEFENSE…(bad sign when someone already gets defensive before the story even begins)… Chris had been working long, crazy hours, and we were both exhausted. So there.

Anyway, two nights ago, I put the kids to bed, cleaned up the house, watched five or six HOURS of Glee on Netflicks, and then headed to bed. Chris came home around midnight, I mumbled hello or something, and then we both went right to sleep.

Until I was woken up at 1:30am by barking in my backyard. Normally, that wouldn’t wake me up, but this was familiar barking. This was barking I knew. This was Big Molly’s barking.

I threw the covers back and ran, half asleep, to the backdoor. I flung it open and there sat Molly. On our back porch. In the cold. At 1:30am.

God knows how long she’d been out there. Or why she hadn’t barked until 1:30 in the morning. Maybe I left her out there since 8:00 when I let the dogs out for the last time and she sat there for a while, realized I wasn’t coming back, and was finally like, “Peace out to you, losers. I’m going to Steak ‘n Shake.” And then she left and didn’t get back home until 1:30 in the morning.

I’m not really sure what happened. It might have been that.

Or, maybe, she had been barking outside to come back in and in the utter chaos that is our household, I just didn’t hear her. FOR FIVE HOURS.

It was probably that.

Either way, when I opened that door and saw her sitting there in the middle of the night all by herself in the cold, my heart broke and I felt so terrible. Not just for leaving her outside, but for how our dogs have been pushed so far to the side since we’ve had two babies. I never thought I’d be THAT dog owner. I love my dogs. The entire first two years of this blog is about them, actually. And now they just kind of get pushed to the side and forgotten.

WELL NO MORE!

Starting today, my dogs are front and center again. Belly rubs, ear scratches, apple slices, peanut butter Kongs – anything they want.

Well, anything after 7:30 when the kids go to bed.

And anything that’s free cause most of our money goes to the kids now.

But anything that’s free after 7:30 is THEIRS!

30 comments | posted in Around the House, Lucy, Marriage Confessions, Molly, The Dog Pound | tags: dogs, Family, pets

My New Years resolution was about being healthy and I’m doing a pretty good job with that one. I’m avoiding sweets and haven’t had a Diet Coke since…well…Monday. BUT! Before that I hadn’t had one in WEEKS, I tell you! I’m going with the general rule of thumb that when presented with two options, I will choose the healthier. And life hasn’t been as awful on that path as I expected.

Along the way through 2012, though, I seem to have picked up a second resolution that I hadn’t planned on. I have been organizing my house like CRAZY! I swear if I didn’t know any better (and I do, so don’t even start thinking it…), I’d think I was nesting. I am like a machine these days when it comes to organizing. And where has all my inspiration come from?

FREAKING PINTEREST!

I can’t stop, people. I can’t. I hung out with Sarah on Monday and, I kid you not, every other sentence I said started with, “I saw this thing on Pinterest…” I’m lame. But at least I’m putting my lameness to good purpose.

(Did you know “lameness” is a real word? I totally expected my spell check to underline it but it didn’t. Interesting.)

Let me show you these small but life changing organizational tips that Pinterest has introduced to my life…

I have been annoyed by under the sink clutter since I moved out of my parent’s house and had my very own sink to clutter. There’s always crap stuffed up in that cabinet under the sink. And it’s dark down there. And musty. And I’m ALWAYS convinced I’m going to find a snake down there. I don’t know where that fear comes from, but I refuse to stick my hand in that cabinet any further back than the first row of clutter because I am afraid a snake is going to get me.

Since Pinterest came into my life, I LIVE IN FEAR NO LONGER! Behold! The cabinet under my sink!

I wish I had a “Before” picture to show you, but you’ll just have to trust me that this is a huge improvement. First of all, I moved all the cleaning supplies to the shoe hanger in our pantry.

That freed up a lot of space. Now, the only cleaning supplies we keep in under our sink are the supplies we use every single day when we clean the kitchen, so that we can get to them easily.

The other thing that took up so much space were plastic bags. We shoved grocery bags under the sink in no order whatsoever. It was just overflowing with plastic bags. And, once again, Pinterest changed my life.

Ball up your plastic bags and shove them into an empty tissue box! So simple! Now, that whole mess is contained in one tiny box. Kind of like the Genie in Aladdin.

“All the powers in the Universe…in itty bitty living space.”

With all that free space, I threw my taters and onions into a big plastic bowl and put them under the sink to free up some space on my counter top.

THANK YOU, PINTEREST!

But it doesn’t stop under my sink. Oh, no! My organizing spree has continued on to other, random places around our house. Like, my closet! You know how tall boots always fall over when you have them sitting on the floor of your closet? Well, Pinterest says NO MORE!

Clip them to pants hangers…

And hang them in your closet! Genius!

Next I attacked Bean’s room. He helped me sort all his toys into piles and then we put each pile into bins. I went to Ikea this weekend to price bins or baskets that all match. I’ll replace these with permanent, cute containers soon, but for now this works really great! Even Bean loves it! He is always asking now to play with different buckets and he’s learning that we have to clean up one bucket before we take out another.

And while we were in Bean’s room, I took some time to organize his art work from school. He brings art work home every day from school and he is adamant that it not get put away somewhere. He likes it to be displayed front and center. But our fridge is overflowing and there’s always random construction paper projects floating around the house. So, I cleaned off the bulletin board in Bean’s room that held flash cards (since he knows all the words now, we weren’t using it) and filled it with his art work instead. Now, he runs upstairs every day when we get home and wants to put his art up on the wall.

For Christmas, my mom got me a label maker for my classroom. Now, I can’t stop labeling things. I turned myself loose on our medicine cabinet first. We used to just keep all our medicine on the kitchen windowsill. Drove me nuts. We looked like a bunch of pill poppers. So, I pulled out three plastic bins and spent half an hour organizing the windowsill into three piles: one for adult medicines, one for children’s medicines, and a first aid bin.