Category Archives: A Few Things I Noticed While Trying to Improve Myself

Baby has been playing at my feet with two empty half-n-half cups for 20 minutes now.

I love McDonald’s. It’s my happy place. They say it’s a happy place, and it is.

So, the Seattle Seahawks won the superbowl a few weeks back and apparently this was a pretty big deal around here. Wish I could tell you that I was one of the 700,000 people that was crowded along a two-mile stretch of downtown Seattle in 30-degree weather to admire the players and take 45 minutes to get across the street, but honestly, it probably sounded more fun than it actually was.

Anyway, I heard the fireworks. That was probably just as cool.

In any case I should probably tie this back to spirituality somehow so here’s something cool and spiritual about the Seahawks I enjoyed reading: Get on the Field

One of my long-term life goals is to walk for like a month straight, stopping only to sleep and eat, Forrest Gump-style. If I had cool adventures (which of course I would), I would write a book about it. This is the first time I have told anyone this. Surprisingly, I am not embarrassed.

Last weekend I went to the Microsoft store to buy a phone. In order to set it up the sales associate had to reset my Live ID password and retrieve the new one from my email. He was nice and otherwise very professional but he kept opening the wrong email. In retrospect I realize that he must have been spying on me.

This flatters me.

My cell phone spent some time in a dust-filled heating duct yesterday and it came out pretty much unscathed.

This inspires me.

In this post I wrote about the Mattress Land my husband and I made in our bedroom. You know, for our kid. But there are other cool things about having a kid, too. Here are a few:

• I get to build forts (why did I ever stop doing that)?
• I get to hear my husband sing.
• I always have a great excuse as to why I didn’t have time to meditate.
• Did I mention wet wipes?

I would write something funny today but all anyone would see would be “football football football fooootbaaaall.”

Oh, and by the way, football football football football. And then she died.

One thing that’s cool about having a kid is that instead of having a regular bed you have two big mattresses on the floor with nothing else in the room, especially lamps.

Yup, that’s right. We sleep in Mattress Land. And yes–yes it is completely awesome.

Who needs lamps when you’ve got … mattresses?

I would write something funny today but on Saturday the movie theater I was in caught on fire and I am still traumatized. Not because anyone got hurt. But because I was the only one who went to an unblocked exit.

(Did I mention that I’m awesome?)

Went to church today and was reminded that now that so many of my 2013 affirmations have come true, it’s time to start a new batch. I’m not going to share them all but here are a few:

• Thank you, God, that my business is exploding this year (in a good way) and that my income from my books equals my client writing income.
• Thank you, God, that I have several very close girlfriends.
• Thank you, God, that I am in constant communication with the Divine.
• Thank you, God, that several of the books I’m working on currently are finished.
• Thank you, God, that any depression that I used to feel is gone.

Go magic.

One way being spiritual makes my life awesome is that when the baby erases everything I just wrote on my laptop, then breaks the mouse as well, I can assume he was working as the agent of an angel or other divine entity, probably to protect me from the full effect of my own awesomeness.

I feel more humbled by just talking about it.

If I had nothing else going for me today, I’m pretty sure I’d still be grateful for wet wipes.

I used to have a secret lover. I only saw him at night–late at night. We’d have dinner together and, as some poet once said, “surfeit ourselves on love.”

Then one day, I decided I couldn’t live like that any longer; I wanted to have a real relationship. I decided we could see each other in public, too, and during the day.

The next morning we ate breakfast together on the patio of my house. I enjoyed his company, but it wasn’t the same. Something was missing. Then I realized what it was: During the day, he was kind of boring.

I still see him once in a while. But now we’re just good friends.

His name is Peanut Butter.

For a long time, I worked very hard so that I could have a good life.

Now, I just use magic.

Consider yourself all caught up.

Promised I’d tell you what my real New Years’ resolution was when I finally got the guts. So here goes: My real New Years’ resolution is to be like Eckhart Tolle and live totally in the moment every single day, and to be in constant communication with God.

The results so far: I’ve failed every single day. But keep in mind that this is only the sixth day of the year. That’s only six failures.

I’m still holding out hope.

In 2013 I: became a stay-at-home-mom; watched my child smile, crawl, walk and talk for the first time; got on a regular (normal-person) sleep schedule; published one book and wrote the first drafts of several more; found a church and made a ton of new friends; learned how to meditate; got more spiritual; got an awesome job; overcame my ten-year eating disorder and totally kicked my diet soda addiction forever.

I don’t remember what my 2013 resolutions were, but I’m pretty sure I’m good.

Happy New Year, y’all. It’s 2014 now, and for me that brings up a major dilemma: How will I ever be able to be as awesome this year as I was last year?

And, with that in mind, a New Years’ resolution: I am going to meditate. I’m not sure how much but like, a lot more.

Wait, I changed my mind. It’s 3:20 and I haven’t even said good morning to God yet, much less stilled my mind.

Note to self: More thought must be given to resolutions.

Last weekend, I had Reiki done on me for the first time. And it was AWESOME.

Basically Reiki is a way of cleansing your chakras and stuff, and the experience is really low-key. In the moment it was like, “What is happening?” But later on that day, it was like, “What happened?”

I highly recommend it. I mean hell–you only live once. Why not get your chakras cleansed? (Here’s my go-to gal’s website.)

I have discovered the pleasure of driving aimlessly. And of sitting in McDonald’s, for two hours at a time, and dragging my feet a bit while I shop.

I am officially a stay-at-home mom.

It happened only a week ago, after I fired the babysitter. I told her I’d decided to stop working, which was true, though, secretly I had other reasons, too, namely, I wanted my baby to myself.

I wanted to be the one who held him when he cried, and saw his first smile. I wanted to be the one he admired the most, but mostly, I wanted him to feel as loved as he possibly could.

And the person for that job is me.

What’s surprised me most about this change so far: I love it like nothing else I’d ever done.

When I was working, I loved being a mom, too, of course. Not the sleepless nights or all the crying, but the waking up next to the baby’s sweet morning beauty, and the nursing, and the trust, and the love.

Motherhood rocks. I’ve loved every day of this job so far, and a good percentage of the minutes as well. Okay, okay–not the minutes in which my son is crying and I can’t calm him down, and not the ones where he’s not falling asleep. But the ones where I’m holding
him, singing to him, talking to him out loud like a crazy person in the grocery store. And nearly every time I stop the car and open his door to take him out of his seat, then once again see his beautiful baby face, I have to say it again: “You are perfect.”

And so. For the first time, life feels not only beautiful, as the saying goes, but it also feels like an adventure. Even if I’m just going to McDonald’s.

And yet. It took five months of motherhood for me to realize something that seems pretty obvious; being a stay-at-home mom is awesome.

I’m independent. I’m physical. I’m doing something with my hands and feet. I’m not trapped behind a computer, exercising only my tired brain and eyes. I’m getting out, seeing the world, living life.

I am getting in the car and going places. And if sometimes I don’t quite know where I’ll end up, that just makes it even more fun.

Here, a description of a typical day in the morning life so far: When Xavier and I wake up, he cries immediately, then every time I remove him from my nipple thereafter—except when in a moving vehicle or in a stimulating environment. For this reason, as soon as his diaper is changed in the morning, we are in the car on the way to McDonald’s.

It is not the first time we’ll go there today.

At McDonald’s I drink a large coffee and sit with him for over an hour at a booth by the window. With the help of the back of the bench he stands and stares at everyone else who’s there. People stop to say something to him, or to me about him. Everywhere I go I feel like a minor celebrity. Before long I change his diaper on the drop-down table in the bathroom and wonder if the last person to use it cleaned it off. In the car I check my phone for a moms’ group activity, and find one at a park 45 minutes away. I drive there slowly, considering whether or not I should get a bumper sticker that reads “Don’t rush me–baby’s happy.”

By the time we get to the park the baby’s almost ready for his first nap, but I decide to push it as this is the only social event I have scheduled for the day. I put X in the carrier and talk to the other moms while watching their children play, sincerely wondering if X will ever be
interested in these objects people attach so much importance to called “toys.”

When we start driving again, X almost immediately falls asleep. I’m driving in a suburban area but I’m lucky enough to spot a McDonald’s nearby. I park there and read, making absolutely no noise, for about an hour. By the end of the hour I have to pee really bad, but am determined not to leave the baby as he may wake up without me there.

After he wakes up we go in. This time I order a large soda, also caffeinated, and before we leave I refill it twice. (Did I mention that as we are cosleeping I wake up ten to twelve times a night, every night, to nurse?)

After this there’s an errand or two, then another aimless drive that ends in nap number two, again in a parking lot. Then there’s the car ride to pick up my husband from work. With him we eat dinner and immediately after we’re done we go to a meditation class. When we return home I put X in a stroller and we take a very long walk–about two hours. By the time we’re back home the baby is already asleep, but as soon as I move him he wakes up again and it is three hours before I’m able to leave the bed without him crying. I do so, and shower, brush my teeth and change into my pajamas. Then I go to bed.

And that is about how it’s been for the past seven days in a row, and will likely be for a pretty long time to come. I know that in some ways it sounds awful, but the truth is, I enjoy almost every second of the day.  This is how it’s been for the past seven days, and will likely continue to be for a very long time.

At least – I hope it will be. As I sat in the parking lot today waiting for Xavier to wake up from his nap, I had a terrible thought. ‘My life won’t always be like this,’ I realized. ‘Someday I’ll go back to a regular job. Maybe even have a second kid.’

The sadness that I felt in that moment was absurd and premature, I know. And yet, even now I can’t get the thought out of my mind.

I want to be Xavier’s first and best love, and to take care of him, like this, forever.

I also never want a real job again. (Egad!)