I look in the mirror some days and notice a few wrinkes, but for the most part the greasy skin I was cursed with as a teenager has resulted in reasonably decent skin now.  I see pictures of friends and family much younger than me and am shocked by how many more wrinkles they have.

With 34 a few months away I look at that number and wonder how it could be my age.  My brain still thinks I’m 23, except with lower alcohol tolerance and a requirement for at least 8 hours of sleep a night, with a requirement to be asleep before 11 or the whole night doesn’t count and I’m as tired and cranky as an 11-year-old after a sleepover.

The point is, I’m not really sure what 33 looks like but I think I’m probably on the “looking younger than my age” side of it.  That all changed last weekend when we came home with this:

(That is not my lake by the way, but it is the twin to my new Toyota Sienna.)

Brett and I have been wrestling for months over getting a minivan, because we both wanted one but neither of us wanted to drive it everyday and listen to all the soccer mom cracks and be that person all the SUVs look down upon.  In yet another sign of my aging psyche, I finally caved when a guy I worked with offered to buy my Pathfinder. 

(And in another cruel twist of fate, prospective buyer went AWOL for a week – the same week we bought the van – and came back to inform me that he had purchased a pickup truck instead.)

So we bought the van, and got one with the navigation system which it turns out I hate more than life itself and wish I could rip out of the car, so I keep it turned off which is a huge waste of a couple grand.  I’ve been struggling with the middle-class guilt over buying a new car, when I had a perfectly FINE car that transported us where we wanted to go and had everything I needed, except of course power sliding doors and a DVD system.

I insisted on being difficult and getting it in BLACK, because I am still bad ass on the inside you see, and to get a BLACK one we had to go all the way to DC and that kind of screwed us because we don’t get free oil changes or maintenance unless I drive 150 miles every time I need one. 

(It was handy when I was turning down the add-ons because I was able to say, “Oh sorry I don’t live here so that isn’t a benefit I’ll ever use…”)

Anyway, even if I haven’t been able to fully enjoy the new car, Alex is totally enthralled with it, inside and out.  I can bribe him to do things by offering to let him push the button on the remote to open the doors.  When the hatch closes by itself, beeping on the way down, he says, “OOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!” and squeals in delight.  He loves, LOVES LOOOVES to ride in Mommysnewcar.  Even when Brett is driving, it’s still known as Mommysnewcar.  All this excitement, and we haven’t even busted out the DVD player yet.  That will happen Friday when we embark on our annual summer adventure known as the Great Northern Tour, when we make the rounds of family and picnics and birthday parties and reunions and every night the kids baths wash off pink lipstick and old lady perfume.

The Sienna and I have yet to bond, partly because it’s a new car that I didn’t truly need and partly because I am still not fully accepting of myself as a minivan driver.  It reminds me that life isn’t all about me like it was 10 years ago.

I find myself behind the wheel of a large automobile, with a beautiful house, and beautiful kids
and I may ask myself, well-how did I get here?

I’m really not sure.  But nobody is mistaking me for 23.

(P. S.  The title of this post is a tribute to my friend Emily, who long ago did the same thing and coined the phrase.)

You’re wondering…how was the holiday party?  Did you get a dress?  Let’s see your fabulous professional makeup job!  We must have closure!

For you, I will.

The party:  As is the norm at these things, there was the requisite old man in a tuxedo clapping his hands and hopping from foot to foot while Beyonce ordered him to “put a ring on it”.  He came accessorized by the typical slightly double-chinned wife in a sparkly floor length gown, with sparkly jacket thingy over it and tan pantyhose peeking out open toed soft sole shoes.  I’m sure you know him, he has been at every suburban wedding you’ve ever attended. 

There was enough cleavage on display, and in ample amounts, that I could easily have saved myself the approximately six hours I shopped last week and will never get back as I ping ponged from store to store looking for a non-busty dress.  There was however, a distinct lack of body glitter, which must mean I’m growing up.

There was a good buffet, A CHOCOLATE FOUNTAIN, and an open bar stocked with top shelf liquor.  Which was really all I needed to get past the fact that one of my male bosses drinks straight up peach schnapps, and the fact that one of Brett’s old, male co-workers tried to involve me in a conversation about Kegels (“200 a day!”, he says, as I reach for my fourth martini.)

The dress:  Plum.  Floor length and festive.  Machine washable.  A size smaller than I thought I needed, I tried it on a whim and it just so happened to fit.  Tightly.  It was on sale.  It required a scary girdle thing, the cost of which almost offset the sale price.  (Did you have any idea how expensive heavy duty undergarments are???)

The makeup: Oh the makeup.  I’ve always had this fantasy that professional makeup would magically transform me.  It transformed me all right.  First the “artiste” was 20 minutes late.  Then, she kept leaving me to go and ring up other customers. 

Rule number one of getting your makeup done:  DO NOT LOOK IN THE MIRROR UNTIL IT’S ALL OVER. 

Because you will see scary, hairy, drawn on eyebrows and some red looking eyeliner under your eyes, concealer on your nose, red blotchy patches everywhere else and you will want to run, but you can’t because in for a dollar and all that, plus if someone saw you walking through the mall looking that way they would be totally justified in following you to make sure you weren’t looking for small children to scare.

So here I am, sitting in the middle of the department store across from the Christmas sweatshirts while elderly patrons browse for the red one with a kitten wearing a Santa hat batting a green ball of yarn, and my hair looks like a rat’s nest and there is no “artiste” in sight and I look quite like a small child who’s errantly gotten a hold of mommy’s mascara.  Not quite as glamourous as I imagined.

It took TWO HOURS.

And then I got home and instead of the “Welcome-home- America’s-Next-Top-Model-for-you-are-transformed” reaction I was hoping for, Alex stared at me and Brett said, “You have on A LOT of eye makeup.”  And then Alex swung a piece of paper near my face and it caught the very edge of my false eyelash (oh yes I did) and almost knocked it off which would have been a DISASTER.

Before we left I insisted we take a family picture, which Alex scooted out of just as the shutter clicked, and then Emily Kate spit up on my (luckily, machine washable) dress. 

…and there is my boob almost falling out

We got to the party a mere 45 minutes late, and I started with a delicious concoction of vodka, amaretto, sours mix, grenadine, and Sierra Mist and all was right with the world.

Although I make fun, it WAS fun – enough fun that I ALMOST broke my rule of not dancing at corporate functions, because I truly believe that if I am drunk enough to be a good dancer I am making a total ass of myself when I am NOT on the dance floor.  Words to live by.

the shoe abyss

I stare at this photo, and the only matching pair I see are the twee little sneakers right in front. 

Tiny shoes.

Pointy shoes.

Dirty shoes.

Not in pairs.

Last week, after I took this picture I cleaned out the shoe closet and arranged everything in neat rows.  And this morning it looked exactly like that picture. 

And we were gone for four out of the last seven days.

Argh.  Someone tell me how to organize our shoes.  Note that there is a plastic, crappy shelf in that closet, which is obviously no match for the combined might of 837 single shoes speed dating trying to find a match.

You do realize that NEXT WEEK is Thanksgiving?  Like 10 days from now?  Because you were going to buy and wrap all the gifts for our in-laws and nephews so we could schlep them up at Thanksgiving, rather than pay a gazillion dollars to ship them.  But that was when Thanksgiving was like, months away…and now it’s not.

I thought you had TIME to do all that since you don’t have to cook a turkey and plan a meal!  What happened to your time management skillz?  You had a whole day on Saturday – the kids had a Daddy Day and you were at the OUTLETS for pete’s sake!

So then what exactly did you think you were doing when you went shopping and bought sweaters for you?  And jeans for you?  And baby clothes for YOUR kids?

Now you barely have time to frantically hunt down gifts online – you are cutting the delivery deadline WAAAAY close because you are leaving on WEDNESDAY.  And no way you’re getting anything engraved or personalized this late in the game.

Not only that, but when your MIL heard that you were planning to bring all the gifts up at Thanksgiving, you sent her into a panicked shopping tizzy that involved pulling out all the stops to get er done. 

Your sisters-in-law argued over how much to spend on gifts then did whatever they wanted anyway, but bottom line – they are also DONE and you are NOT.

Way to go Santa wanna-be.

Now we look bad.

What in the name of WalMart were you thinking? 

-Heather

P.S.  Those jeans are totally cute on you.

P.P.S.  This is why it’s not safe to let us out shopping without supervision.

Look how adorable!

 Then Beth went on vacation, and has been on vacation forever and Alex really needed a haircut, as evidenced below:

Look!  Cranky bedhead moptop!  And pun-tastic shirt!

Since Beth is showing no sign of returning from vacation, we figured we could take our chances and it couldn’t be that bad…after all, I gave passable cuts with no formal training right?

As evidenced below, it would appear that was an incorrect assumption.

There are no words to caption this photo.

Remind you of anyone?

(image credit supanet.com)

Yeah.  Perhaps the time is right for MY scissors to make a comeback.

Exhibit A…

 Sometime later…

Me:  I fixed the camera.
Brett:  How?  What did you do?
Me:  I played around and recalibrated the lenses, reinserted the memory card and now it’s fine.
Brett:  I’m impressed.
Me:  Oh, and I also wiped the greasy fingerprint off the lens.

This is why people who made collages, watched commercials, and thus earned degrees in public relations also make excellent technical support specialists.

I haven’t written about it because, eh…everyone else is writing about it.  People who pay attention to these things and have budgets and clip coupons and have much more valuable advice and tips like packing your lunch and then washing and re-using your Ziploc bags.

The insidious creep of bad news has finally broken through my self-imposed fog, and it mostly consists of mail on my counter shaking me and saying, “You better start paying attention to something other than HOW HAAAARRRRDDD it is going back to work!  Or else you’re going to have to take on a second gig to feed your face cream addiction!”

I was pleased to learn that my 401K that I manage only (ONLY) lost 5%.  I based that calculation on contributions for the year and the current value.  On the other hand, my account that I PAY a large company to manage for me?  Tanking at -22%. 

The lesson here is the same one I try to teach Brett every year while making football picks – pretty colors and names count for a hell of a lot because that’s how I “allocated my assets”.  I once invested in the Ariel funds (which are now defunct) because that was my cat’s name (cat also defunct).  Coincidence?  I like to think it’s sheer genius.

Yesterday in the mail, I got a Notice Of Change In Terms from one of our credit cards.  Sounds ominous, no?  It was…it said, “Soon, your interest rate is going to go up to 20.99%!  And it’s variable!  But don’t worry, it won’t go higher than 30%!  Yippee!” 

I had better interest rates when I was a year out of college with $25,000 in debt and a job that paid less than that in a year.  But guess what stupid evil interest rate ratcheters?  I don’t even use that card.  In fact, I’m not even sure where it is.  So I DO NOT accept your new terms.  Which means you will close my account.  Truthfully, I thought it was already closed which is maybe why I don’t deserve low interest rates.  We shall part ways.

That also sparked a marital money discussion of “Hey now we really better be good about paying off the credit card we DO use because we buy everything on that card.”  That $40 late fee ain’t nothing compared to the interest we’d pay on our cumulative monthly expenses if our other card’s interest rate went up.  The notice of that event will probably be in today’s mail.

Does all this mean it’s time I start balancing our checkbook?  I’m so hyper-tense about everything else maybe I should figure out how much we spend on Pampers and shoes and handbags and alcohol so that like all the educated financial writers I can ACTUALLY KNOW how much more things cost instead of just having a vague suspicion that cake mix at WalMart is cheaper than at the grocery store.

And then I can chastise myself for clipping coupons but not using them, and not being able to figure out that Drugstore Game  so I can get free stuff, and shopping without lists, and buying handbags that I couldn’t afford if I weren’t working to make myself feel better about going back to work.  And then my general sense of guilt can continue to mushroom into something that consumes me like the black mold on our shower curtain. 

Never mind.

The first charity rejected the futon and left it in our driveway because it had cat hair on it.  Not blood or pee stains or rips…cat hair.  Of course, now it’s covered with much worse from sitting in the garage for 2 months.

What happened to ‘beggars can’t be choosers’?  This is a local charity that routinely preempts my TV with telethons begging me for money!  I’m trying to help the kids!  Take my hairy futon!

Right?

Or am I the beggar in this case, pleading with them to take away some of my materialistic guilt over having too much stuff?

What I should have done was have a garage sale.  Except that I am too chicken or lazy to have a garage sale.  When I look over the inventory we’ve given away in the last three months, I could have made some serious coin if only I were willing to sit in my yard for an entire Saturday and haggle while watching strangers paw my stuff. 

Garage selling veterans have warned me that garage sale shoppers will show up at your house hours before the sale starts and pester you while you’re setting up, ask to use your bathroom, and generally act like people in Sam’s Club which I totally couldn’t handle.

So alas – furniture, clothing, luggage, home decor - you name it and we’ve given it away. 

My main shopping vices are home stuff, clothes, baby stuff, and organizational stuff.  You see the correlation right?

Therefore, my new shopping policy is this - before purchasing something it has to fit one of the following criteria:

• Home decor must have a home in my house before it leaves the store.  There will be no renting of space on the kitchen counter or in the guest bedroom until I decide where it should live.
• Clothing and shoes must be able to pair with something I already own and/or replace another item.  That means if I can’t think of at least 3 outfits to wear it with, then something else in my closet must go to make room for the new guy.  Also I must really, really want it and be totally 100% (ref: reverse shopping).
• Baby stuff must have a reason, AND be on sale.  Good reasons do not include, “But look how cute it is!”
• Organizational type crates and boxes and drawer sorters must have a pre-determined location and a pile of stuff that is waiting to go in it.  There will be no purchases made with a vague notion that if I just get those toys or papers sorted then all of a sudden the house is clean and the baby is smiling and all is right with the world.

It will be hard, but as I said before, I am strong.  And overwhelmed by clutter.

You know how you’re in the dressing room, and you try something on and it looks ok and it’s probably on sale?  And you aren’t SURE you should buy it but you do anyway?  Then you have to take it back because you’ve had a guilt trip/second thought/attack of remorse?  That’s reverse shopping.

Even when I was still in junior high, I remember going shopping with my mom and hearing her say, “If you’re not 100% sure, then don’t buy it because you’ll never wear it!”  Back then, I didn’t reverse shop that much, because I wasn’t spending my own money.  Mom was right though, and now that I am spending my own money I flashback to her words everytime I’m in the dressing room.

Does anyone else buy things and even as your credit card is being swiped, you know in the back of your mind you’re going to return it?  Then you go and return it and while you’re there just decide to poke around and you see something that you just have to have, but it doesn’t feel like you’re spending money because you just got a refund!  That’s what I call multiplicative linear shopping.

Because of my propensity for reverse and linear shopping, I despise stores that track returns.  Does anyone remember the outrage several years ago when the Limited stores annouced they would start tracking returns, and reserved the right to deny a return if you’d brought back too much stuff?  Or maybe it was just me that was outraged. 

It’s not the tracking per se, but that you never know when they could decide to refuse you a return.  Give me a dollar limit or number of items in a certain time period and I have no problem with it.  It’s the unknown that makes me wobbly.

I also hate places that only give store credit – I’m talking to you Motherhood - and just on principle I refuse to buy anything there.  Even if I LOVE something and as Mom would say am 100% totally sure, I won’t buy it if I can’t return it.  It’s a leap of faith I cannot make.

The other day I had shopper’s remorse over a shirt that I bought for Alex.  But then I figured out that the cost of the gas to get me back to the store to return it cost more than the shirt. 

This is a new and unintended consequence of counting on reverse shopping to ease my guilt.  This is why I now find myself standing in stores trying to do numbers in my head until my brain hurts.  Then when I can’t figure out how much I’m saving vs. how much I really want something vs. how much it will cost if I change my mind, I stumble out of the store to find my Zoloft and forget to spend any money.

I think I’ve found the silver lining of driving a gas guzzler that requires premium gas and costs me $70 to fill up.

My severe inability to express myself in describing what I needed hampered me from finding the rubber thingy and resulted in purchase of several might-work-if-you-can’t-find-me-a-rubber-thingy things.  Even after I MacGuyver all these things together I’m pretty sure they will not work, and the thing I need is so simple I could draw it.  I just can’t ask for it.

I described it to the helpful Lowe’s weekend part time old guy, who probably works as a Wal-Mart greeter during the week.

“What you need is a rubber washer,” he said, showing me a rubber washer.

“No, that’s too flat.  Do you have anything like a rubber washer but squishier and fatter?”

He ran a hand over his buzz cut and gave me an odd look.

I dug deeper.  “It needs to go between the mirror and the frame and when I tighten the screw it will keep the mirror from tilting back and hitting the wall.”

He stared at me, so I just kept talking because you know, that’s what I do.

“Because you know we have this vanity and we just had the walls painted and I don’t want the mirror on the vanity leaning back against the wall and marking up the new paint job.”

“You need a rubber washer,” he repeated.

Okay.

What could I say?  It was .92 cents.  I bought a rubber washer.  And also some non-skid feet in hopes of sticking them to the rubber washer to make it squishier and fatter.  Which is not going to work because the feet are square and the washer is like a tiny doughnut.

Defeat Number 1.

Now let’s talk about paying for the .92 thing that was destined never to work anyway.  In fact the whole point of this post is really to rant about the crappiness that is the SELF CHECKOUT LANE.

When I went to check out, I found ONE regular check out lane open, but FOUR self checkout lanes open. 

There were 5 people in line at the regular check out.

Around the self checkout was a mob of confused looking shoppers wandering and bumping into each other like atoms, helplessly looking sheepish as they tried to figure out why they were having such a hard time performing a minimum wage job.

Have we strayed so far away from politeness and customer service – a time when employees were there to actually help customers – that we now think it’s a fun little novelty to scan your own goods?

It’s not.  It sucks.  The same way that ATM fees suck.  It’s cheaper for the store to NOT have to help you in any way whatsoever.  I’ll repeat – it is not a novelty, it’s a TOTAL SCAM.

A scam made worse by the bored, bitchy cashier who is there to “help” you if you get stuck with self-checkout, but whose help consists of looking at you like you’re a moron because you can’t get the digital voice to stop saying “Place your item in the bagging area…place your item in the bagging area” even though IT ALREADY IS.

And also helping by yelling from her perch across the aisle that you need to re-enter your credit card number three times and not give up after typing in 16 digits only twice.  Obviously, it isn’t her fault that the machine won’t scan your card.

So when you get pissed off at the lack of help, and lack of air conditioning (or maybe you are just pregnant and hot all the damn time) and decide to loudly say screw it (except starting with an “F”) and walk away leaving your transaction open and unfinished and your items in the bagging area, so that she has to get off her now outraged lazy ass and actually walk over to the register to cancel your transaction, feel a tiny bit better knowing that you stood up to the man.

And then turn around to those open mouthed customers behind you and yell, “Wake up lemmings!  The reason you are having a hard time is because IT’S NOT YOUR JOB TO CHECK YOURSELF OUT.”

And only then will you avoid Defeat Number 2.