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Today has been one of the most wonderful days! This blog went live, and the response was over the top more than I ever imagined it might be. To say I am elated is an understatement.

I am NOT going to admit to you that as I watched the number of visitors to my site climb well over 300 throughout the day, I kept dancing around and clapping. I’m NOT going to tell you I broke into tears reading some of the emails of encouragement. I won’t admit to any of those things, because I’m reserved like that.

BUT, I will tell you that I feel like Sally Fields when receiving a People’s Choice Award: “You like me! You really do like me!”

Naturally, my children wanted to know what their weirdo mother was up to this time. They like to be prepared and braced for any backlash that might happen at school…not that that would happen…again.

I was trying to explain to the kids what a blog is. The first questions they raised were basically “Yeah, but what’s in it for us?”. That’s normal, I guess. I told them (rather sarcastically) that if Mamaboe.com went viral, it could result in advertisers looking to partner with me. It could result in a book deal. It could result in all kinds of positive monetary flow! IT COULD RESULT IN A TRIP TO DISNEY WORLD!

Of course, Disney is what really spoke to them. I’ve always wanted to take them, but whenever we managed to save the money for it, something else has come up. My 9 and 10 year olds have never been to Disney! (I keep expecting Children’s Protective Services to call.)

Gwen immediately began brainstorming about how she could help the effort of growing Mamaboe.com. “I’ll make Flyers and hand them out at school!” She’s always been my go-getter, ultra-responsible, generous-hearted peanut.

Garrick’s mind works a little differently:
“Mom?” he asked, “Will you be a millionaire?”
“You never know!” I laughed.
“YES!” he shrieked! “That means you will finally stop saying that annoying ‘I’m not made of money!’ that you always say!

Well. If that isn’t motivation for me to work hard at making this blog a success, I don’t know what is.

(She claps her hands together and rubs them vigorously.)

I’d better get to work!

One of the many reasons I have not been riding on the Medic Unit with our local fire station lately is that I have a Ventral Hernia.  (collective “EWWWWWWWWW”)  Easy there, Kimosabes, it’s not that gross.  At least, not unless I make you touch it.

Then it’s fabulously disgusting.  (ask my daughter.)

I’m not going to regale you with nasty details and anatomical descriptions.  All it means is part of my intestines are coming though the scar in my belly from a previous surgery last spring.  Until we can go in and fix it surgically, in a month or so, I mustn’t lift enormously heavy things (like patients on medic unit cots), bear down too hard when I’m, er….YOU KNOW,  or do sit-ups.  (Oooooo.  Like that last one is a sacrifice.)

And I’m no hero.  I have been using this baby to get me out of as much as possible.  Did you know I can’t lift laundry baskets or large grocery bags or any other thing that might be remotely displeasing to me?  Whatever is inconvenient, I can’t lift.  Just ask my husband, Troy.

So its been this family joke for a little while as we wait for the surgery to happen.  “Mommy can’t, guys, she might bust a gut.”

And today, during one of the two basketball games I attended for my kids, I learned something else about Ventral Hernias.

You can’t scream maniacally, jump up and down, and do victory dances with one.  …or you actually WILL Bust a Gut.  Literally.

My son scored the only basket during his game today.  My son, the littlest one.  My son, the one most often treated with disdain and impatience and basically ostracized by his peers because of his crazy impulsivity, came into a moment of glory during his team’s crushing defeat.  I saw his little form steal the ball, zip in and out and under the other, bigger, more talented players, take a chance, shoot, and score and I LITERALLY turned inside out for him.   I mean, I was the quintessential embarrassment to my children.  The parent that makes everyone feel sorry for the kid.  That was me.

And then, I felt a pop, a burning, and I thought….either I just made my hernia worse, or I am gestating an Alien.  Or I need to ease up on the Taco Bell.

Needless to say, I spent the entire time during my daughter Gwendolyn’s game on the bleachers, with one hand holding my belly.   But I was prepared!  I knew that when and if Gwen had a moment of glory, I would be willing to blow out the rest of my intestines for her as I turned inside out again.

If that isn’t motherly love, I just don’t know what is.

I got my hair cut today.  Seriously cut.  It WAS more than halfway down my back, and now it’s barely past my neck.

This particular change in me all started around last Thanksgiving.  A beautiful little asian woman, who was giving my crocodile feet a pedicure at the time, had told me that I was too old for long hair.  I smirked condescendingly at her when she said it.  I quietly rolled my eyes at her lack of enlightenment.  My self-confidence was not a bit worried about her head-on attack on my self-image.

But, and I hesitate to admit this…apparently she was too sly for me…. her ridiculously frank tactic had actually hit the mark after all; the damage was done.  She’d planted the seed in my psyche, and ever since then, more and more I’ve seen my long hair as a desperate grasp at my youth. Each long strand mocked by every silver strand.

So I did what any other delusioned 44 year old woman would do, and I bought a cheap box of temporary hair color.  Chestnut brown, if you must know.  Actually, I bought 2 boxes, figuring if some is good, more is better.  And I slathered that stuff on my hair like it was some kind of nasty smelling elixer of youth.  (I also got some on the bathroom sink, the linoleum floor, the bathtub, the shower curtain, and my ear.  But I didn’t figure that out until it had had a good long time to set.)

So now I had this seriously long, excruciatingly, impossibly perfectly mono-hued chestnut colored head of hair.   I looked like I had fallen head-first into a vat of Sharpie Ink.  Or dog-poo, depending on who you asked.

I don’t know what made me actually crack this morning, but I was at CVS, and Images Hair Salon was across the parking lot, calling out to me like a Siren to a sailor.  “Come to me, old woman, and cut your hair before you make an ass of yourself.”  “Come to me, granny, before you trip on your delusional tresses.”  “Come to me, before another tiny asian manicurist hits you below the belt.”

“Alright,” I thought, “If I’m meant to change my hair, they will have an immediate opening.  If not, I’ll forget the whole thing.”

They had an immediate opening.

Turns out, we had enough hair to donate to Locks of Love, a charity that makes wigs for children going through Chemotherapy.  I felt good about that…..until the sylist informed me that she believed Locks of Love doesn’t take hair that is either 1) gray or 2) colored.  Mine was both.  ***sigh***

Snip. Snip.  Edwina Scissorhands went to work.  And before I knew it, the deed was done.  My new hair-do felt significantly lighter. I liked it! As I left the salon, my step was a little bouncier.  Everyone I met “ooohed” and “aaahhed.”  I felt lovely.  Birds were singing.  The sun was shining.

My son, Garrick, saw it when he came off the bus and simply asked, “What happened to YOU?”

Daughter Gwen, my sweet, painfully honest peanut, saw it when I picked her up from Drama and said, “It looks good.  Not great, but good.”

And all of this because I got a Pedicure around Thanksgiving.

I wonder what chain of events I would start off if I got a Manicure?

We have an old refrigerator.  But it works.  And in the age of “oh crap, where did our investments go?”, an old, working refrigerator is our friend.   It beats the heck out of NO refrigerator.   A few months ago, the Ice Maker in the freezer of this old Jalopy of a fridge, konked out on us.  “We’ll make do,” I thought.

I hate drinking warm water. I REALLY hate drinking Warm water from a well.

Then one of the arms in the door of the freezer broke.  I duct taped it.  It lasted a little bit, then it too, gave up the ghost.  So we cannot store much in the door.  “We’ll make do,” I thought.

Then one of the drawers in the bottom part of the fridge broke off.  I still store stuff where it used to be, but instead of pulling out the drawer and gently placing food within, I just cram it all back in the drawer-less void and hope I’ll remember what is back there later….before whatever it is procreates.

Forget “We’ll make do!”.  I’m starting to hate my fridge.  As a cook and a foodie, its one of my most important tools!

BUT….it’s better than NO fridge.

Last week, Troy and his Beer Brewing Partner (see One-Eyed Dog Brewing) Dutch picked up a fridge they got for free from a construction site. It’s in pretty good shape. And you know what they did with it? Did they come replace my old jalopy? Did they use its parts to fix my poor broken down warhorse of a fridge?

Nope.

They plan to stick a keg or two into it, filled with their home-made brews, and then drill a place for spiquets on the outside of the front door and make what is called a “kegerator”.

Men have their priorities.

At least I have a fridge.

As I said, it’s better than NO fridge. And, for the time being, the old Jalopy is still chugging along.

Sometimes I can comiserate with it.  My own personal icemaker (in the form of a metabolism) broke years ago….Parts of me are duct-taped together….and parts of me are missing entirely.  But in the same vein…it may be a broken down body, but its better than NO body.

And, as Garrick would say, “At least it isn’t puke.”