I was trying to clean house this morning, but Everett had other plans. He stood at the door with his sweater and shoes in hand, screaming at me until I finally gave in and we took a walk. We headed over to Bartell’s to pick up a couple of things and Everett decided that he needed to carry my new deodorant all around the Magnolia Village with him. We obviously need to get a dog.
(Sorry babe, but I’m about to sell you out here.)
What you may not know about my dear husband is that he is borderline obsessed with apocalypse-esque disaster situations. He loves to read fiction about the world ending and listen to radio talk shows that present new theories. Good thing he is a pretty level-headed guy (he’s an engineer after all), so although he’s fascinated by it all, he isn’t crazy. Well, not yet at least.
When TLC Book Tours asked me to read and review a new book by Lisa Bedford called Survival Mom, I had a nice ironic laugh. As much as I am entertained by Josh’s interest in these topics, and even admit to being somewhat curious about them myself, thinking about what I’d do in a true disaster makes me very panicky. And that makes me very sweaty. And that makes me very cranky.
I’m sure other mothers out there will agree — when I think about that big earthquake finally hitting Seattle (insert whatever natural disaster is near and dear to your heart here) and the possibility that it could happen when we aren’t together as a family — it makes my stomach turn. How would we get to each other? And once we did make our way home from wherever we were when disaster hit, what would we do then? Forget about it. Major panic attack.
Survival Mom hit a chord with me for many reasons. Not just because I am starting to get paranoid about natural disasters and other similar issues, but because Survival Mom teaches you how to prepare for both “everyday disasters and worst-case scenarios” and here’s the best part — it’s easy to read and easy to follow. It makes preparing your home and your family actually pretty fun…
Here are the top 10 things I loved about Survival Mom:
1.The book starts with a quiz and if you knew me when I was a tween (although this was before the term “tween” existed), you would know that I was totally into quizzes. When I saw the What Kind of Survival Mom Are You? quiz at the beginning of the book, I was practically giddy.
2. You can easily skip around the book as you’d like, pulling out pieces and sections that apply to you and saving ones that are less relevant for later.
3. Lisa breaks everything down for you. It’s like Survival Preparedness for Dummies (not to say that moms are dummies, obviously). But, the glossaries and term definitions in the sidebars of the book are very helpful.
4. Throughout Survival Mom, there are stories from real survival moms.
5. The book makes a seemingly very overwhelming issue seem reasonable. Preparing your home and family for disasters is, indeed, and overwhelming task. This isn’t something that happens overnight and Lisa doesn’t make you feel guilty for taking this step-by-step.
6. The lists. Oh, how I love a good list. And, Survival Mom has all sorts of them. Checklists of things you need. Fill-in-the-blank lists for your own to-dos. LOVE. This book is meant to be used, written in and referred to, not kept on a bookshelf to collect dust.
7. I went online to compare Survival Mom to other similar books and I appreciated that Survival Mom has the best of both worlds — the hardcore information that you need to know to truly prepare your home and family, but also with specific information that speaks to moms. There are sections on helping children deal with disasters emotionally, on including grandparents in your survival plans and even a section on great books to read to kids that talk about survival.
8. The book has a sense of humor. One of the quotes I highlighted was “If the Apocalypse comes, beep me.” — Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
9. The physical size of the book is my favorite — just small enough to throw in my purse easily to read when I happen to make it to school pick-up early. (which never happens, by the way.)
10. Despite being a mommy book, the material is not dumbed down, like you would expect it to be. You’re going to be reading about how to get the most from your generator and what you need to know about investing in gold and silver.
Pick up a copy of Survival Mom — I highly recommend it as a starting point for getting your family prepared for disasters of all kinds. (Even my apocalypse-obsessed husband is reading it!) And, check out Lisa’s website while you’re at it — she posts almost daily about survival related issues and offers free online classes to get a jump-start on getting your family thinking about these important topics.
I was provided with a copy of Survival Mom for TLC Book Tours for this review. All opinions and paranoia issues are my own.
I named her Greta.
A conversation between Josh and I tonight…
Me: I just feel horrible. That poor little raccoon, being attacked like that.
Josh: Well, maybe it was consensual. Just some raccoon sex gone wrong.
Me: (with a light bulb going off over my head) Oh my gosh. Maybe they didn’t have a SAFE WORD! Or maybe that was the sound she was trying to make that we kept hearing last night, but it’s raccoon-speak, so it was hard for him to tell that she wanted him to stop.
Josh: (silence)
Me: (insert awkward raccoon rape noises here.)
In additional animal rape news, a friend, who I am going to assume would like to stay anonymous, for obvious reasons, just emailed me about the ducks at her house that are apparently very aggressive. She said she had to chase off a male duck the other day and that she witnessed a DUCK GANG RAPE recently. You can read more HERE.
(I promise not to talk about animal sex anymore. Really. Promise.)
My brother Bobby has been staying with us the past few months during the week for work and it is his 28th birthday today. Little did he know that I had planned a big surprise for him.
Last night, he was crawling in to bed, just freshly 28 and then SURPRISE! Front row seat to two raccoons going at it! Happy 28th birthday!
The bedroom he’s staying in is in the basement and it has those long, skinny sunken windows, leaving a pretty good-sized area… the perfect size for two raccoons, come to think of it! Just as he was going to bed, he heard a thump, and sure enough, when he pulled open the blinds, there were two raccoons, one very big (as in the size of a dog) and one average size, and they seemed to be, ahem, going at it.
Josh and I both woke up and heard them. Josh thought it was dogs (um, really?) and I was too scared to look outside because I didn’t want them to attack me. Did I mention that these fuckers scare me to death? They do. I’m pretty sure one of them is going to crawl down our chimney some night. I think it comes from a summer camp counselor telling us a story about a girl who hid candy under her pillow in the cabin (which were three-sided cabins) and she woke up to a raccoon on her face. That must be it. Also, I slept in my cousin Robyn’s bunk with her pretty much that entire two-weeks.
Anyway.
Unfortunately, the smaller raccoon didn’t survive this encounter and now I have a raccoon homicide situation on my hands. Or maybe it was raccoon date rape, turned accidental homicide. It’s hard to tell at this point. Bobby said that the big raccoon tried to drag the little one out of the window area, but couldn’t. Obviously he was concerned about being caught, but then he realized that raccoons don’t have fingerprints, so he just left her.
I called the Department of Fish and Wildlife — their website says that they respond to dead animals within city limits — but the gal on the phone told me I should bury it. Umm. I’m calling from 98199 — where the hell am I suppose to BURY a raccoon? I don’t even mow my own GRASS. “In that case,” she explained patiently, “just double bag it and put it in the garbage.”
I didn’t mean to say this out loud to her, but it slipped out, “How do I pick it up? BY THE TAIL?”
She suggested wearing gloves.
The weirdest thing about this whole story is that odd raccoon situations only happen when my brother is here. When Bobby was visiting a couple of summers ago, he woke up to a huge noise in the backyard, only to find a gigantic raccoon taking a leisurely swim in our kiddie pool. Then the raccoon couldn’t get out.
Happy 28th, Bobby. I promise that this wasn’t your real present. Although, if you keep making weird ass raccoon shit happen at our house, I might reconsider.
everett at 25 months old. he refuses to hold my hand while we walk and crosses his arms in front of his chest to show me how committed he is.
I had a rough time leaving the house this morning, as I often do on Tuesday and Thursday mornings… the days I spend sitting at the Starbucks that is less than a block from my house (literally, I can see my house from where I’m typing right now).
Long ago, before I was even a parent, a friend was telling me that she had just gone back to work part-time — her daughter was about a year old. I remember having her tell me that it’s actually harder on your kids to work part-time, as opposed to full-time because they can’t grasp that mommy is there some days and not other days. It didn’t make sense to me at the time, but now, her words are ringing in my head every time Meg pulls on my legs on Tuesday and Thursday mornings with tears in her eyes and begs me not to leave. Everett is old enough to realize that he’s suppose to follow suit and starts crying too. I try hard to stop and look them in the eyes and tell them that I’ll be back soon and that I love them (which I do, eventually), but most mornings, as I’m trying to rush Janie off to school, I often turn to frustration first — not with them, but with myself. It’s not pretty and I’m not proud of the way I leave the house on those days… in fact, it crushes me.
I’ve crossed the line where I’m no longer working for fun and a few extra bucks in my pocket and I’ve had a hard time coming to terms with that. But, despite only working outside of the house two days a week, I work from home the other days, piecing together a full-time career between morning work sessions while the kids watch too many episodes of Curious George, nap times, Meg being in preschool, and far too many 2:00 a.m. nights and weekends working while Josh and the kids enjoy some time together.
This post isn’t intended for sympathy, because I know I have it better than most working parents. I get to make my own schedule and be home with my kids more often than not and I realize that is a luxury that not many parents have. But as thankful as I am for this career, the people who I get to work with, the opportunities is affords me and the absolute passion it drives in me, it will never make me feel better about handing two crying kids over to our nanny, turning my back and walking out the door.
i‘ll be back later today with a review of a fantastic book. check back if you get a chance.
Congrats to Ingrid!
Thank you to everyone who voted at OnlineShoes.com and who entered the giveaway.
Don’t forget that if you didn’t win, you can still get $20 off the Rockport Ashika Knot Tie Flat, just for voting.
(love to OnlineShoes.com and Rockport Shoes for having me as their guest on Style Central.)
I’m sure you’ve seen this popping up on Facebook recently — The Food List Challenge. You can find it HERE and you don’t have to post it to your Facebook profile to see how many foods from this list you’ve tried. Apparently the average user has tried 48 of these foods and I was surprised to find that I’ve tried 63 of them… even though I’m a bit wimpy when it comes to trying new foods. Of the foods that I haven’t tried, I found that I’ve never even heard of many of them…
Here are the foods on the list that I haven’t eaten:
Abalone
Alligator
Baba Ghanoush
Bellini (this is a very sad moment for me…)
Bird’s Nest Soup
Black pudding (hmm. maybe I have had this after all, now that I think about it.)
Borscht
Carp
Chicken and Waffles
Chicken Tikka Masala
Chitlins
Crickets
Currywurst
Dandelion Wine
Durian
Fried Plantain
Frito Pie
Frog Legs
Fugu
Goat
Haggis
Head Cheese
Kangaroo
Lassi (actually, I’ve had this too…)
Nettle Tea
Paneer
Pavlova
Phaal
Pho
Rabbit Stew
Sea Urchin
Shark
Snake
Som Tam
Squirrel
Tom Yum
Umeboshi
What was your score? Have you tried any of the foods I haven’t?
card via some e-cards
I’m looking for some people to participate in a new series on Being5 about the day-to-day life of parents. One of my absolute favorite parts about reading personal blogs is what the bloggers do every day — from the time they get up until the time they go to bed — and I’m hoping to make this a new weekly feature on Being5.
But, I need some fantastic parents and families to get us started. If you’re interested, please email me at being5blog@gmail.com and I’ll send you the details. Once I have some people lined up, I’ll start with my own day-to-day post to give you a peek into what I do all day long.
You don’t need to have an exciting life to participate — that’s the great thing about these! We want to see what you do in a normal day. No makeup. Having to go to Costco because you’re out of diapers and the baby has to wear a swim diaper in the meantime. What you’re wearing to work. Whatever it may be.
Not a parent? I want you too. Send me an email, will ya? Make us all jealous that you are kid-free and drinking mojitos at 4:30 p.m. without having to check your watch 12 times wondering how much cash you’ll need for the babysitter.
Email me. This is going to be good. I promise. being5blog@gmail.com (you know you want to.)
We’re headed back to Seattle today after an extended weekend in Bellingham for Spring Break, but not before staying for a few more hours to get some playtime in with Taylor. Everett is napping and the three girls are playing together so well… I’m seriously considering kidnapping Tay and bringing her to Seattle with us for the rest of the week. Cousins really are the best, aren’t they? It’s like having siblings, but without the drama of living together on a day-to-day basis. I think I saw a quote recently (probably on Pinterest) that said something about cousins being your first friends and from the sounds of the giggles coming from downstairs, I’m pretty sure that’s true.
