Ish HushAmanda Does Not Recommend - Part Two

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen that will never admit they read this, to another rousing edition of 

Stuff I Don’t Recommend! 

First up: Ann Taylor Loft’s Drapery Pant - also available in petite!

Let me just say that The Loft, as I affectionately refer to it, makes up 20% of my closet due to my [all too handy] in-store credit card. There is, however, this obvious riff in The Loft, and it makes me tumbly all grumbly.

Apparently, although marketed towards us Gen Y’s, OLD people shop here too. So to make them happy, I suppose, Loft would like all of us to look like our grandmother’s curtains (your grandmother’s, because my grandmother rocks) - mostly around our hips too.

For $69.50, you’ll never have to run from family events again! Stand beside the windows, and people will blow right past those hideous curtains you are wearing as pants.Or don’t buy these. Ever.

 I do ACTUALLY love this store, so I can’t believe I’m going to make another dig, but y’all - the marketing email I received this morning from Ann Taylor Loft had this image in it:

I don’t love meth (meth being another thing I don’t recommend), but apparently this model does. What’s happening here? Why all the accessories? Why the ugly purse? Why the horse non-smile? WHY THE PANTS THAT WOULD BETTER SERVE MY BED AS A THROW?

Sigh.

Second Up: Printing a Phone Book

Approximately twice a year, my boss asks me to find a company or a person and if 10 minutes has passed in my online search, he’ll instruct me to find the phonebook. Of those two times per year I’ve had to dig out ONE of the NO LESS THAN FIFTEEN COPIES that were sent to us, as a company, only ONCE has it been useful. 

So basically, every year, this company spends oodles of dollars to mass print a document (that is outdated the millisecond it is printed), wasting forest loads of trees, only to chunk it (or 15) in front of my door so I trip over it?

Thanks. No, really.

I’m tired of doing this:

So as something I recommend you not do?

A) Print a phone book

but also

B) Not recycle it after you trip over it.

A lotta love, a little sweat, and a bunch of carpentry...

We’re expanding!Hmmm… I’m beginning to think you are on to something…
Or at least, in square footage.

In the next half year (to year), my 1,200+ square foot home will get a new 2-car garage, a master bedroom suite (with walk-ins and a large shower) as well as a revamped, open floor plan for the living room area. When the dust and the bills have settled, we are looking at nearly 2,000+ rsf!

[That’s “rentable square footage” in real estate short]

The kids will have double the play space too, and you can’t beat that with any sized stick.

But what to do first? Refinance and take out a loan against the house. This won’t be the easy part, but in the end, the boys and our little family will have all the room we need to grow, GROW and GROW! And that makes us all happy :)


***Legalities: This blog post in no way represents, falsly, that my current boyfriend and I are in any way living together. We have the intentions of moving forward with our relationship in a legal manner, in accordance to the divorce decree in full force and effect, so that this home may become “ours”. In other words, I’m not breaking any rules here.*** 

When They Were Young

Awww…

An oldie but goody

http://www.hushamanda.com/blog/2011/4/19/i-taking-pictures-momma.html

Blocks on the Brain

Dear Internet,

Yesterday, February 19th 2013, my now 7.5 year old son discovered the beginnings of a hole this generation knows as “Minecraft”.

Let the games…. begin.

On Stepparenting...

I have a stepfather.

In all senses, he is my Dad, but he is not my father.

I could write an entire post on what an amazing man he is, but this isn’t about that - at all.

I’m here to brush with a one-eyed, one horned flying monster much like the ones who roared their terrible roars and gnashed their terrible teeth and rolled their terrible eyes and showed their terrible claws (I absolutely didn’t steal that from Conner’s favorite book from circa 2011).

Stepparenting.

You see, I can see both sides of this convoluted soapbox where The Law meets The Heart (and oftentimes, unfortunately, The Finances). Talk about a gumbo-o-poop-town.

I know people that are stepparents.
I know people that are becoming stepparents.
I know people that are the product of stepparenting.

I am a stepchild.
I have children with a stepparent.

and…

I also know there’s the Good and the Bad.

Having been through a divorce, I understand that there’s My Version of my ex-husband, the Reality, and His Version. There’s also EVERYONE ELSE’S VERSION - EVER.

There’s also His version of Me. There’s also His Version of Me During Our Marriage, His Version of Me During Our Divorce process, His Version of Me in Present Day… the list continues.

You see, as much as I understand my ex-husband has changed (believe me, his current wife wouldn’t have married that other dude), he appears to have a complete LACK of understanding that I too am not Amanda of 2009. Or 2010. Or even 2011. If you knew me KNEW ME in 2012, you pass, but otherwise? No.

(It’s been a bit, ex-husband. People change. Accept some of that crap.)

Here I am, being a mom. A mom to these children, offspring that I had swimming around in my uterus, babies I held for the first time, young beings my genes created and so on and so forth… in present day JUST as I have since they were conceived.

And somehow, when the father of these children creates a legal document with another individual (in my case - one they’d known less than say… 7 months), that person is MAGICALLY transformed into a word that even sounds terrible “stepmom”.

{No really, there’s a possibility I may have to be one of those one day, and I would like to pre-vote that word be changed}

Congrats. You are now bound by nothing more than your ethics to assist in raising these children. That’s right - ethics. As some of you may or may not be aware, unless the biological mother of the child is unfit, deceased, or has relinquished her parental rights, Stepparents have NO legal rights.
Technically, you don’t have to do squat.

Sorry. It’s harsh.

You see - I’ve been here longer. I know their quirks. More importantly I know their medical history like it’s my life’s recital, their socials, their lullabies and their smell. I signed their birth certificate. Best of all - I have the motherly instinct forced into my nature at some point during pregnancy. If you’ve never had children before, you can only partially understand what it’s like to have your child flirt with anything dangerous.

It yanks at your brain from your ovaries. It pulls from your insides and screams “SOMETHING. IS. WRONG.”

And for me? It’s how I got Chase into this world.

Remember that thing about change? I changed with each child, each birth, but also, I changed with Chase’s fight for eight days in critical condition. I have a bond to my children that you can not have.

And I know that’s hard.

One day, you can have a similar bond. It takes time.

To the stepparents that dedicate energy, stress, love, tears, sweat, laundry detergent and tons of other resources - thank you. That’s all we, as the biological parent of that child you assist in caring for during custodial time, can say. One big “thanks for not being a douchebag”. 

We can only hope that you do YOUR BEST to treat them well. And that you take your time, and watch their hearts, as they HAVE a mother, but it takes more than her to raise any child.

(Should you push too hard, a boy will push back - all the way to his Mom)

What you may not understand though is “BEST” is a relative term. And the ironic thing about the world “relative” in this sentence is that it’s literal. The people “in charge” of determining what’s best for the children at question, in this case - Conner & Chase - are their relatives and in more specific and legal terms: Their biological mother (me) and their biological father (my ex-husband and your current husband).

Or as my children like to call me… “Mommy”. Just as they’ve done since Day 1.

To future Stepparents out there, I think I’ve come up with some advice.
Never make assumptions about the other parent. Never force yourself into a role that is already filled. Take your time to ask questions, observe and learn. There isn’t a test. You don’t get a report card, a thank you basket or a trophy.

Allow them space to breathe. Let them come to you. Give them time with their biological parent during custodial time.

And above all else - stop acting like immature fools.