Feeling Like a Domestic Goddess

So now that the weather has begun to turn, I find myself migrating toward the kitchen when I'm a bit bored and looking for something to do. Or when I'm avoiding something I'm supposed to be doing. The good news is that rather than grazing I'm cooking, baking, drying and even canning. In just the past week I've made strawberry jam and pear butter, tried out several new recipes with my awesome dutch oven, and dried the parsley, oregano and thyme from the garden. When did I become possessed by Martha?

I like to consider myself a modern woman who has made her own way. I work and at one time was climbing the ladder, I bought a house by myself before I bought one with my husband, I used to change the oil in my car before I could pay someone to do it for me, I would eat out or go to movies alone if I couldn't find a suitable companion. I most certainly consider myself a feminist -- a strong independent woman who makes her own decisions. You get the idea.

And if you had asked me 10 years ago if my time in the kitchen would rival my time at the computer I would have laughed in your face -- LOUDLY! But these days I'm finding amazing pleasure in the kitchen (and in this case I'm not talking about a quickie on the counter). Making my family and friends a delicious meal from scratch has become as much of a rush as getting my byline on page one. Taking something from my garden and transforming into a jar in my pantry is exhilarating -- I am beyond pleased to know that the dried parsley I'll be using in my winter stews was grown, dried and stored by moi! Or that the next PB&J will include my handiwork and not that of Smuckers.

Experimenting and playing in the kitchen has always been a hobby but these days it's more like an obsession. And it leaves me wondering. Have I become simple or have I just learned that simple can be satisfying too?

Three Year Old...Friend or Enemy?

That's the title of the book I'm reading and as I'm quickly learning it's a good summation of life in our house these days. It's almost as if on cue, our daughter began acting like a three-year-old about a month before her birthday. It's what I imagine living with a schizophrenic would be like. Day-to-day I'm never quite sure which personality I'm going to get -- heck, it's more like minute-to-minute. I'm just relieved to learn that this erratic behavior is to be expected. I was beginning to think I had lost the upper hand in our parent-child relationship. So happy to know I'm at least hanging on.

If you've never lived with a three-year-old let me try and explain what it's like. Imagine you have a dog. And this dog has always been a pretty obedient little creature. Sure he whined and cried when you first brought him home or when you made him sleep in his own bed instead of yours, but for the most part, this cute little puppy was a pleasure. Always happy to see you, willing to eat whatever you put in its dish, easy to take along for a car ride, and fairly quick though not always capable of responding to your commands. Now imagine that dog has suddenly gotten moody...and opinionated. Sometimes happy to see you, sometimes poised to bite you for no reason; refusing to eat anything even if it's a favorite; completely unwilling to obey even the simplest commands; obsessed with making even the smallest task a battle of wills. That's sort of what it's like, except that your dog also is always whining, trying to boss you around, and incessantly reminding you that he can "do it myself." I am grateful everyday for preschool and grandparents who live close by.

But like any smart psychotic, three-year-olds also know how to give you the good stuff...the stuff that keeps you locked under their magical spell and stuck in the insanity. Not 10 minutes after refusing to get in the car, she will grab your hand without any prompting in the parking lot at the store and smile the sweetest smile. Or after standing defiantly in her room and telling you she isn't getting dressed, I'll return a few minutes later to find her toys put away, her bed made and her sitting on the floor "reading" a book. Or she'll make some clever remark like, "Mommy, you're not old...Granny is old." Or she'll just spontaneously grab my face, put us nose-to-nose and say, "Mommy, I love you the best and you're my favorite in the whole wide world." Talk about making 14 hours of labor without drugs worthwhile. Oh yeah.

So some moments my three-year-old is my friend and others maybe not my enemy but definitely something like a hostile witness. But she is always the second greatest love of my life and that will ensure both of us survive to celebrate her fourth birthday.

Bailout for Homeowners -- Is It Working Where You Live?

Living in one of the states hardest hit by the recession, I've seen first hand how many people are facing the ugly reality of losing their homes. It's awful to see friends lose their homes because of a job loss or cutbacks at work. Still, I have to wonder if all of these mediation and bailout programs are working. Nevada has received nearly $200 million from the feds for various programs but from what I can tell it hasn't made much difference. The dead lawns persist and many homeowners are still underwater in their mortgages. Our house is worth at least $50,000 less than we paid for it six years ago and we bought at the beginning of the boom not at the peak. I would love to walk away from it but that's not just the right thing to do. So we continue to make the payments and hope that one day the value returns. Our house has essentially become a forced retirement savings account since we probably won't be able to sell it until we're 60.

I was in favor of the bailout for the banks as I thought that letting them fail would have devastating consequences for all of us. And I'm for bailing out homeowners to keep them from losing their homes. However, I am not for bailing out those who gambled on the market as investors or who kept using their home equity as a credit card. If you gamble, sometimes you lose. And then you pay. Anyone who's ever been to a casino or the track knows what I mean.

The sad reality is that whether or not these bailout programs are working there is little choice but to keep going. Just like the banks, the alternative is too frightening. What we're doing may not be working but don't you think that failing to do anything would be even worse?

I Approve This Message...

Election Day is 37 days away and honestly, it can't come soon enough. I'm not anxious because I want to know whether Harry Reid will still be Majority Leader of the Senate or who will be the next governor of California or if Lisa Murkowski can win as a write-in candidate. I care about those races but that's not my motivation. Nope, my desire is purely selfish. I'm counting down to Election Day so that I can get my TV back. I am sick of campaign ads. When my 3yo is telling me she loves Harry Reid because he approved this message or is reciting Sharron Angle's position on Social Security, I know the flood has turned into a tidal wave. I swear, she doesn't get to watch that much TV!

As a former campaign staffer and sometime campaign consultant, I cannot tune out the ads. It's like a car wreck -- I have to watch. But I am tired of all the noise and frankly, all the distortions. No one is immune and the flurry of accusations is flying so quickly that it's impossible for the ad watch folks to keep up. You really have to pay close attention to the legitimate political coverage to be able to decipher fact from fiction. And while you would be hard pressed to find a voter who says they listen to attack ads, there's no denying they work. And that disconnect has always puzzled me. Everyone says they want to know what candidates are about and vote on issues but campaigns are won based on name recognition and driving your opponent's negative perception numbers up.

Between the two-year slugfest that was the 2008 presidential campaign and the 2010 campaigns that started in 2009, it feels like we now live in a never ending election cycle. And it's exhausting listening to this much negativity. I'm ready for it to end, if only for a few weeks until we start chattering about 2012. Still I can't help but wonder what it would take to change the dialogue. If we don't like listening to attacks, then why are they so effective?

LiLo Needs To Learn The Hard Way

Watching my 3-year-old totter on the edge of the deck in our backyard I had given up. My repeated attempts to warn her that walking on the edge would inevitably result in a fall had fallen on deaf ears. Some lessons she will just have to learn the hard way without me there to buffer the blows.

Lindsay Lohan is a lot like my daughter in that apparently she is going to have to learn the hard way that her hard partying ways are trouble. The actress reportedly has failed two mandatory drug tests and according to this story www.latimes.com is due back in court this week. Lohan's planned return to the big screen could be in jeopardy if the judge won't let her travel. Under the terms of her sentence she could end up back in jail. I say it's time to throw the book at her. Maybe a real stint in jail is what it's going to take for her to get it. She may be special but when it comes to the law, she's run out of chances for special treatment. It worked for Robert Downey Jr. And maybe it's what it will take for Lohan to finally sober up. Addiction is a disease but if the sick don't stick with treatment they must suffer the consequences. Remember all this started with a 2007 incident of driving under the influence -- it's time the law protect the rest of us from her careless behavior.

LiLo says she's ready to face the consequences -- more jail or more rehab? What do you think?

Trying To Keep Up!

So when I started this blog I thought I'd just write some interesting stuff, post it, and that would be that. What a naive new blogger I was. There is so much to learn! I'm finding blogging to be a whole new world and a whole new community of friends and connections. I've met other like-minded ladies via TwitterMoms, found a bunch of bloggy friends via blog hops, and discovered a whole new community via Networked Blogs. I'm Twittering, FB'ing and hopping like I never thought possible. And I'm pretty sure I'm making some mistakes along the way. So followers, friends, connections and raters, please bear with this newbie as I try to figure it all out. I will do my best to follow back, retweet and hop as instructed - but if I get it wrong, please let me know and I'll do my best to make it right. And please, any wisdom or advice from my sage blogging friends is so much appreciated!

Would You Ever Try To Ban A Book?

In 2010, it's hard to believe that anything is off limits. When porn is readily accessible to anyone with a cable or Internet hookup, I was rather surprised to learn that people are still trying to ban books from libraries. That seems so last century. But between 2001 and 2009, there were more than 4,000 challenges to books in the US and more than 450 just in 2009. Not a staggering number but more than I would have expected. Most challenges were due to sexually explicit material and offensive language though being anti-family or advocating the wrong religious viewpoint are other often cited problems. Check out all the statistics and the list of frequently targeted books at the American Library Association's website at www.ala.org

But what I found most interesting is that most of the challenges were brought forward by parents trying to remove books from school libraries. As the parent of a small child, I'm sympathetic. I wish I could protect my daughter from everything I see and hear that I think is inappropriate for her or simply offensive. But it's just not possible and frankly, it won't serve her well in the future. How else is she going to define her own boundaries of taste and acceptability if she isn't occasionally exposed to something that goes beyond those boundaries? How is she going to understand how lucky she is to live in a free society if she can't read about the concept of "Big Brother" in 1984? How will she know how much our world has (or hasn't) changed its attitudes about race if she can't read To Kill a Mockingbird? How can I teach her tolerance and acceptance if she is only exposed to that which is familiar? Classics are often defined by the simple fact that they challenge us to confront that which makes us uncomfortable.

Is it difficult? Absolutely. I dread the days I know are coming when I have to explain things like prejudice and bigotry. I've already had to begin what will certainly be an ongoing conversation about her body and sexuality, and it totally makes me uncomfortable but I do it anyway. Hiding her from these difficult realities would be shirking my duties as her parent and taking the easy way out of the tough job of being a mom. There are certainly questions of what is age appropriate but that's up to me to define as the parent of my child and I wouldn't dream of forcing another to follow my standard.

There is a lot in this world that my daughter will encounter that I would prefer to shield her from. But I think it's wiser to arm her with the critical thinking skills and the moral code to evaluate what she confronts rather than teach her to hide from it. It's the price we pay to live in a free society and I'm absolutely willing to pay it. What about you?