HouseTalkN

Friday, May 24, 2013

7 Things That Suck About Being A WAHM

This month is my one year anniversary of being a WAHM- fancy talk for being a "work at home mom."
I.love.it.
I have blogged all about my shenanigans.
I shared my mom office, the "moffice."

I shared my streaking adventure.

I shared diy projects.

Today, I am sharing the ugly side of being a WAHM. It includes my case of "blogger butt." Meet me In The Powder Room and tell me your woes.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Bathrobe, Binoculars & Birding...Wordless Wednesday

Link Par-taay at:
http://www.gfunkified.com
http://www.projectalicia.com/
http://wordlesswednesday.blogspot.com/

Monday, May 20, 2013

What Color Makes You Happy?

Color makes people happy. It says so right on the door.

Checkered Moon always makes me happy.

Checkered Moon always has happy inventory and I can always find happy women.

Even if I pop in alone, I always run into an old friend or I make a new friend.

On this trip, I was wowed by all things YELLOW! How happy is this sofa?

Big things, small things, there is a touch of yellow for all occasions.

For her...

For baby...

For a gift...

What color makes you HAPPY?

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

I like to be funny. Making folks belly laugh is a drug to me.
Today, I am guest posting at Rants From Mommyland.
It is not funny. Zero belly laughs.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month.
Last year, In The Powder Room let me run this piece anonymously. It is one thing to share my own story, but this story is about more than just me. It is about people that I love most in the world. It is only my perspective.
I share it with a heavy heart and great unease. If you don't like it, please just move on. Know that it was not easy to write and gut wrenching to share.
Here you go:
For My Big Brother.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Let's Give The Delta Gamma Girl A Do-Over

Did you read the Delta Gamma sorority smackdown?
I did. I was horrified.
I was not horrified by her creative and prolific use of the f-bomb.
I was horrified that she turned on her sisters. I was horrified that impressing frat boys trumped her loyalty to her sorority sisters.
Twenty years ago...cough!... I met a group of women that I would share blue eyeshadow, AquaNet hairspray, and many laughs and tears with. I admire and love this women to this day.
Marriages, children, careers, the loss of muscle tone and 7 cities later, we can still pick up right where we left off. We can still make each other belly laugh. We still have each other's back.

On Friday night, I traveled back to my home state, Indiana (yeehaw!) to join the cast of The Listen To Your Mother Show. One of my sorority sisters was in the audience. I may or may not have squeezed her spleen out.
Here was a woman that I hadn't seen in 20 years. Here was a woman that had seen me at the most unflattering time of my life. Here was a woman that I knew loved me, flaws and all.
That is the sisterhood that I wish Ms. Delta Gamma could have. I decided that Ms. Delta Gamma deserves a "do-over!" Meet me In The Powder Room today. I am rewriting her letter.

Listen To Your Mother

"Giving Mother's Day A Microphone"

The Listen To Your Mother Show is everything that I love about women. I was so proud (and nauseous!) to join this cast of amazing women on Friday night. Fifteen smart, funny and brave women took to the stage to share their stories.
I felt connected not only to these women but also to the women all across the country who were also standing on stage for their local LTYM shows.
Images from backstage, on stage and the after parties were flooding my instagram, facebook and twitter feeds.

Thank you to Beth Fletcher Photography for these images!

Yukking it up backstage with Maxine Bonta, Nicole Leigh Shaw and Rae Disco.

Our fearless leader, Director Lovelyn Palm.

It was a wonderful experience to meet some of my favorite writers in real life. Angela Ammon was as kind and generous and funny as she is online.

We now break from Beth Fletcher's photos to my blurry iphone gems.

By 10am Saturday morning, I was back to yoga pants, sitting in a gymnasium cheering for a basketball game. I kept thinking, "Did that really happen last night?"
It still feels like a dream. A dream come true.

Sharing With:
http://www.gfunkified.com

Friday, May 10, 2013

Blackberries and Clothespins

Two things that were constants in my childhood- blackberries and clothespins.
My mother, her mother, and her mother - all southern ladies, passed these traditions down to the next generation.
They could make a blackberry cobbler with a shoe.
There was always a steady stream of laundry on the line.
Looking back, many of my memories have blackberries and/or clothespins in the background.
There was the fight with a sister that started with a simple observation- "Your teeth are purple."
My mother's instructions each day for me to "hang out the wash". Let's just say that my heavy sighing and eye rolling did not go unnoticed.
Nor did I actually follow the instructions. Many days, the scorned electric dryer was fired up just before my mothers return home. Of course, the smell or the lack of the "outside" smell gave me away every stinkin' time.
I hated that our laundry was on display for everyone to see. For the love of gravy, what if someone saw my undies hanging out there? Was she trying to ruin my life?
My mother now lives in the same house that my grandmother lived in. She makes the same trek out to the clothesline each day that my grandmother did, uses the same pins.
Just beyond the clothesline is the massive row of blackberry bushes. My kiddos now go berry pickin' at the same bushes that I did. The same bushes that provided me with years of purple teeth.
My sister lives three doors away from my mother, 6 acres between them. We spend our visits running back and forth between the two- often barefoot or in our jammies.
When my kiddos finally lay their heads down at night, exhausted from a day romping with the cousins, I know that they are drifting toward sleep with the scent of fresh laundry in their widdle noses....and that their teeth are tinted purple.