I really want to delete my Facebook account. And Instagram, while I'm at it, to a lesser degree. I wiped my Twitter account ages ago, but that was hardly a sacrifice -- I was only ever on Twitter because oh my God, you have a blog and/or write for another blog, you have to be On Twitter! You can't not be On Twitter! But I never loved Twitter. It gave me a weird, low-level anxiety -- way too much of everything, all of the time -- and I never particularly excelled at being funny or engaging in a format that did not allow for paragraph-length run-on sentences. And I think a huge chunk of my followers were just blue eggs who signed up circa 2008/2009 to see what the fuss was about, took Twitter's suggestion that I was someone to follow because they checked "Parenting" or "Humor" or "Deodorant" as topics of interest, then never logged in again. (And yet I could never get my account verified for some reason??) Eventually I only used it to cross-post blog or Instagram links before finally deciding: This is dumb, and I'm not going to do it anymore. Facebook is not dumb, just... Read more →

Like many of us, in a valiant attempt to maintain my mental health, I've spent much of the past year past year-and-a-half-twenty-twenty-garbage in a place of quiet self-reflection and contemplation. When so many things you held to be true and constant are suddenly proven to be false or shifting -- the inerrant goodness of humanity, the forward curve of justice, the strength of the global toilet paper supply chain, etc. -- it's important to try to stay grounded and focused on what hasn't changed, on what you can depend on. For me, in particular, it's the enduring and absolute marketing battshittery of the deodorant label. I mean, look at this thing. This is no mere tube of armpit goo. This is Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant. Or more accurately: Degree® MOTIONsense® ULTRACLEAR BLACK + WHITE PURE CLEAN INVISIBLE SOLID antiperspirant This thing has not one, but TWO registered trademarks! It's got the balls to put the three most specifically descriptive words about the product at VERY BOTTOM, in VERY TEENY TINY TYPE! And it STILL needs to spill over to the lid space to assert that it is also ANTI YELLOW STAINS and ANTI... Read more →

Back in early May, Ike scolded about not updating my website enough. I told him I didn't really have anything interesting to post about, so he ordered me to take a photo of him right there and then. "There. Now you have something interesting for your website." That was over a month ago, and yet I still didn't update my website as ordered. And then Ike's birthday (oh hi he's TEN now, all the Amalah babies are DOUBLE DIGITS now, don't you feel your bones disintegrating into ANCIENT DUST now) came and went and I still didn't update my website. I didn't want the site to officially devolve into something that only got updated on/around their birthdays, so...well. I guess I sure showed me! The site has officially devolved into a shining testament to both procrastination and my own very weird logic. Anyway, hello! It's a random Monday in June! LET'S BLOG THE HELL OUT OF IT. Tomorrow is everyone's last day of the Weirdest School Year Ever. Noah will spend it waving at people on his Chromebook screen. Ezra will attend in-person and distribute handmade letters and art projects to his favorite teachers, which are technically all of them,... Read more →

I was finally, at last, officially issued mah gubbermint ID badge yesterday. And despite the cheery encouragement from the woman who took my photo, the badge features what can only be described as THE WORST PHOTO OF ME EVER TAKEN. Actually, that's not the only way to describe it. After sending a celebratory selfie to a handful of friends, they responded with the following descriptions of the photo: hahahahahahaha oh noooooooo That does not look like you! Holy weird 70s hostage lighting You just look like a Karen I was gonna say a 1950s Appalachian grandma I see eye sockets but no eyeballs? Where are your teeth? WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE Oooof, girl. None of them are wrong. I, personally, cannot figure out how I manage to look sort of...melted? And also very swollen? While all my facial features kind of...shrunk? I'm like a puffy, well-fed hostage-ghoul of some kind. (Less creatively and more bluntly: I look old, and I look fat. Hooray! What a terrific confidence booster to have hanging around my neck every day.) Anyway, now that I've gone on and on about it, I guess I should just go ahead and post the damn photo, right? It's... Read more →

Behold, the shortest #TIREWATCH in the history of #TIREWATCHING. These appeared outside yesterday, and I was initially dismayed because I' was under the impression that the replacement tires were getting shipped directly to the mechanic, thus eliminating any possibility of them overstaying their welcome in my foyer. But Jason came home and promptly loaded them up, and then drove them over to the shop where they are getting installed today. The End! (That's it. That's the post.) The two blown-to-hell tires are NOT candidates for keeping around as emergency spares, and will NOT be coming home in the back of the minivan, where they would otherwise likely be forgotten about for a month or so before getting rolled into an inconvenient corner of the garage and/or the hallway right outside my bedroom, like a new and updated version of the Pennywise cutout prank. Truly, a bit of a missed opportunity for us. In summary and summation, I am looking forward to getting my car back, but DAMN, being normal responsible adults really kills the #content around here. Read more →

Something Jason and I struggle with is making sure each of our individual children get enough quality one-on-one time with us. We finally seem to have hit a solution by just picking random dates on the calendar and marking them off as "Mom and Ike Night" or "Dad and Ezra Night." We have no specific plans for what we're actually going to do on those nights, but dammit, we're going to do something. For the last couple months, Mom and Ike night has mostly been about ribs. Ike loves ribs. He is otherwise our pickiest eater by far, but ribs, man. He will eat the shit out of some ribs. Chocolate milk is another must for Mom and Ike Night. (Please note the happy face drawn on the chocolate milk. He did that because that's how chocolate milk makes him feel. Thank you, chocolate milk!) These nights are a screen-free zone, so we usually bring along some word searches and books and art supplies. (And plushies. So, so many Very Important Plushies.) This past Wednesday was our latest Mom and Ike Night, and our plan was ribs, chocolate milk and a trip to Michael's for more art supplies. We ordered... Read more →

Let's take a short break in all the mental health content and get back to what I'm best at: Overly long and involved stories about pee. (Will Vyvanse effect the number of parenthetical tangents in this post? No idea! Let's find out together.) So first, an update: Tormund the foster cat is still here. During his time as the January Pet of the Month he did get a couple of inquires and even one application, but alas. No adoption. He's spending more and more time upstairs, thus retiring his "Basement Cat" nickname in favor of "Torrie." He still prefers to spend the night in the basement guest room, but will now cautiously accept the occasional company. Since the basement guest room and bathroom are also occasionally needed for human guests, we moved his litter box upstairs, next to Finn and Rey's boxes. (Inside what COULD be a wonderfully useful walk-in coat closet, but thanks to the wall-to-wall litter boxes, it is the Unholiest of Unholy Places, and we do not speak of it.) (It is also where we store all our IKEA shopping bags, and where we conveniently forget about them whenever we go to IKEA.) He seemed fine with... Read more →

Some of you may remember that power outages were a frequent occurrence and regular problem in our old house and neighborhood. We lost power almost every time it snowed, or rained really hard, or there was some wind, or somebody sneezed a little too loudly while standing a little too close to the power lines, etc. Sometimes it would be out for a few hours, most of the time it took at least a full day, and occasionally it went out for multiple days at a time. Make that multiple occasions, actually. You may remember all that, but it was made clear to me this morning that my children absolutely do not. Around 6:24 a.m., a couple of our smoke detectors started beeping. (OH GOD DO YOU ALSO REMEMBER THE BEEPING?) We realized the power had gone out, like huh. That's honestly never happened, and is still one of my Top Five Favorite Things about this house and our neighborhood: Underground power lines that don't get knocked out by falling tree branches every other goddamn day. Glory be. We peeked out a few windows to confirm that it wasn't just us -- the entire neighborhood was completely dark. We heard... Read more →

(Things That Do Not Work is a sporadically running feature on things in my house/life/general existence that Do Not Work. Sporadically means "I haven't written one of these since March of 2019." Try using it in a sentence today! Anyway, here is Part One and Part Two.) This towel rack. It Does Not Work. This particular towel rack was left behind in the kids' bathroom by the previous owners, probably because they learned, as we have, that it Does Not Work. No one uses this towel rack. Except for me, when I hopefully and foolishly hang fresh, clean towels on it every laundry day LIKE A SUCKER. THE FLOOR IS OUR TOWEL RACK NOW, MOTHER. There is a photo somewhere, in the deepest recesses of my camera roll (aka last month), of two towels I discovered on the floor of their bathroom. One is absolutely covered in black mildew spots. The other has been peed on -- likely quite recently! -- by a dog. I will not post it here, because it is entirely too disgusting. (Apologies to all of my friends and family members who received said photo in an ALL CAPS text message from me. You are the... Read more →

Anybody got any recommendations for nice-looking fake trees that I could maybe get on sale right now? Because look at this shit. Although, honestly, I just swept up the carnage and burned it all up in our fireplace. Jason came inside from dragging the tree-corpse to the curb and said our neighborhood smelled amazing! *** Hey, remember when I had a baby? Don't ever do that, because look at THIS shit. A smallish-large niche corner of the Internet lost its mind over that, while he was just like, "GREAT, another THING I have to DO now. It never ENDS, these days." *** (I just now watched the yard trim collection guy pick up, toss, and mulch our giant-ass tree. It took him barely a minute, but I bet he hates us now.) (Yes, it snowed! Don't worry, they didn't cancel school for that piddly lil' covering. They simply closed three hours early yesterday and had a two hour delay this morning for maximum schedule fuckery. YOU CAN STILL SEE GRASS, PEOPLE.) *** Look at this shit, for no particular reason (other than BFF doggo adorableness, of course): We originally decided that we wouldn't take in another foster dog until the... Read more →