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Wasting Away Again in Staycationland

It's spring break here in beautiful, budding Franklin, Tennessee, which means that nearly all of our county is in the Destin, Florida, area at this moment.  And those who aren't are staycationing at any child-friendly locale in the city.  Who knew that Chuck E. Cheese was our answer to the beach?

So the kids get a break.  And we moms, well, we don't so much get a break.  But those of us who are staycationing (translation: too cheap to travel, which is completely understandable at $3.50 a gallon) have a challenge on our hands.  What to do with our time?

I picked up a copy of Family Fun magazine yesterday which immediately gave me a complex.  I realized that my children were missing out on the good things in life because we were not making marionettes out of construction paper or cookies shaped like flip flops using sour gummies. 

Will they be in therapy one day?  Or should I just maintain my viewpoint that Family Fun magazine is of the devil?  Get thee behind me, Family Fun magazine.  Kids--go outside and play with sticks and dirt like mommy used to do when she was little.  If you really want Family Fun, I'll add water to the sticks and dirt. Pa Ingalls built an entire house this way out on the prairie--surely it should keep you entertained for an afternoon!

Spring Break is like a test drive for summer.  To abruptly mix metaphors, we're putting our toes in the water, and while it feels good, we moms may not quite be ready for a swim just yet.  There's just so much pressure for kids to be doing something.  Going to space camp.  Learning to ride sidesaddle.  Becoming an Olympic gymnast.

And if they're off doing something, then we have to be doing something, too.  We covet this free time sans children so that we can "get things done."  Ewww.  Now that sounds like fun, doesn't it?

So this Spring Break, we're dipping our toes in the pond of the art of doing nothing.  Ahhhhh.  See how nice and lukewarm that feels?  So relaxing. We are otherwise doing what is known as Wasting Time.  I capitalize those words because I feel they are Very Important (see how that works?).

Even if we weren't so cheap that we were staycationing, we'd be somewhere like Disney World (which our family adores), stressing ourselves out over getting to the park early enough to stand in line for an hour for It's a Small World.  No one should ever stand in line an hour for It's A Small World.

Our brains are pushed to the limit with all the stuff we want to be doing, that we think we need to be doing.  Sit down on the couch for 15 minutes and you feel guilty, don't you?  You are wasting valuable time-wasting-time by thinking about all the laundry you should be doing or the bathrooms waiting to be cleaned.

Shirk those duties, I say!  Sit, and sit in peace.  Enjoy the moment.  You have now been given permission to waste time, which is really all anyone's looking for.

It's called Spring BREAK.  Use it.  Because come mid-July, when everyone's desperate, you'll be digging out those marionette instructions and seeing if there are any last minute slots still open at sidesaddle camp.

That Was Easy

I have a Kevin-Bacon-type of friend (you know, a six degrees of separation thing) who has written a new novel that's coming out in June.  My fabulous group of book clubbers has agreed that we'll all read it, and it feels a little like we won the Oprah lottery because we get to read it before it's in stores.  Or Kindles, or Nooks, or Sony Readers. 

Marybeth (and I call her by her first name because I kind-of-sort-of know her and it makes me sound important) has written a novel titled She Makes It Look Easy.  I haven't even read it yet, but just the title has me thinking.

Do you know anyone like that...who makes it look easy? 

These people who make cake pops.  These people make it look easy.  I barely make a cake with a mix and yet there are people, people who do not own bakeries, that are shaping cake into balls, drizzling them with fancy fixings and putting them on lollipop sticks.  I don't need this kind of baking intimidation.

The women who have coordinated ensembles at the book fair when you schlep in the door in jeans and a t-shirt--they make it look easy.  They make it look like some people have time, energy and the mental capacity to match something that doesn't go with blue jeans or black pants.  And by some people, I mean people of the female persuasion who have time to get their eyebrows waxed.  This, my friends, is why I have bangs.

People who cook a well-rounded dinner for their families every evening.  And enjoy it.  Or even remember to put something in the crock pot in the morning.  Or perhaps, put meat in the refrigerator to defrost and actually cook it before it is time to just give up and throw it in the trash a week later.  Luckily my children love Smart Start cereal and apples.  By necessity, perhaps, but they do.

Those people make it look easy. So I'm easily intimidated, perhaps.  But I don't think it is just me.  Right?

I think we all have some sort of line where we look around and, no matter how well we're holding it together and how cute our new skirt is, we think someone else has got it a lot more together than we do.  I honestly consider myself pretty together about 85% of the time.  But 10% of the time, I'm a hot mess.  And the last 5% I just stay in bed all day and watch Bravo reruns of The Real Housewives.  Because next to them, my life looks super easy.

Beth Moore wrote a great book called So Long, Insecurity.  I wrote about it a while back--and I remember thinking that no matter how much I thought I wasn't insecure, there is a tiny part of me somewhere in there that really is.  A part of me that reverts to 9th grade, when everyone else just seemed cooler than me, didn't wear goofy tinted glasses and had that Sun-In glow to their hair. 

Even now, I'm preparing for a meeting with some authority figures (I won't say who) and I am trying to mentally conquer feeling like I'm the one who is 8-years-old, while they are the grown-ups, and I might just get in trouble (with a capital T and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pretty Sad, don't you think?).

She Makes It Look Easy.  I'm looking forward to reading this novel and seeing what happens.  Because I know what happens in real life--we do the best we can but spend a ridiculous amount of time comparing ourselves to someone else, or wishing we had what they had.

The grass is always greener, the saying goes, but you never know how much fertilizer the girl across the fence is using, you know?  And some girls--well, my Southern self says Bless their hearts, they just need more fertilizer than others.

In other words, I don't really care if my cake is shaped in ball or stuck on a stick, as long as it is chocolate and goes well with a big glass of milk and a Real Housewives marathon. 

Tiger Blood and Mrs. Betty's Legacy

Charlie Sheen's kids may be too young to understand Daddy's crazy rantings and ravings now, but one day they will.  Rest assured there will be a place in the history books (or more accurately, the internet) where we can always go to relive these 'special moments' he's sharing with the world.

He arrived on this earth with a unique legacy--the child of a Hollywood star, coupled with the talent and connections to step into that world.  There aren't a lot of folks who can claim that kind of leg up.  Sure, if your dad was an orthodontist, you might get free braces.  But the triumverate of fame, fortune and genetic talent are pretty rare.

Everyone stumbles; everyone screws up.  We all do things we aren't proud of.  But when you believe your own press--or tweets--and you get so full of yourself that you think the choices you make have no consequences?  I continue to feel sorry for these kids--4 under the age of 5--who, please, dear Lord, are hopefully oblivious to the legacy he's leaving for them.  Maybe they'll inherit the genetic talent, and a few bucks--if anyone is really interested in him making Major League 3.

In complete contrast to the antics playing out in every form of media imaginable with Mr. Sheen, I had the privilege of going to an amazing memorial service this week to celebrate the life of a woman whose legacy will long outlast her.  To my knowledge she never starred in a television show and made $2 million dollars an episode.  But ultimately her value far outweighs and outlasts that of the brightest Hollywood star.

It has me thinking about the kind of legacy I want to leave.  How do I want to be remembered--but more importantly, what kind of person do I want to be in the here and now when I can enjoy it?  Sure, they can all gather around the jello salad in the fellowship hall when I'm gone, and talk about how sad it is to see me go (or at least I hope they will).  But wouldn't it nice to have more?

Mrs. Betty was the matriarch at my childhood church.  She was one of a crew of ladies who raised me, and a passel of other kids who used that church as their second home. (It isn't often I have the opportunity to use the word 'passel', but it is appropriate in this case). 

 Because before kids had their schedules packed with travel teams, lessons, camps and playdates--family social lives, at least where I grew up, revolved around the church.  You might have a stray dance lesson here or there, but for the most part, if the doors were open and there was an ice cream social going on, that's where you'd be.

So more than a few generations of kids grew up under the tutelage of Mrs. Betty, and whatever other parents happened to see you sneak behind the pews to do something you probably shouldn't be doing.  There was never any differentiation between their kids and you; no one worried about whether or not they should reprimand another child.  Of course they should. 

So while Mrs. Betty raised her own crew of boys, she also rocked generations of babies in the nursery and returned them to their parents smelling of her perfume.  She hosted the youth group at her house even when she didn't have a teenager. 

And get this.  You moms will know how crazy this sounds.  She and Mr. George had a pool, and all you had to do on any given summer day was call and ask if you could come over swimming. And she would say, "Well, sure!  Come on!"  You could swim all day at Mrs. Betty's pool, and she'd even feed you.  

What?  She'd have children to her house to play when she DIDN'T HAVE TO?  And FEED THEM?  Now granted, I'm not sure Capri Suns were around yet and it was the time of ten-cent Kool-Aid packets, but still.  What kind of craziness can come from such a thing?

A legacy.  A legacy of love and kindness and giving.  And in turn, a legacy of gratitude, from the packed-out church full of people who came to show their thanks to Mrs. Betty this week.  Generations were raised by Mrs. Betty, and others like her, who are willing to give of themselves beyond what is expected.

Let's just say that Charlie Sheen doesn't even have a clue what Tiger Blood is.  Mrs. Betty--now that lady had some Tiger Blood.  Who cares if you have a million Twitter followers waiting to see you fall?  Legacy means having a community who grows up watching you share and give of yourself, and live out Christ's love every day, and who can then point to that example and say what I do:

That's the kind of legacy I want to leave.