Suburban Bliss:: Birth Control Via The Written Word

Sandisk Slot Radio Giveaway #2

Remember last month when you told me all about your dads? It's time for my second Sandisk Slot Radio Giveaway.

The slotRadio™ player is a small, stylish, portable music device that comes bundled with a slotRadio™ card preloaded with 1,000 handpicked songs featuring artists from Billboard®'s charts, and professionally arranged into a variety of genre-themed playlists.

The die-cast aluminum player also features a 1.5” OLED screen for viewing artist and song information, a FM radio and even an integrated, handy belt clip for hands-free listening.

Additional 1,000 song, genre-specific and themed slotRadio™ cards. Digital music has never been this easy – just feast your ears!

"Feast your ears...." nom nom nom nom.

For this giveaway I'd like you to tell me about your summer travel plans in order to enter and since Summer Travel doesn't rub any salt in the wounds of my tragic childhood, I thought I'd share my plans with you.

This summer we have some budget savvy travel plans, like most everyone. Right now I'm in Puerto Rico with Maggie Mason checking off an item on her Mighty Life List. (Thank you frequent flyer miles!) Logan is heading up north to a friend's parent's place for a guy's weekend where he will mostly eat his favorite wings at Peegeo's and play video games. 

As a family we're heading up to the cabin of a friend where we've been going, well since I was 15 and babysitting for my pseudo-family. It's up north on Grand Traverse Bay and one of my favorite places on earth.

We're going camping with a bunch of families from our elementary school in August. We did this trip last year and survived, in spite of the rain. PS: Rain ruins camping. I am hoping against hope that rain will not be a part of our trip this year.

We're also going to stay up with our friend's Tom and Leslie at their parents place up north. The place we stayed last year and were nearly mauled by a bear. Not really but if that bear figured out how to open the door and climb the stairs and find us, then we would have been mauled. It was a close call!

Tell me your summer vacation plans, even if you're staying close to home. Your comment is your entry, here are the rules.

You can enter until 12am EST Friday July 10. The winner will be selected randomly from the entries and announced later that day.

Thank you to San Disk for sponsoring this giveaway!

Life List: Rough Draft Volume 3

Please see Volume 1 and Volume 2.

1 Take an annual picture of each of the kids with some sort of prop or cool setting, starting this year.

(I need to think on this more.)

2 Go horseback riding

(This is one that I don't necessarily love. But I just think it's stupid I've never been on a horse. At the same time I'm never going to add Learn To Ski to my list because, skiing is for assholes. You know what I mean.)

3 Grow sunflowers

(I've tried, bugs always eat them. I will persevere.)

4 Host an annual party everyone wants to be at.

(Some of the items on my list are party ideas, I don't know which one will spark interest but I want one to be the one everyone thinks about and looks forward to each year.)

5 Knit Baby Sweaters for every baby my friend's have from here on out.

6 Find a babysitter we can have stay for the weekend

7 Plant a small garden with the kids.

8 Make our backyard into a bird refuge.

(I have a really weird love of birds. I've named some of the ones in our yard, like Robirda (the robin!) It's scary, I know.)

9 Get new wedding bands we both love.

10 Spend a day shopping with Maddie and buying her a lot of the clothes she thinks are "cool".

11 Sew some lovely things.

12 Take the kids to the candy store and give them $10 each to spend as they wish.

(Their heads will explode)

13 Take the kids to Storybook Gardens in London, Ontario.

14 Do karaoke as a family.

15 Ride the swan boats at Belle Isle

16 Find a perfect black dress.

17 Buy a house our grandchildren will visit us in.

18 Go to a U Pick Orchard

19 Visit the Sting Ray Lagoon at the Grand Rapids Zoo

20 Learn to use knives

(for Cooking!)

21 Make tamales with friends

22 Make new Christmas stockings for the whole family.

23 Plant a garden of succulents

24 Throw a memorable baby shower.

25 Have a sleepover party for Maddie's friends with Root beer Floats.

*I should really add visit Puerto Rico and swim with bioluminescent plankton to this list because that's what I'm doing next week. But alas, that was not on my life list. How lucky am I to get to tag along on this amazing adventure?

"There are just so many wines for under $15!"

On Saturday Logan and I went with our friends Joe and Cari on a Taste-full Tour to explore Ann Arbor.

We explored several spots in Ann Arbor, this picture was taken at Everyday Wines in Kerrytown. ("For days ending in Y")

Joe is a photographer and here's the thing about photographers, even the pictures they take with their iPhones make you feel a little envious. 

Joe took this picture of Logan and I, I've dubbed it "Taste-Full Tours Is For Lovers"

*On August 8th Taste-Full Tours is heading back to Ann Arbor for a full Zingerman's tour. If you like food, you MUST visit Zingerman's.

No Wire Hangers Organizing

Growing up my sister and I had this friend, Julie Naylon, who was very entrepreneurial. She didn't just have a Lemonade Stand, she ran a Lemonade Corporation. She didn't just babysit, she offered "Babysitting Club" involving several kids, crafts, games and shows in her basement.

She also liked to organize things. She'd come to my house and start playing in the room I shared with my sister only to be overwhelmed by the desire, no, the need to organize our stuff. I know this will sound like a bit of a cop out, or maybe projection. But my sister and my mother are both incredible pack rats, I am not.

My sister's collecting involves a lot of clothes she doesn't wear, along with various small items she may not "need" but they make her smile and so she keeps them. Like a Clash of the Titan's lunchbox, or a collection of Japanese stickers, or a box jammed with 500 pieces of costume jewelry.

I shudder to think what could happen to my sister if she ever decides to have children and/or her dog starts creating art projects.

It's possible all this has changed now that my sister lives across the country and pretends to be an adult. But back when my friend came to play at our house, the bedroom I shared with my sister was a disaster area of massive proportions. A disaster Julie would spend several hours trying to weed through and make sense of.

A little over a year ago Julie, decided to open an eco friendly organizing business based in Los Angeles called No Wire Hangers, and that's a great name for her business for a couple of reasons, not just because it instantly makes me think of Joan Crawford screaming at her children with cold cream all over her face. But also because about 3.5 billion wire hangers are dumped into landfills each year, that's equivalent to 60,000 cars. (Please see Julie's article here for more information.)

Back in March Daily Candy featured her business and since then business is booming. She offered to come to my house while in town for her mother's birthday this weekend to help me organize something in my house.

I honestly feel pretty organized. I don't collect clutter, I wear all my clothes, I buy what I need and use it up before I buy more. However there was kind of an issue with my upstairs front hall closet and I thought I'd have Julie help me with that. As we started to go through what I had, I mentioned I could move some things to the basement. And the minute I said it, I regretted it, because the next words out of her mouth were, "Can I see your basement?"

Logan was outside so I was able to show her the shame that is our basement. If Logan had known what I was about to do he would have stopped us by creating a distraction, like driving our car through the back door. Or setting himself on fire.

A tale of two landlords.

Since we last visited the topic, I have collected $1569 of the $2030 our ex-landlord owes us. It has not been a terribly traumatic process for those of you arriving here after googling, "Ex Landlord is holding my stolen money how do I get it out of his aggravating clutches."

I walked to the courthouse, filled out some garnishment paperwork, for banks we knew he had accounts at (he deposited our rent checks into them), then walked to the banks and delivered the news. The bank then sat around, farting I presume, and then let us know how much money he had in his accounts with them.

The first bank held around $165 (disappointing) and the second a little over $1400 (more satisfying). The biggest expense of this process has been the emotional one where I'm so annoyed I can't just walk around the block and knock on his door every day asking for the rest of my money.

Then again it's been kind of fun to think of him going to his checking account and realizing, "Wait a minute....I had $1400 in here......where did it go??? SUMMMERS!!!!!!!"

Also fun: talking to a lawyer who knows a guy who arranges to have deputies come to the house to seize property. If it comes to that you guys? I will be out there with a lawn chair and a video camera. Jesus, I'll hold a party right there on the sidewalk.

But it hasn't come to that. After you win a small claims judgment you can collect money via garnishments of bank accounts, salary, and income from rental property. So we tried the banks, our ex landlord is self employed as far as I can tell...however, he has new tenants in his house in our dream neighborhood.

So today, for summer fun, we're going to the courthouse! The kids are SO EXCITED! We'll get our garnishment paperwork then on Saturday I'll deliver the paper to the new tenants and they will then be forewarned of the landlord's difficulty in following the law.

Logan's been consulting with a lawyer from work on this issue and in his last note he said, 'For a guy like me, this is the best part of practicing law. Making the bad guy pay." [paraphrased] And I was all, "For a girl like me too!"

I hate bullies in all forms.

Fake It Till You Make It.

Okay so most of us are in agreement, entertaining kids for 12 weeks straight is kind of a drag and some of us really love all those weeks and want more and then others of us would like you to know that you shouldn't have even HAD CHILDREN AT ALL if you weren't going to love every second of summer break.

Let me tell you this. I didn't know I wouldn't like summer break when I had them. I swear! If I'd known I would have ripped my ovaries out and worn them around my neck to drive potential mates away. But here I am, on summer break, and you know the kids realize this isn't my favorite time of year. They know I feel guilty about working when they're bored.

So, let's just make the best of this. You either cheer on my efforts and commiserate or (quietly) judge me (when you're not busy soaking up all the summer fun). Wooo!

The kids are hardly in purgatory over here. They've played with friends, gone to a Tigers game, spent the day at the beach and gone to a movie. And we're just 6 days in.

Imagine what can happen for the next 2.3 months! We'll probably be having tea parties and craft fairs by the end of the summer!

On Friday night we went to the Tigers game with a bunch of other families.

Between all of us we have 14 kids, not quite the Duggars but still a spectacular sight in my kitchen.

The weather report called for rain pretty much every hour with a varying 'chance of' percent of between 50% and "My Goodness You Are Screwed"-% and sure enough about an hour or two into the game the sprinkles turned to full blown rain and then lightening and thunder. The stands cleared out pretty quickly and our enormous group met in the hall.

We decided to make our way out of the stadium, with about 1 billion other people. From where I walked through the insane crowd I could see Logan, Max and Maddie, my friend's son Daniel and my friend Leslie and her little girl. Logan had my friend's four year old on his shoulders. I kept count of my two kids and my other friends son.

A few times Daniel looked back, wondering where his mom and dad were, but being pushed along in the crowd there was no way to find them without possibly getting lost. So I told him to keep walking with us and once we were out of the stadium we'd find his parents.

As we made it out of the stadium into the street, I had this sudden feeling of comfort, knowing that I have the kinds of friends who trust us to keep their kids safe. Even if I didn't have my own kids in sight, I'd know my friends have them and are bringing them up behind us.

Parenting as a village task is something amazing.

Evaporated Milk

As part of a media buy on Suburban Bliss, The American Cancer Society asked me to write about one of the ways cancer has affected my life. Unfortunately cancer has come into my life in many ways, but this one seemed most fun to write about.

Growing up, my mother had this habit of buying the same thing over and over. Sometimes that item was a loaf of bread. Every time she drove past the market she'd have to run in and grab a loaf or ten of bread. You just never knew when you'd need to make sandwiches for the entire state of Rhode Island, she liked to be prepared.

Other times she'd get it in her head that she needed something you very rarely have a use for like, evaporated milk. And for a couple of months, she'd grab a can or two each time she ran to the market. The evaporated milk, sat in the cupboard for months, years. In fact I don't even know how long it was there. Could have been from 1973 and no one would have been surprised. That can was just a part of the pantry landscape after a while. Granola bars, flour, salt, cereal, evaporated milk.

My grandpa got cancer in his late 70's. I don't remember what kind of cancer it was, it really didn't matter all that much. Like all the kinds of cancer, it was the crappy kind. He got increasingly sick over time, and eventually required a nurse to come live with him.

One day while my grandpa was particularly sick, my brother and I were at home while my mom was at work. My brother had the can of evaporated milk in his hand, and we pondered why it was there. Could we even remember a time the evaporated milk was not in the cupboard? Why were there three of them in there? Had we ever seen our mother use evaporated milk for anything?

Each question resulted in more questions. My mother is a little jumpy and in our family we like to prey on the weakest one. It's how we love.

We do little things like put rubber snakes in the microwave or hide someone in the back seat of the car to scream "Boo!" while she drives. Just funny little tricks meant to toy with her heart and keep her, you know, aerobically healthy.

My brother called my mother at work. "Mom! The nurse just called from grandpa's house. They're having an emergency! They need 6-10 ounces of evaporated milk immediately!"

Without skipping a beat my mother went into what I call her 'Crisis Mode', this is how she gets whenever something really bad happens, when there's an emergency of some sort. "Okay," she said, taking a long cleansing breath. "Go in the cupboard next to the oven. On the middle shelf, next to the cereal and near the flour, there are three cans of evaporated milk. Take them out and tell me how many ounces each can is. There should be enough there."

Apparently, she didn't pause long enough to consider what kind of cancer-related health emergency could possibly be addressed with 6-10 ounces of evaporated milk. But for a few shining moments she believed she'd bought that evaporated milk for a good reason. All the teasing we'd done about the evaporated milk would all be worth it now. She was having the last laugh, now that we were facing a health emergency and her evaporated milk would quite possibly save my grandfather's life.

For those moments, before my brother and I started laughing hysterically, my mother thought she cured cancer with three cans of evaporated milk.

Awkward Hugs: Too Comfortable!

Okay first of all.....Sweet Lord. Are we still under the impression that I'm going to stop being annoyed by the 24/7 job of taking care of the kids? If that's a make or break thing for you reading this website, I need you to know this up front.

I will always hate this aspect of parenting. I will always find it overwhelming and unpleasant. There will be times that I'm into it, where we have a great set of adventures together, but for the most part....I'm not going to like summer vacation with its endless hours to fill.

If you find my position enviable, by God I wish you all the luck (and stamina) in the world to make it happen for you.

In other less antagonistic news.....

I hit a new low on Friday night when we had friends over.

Usually when I get tired but don't want the party to end because I'm lame and need to go knit an afghan or something equally as old lady-ish, I just slip away to the "bathroom".

On the way out of the bathroom my bed says, "I love you....come over here...." and I don't know who can resist that pick up line.

I try to stay awake kind of late, like midnight. But we have friends who must have cocaine flowing through their veins because these people never want to go to bed. It seems futile for me to try and out last them, plus my bed really loves me and needs me.

Here we go again....

Today was my last day of freedom before summer vacation.

I think those of us who have glimpsed the horror that is me during summer vacation understand why this is momentous.

Yes, I'm planning some things to do with the kids. Yes, they're older now and easier. Yes, I know this isn't my most becoming trait.

But I didn't wear black all week with a veil to cover my grieving face. I didn't plant a faux grave in the front yard with a headstone reading: 'My Freedom' and spend a couple of hours crying over it. I also didn't make a paper chain symbolizing every day of summer vacation we have to get through...or...."enjoy".

I think I deserve credit. (I may still make the paper chain later...but I promise I'll keep it under my bed so the kids don't know I'm counting down to the first day of school.

Summer is one of those times I wish I was that other kind of parent.

I am not the kind of parent who enjoys summer vacation. Though I will enjoy the break from making Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches every single morning for Maddie.

That feeling will probably last 2-3 days.

Then I'll be back to wondering how I'm going to burn 30-40 hours of daylight. About 30% of those hours will be spent berating myself for not being that other kind of parent. So that's something "pleasant".

Tomorrow morning Maddie "graduates" from elementary school. On a walk today to get dinner, just the two of us, she asked me if I was going to cry at the ceremony or feel sad.

I told her no, I didn't think so. I told her how, in every stage of her life so far, from the time she was a tiny baby, I've been excited to see what comes next. I've tried to enjoy every stage we've gone through (some I've enjoyed more than others) and I haven't clung to any of the stages she's gone through.

As her mom I get to experience all these new things with her. I got to see what It was like to be pregnant with her. I got to see what it's like to have a baby who crawls. I got to see what it was like to throw a birthday party for a one year old. I got to see what it was like to take my little girl to school for the first time.

Everything I've done as a mother I've gotten to do with her first. I'm excited to see what it's like to watch my baby graduate from elementary school tomorrow. And I'm excited to watch her go on to middle school.

And I'm really excited to see how we make it through summer vacation in one piece.

Winner Sandisk Slot Radio Giveaway #1

I loved reading your dad stories. I sat outside laughing, in the car laughing, in my living room laughing. So many excellent Dad Gags™. Only occasionally would I read one and start to cry a little and not at the ones you'd think I'd cry at. I'd cry when someone remembered how awesome it was to go to breakfast with their Dad in the morning, sitting at the counter. It is so easy to give your kids at least a few nice memories of you, if you're a douchey dad reading this. Just take your kid to breakfast once in a while okay?

When Max was a baby Logan used to take Maddie to R&J, a little soda fountain/grill a couple blocks away from where we live now. He did this because I don't handle sleep deprivation very well and sleep deprivation with a 2.5 year old, let's put this plainly. If they didn't go SOMEWHERE in the morning I may have killed them.

R&J had a fire years ago, and when we'd walk by 4 year old Maddie would ask when they were going to open up again. They couldn't re-open, some sort of insurance fraud issue, and now it's a Thai place. Maddie is 10.5 and she still says, "I wish R&J was still open."

Logan suggested they go to dinner together at the Thai place....we all had a good laugh over that one. Mrs. Pickerson doesn't do Thai.

Also reading your stories reminded me of this one my friend Jean told me about her wedding day. She and her father, one of those really good ones, were getting ready to walk down the aisle and as the doors open and they started walking he turned to whisper in her ear.

"They're all looking at me...."

Save that one for any walking down the aisle you have to do in the future.

And The Winner Is:

Did They Eat It?: Grilled Chicken With Shells II

This is a repeat, because you may have noticed, I haven't been cooking very much for my family. I don't know why exactly other than I've been feeling uninspired. Possibly because I keep thinking we could eat for 6 months on $10 and a shit-ton of ramen noodles. I could tell the kids this is practice for college. Or we could eat beans out of the can, cooked over an open flame, just like the hobos!

Logan and I have been talking about having a Recession Party where everyone comes wearing a barrel. Or maybe dressed as a traveling hobo, or in a burlap sack. We'd serve beans and Spam and everyone would drink moonshine from a ceramic jug.

The problem is this is Detroit and the threat of job loss is like a black cloud over your head and YOU KNOW we'd plan that party and Logan would be laid off that day....just to add to the atmosphere.

Anyway I made this again because we really love it and I think it's pretty to look at. Also, I wondered if there would be a change in the kid's reaction to this dish.

Sandisk Slot Radio Giveaway

I've had ads for the Sandisk Slot Radio running on this site for a week or so. Sandisk sent me a slot radio to try out...it's kind of exactly my speed. Preloaded with music (because I am really not wild about searching out new music) or if I'd prefer, I can add my favorite music to it.....perfect.

The slotRadio™ player is a small, stylish, portable music device that comes bundled with a slotRadio™ card preloaded with 1,000 handpicked songs featuring artists from Billboard®'s charts, and professionally arranged into a variety of genre-themed playlists.

The die-cast aluminum player also features a 1.5” OLED screen for viewing artist and song information, a FM radio and even an integrated, handy belt clip for hands-free listening.

Additional 1,000 song, genre-specific and themed slotRadio™ cards. Digital music has never been this easy – just feast your ears!

Sandisk gave me a few of these slot radios to give away and I get to give the first one away this Friday, just in time for Father's Day.

I have this problem with Father's Day in that it's one of those days that tweaks the part of me that is pretty sad/mad/disappointed that I had such a monster as a father. Yes, I'm one of those people...with father issues. sigh.

While brainstorming what I could do for this contest Logan and I thought it would be fun to have you guys share a dad-related memory in the comments, but then Logan said, "You have to share one too....that's rude to expect people to share when you don't." But my dad memories all suck and this will turn into a big Sad Trombone festival, so let's just skip mine.

However, I'd like to hear your favorite father memory in the comments. A most embarrassing moment, a favorite gag your father liked to pull, the best gift you ever gave him for father's day, why your husband is a great dad. Anything goes...well, within the rules. 

Good stories about dads make me really happy.

You can enter until 12am EST Friday June 12. The winner will be selected randomly from the entries and announced later that day.

It's green, but that's not why we did it.

We decided a few months ago to turn in Logan's car at the end of his lease and not replace it. Years ago when we were in serious financial trouble, we talked about getting rid of one of our cars. Back then Max and Maddie were much smaller and the thought of living with one car and being trapped in the house alone with two small kids without any freedom gave me massive amounts of anxiety.

When we lived at the last place, we debated getting rid of one of our cars since the kids walked to school and all the socializing I could ever want was all right there. When we decided to move, I felt certain we needed the second car. I didn't know there was a bus to school a block away and I didn't know at the time that I wasn't actually going to drive my car back to the old house and stare longingly in the windows all day from my car. Eating tear soaked fritos from the bag.

Turns out, you can't do that. It's "weird" or "disturbing" or "mentally unhealthy".

I realized a month or two ago that without my compulsive trips to the old neighborhood I really don't drive more than 2-3 times a week. Logan works literally 4 minutes away, the kids ride the bus to school, I work from home and when I need to get somewhere during the day, almost everything is within walking distance of my house.

Including you know walking to the courthouse and then the bank to file garnishments on people who steal money from you. Heh!

Also, sushi.

So at the end of May we pulled the plug and gave back Logan's lease and walked away without a car payment.

And then the car we own needed work and the bill was exactly the same amount as our lease payment (plus $70), because this is the way things work around these parts.

A few years ago I tried to buy Tigers tickets for Logan as a birthday gift. I looked online and paying $15 in service fees really pissed me off so I drove downtown with the kids and took them to the science museum and then over to the box office to get tickets.

The science center cost $25. The parking ticket I got outside was $25. So you know maybe just paying the service fee would have been wise. But that's not how the Summers do things.

We also flush dollar bills down the toilet for fun!

So far the one car experience has been painless aside from a few snags. Like scheduling two meetings for the same time on one day. Or the time Logan left for work at 3 o clock in the morning [hyperbole] and I needed the car but there was no way in hell I was getting up at that hour.

I'm trying to feel "green" about the decision to go down to one car. I mean, technically it is a pretty green thing to do.

But the truth is I'm just hoping I can get my haircut at some point in the next six months.