Tag Archives: Miscellaneous

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Pride and Trepidation

Before I get into my post, I would like to say how proud I am of my older son. Today as part of his student council duties is collecting canned goods for the student council food drive to help our local soup kitchen. The fourth grade seems to be winning their competition for what he called “the best prize of all: the warm fuzzy feeling of helping people in need”. I don’t know what I did, but I must’ve done something right. That boy will change the world I think.

Now that we got the “pride” part of our title out of the way, I enter into the “trepidation”. As my last post pointed out, I was terrified at the idea of publishing my chapter-ed short story. I always tell my son, “sometimes no matter how afraid you are, you need to suck it up and dive head first”. That post made me realize that I said a typical parental hypocritical statement. How could I tell him “you can be anything in the world you want to be if you want it enough” and “just hold your worries and do it” if I wasn’t going to do the same. As parents it’s our job to show our children that you need to always aim higher to accomplish goals, no matter how impossible it seems. Teaching your child to settle for what they have in life, to me, teaches them that they don’t need to dream and that settling for mediocrity is ok. (I know I’ve said this point a dozen times, but it needs to be emphasized.) It’s never ok to settle.

I took this to heart, and took and deep breath and uploaded my story to Kindle epublishing. Yes, I am officially published. So you can own this piece of art for only $0.99 on the Kindle. Don’t have a Kindle? Get a nice Kindle app on your phone, iPad, other tablet, etc. The title you ask? “Teagan” by Brianne LaRochelle.

I’m terrified. I’m afraid that I failed at that the story is crap and people will insult me and I’ll decide to give up instead of getting better. But if I didn’t just suck it up and do it, I’ll never know if people actually will enjoy it. I’d never know if following my dreams of writing would pay off. Most importantly though, I’d never be able to tell my sons that “mommy was scared, and she did it anyways.” Our actions, as unimportant as they seem, will always affect our children because they look up to us to show them everything.

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Is The Story Ever Really Finished?

Last year, I finished my 12000 word “novella”. It was supposed to be part of National Novel Writing Month, but I didn’t quite reach the minimum they had if you recall last year’s post about it. (See here for a refresher: http://wp.me/p1NwSb-28) I realized that I happened to finish the story I wanted in much shorter words than I was supposed to. To add things would’ve fluffed up my story in a way that would upset me.

Shortly after, I decided that the story was 100% done. I announced that my hard work was completed and the encouragement I received was awesome. I intended shortly after to put it up for sale on the Kindle, but it never seemed good enough. I sent the story to a few trusted people and got lost. Between a pregnancy made me too tired to work on more editing at first, then just made it too uncomfortable to sit down and fix it at the end, it seemed like it would never get done.

Now I wonder if I stalled it. Maybe I was just too scared of critics and reviews and anything negative that could possibly deter my dream of finally just publishing this. The story has a bit of “fart” humor to it, and it’s not always appreciated. Maybe people would think I put too many sarcastic lines or too many lines that might insult or gross out and think people would think it was unnecessarily overdone. It’s always fear of criticism of others that holds us back.

I constantly reread it. I’m at a point where I couldn’t even fix grammar problems because I’m “too close” to this project. It seems like an extreme form of procrastination that it took a whole year to feel like it’s really ready for the public. So ideally within the next week or 2, I will just close my eyes and upload it and hope for the best. Even 20 sales will exceed my expectations and be encouraging. And if I do get too caught up in how long it took to get to the publishing point, at least I can look at George RR Martin. One year for a 12000 story seems equivalent to how long we’ve waited for A Dance With Dragons. Let’s hope I build up the courage to do this.

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A Nice Salute

I come from a family full of military men. My great-grandfather, my grandfather, an uncle, some cousins and my brother. I also live in a city where there’s an airbase, basically right down the street from it. My first job was a waitress that worked with serving meals to people on their way to boot camp and deployment. The military has played an important part of my life. My son, like any son probably, loves to pretend he’s a soldier and wears a military plastic helmet and does a patrol. Living so close to the base, he often sees a person in uniform and always seems to get their attention to salute them. He wants them to know he appreciates the danger they put themselves through to protect us, and he honestly admires them. He says he won’t enlist though because his “mommy’s heart couldn’t handle football, let alone war”. He’s probably very right.

I was young when my brother enlisted. I was close to him and I remember being heartbroken he had to go away. I’m pretty sure I locked myself in my room a long time and cried. I remember when he was coming home to visit, I worked to make a nice banner for him and woke up to him making french toast. (Amazing the things you remember when you try.) To this day, I make french toast just like he did. Since he doesn’t read this, I can also say embarrassingly that every time I make french toast, I think about him. It’s stupid to think though, since he only lives a mile away and I see him a few times a week for family dinners and because our sons are friends.

I’m lucky, everyone I know that served always came home. They weren’t fighting in wars, they were helping protect people to make sure a war didn’t happen. I know people personally that weren’t as lucky, and those are the people we need to personally thank. It wasn’t just the service of our family and friends, it was the service the military families give. They give us their family and stand by them while they fight for their country. They worry constantly about whether their family member will return alive, not just mentioning worrying about the person they will be when they come back. Sadly, they don’t always come back. Veteran’s Day isn’t just about those who serve our country honorably; it’s about their families who suffer waiting and have broken hearts when their loved ones aren’t alive when they return. It’s about families who never even get lucky to see their loved one a last time or are left wondering if they are alive or dead for years. We need to take a moment to thank them too, though they might not accept our gratitude because the pain of loss is so great.

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I’m Not Proud To Be An American

The sad part of my title is that some radical people will read this because they will think I mean this because of who won our election. I can assure you that you should stop reading now if that’s what you think. This post will have nothing to do with who won the election, but more the attitudes that came about afterwards. It’s what happened afterwards that frankly sickened me, and made me lose faith in our country’s people and made me think about how I’m not proud of what I saw.

For example, I voted for Scott Brown despite the fact that people think because I’m a Democrat I should only vote that way. Most of my friends that admitted their vote voted for Elizabeth Warren. It never once crossed my mind that their vote should affect my friendship with them. They were still my friends, and I still love them dearly. I didn’t immediately insult them for disagreeing with me, I didn’t automatically defriend them on Facebook because they didn’t believe as I did. I acknowledge that as an American, it was our right to vote how we did without fear of how people will treat us after.

Elections seem to bring out the worst in people. I even wonder if the election didn’t just allow us to see people for who they truly were. It sickened me reading the social media and seeing the hate that both sides spewed. This intolerance for people exercising their rights was disgusting. I wondered where America went so wrong that because you checked off the wrong person’s name on the ballot, people were able to call you appalling things. You are not an idiot for whoever you voted for as long as you made an informed decision based on your beliefs. You are an idiot, the kinder of words I have for you, if you feel that your vote was better than another persons because you didn’t agree with them.

I’m not sure if there’s anyone to blame for this. All the major new channels obviously backed candidates and I think are the main cause of this. They spewed nothing but hate for either side of the alley. MSNBC never once mentioned that Romney could be a great president and why he would be. Fox News never once said anything positive about Obama and some even shunned Republicans who had. I don’t think politicians are entirely to blame for this; it’s hard to work across the aisle when you have people watching you to hate you if you do. The downward spiral is this.

This makes me think there’s a new sort of hatred in America that might even be worse than racism or homophobia. It scares me that we might be coming to a point where you won’t get hired for a job, not because of your race, gender or sexual orientation but for the way you’re registered to vote. It makes me sick to think that people might disown their family members because they voted for Romney/Obama. I think more people need to be outraged about how we’re treating each other than who won the election, because we should be ashamed of ourselves for behaving this way. This isn’t what America is, this is what those countries we look down on because they don’t have a democracy.

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Here’s a Ballot, Now What?

Originally today’s blog was going to be a random rant of whatever happened to be on my mind. Just like any other time a writer starts, they change their direction entirely. I became so passionate about one of my rants, that I decided to dedicate today to that instead.

Tomorrow is election day. I’m not going to give a speech about “people died for us to have this right”. I don’t believe in guilting people into voting. I don’t even believe in it myself. People didn’t die for the right for politicians to lie to us and make us overpay them. I’d like politicians to make minimum wage and not getting paid when they aren’t working like the rest of us. I’d also love them to be stuck with the same crappy choices for healthcare that the American people get. Maybe if we take away the riches and benefits, we’d get people in office that actually care about the people they’re sent to represent. I’d also like it if every law they pass also affected them. Then maybe they’d consider what they are passing before they decide to take the bribes to pass it. Also, I’d like to make it that people had to pass a general current event and civics test before they get to vote. It may be unconstitutional, but at least people who will vote have a general idea of what they are voting for and not race, party affiliation and good looks. I’m also offended that the old guy from Face the Nation (he doesn’t deserve a name, don’t bother telling me) for his commentary. Thankfully you can get access to transcripts online so I don’t misquote him:

“And here’s a confession. Sometimes voting against someone I don’t like is more fun than voting for someone I do like.And here’s the best thing of all. You can vote for or against someone for the best of reasons, the wrong reasons, or no reason at all. It is your vote, and you can do with it as you choose. In fact, you can waste it if you like.”

Really? Not that anyone probably takes his show anymore seriously than they do Fox & Friends, but he has the power of the masses. And he uses it for that? He could inspire people to make a change in the political times! He could tell the viewers, “listen, we need to vote on the issues not the person” or “you need to vote for someone who shares your same view of the country and how you want it to grow”. No, he says “waste your vote if you’d like, just do it”. He could’ve easily had said in one sentence “vote for Batman for president because Superman is from another planet and isn’t technically eligible for presidency”. This actually disgusted me. This disgusted me almost as much as most politicians do.

Growing up, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I was also smart enough to realize that writers are starving artists and you needed a job to fund the dream. For a long time, I decided journalism would be the way to go. I started writing for my middle school newspaper and I hit a moment of realization: I was far to opinionated to be a real journalist. I could be an Op-Ed columnist, and did well with that. The teacher was proud of me when I went to her and said “it would be against journalistic integrity for me to write news, I can’t do it without being biased”. Shortly after, I decided journalism probably wasn’t the right place for me because it went against my morals. Watching news today makes me wonder what makes me different from every other person that decides to actually go ahead with that career path but instead of reporting news, they report their own version of the news. It really does sicken me. There should be a political party named “The Cynic Party”, I would jump the Democrat label for that.

The point is that these people (Fox News, Face the Nation, etc.) all are able to reach people and inspire them for good. They could tell people that issues are more important than white dry erase boards and half facts. They could actually give the viewers a full story, the true full honest story, so when we go into that poll booth we can make informed decisions that suit us and our visions for our ideal country. Instead, they tell us “this guy’s a Kenyan Muslim” and “this guy is a corrupt Mormon business man” or “does it really matter, just close your eyes and make your pencil mark anywhere”. Now we get to go blind into an election and pray we come out in one piece. I’m not sure who’s more to blame for this, the politicians or our “newscasters”.

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We

In the morning, it’s hard to find anything worth watching. You’re stuck with baby reality television shows, infomercials, or biased news talk shows. So, I generally chose the baby reality shows. It makes me feel better than I’m no longer pregnant anymore and I get to laugh at how silly they look talking about normal things making it seem like they’re the first person to have to make a cold lunch for one child while pregnant. Yeah, we’ve done that move on. I find reality shows are really just comedies for me to sit around with my popcorn because the way they make every day life seem like an over-dramatic soap opera is really just hilarious.

Something did catch my attention on Monday, and I decided to watch 3 hours worth of these shows for an experiment. On the first show at 7 am, the husband of this woman who was having a difficult time with the pain begs for an epidural after several hours. Her husband stood outside talking to the camera while they were putting the epidural in and said “we really wanted a natural childbirth so we’re pretty disappointed by this. Maybe next time.” I took the controller to rewind this (thank you DVR) to see if I heard this man correctly. It turns out, I did. I couldn’t believe my ears that a person could be that idiotic.. or selfish I haven’t decided yet. So I watched for a week and it turns out that in more than half of these shows the husband or partner says something like “we had hoped to have a natural birth/breastfeed but she couldn’t do it and we’re disappointed.”

If I had heard my husband say anything like that, I’d probably punch him in the face. It wouldn’t be hormones, it would be my short temper. The “we” part of the baby process ended with the making of the fetus. “We” cannot have natural childbirth, “I” can  have natural childbirth. He can be a part of the decision and most definitely was a part of every decision that was made. But there certainly was only one of us squeezing a child out. You could say “my wife wanted a natural childbirth but was disappointed she couldn’t” and it would be perfectly acceptable. I understand, maybe the “we’ makes him feel more involved. But it seemed like “he” wanted the natural birth more than she did, and to be disappointed that she “failed” him is incredibly aggravating.

Personally, I’d like to see him pop out a baby naturally and see how long he lasts. I give him 5 minutes before he offers to do unspeakable things to the anesthesiologist for pain relief. Then I hope he’s too far along to get one and has to go at it alone. No, I don’t feel bad for saying that. The most important point of this whole rant can be applied in mostly every situation in life: It’s easy to make decisions for other people without knowing what they’re going through. In pregnancy and birth, nothing ever really goes as planned. And no one ever realizes how excruciating it is until going through it. Instead of being disappointed that your wife couldn’t “suck it up”, sit by her every second of the way at your place next to the bed and let her decide if she’s in too much pain. Get her ice chips and rub her back and make her feel better, not worse. And to you reality show “supportive” soon-to-be dads, understand that any woman who had gone through childbirth and sees you say something like that, realize that we’re all thinking about punching you in the face.

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Why Halloween,It’s Good To See You.

Last year a freak October “Snowpocalypse” postponed our Halloween. This year, a freak hurricane headed our way. My son’s first reaction was “oh no, I’m going to miss school and my first student council meeting”, causing a pouty nearly 10-year-old walking around the house. It wasn’t until afterward when he heard a local town had already cancelled Halloween that his pout went into an angry face. “Not again!” I pouted on the inside too, the one holiday I look forward to every year was not going to be taken away from me again. It was bad enough all the stores saw fit to put out the Halloween decorations the same time as the Christmas ones. Christmas, you will not take this one away from me. The madness needs to stop.

Back to the point, without those cute little costumes and bonfire and all the candy I never eat this month means nothing. This year would almost mean nothing if it weren’t for the additions to my family without Halloween, that’s how serious I am about this holiday. It brings me more joy than it probably should, but I would find God and stab him if his stupid natural disasters had interrupted my favorite holiday again. He would regret it assuming I make it to Heaven, even assuming I believe in it. Don’t cross me, natural disasters.

All joking aside, (mostly joking) I hope people made it out of the storm alive. Stuff can be replaced, but loved ones are irreplaceable. The damage in other areas are terrible and we’re very fortunate here to walk away with nothing much but some downed branches. It’s times like this you really can sit back and think about how lucky you are, seeing other people lose everything. I’d say it’s times like these where we need to help each other out, but we shouldn’t be helping people only in times of extreme crisis. This is the same principle I hold on Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. You don’t need a day to tell someone you love them or that you’re appreciative of what you have. You should do it every day. My thoughts go out to people who are in need at this time.

Today I can smile while my boys are dressed up in their cute and overpriced costumes. As much as my husband and I love this day, it’s mostly for our kids. The tradition of getting dressed up to eat a ton of candy and get sick is as timeless as leaving cookies for the jolly fat man. Plus, they’re only young enough to do it for so long that you need to live in that short moment. Yes, that short moment where they only wear that overpriced costume once for an hour. It makes them happy though, and that’s the most important thing. Except for our baby, his costume and everything is more for us than him. But they’re both still very adorable. Happy Halloween readers, and donate to the Red Cross to help out. Every bit counts.

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6 Weeks Later

I’m sitting there, embarrassed that my first “holy crap I leaked, and it’s obvious and embarrassing” happened, but pleased at least it was at the doctor’s office where they’re used to that sort of thing. I’m waiting in the uncomfortably cold room wondering why if they’re going to hand you something to “keep you warm”, they don’t give you something that’s actually warm while you wait to be examined. It could be worse though, I could still be pregnant. Or maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing considering I got more sleep and could sit down and enjoy more of a meal than a granola bar or something else I only need one hand to eat.

Then the door opens, a troupe of people cheering and applauding me. My midwife comes in with a microphone… “3 minutes?!! 3 MINUTES??!! How does it feel?”

I look at the camera and asked “..3 minutes…?” I had no clue what was going on.

I shook my head and closed my eyes a minute, they were drooping from being exhausted. I opened them and my midwife and her student P.A. were standing there, waiting for my answer. “Seriously, what’s going on?”

She laughed, “I think you set a record. A 3 minute push time. How does that make you feel?”

“Really, that only took 3 minutes? It seemed a whole lot longer…”

“Don’t tell your friends, you’ll lose them all afterwards. Both deliveries happened quick and the last one was 3 minutes. I’m afraid to see how your next one goes. I might have to hospitalize you before your water even breaks. You might not last the 10 minute drive.. in fact you probably won’t. You’re famous. Everyone was talking about it. It’s even in your notes all capitalized.”

I laughed. I wanted to be a famous writer… apparently my claim to fame is getting a kid out of me because it was the only way to stop the pain. I’ll take it though. Obviously I ignored the whole “not telling anyone” thing, because honestly it just makes a funny story. Or gives me something to brag about. I don’t get much to brag about but how awesome my sons and husband are. This achievement.. this one is mine. I should feel sad that this is my accomplishment, but I made a friend with the labor nurse who said to call her next time.

The real lesson here is no matter what you do, you take pride in it. Whether it’s mastering making one son breakfast while holding an infant and making his bottle and feeding him after while making your son his cold lunch for school. These may seem minor, but minor victories are all the rage. Even the littlest of them to others are huge moments for you. Embrace them. No matter how boring or meaningless they seem to everyone else.

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Wanted: Father

At the bus stop while waiting for my older son to come home, another mother and I were talking about the new baby. Somehow it came up that my older son was not biologically my husband’s. She explained to me that she understood and that the story was the same about her eldest. Then she proceeded to tell me about how she went to her class reunion for the sole purpose of finding a daddy for her child. Then went on to say she understood about when her and her husband had a child, it was different for him than it was for the child that wasn’t biologically his. I think she was looking for someone who understood her situation. She was looking at the wrong person.

I never went out for the purpose of finding someone to play daddy to my son. Sure, a guy who was kind to my son was something I looked for. I didn’t want anyone to play daddy, I didn’t ever once think that I needed a person in a father’s role for my son. We were doing just fine. I understand now that I met someone who fit so perfectly in the role that at a certain age a boy does need a male influence, but I still don’t think it necessarily needed to be a “daddy”. I’m the only girl with 3 older brothers; a male influence for my son wasn’t exactly hard to find. I imagine problems when you go out into the world for the sole purpose for looking for a replacement father. You’d find someone perfect for him but not for you and end up miserable. Or you find someone absolutely perfect but wonder if he was only there because your kid was so awesome. Then there’s the paranoia part of “what if he was a pedophile targeting me for my kid?”. I’m fine with not having any of these scenarios, I have a hard enough time understanding why someone as awesome as my husband puts up with me.

Then to the other point. I might be naïve in my thinking, and I admit there’s probably a difference when you hold your baby for the first time than when you meet your girlfriend’s baby at 6 months old. In general though, I see no difference in the way my husband cares for either child. He loves them both equally, and is equally proud in both their achievements. Though one’s achievements is acing his schoolwork and making student council while the other one is going a day without explosive poop… still he beams with pride at both his boys.

I lucked out. I didn’t need to find a daddy for my child. I found a guy that was right for me and it turns out he is an amazing and caring father. I don’t think you need that though, your child will survive just fine even if it’s only you raising him. Turns out, kids aren’t as complicated as you think and just need a strong influence in their life that loves them with every inch of their heart and soul. This applies if you’re unhappy in your relationship or single with your child. They’ll be happy and thrive as long as you’re there happy and thriving too, showing them that all you need is love and hard work.

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And It’s Been 10 Years.

The announcement of my 10 year reunion should’ve shocked me. Has it really been 10 years? I was prepared though, as my oldest son was born a few months after graduation. I’ll show this in a hilariously funny conversation my son, my father, and I had when my son finished the third grade and was about to start his summer vacation.

“Can you believe I graduated Kindergarten only a few years ago? Man I’m getting old.” My son looked down as if he were remembering an ancient memory.

“Can you believe this time 40 years ago I graduated high school?” My father said.

“Well this was a long time ago for someone my age, Pop.” My son rolled his eyes as if to say “Oh silly Pop”. My father laughed.

“What do you mean? That we’re old?” I looked at my son, pretending to be angry. He looked stunned and started to stutter something to backtrack his statement. I decided to join in the conversation. “Can you believe this time 10 years ago, I graduated high school?”

My son looked at me, and he goes “10 years ago? Wait.. I’m going to be 10….” He looked at me confused. I changed the subject.

This made me realize the timing of my pregnancy was terrible. If I had gone to my reunion pregnant, there would be an excuse for my size. They’d touch my belly, making me wish I could drink to forget them all touching me, and be done with it. Then they would mock the other skinny girls from high school that seemed to double in size since graduation and we’d all feel better about ourselves. Don’t worry about the girls being mocked, it’s an open bar and they’d probably already be half in the bag.

Except this reunion I’m not the skinny girl from high school. I’m the “just had a baby and look awkwardly big” stage of post-pregnancy. I figure I have about a month after my doctor gives me the thumbs up to get back to working out to get into some sort of decent shape before I become the girl who was scrutinized. At least I have the advantage of basically being invisible and not so memorable.. maybe. The calendar is giving me hives considering this, but I’m stubborn… I mean, I’m determined.

So dear weight loss gods, just give me 20lbs and I’ll be happy. Either that or replace the 20lbs from my lower half and redistribute it up top. If they’re bigger, people won’t pay attention to the baby weight. Yep, I’ll be happy either way but I would prefer losing it. I might be vain for thinking this, I probably am. But I’m definitely not the only person in history that wants to look at least semi-decent for their reunions. I’m sure gyms split their money up from people getting in shape for reunions and people getting in shape for their weddings.