I had no boundaries at all when I started dating. I had extremely low expectations about how I would be treated by men. Basically if a man was interested in me, was attractive and did not scream at or hit me, he was a keeper. One of the first guys I dated for any length of time during high school treated me like garbage. I only know that now. I didn’t know it then.

We worked together at a part-time after school job. We didn’t go to the same school. We did have some mutual friends. He asked me out and our first date was to be at a Halloween party. I was scheduled to work that night but called in sick. My boss, used to dealing with lying teenagers, gave me a hard time about it.

He stood me up. For our first date. I waited for hours making up excuse after excuse for his possible tardiness in picking me up and lack of communication about what was keeping him. When I finally stopped rationalizing his behavior I was devastated. I spent hours crying and trying to figure out what I had done wrong.

By the time I saw him at work a few days later I had already resolved to not let him know it bothered me at all. He did apologize but gave me no real explanation other than none of his other friends were bringing dates to the party. He said he still wanted to go out. I resisted for about a week but finally gave in and agreed. His chasing me was flattering. This time he was punctual. My parents loved him because he was tall, blond, good looking and behaved respectfully towards them.

He had recently been dumped by a long term girlfriend. She was a cheerleader. He was still pining over her. He even had a little shrine to her in his room complete with pictures of her and little mementos she had given him. It creeped me out but I rationalized this by telling myself it was a recent heartbreak that I would help him get over. Can you smell the co-dependency in the air even then?

His parents grilled me about my grades, what I wanted to do with my life and what extra curricular activities I was involved in. They were still pining over the ex-girlfriend too because they mentioned her and all of her activities often. I knew I could never measure up to her but I was determined to win them all over with my sparkling personality. The truth was, my after school activities involved making sure dinner was on the table as soon as my parents walked in the door and avoiding being hit or screamed at. I couldn’t exactly tell these fine, upstanding, cheerleader-loving people about that dirty little secret.

I can’t remember how long we dated but it was longer than I had dated anyone else. I was on the pill (that’s a post in itself) and decided I wanted to see what sex was all about. With him. I was extremely innocent, having done nothing more than make out with boys previously. I was curious and protected plus I figured he’d be less likely to dump me if we were having sex.

We were at his house alone one day making out on the couch when he suggested we go up to his room. I probably beat him up the stairs I was so eager to please. We were in bed, my clothes strewn about the floor of his room, about to do the deed when his parents came home early. He jumped out of bed, collected all of my clothes, threw them at me and pushed me towards the stairs telling me to get dressed in the bathroom downstairs and to hurry up. I did as I was told.

We went out once more after that incident, to one of his friend’s parties. He ignored me and flirted with some other girl the whole night. On the ride home he broke up with me. I acted like it didn’t bother me.

Once home I cried and cried, again wondering what I had done wrong. What I had done wrong! He had done everything wrong and wasn’t worth a second of my time. Reliving this is making me cringe. I want to build a flux capacitor, rent a DeLorean and travel back to 1986 to smack some sense into my 16 year old self. There are so many things wrong with the way I saw myself and my thought processes that I don’t even know where to begin. I shudder to think of what I would have become if I had had sex with him. I know I would have assumed that he broke up with me because I was bad at it and probably would never have tried it again. I’d be the creepy-spinster-cat-lady on the block most likely.

This all came up because I’ve come to the realization that I still have boundary issues and allow inappropriate behavior from men in my life. It’s not them, it’s me. I send off this signal that gives them the green light to behave badly. I allowed all sorts of nonsense from my own husband for years before realizing we had to change our relationship or end it. Luckily that worked out.

It’s other men in my life where I continue to find myself in uncomfortable conversations that I should not be allowing to continue. I was recently having a conversation with a man about a very serious and painful subject. He kept bringing the conversation back to sex. I kept laughing as if he were joking and then changing the subject back to the topic at hand. I made excuses for him since he is going through a lot right now. That’s horse-shit. I don’t care what he’s going through, nothing is a good enough excuse for this married man to be soliciting me, a married woman, for sex, “joking” or not.

This is not the first man with whom I’ve had these sorts of conversations either. That’s how I came to realize that it’s my lack of boundaries, not their behavior, that’s causing me confusion and feelings of being used. It feels just like it did to be the aforementioned asshole’s “girlfriend” back in high school. It’s time to challenge these “absolute truths” and stand up for myself once and for all. If I don’t insist on appropriate behavior I will continue to feel like that pathetic discarded 16 year old. I don’t need this type of attention from other men to feel validated anymore. It never validates me anyway.

Thanks for stopping by!

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You know how all kids always deny being tired despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? Well, that’s what this adorable little story on Nick Jr. is about. I don’t know what made me remember this story but I thought of it the other day. It was both of my boys’ first experience with the internet. Back before Steve abandoned Blue for a fabulous movie career (?!), and they were each around 2-3 years old they would sit on our laps and make us play this story over and over again. Both of them loved it. 

I’m so happy I found it still up on their website so many years later! Whenever one of them claims to not be tired and they clearly are tired, we still say, “I’m not tired” in this little bird’s voice to this day.   

Thanks for stopping by!

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Yes I know I’m a dork but I just can’t get enough of these things!

Here are my (mostly accurate) results to the Jung Typology Test:

Here is a description of INFPs that sounds fitting:
Idealist Portrait of the Healer (INFP)

• distinctively expressed introvert
• distinctively expressed intuitive personality
• moderately expressed feeling personality
• moderately expressed perceiving personality

Here are my (mostly accurate) results to the:

Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self — always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey. Idealists are naturally drawn to working with people, and whether in education or counseling, in social services or personnel work, in journalism or the ministry, they are gifted at helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potentials.

Idealists are sure that friendly cooperation is the best way for people to achieve their goals. Conflict and confrontation upset them because they seem to put up angry barriers between people. Idealists dream of creating harmonious, even caring personal relations, and they have a unique talent for helping people get along with each other and work together for the good of all. Such interpersonal harmony might be a romantic ideal, but then Idealists are incurable romantics who prefer to focus on what might be, rather than what is. The real, practical world is only a starting place for Idealists; they believe that life is filled with possibilities waiting to be realized, rich with meanings calling out to be understood. This idea of a mystical or spiritual dimension to life, the “not visible” or the “not yet” that can only be known through intuition or by a leap of faith, is far more important to Idealists than the world of material things.

Highly ethical in their actions, Idealists hold themselves to a strict standard of personal integrity. They must be true to themselves and to others, and they can be quite hard on themselves when they are dishonest, or when they are false or insincere. More often, however, Idealists are the very soul of kindness. Particularly in their personal relationships, Idealists are without question filled with love and good will. They believe in giving of themselves to help others; they cherish a few warm, sensitive friendships; they strive for a special rapport with their children; and in marriage they wish to find a “soulmate,” someone with whom they can bond emotionally and spiritually, sharing their deepest feelings and their complex inner worlds.

Idealists are relatively rare, making up no more than 15 to 20 percent of the population. But their ability to inspire people with their enthusiasm and their idealism has given them influence far beyond their numbers.

Idealists at Work
Idealists, as a temperament, are passionately concerned with personal growth and development. They are naturally drawn to working with people and are gifted with helping others find their way in life, often inspiring them to grow as individuals and to fulfill their potential both on, and off, the job.

Conscience looms large for you; in almost any situation, you feel compelled to measure yourself, other people, and the conditions of the environment against your personal morality. You have a tendency to perceive questions of meaning in even trivial matters and to worry about far-flung consequences of your actions. In your ideal job, you are free to pursue depth rather than breadth and quality rather than quantity. You feel rewarded when your projects and daily tasks allow you to immerse yourself in your process as deeply as you “need to” in order to satisfy your inner standards of quality. You are uncomfortable with the notion of authority per se and may avoid leading, as well as being led, either consciously or unconsciously. As you experience them, adhering to fixed roles and rules amounts to an abdication of your responsibility to exercise your conscience.

I found this particularly interesting: “Idealists strive to discover who they are and how they can become their best possible self — always this quest for self-knowledge and self-improvement drives their imagination. And they want to help others make the journey.”  Ummmm….ya think?

If you are as dorky interested in these tests as me you can find these and many more here.

Thanks for stopping by!

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I have to preface this post with a BIG thank you to my friend Dawn over at Morse Musings for providing me with this quote. It couldn’t be more perfect. Thanks Dawn!

1 + 1 = 2

This was most likely our first math problem. We were not born knowing the answer. We learned it. At first we practiced by holding up one finger on one hand and one finger on the other hand and counting them. One….Two. We probably continued to solve this math problem by counting for some time before it finally became indelibly etched in our brains. We do not remember the struggle to learn the answer but the knowledge of that answer will never be forgotten. It was the first building block. We went on to learn more complex math problems but it all started with this one. Once we mastered this problem we stored the answer in our brains as the absolute truth and never questioned it again.

And so it goes with everything we learned as children. We may not immediately recall how or what we learned but we learned the building blocks to everything we now believe when we were young, most of it from our parents. Once we learned something and came to accept it as the absolute truth, we never questioned it again.

As an example, growing up with two narcissistic and abusive parents, I learned that I was bad. Not that I did bad things but that I was bad. Not worthy of love, affection, respect and deserving of abuse at the hands of my own parents. I learned to rely on the stingy scraps of praise I was given for a job well done, or at least for a job not horribly botched. I learned that just to avoid being hit, called horrible names, snide comments, cruel “jokes” and being screamed at, I had to be hyper-vigilant and never ever screw up anything. To make a mistake brought the wrath and rejection of  my parents. To do well got me neutral and sometimes even positive feedback from them.

I had to do more, be better and not do anything to garner their disapproval just to attempt to gain what little comfort I found in a day or even a few hours that passed without any abuse. As children do, I saw my parents as all-powerful and believed that they tried to love me but that I was just constantly failing and falling short of their expectations. The knowledge that I was only worthy of a pat on the back or at least worthy of being spared from abuse when I was doing something well was the absolute truth. I forgot many of the instances that taught me this lesson but the lesson remains.

And so this is where my debilitating fear of failure, of making any mistakes, comes from. The point of bringing this up is not to whine about my childhood or blame my parents for my problems. It is to clearly see the reality of what I believe about myself and question it. Where did it come from? When the answer to that question is unknown I can be certain that it came from my childhood lessons. I know then that I must challenge that particular “absolute truth”, retrace my steps, figure out how I learned the lesson, discard it as untrue and learn a new, healthy, realistic lesson about myself to replace the outdated one.

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I jumped online tonight to visit all my usual spots for information on narcissists. Instead I decided to just do a google search for “narcissist lies” and landed on Dr. Ludger Hofmann-Engl’s site. He wrote exactly what I was looking for in the last sentence of this page (italics are mine):

Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Lies

When dealing with a narcissist (or a person with borderline), we face one major problem, and this is the narcissist’s attitude towards lying.

While the majority of people will have learned that not only that lying brings about devastation and destruction, it ultimately leads to total isolation and loneliness. This is, it hinders any sincere communication and hence the narcissist will find her/himself increasingly on the outside and excluded.

However, as much as the narcissist notices this isolation and reacts with increasing panic, it does not bring about a modification of the narcissist’s coping strategy.

The attitude of the narcissist towards lying is very childish and simple: If the narcissist lies and gets away with it, (s)he interprets this as being clever and superior to others. In this sense, while common sense clearly sees lying as a social ill, the narcissist views lying as an excellent tool to obtain what (s)he wants and as a means to demonstrate how stupid others are.

A person now, who wishes to engage in real communication and shows openness will be viewed by the narcissist as an utter fool who deserves to be exploited. Willingness to communicate and to show openness will be seen be the narcissist as weakness and stupidity.

When dealing with a narcissist, extreme care must be taken and events need to be recorded. It also is important to communicate with others who have to deal with the narcissist in order to counter-act splitting. This is, the narcissist uses lies in order to set up people against each other. In general, this is quite simple: The narcissist tells a person A that person B doesn’t like person A and the same the other way round. This then prevents A from talking to B and hence both parties can be manipulated through the narcissist’s lies.

While a normal person will be embarrassed when found out lying, not so the narcissist. The narcissist will see this as a threat to her/his superiority and will straight away think of ways of how to overcome this threat and this is by forming new lies.

To say it in one sentence: For the narcissist lying is fun and a tool, and anybody who doesn’t lie is a fool in the eyes of the narcissist. Trying to communicate with a narcissist is therefore pointless.

- Dr. Ludger Hofmann-Engl

I had actually started to believe that possibly my mother was no longer a narcissist. This happens to everyone involved with one of these individuals. Over. And over. And over. This is why most experts and anyone who has escaped from a relationship with one of them usually strongly advise that once you determine that someone is a narcissist, you have no further contact.

I have confirmation. She has not been magically cured. It’s been so long since I’ve had any issues with her that I believed she had changed. It is me that has changed. There I go again handing all my power right back to her.

She’s a fanatic about safety. Seriously obsessive. My son’s bus stop is two houses away from ours. She stands out in the driveway just watching him until the bus comes each morning. It’s creepy. My son has told me it creeps him out. Early last week I asked her to stop because it’s embarrassing.

Today she told me that she asked him if it bothered him to have her stand in the driveway and that he said no. She also mentioned that she had asked him if it was embarrassing to him for her to wave at him while he was at the bus stop and he said no. I thought nothing of this except that I must have misunderstood my son when he and I had talked about it, shrugged my shoulders and said, “ok”. I thought it was sort of odd that she felt the need to tell me such mundane details but I got busy making dinner and forgot all about this conversation.

At dinner, my sons were both telling me about their day and told me a funny story about their grandmother trying to figure out the remote. Since she was now the topic of conversation, my 11 year old remembered overhearing the conversation between my mother and I from earlier. He said that she never asked him if standing in the driveway was embarrassing, only if waving to him was embarrassing.

I immediately jumped to the conclusion that she just forgot their conversation. She is getting older. This is a perfectly logical conclusion when dealing with a normal person. My son wanted to know why she would say that she had asked him something that she hadn’t. That’s when it hit me. The lies. Narcissists lie for sport, for no apparent reason at all. They also lie to protect their precious images and to get what they want. She lied because she didn’t want me to think she was embarrassing my son and she wants to continue to stand in the driveway to watch him without me insisting that she stop.

I realize that this sounds like a petty, minor detail that can easily truly be a misunderstanding. I know better when dealing with a narcissist. It’s not petty or minor at all. I’ve lived within a web of these types of petty, minor lies and great big lies my whole life. They all eventually add up to low self-worth, confusion and therapy. I told my son the truth.

I was searching online to try and figure out if I should even bother confronting her about this. I knew before I found my answer that she would just claim ignorance, say that I must have misunderstood her or that she must have misunderstood him, and turn it around by asking me why I’m overreacting and making a big deal over nothing. Typical manipulative behavior. “Trying to communicate with a narcissist is therefore pointless.”. Thank you for the reminder Doctor.

Thanks for stopping by!

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One of my biggest obstacles in life continues to be my fear of making mistakes. When I make a mistake I don’t normally just shake it off. I know everyone makes mistakes and that I am far from perfect. The problems are that I beat myself up and worry about all the possible outcomes that could result from my mistake.

If I make a mistake at work, I consider the possibility that my mistake will cost the company money or cost them a customer. I consider the possibility that I suck at my job in general, or that someone else may come to that conclusion. I consider the possibility that anyone above me or involved in the transaction will be angry. I consider the possibility that I will be fired. Then I consider all the possible short and long term ramifications of losing my job. It goes on and on and on. Endless and pointless worrying. All over one mistake.

I made a mistake on Friday. In the grand scheme of things, it’s really not a big deal at all. At the time I came pretty close to a full blown panic attack. I talked myself down since I’ve come to recognize these self-destructive thought patterns. The next day though, when hubby expressed his displeasure over my mistake, it started all over again. He apologized and I talked myself down again. What’s interesting about this mistake was the overwhelming need for me to fix it. Immediately. Even though there is no true urgency and it is in fact, a better idea to wait a few days.

I was going to wash a mask off my face. I plugged the upstairs sink and turned the water on. The phone rang. I ran into the other room to get the phone and planned on running right back to the sink. It was a work related call and I got distracted. The call didn’t last more than a few minutes but that was enough time for the sink to overflow, run out of the bathroom and into our bedroom, soaking a small spot of the carpeting. More importantly, the water had time to run into the heating vent on the bathroom floor and onto the downstairs ceiling, leaving a rather large and horribly ugly brown spot.

Of course I should have turned the water off when I ran to get the phone. This was not my finest hour.

As I said I managed to talk myself down. I initially said all sorts of horrible things to myself. It’s never just, “that was a bad idea, action or decision”. It’s, “I’m a bad, stupid or inept person”. Then I remembered that everyone makes mistakes and that as far as home improvement projects go, this wouldn’t be the worst project to have to tackle. I hate painting and may end up having to paint the ceilings in several downstairs rooms since they are all connected. But I also may not have to do all that. It may look ok with some primer and “feathering” of the paint. I looked all this up online to find out how to best handle it and it may end up being a much smaller job than originally anticipated by either me or my husband.

I wanted to tackle this on Saturday. I felt strongly that it must be fixed immediately. Hubby pointed out that it did not have to be done this weekend. My brother-in-law pointed out that it would be best to wait to make sure it’s completely dry.

Why did I feel such a sense of urgency? To cover it up. To make it go away. Literally. If there is no evidence of the mistake than I can stop feeling bad about it. I can take my tail from between my legs and stop beating myself up.

How absurd. It’s ugly. It’s going to be a pain in the ass. But it’s not life-threatening or even particularly expensive. I made a mistake. There is proof. That proof may stay with us for a little while constantly reminding me of my mistake. I think that may actually be a good thing. I need to get used to the idea that the world isn’t going to end every time I make a mistake. Maybe others do too.

Thanks for stopping by!

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I’m breaking with my usual tradition of parent-bashing after my mother clearly demonstrated to me today that on some level, she does get me. She may not approve or agree with everything I do or say but it does appear that she can sometimes at least see who I am.

Our family has a time honored tradition of using humor to diffuse uncomfortable, painful and awkward situations. I know this tradition is not unique to my family but it is truly the one thread that binds us. My father was the ringleader of this coping mechanism and he taught his daughters well. My mother is a lot more reserved, particularly in public, but she usually does laugh at our shenanigans even if only to not feel left out.

My hubby is a bit more like my mother in this respect. He’s reserved in public but laughs with (at) us most of the time. I sometimes think he secretly wishes we’d just shut up once we really get going. My sister’s hubby is completely on board with us. In fact I think he’s helped us take our game to the next level. Our specialty is inappropriate humor and more specifically, inappropriate humor at inappropriate times or occasions. We have had several conversations that began with, “Remember what you said at that funeral…”. The more twisted the better. Nothing is sacred. There are no boundaries.

I don’t know when it began but one of us must have decided that confessing to things we got away with when we still lived at home during Thanksgiving dinner was a wonderful tradition. We do it every year. I’m actually trying to come up with something for this year. I only have a few weeks left. The pressure is on. We try to out-do each other and the more shocking to my mother, the better.

Today when I came home from work my sister’s car was in front of my house. My mom watches my sons before and after school so I expected her to be here and she was. My sister being here was not at all traditional and I was actually slightly alarmed. The first thought that popped into my head (I did mention twisted, right?!) was that they were doing an intervention. On me. But the only thing I could think of that would require an intervention was blogging. Of course when I came into the house there was no intervention. She had gotten off work early so just came over to hang out. When I half-jokingly said I was afraid it was an intervention my sister said, “Yes it is. For blogging.”. We truly do share a brain.

My mother just laughed at us but said it reminded her of a sign that she saw in a catalog that was perfect for me. She tried to get out of telling me anything more because she hadn’t meant to mention it. She was planning on getting it for me for Christmas. She said as soon as she saw it she thought, “Cyndi”. Another tradition my sister and I started long ago is that when a situation like this arises you must spill the beans. Once we have knowledge of a secret, we must know that secret. Immediately. Along those lines, we insisted that my mother tell us what the sign said.

I’ve come to embrace my craziness. She may not be proud of it. She definitely doesn’t embrace it. But on some level she does get it, accept it and is able to laugh about it. That’s good enough for me. This is the sign that made my mother immediately think of her eldest daughter:

Thanks for stopping by!

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Oh but if I take my heart’s advice I should assume it’s still unsteady

Oh I’m never really ready, I’m never really ready

I’m in repair, I’m not together but I’m getting there”

- “In Repair” by John Mayer

Today, November 3rd would have been his 72nd birthday. The 10 year anniversary of his death was last month. We received a piece of junk mail addressed to him today. He never lived here. We bought this house 2 years after he died.

Ten years. It seems like a lifetime ago.

I don’t believe one of the things I said in last year’s post. I know I believed it at the time.

“I forgave him and grieved for my lost childhood a long time ago.”

No. That’s simply not true. I have never grieved for him or my lost childhood. It’s too much. Whenever I come even close to wrapping my brain around any of the emotions that surface when thinking of him I have to back away. The many forms of abuse I endured when he was healthy are so complicated and so much a part of my identity that I have to deal with my recollections in small doses.

I’m not even sure how to go about grieving for him. It’s so surreal, losing a parent. The hospice nurses told me that it’s actually more difficult for children who lose parents with whom they had a less than loving relationship. They warned me that I may not grieve at all but that somewhere down the road, “maybe even 10 years from now”, it will hit me, and hit hard.

I moved out just as he was beginning to get really sick. After I moved out I mostly only saw him at the occasional obligatory holiday and the seemingly endless emergency hospital visits and eventually in the nursing home. My only memories of him as an adult revolved around pretending everything was normal and his illness. That’s it.

I think that’s why it’s been easier for me to reconcile my relationship with my mother. She’s still here (thank God…or whoever). I never got to know him as a healthy adult.

I wonder how different my life would be if he were still here and healthy. I wonder how he’d have treated my sons. I wonder how he’d have treated me. I’ll never know.

I have to deal with all these conflicting feelings at some point. It’s obvious that avoiding them has caused most of my problems, especially my weight and body image issues, my anxiety and my trust issues. It’s just so overwhelming that I’m not sure when I’ll be able to do it. I’m in repair. I hope wherever he is, he is too.

Thanks for stopping by!

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November 2, 2008 was the date I sat down, wrote this post and hit the oft-dreaded publish button for the first time, claiming my own little spot here on the interwebs. I didn’t have much of a clue about why I was doing it or where I was going with it. I now have a pretty firm grasp on why I do it but still not the slightest idea of where it’s going.

I have learned quite a bit over the past year through blogging.

I’ve learned that pretty much no matter what I write about there is at least one person, and usually many more than just one, who reads it and comments or e-mails me to say they’ve been in the same situation or feel the exact same way. I’ve learned that I’m not alone.

I’ve learned that it is possible to develop relationships with people who follow my blog and whose blogs I follow. We have gotten to know each other. Admittedly, we never really know exactly how well we know each other since our primary interactions are through what each of us chooses to expose on our blogs and in our comments. Much can be hidden. The same can be said for people we know in life though. Some of the friends I’ve met through blogging have become facebook friends too, some I communicate with regularly via e-mail, one I have met in person. Some turned out not to be friends at all and/or not who they want people to believe they are. Some lost interest in my blog or I lost interest in theirs. Some stopped blogging and have disappeared. They have all touched me in some way and all taught me something about life or about myself.

I’ve learned a ton about social media. When I started out I had a MySpace account and one e-mail address. Today, I’m on virtually every social networking site there is. I can’t even remember all that I’ve signed up for. MySpace has been completely abandoned. Facebook is private and used primarily for people who I actually know, except my public Facebook Page for this blog. I have an endless number of e-mail addresses. I even know a little about search engine optimization, especially that anyone claiming to be a SEO guru, is in fact, NOT.

I’ve learned that there are multiple cliques within the blogging community. There is always some controversy or other brewing. These always seem to bring out the worst in people, the catty in-fighting hurts us all. This is especially true amongst “mommy-bloggers” which is, unfortunately, the category under which my blog most likely falls. I try to ignore the nonsense. It usually blows over pretty quickly and isn’t nearly as important as anyone involved thought it was.

I’ve learned that blogging is extremely time consuming and much easier to keep up with when not employed than when working full time. I’ve learned that doesn’t bother me and that I somehow find the time because I love it so much.

My most popular blog post by far is Narcissistic Mothers. My least popular post is Are Credit Scores Obsolete. I guess there a lot more people trying to understand their parents and narcissists than there are interested in credit scores or the mortgage industry. Or maybe there are just a lot more professional bloggers out there talking about credit scores and the mortgage industry so my little post didn’t cover any new ground.

That about sums up what I’ve learned this year and I hope to learn even more over the next year. Thank you to everyone who’s reading!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Related Reading:

Blogging for Bliss: Crafting Your Own Online Journal: A Guide for Crafters, Artists & Creatives of all Kinds

Joy of Cooking: 75th Anniversary Edition - 2006

The Social Media Marketing Book

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I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Except for the chocolate. My boys are 9 & 11 so they’re still very much into it. Their chosen costumes get creepier every year. This quote reminded me that at their ages my friends and I were out as late as possible without the hindrance benefit of any adult supervision whatsoever. I wouldn’t even consider letting them go trick-or-treating alone after dark. How times have changed. God, I sound like I’m 80 years old….I can remember back during the depression of 1929 2009…YIKES!

Anyway, I don’t mind going out with them and enjoying them enjoying themselves. It’s cute and I know soon they’ll be way too cool for all this nonsense and I’ll miss it. I don’t mind taking all the Reese’s (cups not pieces, I do have standards when taking candy from children) for myself either.

We used to have a neighbor, whom I considered to be something of a drip and not at all attractive. He had no personality to speak of so we didn’t interact much although our kids were friends. He used to wear this Zorro costume every Halloween. He didn’t look like a drip in that costume at all. I don’t know if it was my obsession with attraction to Antonio Banderas or just the mystery of the black mask, cape and sword (insert Freudian reference here…pun intended) but that costume made Halloween a lot more interesting for me.

What I really can’t stand is office Halloween parties where you’re expected to dress up and sit around working in some ridiculous costume all day just to show you’re a “team player”. God, I hate that phrase. There’s always at least one woman who doesn’t get that while it has become standard to dress like a skank on Halloween (when did that happen anyway?!), it’s probably not the best idea for the office.

The options for adult costumes range from hooker to dork with virtually no options in between those two extremes.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

As if I’d be caught dead in either of those costumes in public! Exhibit A…I’d either get arrested, be banned from the PTA (oops, that’s already happened) or get a LOT of candy.   Exhibit B….if I were to even consider wearing this ridiculous thing in public I may as well save some money, give up and just wear crocs and sweatpants.

Luckily I get to work from home tomorrow but I didn’t hear about any office dress-up nonsense anyway and I won’t be attending any costume parties. I will do my part by wearing my t-shirt that says “witchy” and wander our well-lit neighborhood with my little monsters, enjoy their fun and steal their chocolate-and-peanut-buttery-goodness.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Naughty Little Secret

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Extreme Halloween: The Ultimate Guide to Making Halloween Scary Again

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