The Waiting Room

Go Ahead, Judge Me

2011-09-13T20:10:00.001-05:00

I like to think of myself as a pretty non-judgmental person. I also like to think of myself as a size 4, but that doesn't necessarily make it true.

"Judge not, lest ye be judged" is probably one of the most referenced scriptures in the Bible. Moral debates without a definitive answer, "Well, judge not, lest ye be judged." Even people that don't believe in God use this as a guiding principle. Kind of like the Golden Rule, only with consequences.

Turns out, I judge people all of the time. Maybe not in the "You're going straight to hell" way, but in smaller ways like, "Why would they possibly buy a new car when they can't make the payment on the old one?" or, "Guess someone had a few too many cocktails before choosing her new hair color."

But my most egregious judgments have been made about how people parent their children.

"What kind of horrible parents let their kids throw a temper tantrum in the middle of the grocery store? Get control of your child."

"That poor kid has no coat. Do his parents not realize it is 25 degrees out."

"What kind of person yells at her child in the middle of a crowded restaurant? Seriously, some people should not have children."

In case there is some confusion, these are all judgments that I feel confident have been made about me in the last seven years. Heck, most of them have probably happened in the last seven days. What makes it such a bitter pill to swallow is recalling the multitude of times I made similar judgments in my pre-parent days. Rolling my eyes, rude comments under my breath, disapproving glances, I've done it all. My judginess probably peaked when I was pregnant with our first child. Oh, how many times I uttered the words, "That will never happen in my house." As I think back on those days, if I am really quiet, I can actually hear God laughing.

Don't get me wrong, I adore my children and most of the time, they are incredibly well behaved. But, as my dad says, they are children. Apparently, reasoning with a three year old is different than reasoning with a grown adult (well, most grown adults). And dang, being a parent is exhausting. If only I wasn't constantly picking up after them, doing their laundry, packing lunches, brushing teeth, and moderating battles, I would have the common sense to check the weather before I sent my child to school in shorts during a snowstorm. I mean, it is Texas. Why the heck is would we ever have a snowstorm? If only I had more sleep, more hours in the day, and let's face it, several glasses of wine, I would definitely be more patient. We would read and play educational games all day long and I wouldn't feel compelled to lock myself in the bathroom just to get three uninterrupted minutes of peace and quiet.

Instead, I have resolved that I will be the woman on the other side of the judgments for the next few years. Looking back on that scripture, it's clear I earned my place there.

Curves are Freakin Awesome

2011-09-08T21:35:00.001-05:00

Image via WikipediaI am a curvy woman. I have been curvy for as long as I can recall. Sure, there were times when I was skinnier. A couple of times when I was just plain skinny. But even in those skinniest of times, the closest I ever got to wearing skinny jeans was in the dressing room when I tried to pull them on and got as far as my mid calf before the seams started to pop.

Somewhere around sixth grade I developed what I've come to know as "good child bearing" hips. Just what every middle school girl wants. Apparently to hold up such important hips, my thighs had to be substantial as well. I've always had a small waist, so if I ever got promoted out of the A cup to the big D leagues, I could have a perfect hourglass figure.

This became a reality after pregnancy, and his friend the Booby Fairy visited my house. Twice.

Hello hourglass.

I've been various sizes over the past 15 years. There are pictures of me in a size 4, and pictures of me in a size 14 within 18 months of each other. But on any given day, I usually fall somewhere in between. Say, an 8. Over the last few months, I've been moving farther and farther from that size. Then came the horrible day when I had to pull out my stash of big size clothes (You know, the ones you want to give away because you know you will never be that big again.) Except that you will definitely be that size again. So you stick the Fat clothes in a box marked "Feminine things" hoping your husband will never open the box and discover that his size 6 bride is a size 14 wife.

For the past few months, my weight really started to bother me. I would go for a couple days without eating just so I could comfortably zip a pair of jeans. Then I would only eat fruit smoothies for five days, those kind of ridiculous things. And like every dieter I have ever known, I became miserable, depressed, angry, and pretty much a horrible person to be around. This behavior wasn't entirely new to me. I watched similar patterns growing up. My mother (who is absolutely gorgeous) spent the better part of three decades obsessing about her weight. The lower the number on the scale, the better life got. The larger the number, the worse she felt about herself, about life, about everything.

A few days ago I stepped out of the shower. Since the extra 15 pounds made their way to my life, I make it a point to wrap a towel around me before I get out of the shower so I don't have to face the mirror. For no particular reason on this day I decided to get a look at exactly how bad my body has become.

That's when I discovered it.

My curves are freakin awesome!

I was right in line with American Icon Marilyn Monroe. Better yet, I could be a stunt double for some of the women in Renoir's paintings. This brilliantly curvy body is what men for centuries viewed as the ideal beauty. Curvy women like me have been immortalized in paintings, sculptures, heck, I bet there are idols out there formed after a beautiful curvy woman. Thus leading to my realization that a curvy woman is truly a work of art.

I made another discovery that day. I don't need to lose 15 pounds and I don't need to be a size 6. What I do need to be is healthy. So I'm making a battle plan. My plan is that in the battle of healthy and non healthy choices, healthy wins at least every third time. Walk a little more, have frozen yogurt instead of ice cream, unless, of course, it is national ice cream day, during which I would be unpatriotic if I didn't eat ice cream.Yeah, I can make healthy work.

If I can be a little healthier, and the result size 10 jeans, I will be content. I will take my curves, and I will rock the size 10 they way it should be rocked, with child bearing hips, post pregnancy exploded breasts,and thighs who hear angles sing when they hear the words "loose fitting" I will feel comfortable in my own skin, because my curves are freakin awesome. Men have known that for centuries. It's time we women caught on.

Waiting for Battle

2011-04-27T19:49:00.008-05:00

Image via WikipediaFor the past five years I have had a goal; read all the way through the One Year Bible. The words, "One Year" indicate this should not be a five year project. I should probably give it up, but every year, on some random day, I pick up the One Year Bible, flip to the corresponding day, and start my quest again.

Today was that day.

My One Year Bible follows the following daily format;

Old Testament reading
New Testament reading
Chapter from Psalms
One little Proverb

I'm not going to lie to you, those Old Testament chapters are usually what bogs me down. The New Testament is filled with so much hope, joy, and red print to easily identify the most important parts. The Psalms bring comfort and peace in the midst of trials. And who doesn't love Proverbs? Besides being extremely short, they are uber-practical, even for non-believers. "Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife." Proverbs 25:24. Awesome.

But the Old Testament . . . somewhere after the familiar stories of creation, Noah's Ark, and the parting of the Red Sea, it seems filled with war, a bunch of laws that don't make any sense, and pages and pages of names that I can't pronounce.

But since it was my first day back, I opted not to skip the Old Testament reading; Judges 7 a.k.a.the story of Gideon. Being a preacher's kid, I'm familiar with the story of Gideon (I think we even have a Vegie Tales to that effect). But somehow today the story looked different.

Here is the Cliffs Notes version. A giant army (swarming like locusts and too numerous to count) attacks the Israelites and strips the land bare. Then they camp, basically inciting a man-made famine. God's help comes in the form of a man named Gideon, who just so happenes to be a member of the weakest clan around.

Gideon is unsure of this arrangement to say the least, but he rounds up 22,000 men. This rag tag group is about to head to battle when God says something like, "Sorry Gideon, I know you are outnumbered like a million to one, but I think your army is a little big.*" He proceeds to send 10,000 of the men home.

But 12,000 Israelites vs. a gazillion bad guys still seems to be weighted in Israel's favor, so God whittles it Gideon's army down to a measly 300 men. To make matters more interesting He sends them to battle with trumpets and torches. Just trumpets and torches.

Somewhere along verse 2, my life flashed across the pages.

After a year of health, the past month has been filled with trips to the ER, hospital stays, and more blood draws than I care to remember. An abundance of tests (which are starting to look like a swarm of locust) with no answers.

Battle.

I keep fighting, but after every small victory I just get pummeled again.

"You have too many warriors with you. If I let all of you fight the Midianites, the Israelites will boast to me that they saved themselves by their own strength" Judges 7:2

Seriously, God? Too many warriors. At this point, I can barely hold my head up, much less hold a weapon, or even a trumpet for that matter.

Still, I knew it was true. When things are running smoothly in my life, I view my accomplishments with an "I did this" attitude. It is only when I am completely outnumbered, outgunned, and overwhelmed that I finally say, "There is no way in the world I can do this," and look outside myself and into the face of God.

What the April 27 Old Testament reading reminded me is that the more hopeless my circumstances, the more hope I find in Him.

Gideon's tiny army from the weakest clan won their battle. Not because they were stronger, or smarter, or even soldiers for that matter. They won because they knew they couldn't win, so they let Someone else do the fighting.

*This is the Kristen interpretation.

Waiting for "I"

2010-05-16T21:34:00.008-05:00

Image by J. Star via Flickr

So here it is, over a year after what should have been a simple hysterectomy turned my little world all kinds of upside down, sideways, and flip flopity. But that's not what this post is about. This is about how those 13 months have made my back side, oh, and let's just be honest, my front side, and my thighs flip flopity in their own right.

I could make all kinds of excuses, and believe me I have. But this post is not about excuses. This post is about my quest to find the rear end I know is hiding somewhere in the dimpled mush I see when I brave a quick glance in the mirror in the three seconds it takes to grab the towel as I step out of the shower.

I have a lot of talents. I made exceptional grades during my academic career with almost no effort. I worked my way up the corporate ladder at a very young age. I'm witty, funny, charming, and clearly humble (see, there's the wit). Two attributes missing from the list are graceful and athletic.

Only two sports can make me pass as graceful. They are ice skating and its first cousin in-line skating. Now that I live in Texas there is a distinct lack of ice skating rinks. So after trying (with disdain) several aerobic DVD's, I decided to break out my in-line skates this week. The first step was to literally dust them off as they hadn't been used in over a decade (when in-line skating was cool). Then I laced them up and checked my stance. Felt good.

I grabbed my i-pod, a definite improvement over the walk-man I donned the last time I had these on, and figured I'd program a quick play-list for my skate. I chose about ten songs, figuring that would give me a thirty minute skate, and headed out the door.

And it truly was like riding a bike. Without too much effort, I was actually gracefully striding down the street. I decided I would turn into the adjacent neighborhood and take on some hills, you know, liven things up a bit. So there I was, cruising along (okay, huffing a bit), when I realized I forgot my wrist guards. No worries. How likely was it that I would fall? Skating up and down hills. In the dark. After the rain. I pressed on. I could almost feel the muscles in my thighs tightening up as I pushed my way up a hill, when, what the . . . ? A bug flew in my mouth. I spit it out, refusing to stop because I didn't want to loose the momentum I worked so hard to build up. I turned the corner trying to create more saliva to erase the lingering bug taste. Seriously?

By this point, I was ready to head back to the house. My left ankle was pounding, my mouth tasted like bug, I had no wrist guards, which was just plain dangerous for a stay at home mother. If I fell, how would I take care of my child? Who would change his diapers if I broke both of my wrists, I reasoned, still trying to spit with no saliva to mention. All of the sudden I became aware of the song playing on my iPod, Chicken Fried, by the Zac Brown Band.

There it was, mocking me. All of my effort had only brought me to the letter "C" in my small play list. That did it. I dug deep. I headed back to our neighborhood and decided to skate a loop around. By the time I turned onto our street I had once again built up a solid momentum I felt so good I skated right past our house, went to the end of the street, circled the cul de sac and came back up the block.

As Selah sang me home with the words of, "I'll Fly Away" and I saw the light of our garage welcoming me back, I raised my hands, feeling the wind against my face, finally tasting something sweeter than bugs, and felt like I just might fly.

Little Man's Word of the Week

2010-03-26T16:09:00.002-05:00

Little Man is a talker. He has been since the day he was born, although it took about a year for us to understand exactly what he was trying to say. In recent months he's started stringing together words and catch phrases that he repeats dozens of times a day for a couple of weeks and then just as soon as one phrase comes, it is replaced by a new, equally random one.

Sometimes the words are funny, sometimes they are nonsensical, and sometimes they are just what we need to hear.

With that, I give you Little Man's Word of the Week.

Little Man's Word of the Week from Kristen Escovedo on Vimeo.

July- Daba Dee, Daba Doo

January 20 - Ta Da!

February 17 - Perfect

February 20 - Oh Man!

March 20 - Don't Worry.
(This was two days after my husband left for a mission trip to Spain, so it was very timely.)

March 24 - yaHoo!

I will continue to include latest Word of the Week here on the Waiting Room for your enjoyment because we can all use a little random Little Man in our life.

Waiting for the Present - More kindergarten theology

2010-03-13T12:19:00.007-06:00

Image by F1RSTBORN via Flickr

Driving home from the park today my five year old daughter posed this question, "Mommy, do we live in the past or the future?"

Smiling at her in the rear view mirror, I replied, "Neither, baby. We live in a time called the present."

Undeterred, she followed up. "But do some people live in the past?"

I pondered for a moment deciding whether my answer should be literal or metaphorical, and knowing neither would suffice, chose to go with honest, "Yes, baby, some people do live in the past."

"Do we live in the past, mommy?" The mixture of excitement and innocence in her voice was both amazing and humbling. It reminds me constantly how jaded I am.

"No. We don't live in the past. We live in the present."

Unfortunately, as much as I wish it was, my answer was not entirely true. There are many days I catch myself longing for the past or wishing for the future. This is not to say I sit around in my pajamas all day eating pints of Rocky Road looking through yearbooks and talking about how things were better in the good old days. However, I've been known to throw myself a pretty exclusive pity party while staring at a pair of jeans I no longer fit into (courtesy of Rocky Road), or longing for the days when my best friends didn't live 800 miles away, bills weren't piled up on the kitchen counter, kids weren't constantly clamoring for my attention, and if I went to the bathroom no one poked their little fingers under the door saying, "Whatcha doin?" the entire time. Heck, there are days I miss Ramen Noodles.

But more than that, I think I spend most of my life looking at what's next. From the age of seven, all I remember wanting to be is 16. Sixteen held something magical in my mind, although I don't recall anymore quite what it might have been. I dressed up pretending to be 16, wrote stories and songs about what I would do when I was 16, and admired girls lucky enough to live that dream. Finally my sixteenth birthday came and I don't think I relished it for even a minute because by that time, all I wanted to do was turn 18 so I could leave my hometown and head off to college. And so it went. In college my focus turned to graduating and getting a job so I could stop eating Ramen Noodles every day. Of course my entire single life focused on getting married, which I did, and no sooner did we walk down the aisle than people started asking, "When are you kids going to have a baby?" Then you are waiting for the pregnancy to be over, waiting for the baby to walk, for her first word, for her to be potty trained (oh dear lord, please!), for her to go to kindergarten, and for her to teach you important lessons . . .

Like mommy, stop waiting, and just enjoy this beautiful day with me at the park. Remember, we don't live in the past. We don't live in the future. We live right now.

This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. ~Ps 118:24

Waiting For Life to Settle

2010-03-03T12:57:00.018-06:00

It's been over six months since I resigned from my job. When I say it out loud, or indeed, write it, it seems entirely implausible. Granted, I spent the first two months battling major health

Image via Wikipedia

issues and recovering from a surgery that (thank the good Lord) fixed them, but still, that leaves a quarter of a year since this major life change.

Giving up my high stress full-time job for my full-time mommy/wife gig, I just had it in my mind that things would look somewhat different by now. My house would be much cleaner; all the clutter de-cluttered and sold on e-bay for extra cash. I'd be a better cook, having cooked my way through two or three Rachael Ray cookbooks (I have no delusions I could make it through even one Julia Child's recipe, let alone an entire book). My son would be potty trained before he was two. I'd be the ultimate volunteer at my daughter's school and be honored with one of those awards I used to write press releases about. I'd post on this blog at least four times a week to the delight of my thousands of faithful followers, write a novel, become more active in my church, and fit into my tiny little pre-pregnancy jeans.

Ummm . . .

My daughter's closet was clean for about three days but Goodwill required less effort than e-bay and I rationalized that decision with the old "tax write off" excuse (although it's March and I haven't started my taxes yet). I've cooked exactly two Rachael Ray recipes, even though I've probably watched more than 100 hours of Food Network. My son has washed his hands in the potty more than once, which I realize is disgusting, but I take comfort in the fact it is not as disgusting as it would be if he actually peed in it first. I've managed to make it to three events at my daughter's school, although not in a volunteer capacity, which is probably for the best since I was late to two of them. I joined a Bible study, even though I think that this week's absence makes it official that I've missed more than I've attended. Prior to tonight, my last blog post was in January and besides my mother, my 8 followers (thank you faithful few) have not been banging down the door demanding I write another post.

I hate those stupid little jeans.

So what's the deal? Not to brag, but for past 12 years I was a pretty darn successful career woman. For four of the past five I did, what I considered to be a mighty fine job of balancing the whole working mommy thing. So now that I have all this time on my hands, why haven't I conquered the world?

Believe me, I ask myself this question frequently.

I feel like I'm in a constant state of transition. I keep telling myself, "As soon as 'fill in the blank happens' I'll 'fill in the blank.'" 'Blanks' started with getting healthy, which seemed like an insurmountable task for almost a year. But then I got healthy after which came the transition of withdrawal from pain meds. Then came Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Then our family was thrown into transition when my dad retired, which I thought would allow me an entirely different set of opportunities. So, I thought to myself, why settle into a routine, since it will just get all upset anyway. Plus who can settle in, well with all the craziness surrounding Martin Luther King Day and tracking the Vegas odds on Punxsutawney Phil's shadow sightings. And don't even get me started on St. Urho's Day preparations.

Did I mention I chase around an almost two year old boy all day long?

My children and husband are well loved and I keep telling myself that counts for something. And I hope it's true, because this season is the first one in my life where I don't have a product, a paycheck, a grade, or all three at the end of the day to measure my results. On the flip side, it is the first season in my life I've been rewarded exclusively in milk mustache kisses, ketchup covered hugs, and "I love you, mommy's."

I guess this last five . . .er . . .ten pounds can wait.

Waiting for Applause

2010-01-20T10:37:00.007-06:00

My 21 month old son recently discovered the words, "Ta Da!" I'm not sure where he first heard them, but they entered his vernacular with the same ease that he pushes a safety pin into an electrical socket. And with the same result.

Ta Da! is now the beginning, middle, and end of all of his sentences. If you have read any of my past posts, you know he is not a quiet or still child. The phrase "all boy" was coined for children like him. He is fond of hitting things with plastic hammers, loves all things electric, climbs, jumps, runs, tackles - he is a writers' dream as his life is a never ending stream of active verbs.

With the addition of Ta Da! he now does all things as if he is on stage waiting for applause.

Take all of the cups out of the drawer, stack them up, knock them down with a wooden spoon. Ta Da!

Spot the beagle sleeping soundly in the middle of the floor, straddle him, sit, smile. Ta Da!

Pull the baseboard off the kitchen floor, run through the house swinging it like a lightsaber. Ta Da!

Dump the bowl of chocolate pudding onto the table. Ta Da! Finger paint with the pudding. Ta Da! Listen to mommy say, "Don't put the pudding in your hair." What's that mommy said? Put the pudding in your hair. Ta Da!

See mommy writing this blog post. Sense that mommy hasn't saved. Take your yellow plastic tweezers from your doctor's kit and hit the ESC key while she is typing.

Ta Da!

Waiting for Santa

2009-12-25T22:45:00.016-06:00

When I was three I wandered out of my bedroom on Christmas Eve and discovered my mom putting presents under the tree and stuffing my stocking and just like that, the illusion of a jolly old man in a red suit delivering toys to all the children of the world was destroyed.

Somewhere between junior prom and my bachelor's degree the trend reversed; I became a believer.

Most people abide by 1 Corinthians 13:11, "When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things." Apparently I am not most people. The older I got, the stronger my belief grew in not only the magic of Christmas, but in the Big Man himself.

I often hear people say they don't watch the news any more because it's too depressing. They feel like the world around them is overrun with wars, poverty, economic downturns, gang violence, and celebrities and politicians who either can't remember or don't care who they're married to.

But when the Christmas trees go up and the lights come on, something amazing happens. Across the country bells ring and people throw their spare change into red kettles. Marines decked out in their dress uniform stand on street corners alongside their moms, dads, brothers and sisters to collect toys for needy children in their communities. Regular people and local businesses partner with radio stations donating time and money to grant wishes as simple as new coats for their children or as elaborate as a new van to transport a disabled child.

Churches, shelters, and soup kitchens feed hundreds of thousands of families who wouldn't otherwise get a meal. Charities buy presents for children whose parents are in prison, helping those children find some sense of normality during the holidays.

I have even been told there is sometimes a break during battle on Christmas day.

We become a little more like the people we wish we were.

I know it won't last. It never does. Once the decorations go back in the attic and we polish off the last of the pie, things will go back to normal. That's why I believe it is Christmas that brings the magic. And although he may not arrive on a reindeer pulled sleigh, there is just no denying that the spirit of Santa comes alive every holiday season.

Look around and I think you, too, will become a believer.

Waiting for Sound Theology

2009-12-12T22:00:00.000-06:00

In the midst of this holy season I thought I would share with you some theology from a person whom I am quickly learning may be one of the great spiritual minds of our time; my five year old daughter.

The following are excerpts from conversations that have taken place between me and my daughter over the past year.
_______________________________

Me: Possum went up to heaven to live with grandma.

AK: Why?

Me: Because Possum was very old and grandma wanted to have a cat up there with her.

AK: Oh. Does God have a place for all the animals to sleep in heaven?

Me: Yes, I think he does.

AK: Who's going to die next? You or daddy?

Me: *pause* Well, only God knows that, but I don't think either one of us will die for a long time.

AK: Okay. Does God feed the pets in heaven?

Me: I'm not sure.

AK: Well, if God doesn't feed them, who does?

Me: I don't know. I'm sure somebody feeds them, or maybe God does.

AK: How tall is God?

Me: How tall do you think He is?

AK: About as tall as daddy.

_________________________________

Me: And on the seventh day God rested.

AK: So He could let Jesus do all the work?

__________________________________

This conversation was with my dad, a pastor of 40 years.

AK: Someday my mommy is going to die and go to heaven.

Pops: Yes, she is.

AK: And Pops, you are going to die and go to heaven.

Pops: Yes, I am.

AK: And I am going to die and go to heaven, and Nana is going to die and go to heaven, and my daddy can ride a bicycle standing up.

_______________________________

Me: What did you learn in church today?

AK: God lives in heaven. And sometimes Oklahoma.

_______________________________

Me: Jesus was born just like you and your brother.

AK: He has a mom?

Me: Yes.

AK: But He is God's son?

Me: Yes.

AK: Well that doesn't even make sense.

Me: I know it's a little confusing. Jesus is God and He is also a person, just like us.

AK: I mean. How did he . . How was he even . . . How did he . . . How was he even born there.... without a nursery?

________________________________

Waiting in Time Out

2009-12-10T11:20:00.011-06:00

My child hits.

There. I said it. I feel like it should be cathartic. Like saying, "My name is Kristen and I'm an alcoholic."

Mostly I just feel like I have a child who hits and have developed a deeper understanding how stay at home moms become alcoholics.

My child hits indiscriminately. He enjoys the sound it makes, I think. He starts by hitting his plastic screwdriver off of the plastic toolbox it came with, and that is okay, I think. So I let him do it. He has the most fantastic laugh and the noise he discovered hitting the screwdriver and the box makes him laugh, not quietly, but a big belly laugh. Perhaps I should stop him, but I enjoy the laugh and it makes me laugh too.

He is twenty months and full of life and rolls of chub. He was born five weeks early and barely five pounds, so watching him now, full of chub, life, and laughter brings me great joy, even if he is now hitting a plastic hammer off of a tambourine. I reason that this is a musical instrument, so I allow the concert to continue, thinking that he could be a Blue Man in training.

He then moves with the plastic hammer to the coffee table, which is where I draw the line. Not because our coffee table is particularly nice. It is what designers call distressed, and I think to get it that way, I probably banged it with an actual hammer, but it is the principal of the thing. My child is clearly disappointed, as the noise from the table was much better than either the tambourine or the box provided.

He is not deterred. He finds a ladle in a kitchen cabinet it attempts to see how it would sound beating against the head of our nine year old beagle. Luckily for the beagle, I stop the experiment before he can find out.

His favorite target, however, is his sister. If there is something in his hand, or in his reach, be it soft, hard, long or short, he feels compelled to hit her with it. Sometimes out of anger, sometimes out of curiosity. Sometimes, I believe, just because it is in his hand and she is in his reach.

I have said the words, "No hitting," "Use nice hands," and "We don't hit," so much that he may think they are actually rooms in our house at this point. In fact, as he is raising his hand (or whatever object he has in it) to hit whatever it is he is about to hit, he will look at me and say, "No?" and then proceed to swing away.

He spends a good deal of his day in time out and I spend a good deal of my day trying not to console myself with the stale Halloween candy hidden on the top shelf of the pantry. Our pediatrician suggested that he is simply exploring his surroundings and doesn't understand that hitting people causes physical pain. Meanwhile, I'm trying graduate my daughter from kindergarten without brain damage.

Advice in the mommy world varies from; stick to time outs (don't repay hitting with hitting) to hit him back (he'll never understand it hurts unless you show him).

If any of you have been there and done that, all of us here in the Escovedo Casa would be greatly appreciative of any advice you could give us, especially our daughter and our dog!

How have you successfully disciplined a toddler who hits?

Waiting for December; How NaNoWriMo Stole My Life

2009-12-02T13:14:00.022-06:00

To my faithful Waiting Room readers, first let me thank you. Second, let me apologize for my vast lack of posts in the last month. It seems my life, or at least my writing life, was sucked dry by NaNoWriMo.

Like many of you, I had never heard of National Novel Writing Month, lovingly dubbed NaNoWriMo, until one of my writer tweeps mentioned it on Twitter on October 29. A quick Google search landed me on the non-profit's home page where I learned that;

"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30."

"How fun would that be?" I said to my husband, who was sitting next to me on the couch, Googling his own November project. Since leaving my job in August due to health concerns, I felt that God was calling me to write and this seemed like the perfect way to give my writing chops a work-out. Fifty thousand words, thirty days; no problem.

Well, maybe there was one slight problem. I had no idea what in the heck to write about. ButI had two whole days to think about it before the clock started ticking. I mean, come on. I was a woman with no full time job for the first time in my life. What else did I have to do?

Turns out that October 30 and 31 are pretty well occupied with all things Halloween in a house with two small children, one of whom is in kindergarten and had her first big elementary school event, for which her costume had to be made using things we had at our house (hello duct tape!).

November 1; The writing begins. Not only do I have no plot, I have no ideas for a main character, a setting, or even a genre of book. I call upon my Facebook friends for help.

Kristen Walker Escovedo Just signed up for the National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo.org). Writing a 50k word novel by midnight November 30. Now I just need a plot, some characters, & a setting. Luckily the goal is not for it to be good, just to finish! Kind of like if I was running a marathon, only in this case, I probably won't be lying on the ground crying at the end.

Plot; a young man in search of the etch-a-sketch his papa bought him, and some kid stole. Characters are Blake, Zeus (a dog), Nurple, and Brianne. The setting is Cleveland, OH in 1983.
November 2 at 12:29am

Cheerleaders.....need I say more?
November 2 at 5:47am ·

You can write my Autobiography.... Beer, Girls, and...... OK. Maybe you need to find someone else.
November 2 at 10:58am

Let's say Facebook was a bust. So, November 2 came and went and I was still without a plot, characters, setting, or genre, but I decided I should probably start writing. And I did. I wrote nearly 9,000 words (about a week's worth) before a story developed.

By that time I realized that my characterization of "How fun would that be?" was not entirely accurate. While some sessions were fun, others felt like the days your mom forced you to sit down and write thank you notes for ugly hand made sweaters your aunts from West Virginia sent you for your birthday while your friends were all riding their bikes outside on a perfect 74 degree sunny day.

A week's bout with bronchitis put me almost 8,000 words behind and a weekend visit from my dad and another from my best friend tempted me to get even farther off track Can't you see them now? All of your friends running through the sprinkler, eating red Popsicles and rolling down grassy hills while you are forced to read the entire dictionary? And not the small paperback copy. That big hardback copy that your mom uses for a step stool to reach the pitcher she keeps on top of the fridge at Thanksgiving. Hello my life in November.

Many late night into early morning hour writing sessions helped me stay in the hunt for the coveted PDF certificate printout that goes to "winners" if they finish by midnight on November 30th. But something else happened along the way. I actually started to like my book. My characters started to take shape and every day they surprised me. I never went into a writing session with a preconceived notion of what I was going to write about that day (which is pretty easy when you have no plot lined out), and I just let my characters live for a thousand words or two (depending on how long my 18 month old napped that day or how long I could keep my eyes pried open before I started accidentally writing my children's names into the book).

And on those days, it was fun again.

On November 29, after a seven hour marathon writing session, I typed my 50,202nd word and ended my first novel.

For now.

It is not in readable format, even for my husband, who keeps asking me when I'm going to take it to Kinkos and print it out so he can see what was so important that he and the kids had to eat PB & J for a month. I can't imagine how many comma splices, typos, and sentence fragments it contains. I haven't even read the whole thing from start to finish. During the last night of writing I realized I had inadvertently changed a character's name halfway through. Whoops! But I finished and I'm proud. And to any of my writer friends who gave up their November for

Image by hichako via Flickr

NaNoWriMo, I'm proud of you too, win, loose, or draw. Keep that book as a badge of honor, because contrary to popular belief, sometimes, we do need stinkin' badges.

Someday, after Santa makes his way down the chimney, I will go back and fix the comma splices and make sure my kids don't make cameo appearances, and I'll develop this little novella into an actual book.

But for now, I'm ready for December.

Waiting for Thanksgiving; TV Tray Style

2009-11-25T13:39:00.016-06:00

What We're Thankful For on TV
The following is a cross post on Joe Jenkins' blog joeonthetube. Richie and I contribute a His/Her Grey's Anatomy Wrap Up to joeonthetube weekly.

HERS: Tony’s truth serum induced rescue of Ziva on the season opener of NCIS.
HIS: I absolutely love NCIS. The season opening was pretty great.

HERS: The Good Wife.
HIS:: Have never seen The Good Wife – don’t need to, I already have one (Love ya babe).

HERS:Tom DeLay’s broken whatever that finally bumped him off Dancing With the Stars since the judges were apparently too dumbstruck by his ridiculous old man Republican hip shakin’ booty to do it.
HIS: Ok, I’ll say it, I’m ok watching Dancing With the Stars – the women’s dance outfits are worth the time.

HERS: My husband doesn’t watch NASCAR.
HIS: I don’t get NASCAR – go straight, turn left, go straight, turn left – um, ok?!

HERS: Phineas and Ferb.
HIS: Phineas and Ferb.

HERS: Our daughter has finally outgrown Noggin.
HIS: Unfortunately, she’s picked up watching videos on CMT with her mom. :-/

HERS: PBS.
HIS: PBS is now on our radar again.

HERS: There are only a few weeks when the Mavericks and the Rangers overlap. Even fewer since the Rangers blew the last half of the season. (I’m not saying I’m thankful the Rangers blew the last half of the season. I was rooting for them. But come on, how freaking long can one season be? Oh wait, that question can be answered by the NBA.)
HIS: Yep, I love watching sports on TV

HERS: Grey’s Anatomy is good again.
HIS: Grey’s Anatomy is good again.

Image by Lorianne DiSabato via Flickr

HERS: That we only have one TV in our house and I am frequently reminded of the depths of my husband’s love. Case in point – last night, he watched Donnie Osmond take home the Glitter Ball trophy on Dancing With the Stars, even though the Mav’s were playing. I’ll return the favor, of course, when I watch seven football games with him on Sunday. But that’s why God created DVR. Which I’m also thankful for.

HIS: Yep, I love watching sports on TV

Happy Thanksgiving.

Waiting for Mo

2009-11-02T12:21:00.017-06:00

Me & my son show off our Mo's
One of the things I love about my husband is that he did not propose by shaving "Marry me?" into his back hair*. Should that thought have occurred to him, we would not be married today for several reasons, the least of which is that we would be well into our golden years and his back would still be as bare as the day he was born. He is simply not a hairy man.

Because I am not attracted to the Grizzly Adams type, this has never been an issue for me. However, it is inevitable that all males will exercise their ability to grow facial hair at some point. For Richie, this came in the form of a goatee a few years after we were married. For some men this means not shaving for a day or two. For Richie, it was a three month process, with patches of hair here or there, and one spot where no hair would grow no matter how long he waited, how much red meat he ate or ESPN he watched. But eventually his patience paid off and he was a man with facial hair.

He kept it trimmed short, for obvious reasons and although I'm usually not attracted to men with beards, I found it very sexy.

So why would this handsome man who worked so for his goatee shave it off last night with out a second thought?

One word; Movember.

I know. That's not even a word. According to Richie's website, Movember is a moustache growing charity event held during the month of November every year that raises funds and awareness for men's health - specifically prostate and testicular cancer. The month-long campaign this year will benefit The Prostate Cancer Foundation and the Lance Armstrong Foundation.

For a minute, Richie was tempted to keep his moustache and just shave off the beard part of the goatee. After all it wasn't a huge mustache to start with, who would notice. But the "rules" of Movember are to start clean shaven and grow your best moustache in 30 days. Seems that the naked faces act as billboards that then grow Mo's to raise awareness for the cause. Richie understood this, and off came the goatee.

So I got to thinking about all those guys out there like Richie who would like to participate in Movember, but are letting their propensity for slow growing hair stop them. I became determined to encourage the "Slow Mo Growers" to unite. What better cause than increasing awareness of a disease that will affect 1 in 6 men (half of whom are probably slow Mo growers).

If you are letting fear of taunting by your family and co-workers stop you, I've prepared some come-backs for you, the "Slow Mo Growers."

You Wanna Take on My Mo?
TAUNT: What's that on your upper lip?
COMEBACK: I call him Mo. What do you call that bald spot on the back of your head? Jenny?

Image by davesag via Flickr

TAUNT: I think you have some crumbs or something on your face.
COMEBACK: My Mo is finding a cure for cancer. What's your uni-brow done for you lately.

TAUNT: How long do you think it will take before we can see that thing without a magnifying glass?
COMEBACK: Let's race. My Mo turns into a handlebar moustache before your beer gut turns into a sixpack.

TAUNT: My sister could grow a better moustache than you.
COMEBACK: Awesome. Tell her to sign up for Movember. And, in December, she might want to start bleaching, just saying.

Now you're out of excuses. So go, grow, Mo!

*Footnote - Gentleman, this is not a suggestion, I saw it on AFV in the late 1990's.

Waiting for tricks or treats

2009-10-30T14:14:00.004-05:00

Image by carbonated via Flickr

Growing up, few nights held as much anticipation in our house as Halloween. My earliest memories of costumes were the plastic aprons that tied in the back, kind of like putting your arms through a Hefty bag, only the plastic didn't hold up as well as a trash bag. The accompanying masks were formed of a thicker plastic with edges sharp enough to be used as a weapon. I speak from experience. The eye holes never seemed to go right over your face, and the holes for the nose were so small that your breath was recycled through the mask all night. In cold climates, like Montana, at least that meant your face was warm.

Speaking of cold, this added another element to the costume. It was nothing unusual for temperatures to be at, or below freezing by the Devil's night (oh how we wished the Devil would show up with fire and brimstone some of those nights). Because we were determined to be Barbie, Darth Vadar, He-Man, or whomever, our mothers would put our heaviest winter coats on first, and then try to put the plastic aprons on over the coats, inevitably tearing them before we got to the first house.

No matter. With pillow cases in hand, we started out for a night of doorbell ringing, candy eating (because who waited until we got home to check for razor blades), and praying that somebody would give out quarters or better yet, coupons for a Frosty at Wendy's. It was almost better than Christmas. In fact, there were years when I think it was.

I understand that neighborhoods may not be as safe as they used to be and childhood obesity is on the rise. I get that my 5 year old wants to be Taylor Swift and that little boys probably don't dream of being fire fighters any more. But don't you just wish you could give your kids one Halloween like you had it? Plastic masks, pillow cases and all?

What are your favorite Halloween memories and new traditions that your family loves?

Waiting for Julio

2009-10-22T11:10:00.020-05:00

One of my five year old daughter's greatest loves is singing and her favorite artist is Taylor Swift. Usually I am pretty good about keeping up with my daughter's current trends. But this one threw me. She had just turned four we were riding home from school and Taylor S

Image via Wikipedia

wift's Love Story came on the radio. From the back seat I heard my daughter singing along. When I asked how she knew this song, she replied, "Kristen taught me. We love Taylor Swift."

We do?

From that day on, every time Love Story came on in the car, the grocery store, an elevator, or the dressing room at the mall, our princess sang every word . . . kind of.

For those of you not familiar with the song, it is a modern day story of Romeo and Juliet.

For our little princess, it is the story of Julio and Juliet.

Every time someone new hears her sing they look at her dad or me and mouth, "Did she say Julio?" We smile and nod, but it's so darn cute that no one can bear to tell her that Juliet's forbidden love was a Montague not a Mexican.

I feel her pain. I sang my own share of wrong lyrics. Most were hymns and Sunday school songs. Here is a sampling.

- Roll the old cheerio along (Roll the old chariot along)

- In the song "Mr. Noah Built an Ark" I was sure the line was "Down came the rain in Torrence" thinking that Torrence was the city where Mr. Noah lived. It was only a few years ago that I learned that it was actually "Down came the rain in torrents."

- And my favorite misunderstanding. Although it's not a song, it comes from a musical, so I count it just the same. For about a decade I thought that in Grease when Rizo said she "missed a period" that she just skipped a class. I was amazed how much trouble people could get into in high school for skipping school. That movie didn't teach me much about pre-marital sex, but it definitely taught me important lessons about truancy.

What Julio songs do you remember from childhood? Do you and your family still sing the wrong words? Share your stories here because let's face it, we could all use a little less Romeo and a little more Julio in our lives.

Waiting for fashion to destroy the world

2009-10-14T20:29:00.029-05:00

In 1989, leg warmers, stone washed jeans, and parachute pants ruled the runway. But perhaps nothing defines the decade better than big hair. And how did we get our hair so big? Come on ladies - do it with me - flip your head upside down and blow dry our hair while spraying it with aerosol hairspray (Rave was my preference). Tease it sky high. Once more with the spray. Perfection.

Image by | El Caganer via Flickr

At 13, I was not an environmentalist. I cared about more important things like Kirk Cameron and Bon Jovi. Unfortunately, they weren't included in the curriculum at East Junior High. Instead my seventh grade honors biology teacher introduced me to two words that would change my life, and fashion sense, forever - ozone layer.

More specifically, he implied that my hairspray, my aerosol hairspray, could be depleting what seemed to my 13 year old brain to be a pretty necessary part of our little planet.

Dang!

Middle school was not kind to me. Those years were filled with braces, over-sized glasses, and a few extra "baby weight" pounds still hanging on a decade after I had shed the last inkling of babyhood. Not being athletically inclined, honors classes and band filled my days, which, as you can imagine, made me quite a catch with the middle school boy.

Big hair was kind of all I had.

Except a conscience.

And so it began. After a week of researching chloroflurocarbons (the chemical in aerosol cans that damages the ozone), my Rave went in the trash and my big hair went flat. Several months later I went on to win in the local and state science fair with a project that showed the negative effects of CFC's on kalanchoe plants.

Looking back it may seem that my sacrifice was small compared to what others have given for the cause, and I agree. I didn't leave my family to study climate change in Antarctica or become a vegan to protest animal cruelty. But for a 13 year old girl with rockin' bangs, my sacrifice made me more aware of how one little change can impact the place I call home.

Have you ever taken a small step toward improving the environment? This is the place for you to be proud. Face it, we aren't going to Africa or giving up bacon (can I get an Amen?), but maybe we can turn off the light in the closet in the morning.

Waiting for the St#%id Birds

2009-10-08T17:14:00.009-05:00

The following is a conversation that took place between me and my five year old daughter while driving home from church. The background information will put the conversation in context.

Background

1. Every fall approximately one million grackles descend on Fort Worth. Grackles are nasty black birds whose soul purpose in life is to ruin what would otherwise be the best seas on in Texas.

2. I hate birds. I believe they can, and want to, poke out your eyes. I have not seen Alf

Image by Digika via Flickr

red Hitchcock's movie, The Birds. There is no reason for me to see it. I am already scared of birds. The only thing I hate more than birds is clowns. A hawk flying at me dressed like the clown from It; that is my idea of hell.

3. To our daughter, stupid is a four letter word.

My daughter's initials are AK.

Conversation

AK - Mommy, look at all the birds!

Me - Yep. The stupid birds are back.

AK - Mommy, why did you say stupid?
My husband nudges me and smiles - Yeah honey, why did you say stupid?

Me - Mommy doesn't like. . . Well, you see, mommy is afraid of. . . Mommy is sorry.

AK - Will you promise never to say stupid ever again?

I pause. I think of all the birds, those darn birds. I also think of the Texas Legislature.

Me - No. I can't promise never to say it again. But I will try harder.

Waiting for Answers

2009-10-02T20:56:00.040-05:00

At a young age we are trained to believe that questions come with answers.

- Who's the cutest baby in the whole wide world? You are.
- And what is your name? Kristen.
- What is two plus two? Four.
- How do you spell Czechoslovakia? Ummm . . . Chec . . .No, wait, Czek. No, Czeh. Is that even a country anymore?

Even questions to which our own political, religious, or philosophical beliefs bend us on

Image by Oberazzi via Flickr

e direction or another still have an answer. For example, the question of whether the earth was created by an intelligent designer or by sheer chance may have different answers depending the textbook, professor, or preacher with whom you are speaking, but each would, no doubt, offer you an answer of some sort.

With our comfort rooted deeply in questions coupled with answers it is no surprise we become anxious when we find ourselves holding one without the other.

It is my experience that the most frequent flier in the answer-less question arena is "Why?" This three letter word can apply to events as profound as life threatening illnesses, job loss, deaths, catastrophes, acts of God, and wars, or things as simple as failing a test, ending a relationship, bad hair days or being stuck in traffic.

In his book The Case for Faith, agnostic journalist turned Christian Lee Strobel investigates what he calls "The Big Eight" objections to Christianity. Of these, the first one he tackles deals with unanswered questions about pain and suffering in the world. To help answer his questions Strobel interviews Billy Graham's former evangelist partner who became a self-proclaimed agnostic author, Charles Templeton. When asked if there was one thing in particular that caused him to loose his faith in God, Templeton answered that it was a photograph in Life magazine.

"It was a picture of a black woman in Northern Africa. They were experiencing a devastating drought. And she was holding her dead baby in her arms and looking up to heaven with the most forlorn expression. I looked at it and I thought, 'Is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain?'"*

That is a question without an answer if I've ever heard one.

Over the past year I have had a lot of conversations with God that started with the word "Why?" These conversations stemmed from a string of seemingly endless health problems that resulted in chronic pain. My life, which admittedly was somewhat charmed up to that point, was literally turned upside down. We paid thousands of dollars in medical bills, which was complicated by the fact I had to resign from my job. I became unable to care for my children and some days was unable to care for myself.

As I sunk deeper into what I'm sure was a mixture of depression and narcotics, I felt confident that if I could just find some reason, some answer as to why this was happening to me, it would give me the strength to get through it. Looking at it now, written out in black and white, it seems almost silly.

I guess God could have posted this on my Facebook;
Hey Kristen; Just wanted to

Image via CrunchBase

let you know that your ovaries will be adhered together for the next five months. The doctors aren't going to be able to figure it out and you are going to be in chronic pain. I know it's a bummer, but hang in there because you are going to learn some really important lessons in patience and especially in humility. You will also resign from your job - I know that's going to be tough because you are going to have to trust that I will provide for your family, which will be hard, especially with the thousands of dollars you are going to rack up in medical bills, but this is the only way that I will ever teach you to totally trust me. Big lesson there. Get your Blockbuster card ready - you will be spending lots of time on the couch. Love ya! Oh, and don't forget to take the Wizard of Oz quiz and find out which character you are. I'm betting you're the Lion :-)

Having a reason for the pain wouldn't have lessened the pain, it would have just made me argue with God whether or not I thought his reason was worthy of the pain I was experiencing at that moment. Would a lesson in humility constitute a trip to the ER or did improving my integrity equal a pint of my blood and so on a so forth. How does one begin to argue those reasons. Looking at it now I understand why God didn't answer my Why's.

Not that it mattered. I didn't get any FB posts from God and I didn't know what was coming a week in advance, a day in advance, or even an hour in advance. My husband uses this analogy; We wish God would give us a floodlight, but instead he gives us a flashlight. Some days, he gives us a candle and not even one of those big roman candles. One of those sad little flimsy birthday candles that barely gives off any light at all.

I promise you if God would have sent that FB post, I would have been booked in the next OR and signed up to have those ovaries removed. Yes, I would have missed out on the pain, but I would have also missed out on the path that was set in front of me and the lessons I have learned and I would not be the person I've become. And even through the pain I can tell you, the person I have become is a better person. I have learned lessons in patience and humility that I would have never signed up for of my own volition. I've become passionate about helping people who are suffering from chronic illnesses or chronic pain and their caregivers. Although I resigned from my job, it allowed me to follow my dream of writing. I think there are still more answers to the Why question down the road, some that I may not see for years or maybe even decades.

I've also noticed that I very rarely ask Why on the good days. Like, why do I deserve a roof over my head and three meals a day? Why do I have a family who loves me? Why was I born in a free country while others are oppressed?

I guess there are a lot of good Why's out there too.

What do you do with the Why's you can't answer?

*The Case for Faith, A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity; Lee Strobel: Zondervan Publishing House. 2000

Waiting for Cuts ~ Grey's Anatomy takes on the economy

2009-10-02T10:48:00.023-05:00

The following is a cross post on Joe Jenkins' blog joeonthetube. Richie and I were honored to write a guest post for Joe and look forward to contributing to joeonthetube in the future. His & Hers Grey's Anatomy Season 6, Episode 2
After last week’s season premier revealed that Seattle Grace would merge with Mercy West, the entire staff is on edge, to say the least and is worried about keeping their job. This week’s episode revolves mostly around the character’s obsession with proving their worthiness as the chief is keeping tight lipped regarding his plans for any downsizing.

Izzie returns to the hospital, complete with a “Stepford wife” wig. Although she isn't supposed to return to work for three weeks, her fear of being cut due to the merger pushes her back into the O.R. for a complicated five-hour surgery, forcing Alex to play nurse making sure that she takes her cancer meds and eats throughout the day.

Meanwhile, Cristina decides the best way to secure her job is by asking to be on Arizona's service in Pediatrics. It doesn't take too long (with a little help from Callie) for Arizona to realize that Cristina is using her to save her own neck. I mean, come on, who would really think Cristina should be allowed in the same room with children.
We almost thought the show was going to jump the shark when a paranoid schizophrenic and his mother are brought into the ER after being involved in a car accident. While the mother was lying on the table complaining of abdominal pain, the camera focuses in on a small fist shaped object pulsating in her abdomen. Just then her son says, "Aliens have impregnated my mother." And break for commercials.

Thankfully, Grey's did not go the way of the X-Files and we learn the pulsating fist was caused by a large aneurysm in her abdominal cavity. Unfortunately for Lexi, she looses the son while trying to bandage his minor wrist injury from the car accident and that leads to him falling down a flight of stairs and in turn bursts his spleen. Fortunately for Lexi, she comes up with a great idea to do surgery on both mother and son (who technically doesn't need surgery), so they can happily recover together. If not for this great idea, the mother refuses the life-saving surgery since there is no one else to take care of her mentally ill son.

Image by LiGado em Série via Flickr

In the end, the chief directs HR to send out an e-mail to the first round of employees to be let go (not a move us PR folks recommend). None of the main characters get the axe, not that we expected them to. In fact, the only face that any true fans might remember is the nurse that George and Alex slept with during the syphilis outbreak of the first season. In traditional Lexi fashion, she has an emotional breakdown, even though her job is safe.

But fear not, the writers did not leave this episode on a sad note. Instead they left us with something inspirational; Beer and baseball. Three of our four happy couples meet out on a baseball diamond with a pitching machine that they just happened to have and a cooler of beer for some batting practice and philosophy. It was a fitting, if not contrived, way to end the episode.
He Said/She Said

Best plotline: He Said - I'm really intrigued about the dynamic between the chief and Derek. The writers are holding back on some things and I'm curious to see how far they will go to separate the two. She said - The staff's reaction to the proposed merger. I think that in today's economic times it is an unfortunate reality that people are willing to do whatever it takes to keep a job - even one they don't really like.

Best line: He Said - "His name is Mr. Bear . . . He eats kids" |(BONUS LINE) "You need to stop worrying about what's gonna happen, and you need to focus on what is right in front of you." She Said - "Nobody likes a dead baby."

I could have lived without: He Said - The paranoid schizophrenic son throwing Lexi up against the wall. That seemed unnecessary. She Said - The baseball scene. I go back to last week with the scene with Izzie and the girl on the bench outside the hospital. The whole thing seemed unnatural and just a bit too much.

A little something for the fellas: He Said - The pulsating aneurysm in the mom's stomach. Totally looked like Alien. She Said - Agreed. If an actual alien would have jumped out it would have been perfect. Stupid, but perfect.

Something for the ladies: He Said - The caring and supportive role that Derek took on at the end with his now former co-workers. That only perpetuates the McDreamy persona. She Said - Watching Alex take care of Izzie. He has such a tough outer image, but now that his wife is the one who is sick, and she is putting on the tough face, he was busting in on surgeries and into patient rooms to make sure she was taking her meds and eating. He really loves her. He's still a jerk and sometimes has a strange way of showing it, but watching him bend over backwards to take care of her makes you realize that is the kind of man every woman wants.

Something for everybody: He Said - The show has finally taken on the economic climate and how we are all being impacted. It is a classic example of art imitating life. The audience can relate because they may have either lost a job or may know somebody who has. They can relate to the situations that the doctors and nurses were in by either losing a job or being the person who got to keep their job. She Said -Aside from watching the characters react to the news of the merger, I think the mother with the mentally ill son had a really touching story. When she was willing to forgo a surgery that would save her life because there was no one she could trust to take care of her adult mentally ill son, that was a really telling and often overlooked story. She briefly mentioned that her husband left when her son got sick and friends had drifted away. I think this is more true to life than we want to admit. Even just watching the character for an hour on television, I was uncomfortable, so I can imagine that befriending a woman with a son with that illness would be a challenge. Mental illness, even in the 21st century, is something that people still hesitate to talk openly about or to deal with publicly. It is a shame, because then women like the mother portrayed on this week's Grey's, end up alone and isolated, dealing with challenges which are often more than they can, or should have to, handle on their own.

Who are the bloggers? Richie and Kristen are a happily married one-TV couple with two kiddos. Both have worked in the communications/PR field for the past decade or so. You can check out Richie's blog about all things PR and social media here. You have found Kristen's blog. Please feel free to stay a while and look around.

Waiting for Grey's

2009-09-25T14:27:00.015-05:00

The following is a cross post on Joe Jenkins' blog joeonthetube. Richie and I were glad to write a guest post for Joe and look forward to contributing to joeonthetube in the future.

A night without ESPN ~ Can men & women be TV friends?

Image via Wikipedia

The classic romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally asked the probing question, “Can two friends sleep together and still love each other in the morning?” The answer turned out to be no. This post will pose an equally important question; “Can two lovers watch TV together and still sleep together at night?”

If your house is like many, your first instinct might be to answer the same way that Harry, Sally, and many others have over the years. Constant battles over the remote pit spouses against each other in one television homes. This was particularly difficult in pre-DVR days, and although there is no hard data to support my assumptions, I believe it may have been one of the leading causes of divorce, surpassed only by squeezing the toothpaste from the middle and not putting the toilet seat down.

Even now with our best friends Tivo, DVR, and multi-room satellite feeds, tension still runs high and arguments can erupt at a moment’s notice. It is easy to understand how both spouses would immediately forget their sworn vows to love, honor, and obey and trade twenty years of marriage for bloodlust to duke it out to see who gets to watch Tom Delay shake his 80 year old hips on the 60 inch plasma and who watches Tom Brady on the 36 inch analog in the bedroom.

Richie and I made a decision early on in our marriage that we would not put a television in our bedroom. Since we only had a two room apartment that left us with only one television. Ten years later, we have several more rooms in our home, but still only one TV. By default, this caused an interesting dynamic to occur in our marriage. We became TV friends. I started watching sports with him and he started watching things that I was interested in.

It doesn’t always work. He still likes things that I don’t or likes them more than I do and vice versa. But sitting down and watching things together gives us some common ground that we didn’t have before. This blog is designed to show you that men and women can, in fact, be TV friends – sometimes.

Season 6 Grey's Anatomy Premiere
The first three minutes of last night’s Grey’s Anatomy premiere revealed that George would not survive and Izzy would. For those of us who have heard the buzz around the show and knew that T.R. Knight was leaving it was not unexpected. Still, we watched the first 20 minutes of the show and neither of us actually cried, but neither of us talked either, which is a sign that i

Image by LiGado em Série via Flickr

f we talked, we might cry. The writers did not disappoint and moved the story lines along by bringing in new patients; a woman who lost both arms and a leg in a boating accident (who Christina seemingly inappropriately nicknamed ceviche), and a teenager with unexplainable pain (whose mother was played by the homely girl from The Goonies).

The biggest plot twist came as the board asked Derek to be the Chief of Surgery, which he took to mean as a coup to overthrow the current chief. In the last minute of the show we find that instead Seattle Grace will be merging with its biggest rival, Mercy West (where, coincidently, Callie took a job as a resident after an inappropriate, but funny, blow-up with the chief).

Izzie’s cancer stops growing, which is good news that she doesn’t take as well as you would think. Christina and Owen finally talk about the choking issue, which means they can consummate their relationship. And Meredith and Derek can’t stop consummating theirs, which leads to the eventual eviction of all of their roommates. Izzie and Alex move into Derek’s trailer and Lexie moves in with Mark (just across the hall from a very hot, often inappropriate Callie).

He Said/She Said
Best plotline:
He Said - The proposed merger. I’m looking forward to seeing how that works out. I think it has good potential for future story lines.
She Said - Izzie and Alex. As someone who has recently gone through dealing with chronic pain, it is interesting for me to watch her try to get her life back. He thought he was going to lose her and I could understand how he didn’t want to do that again, but I could understand more how alone she felt. I thought that part was very real.

Best line:
He Said - How gay are you? On a scale of 1 to gay.
She Said - How gay are you? On a scale of 1 to gay.

I could have lived without:
He Said - Kerev being a jerk to Izzie outside at the picnic table. I understand that it might have set something up for later or brought him back to some dark place. That was just difficult to watch.
She Said - The whole scene with Izzie telling Amanda to “Go live her life” out in front of the hospital. I understood Amanda being sad. I understood her coming in because she couldn’t sleep, but enough already. I thought that was cheesy and totally ridiculous. They lost me there.

A little something for the fellas:
He Said - Mark’s new place across from Callie. He has the best of both worlds. There is definitely potential for good story lines.
She Said - What Richie meant to say was Callie got undressed in the hallway. Worth tuning in for gentleman.

Something for the ladies:
He Said - Mark’s shower scene.
She Said - When Callie told Lexie that Mark doesn’t look at her boobs anymore. I think that is what all of us would like to believe that our significant others aren't doing. What better compliment is there? Was Mark in the shower?

Something for everybody:
He Said - George’s mom talking to Owen. This allowed George’s character to resolve in an honorable way without being preachy. There were so many great things about that.
She Said -Watching all of the characters grieve for George in their own way. We’ve all had to grieve and I think at one time or another we have all felt like we were completely alone, partly because we didn’t know exactly how to grieve. Watching all of the different ways the characters grieved gives you a sense that it’s okay to scream, cry, work, have sex, or eat doughnuts, because at the end of the day, you have to make it through the day.

Who are the bloggers? Richie and Kristen are a happily married one-TV couple with two kiddos. Both have worked in the communications/PR field for the past decade or so. You can check out Richie's blog about all things PR and social media here. You have found Kristen's blog. Please feel free to stay a while and look around.

Waiting for Fall

2009-09-24T07:55:00.018-05:00

When you grow up in Montana, fall is not a season one looks forward to. When you are a kid, fall means the end of summer break, thus ending long days of riding your bike in the street, running through the sprinkler, swimming at the community pool, fishing in the stream behind the mall, Tecmo Bowl tournaments and bare feet.

Image by YelmelNoBrainer via Flickr

When you get older, fall is when the temperature starts to drop, bringing with it snow to shovel, icy roads to be navigated, windshields to be scraped, frozen pipes, and higher electricity bills.

In Texas, I have learned, it is an entirely different story. After surviving summer months that are not only scorching and unrelenting, but seemingly endless, fall is not only welcome, but coveted here in the Lone Star State. Some of this has to do with the fact that the cool days provide a welcome relief to the hot, sticky (it's not the heat, it's the humidity that will get ya) past four or five months.

Much of it is because anyone who has lived in Texas very long knows that fall is likely to disappear as soon as it arrives. As opposed to having three months, or even three weeks of fall, like other geographic climates may be predisposed to enjoy, Texans understand that we must appreciate every brisk morning, every changing leaf, and every day when we can turn off the AC, open up the windows and suck in that fresh, free, cool , beautiful air. Why? Because we understand that even though today's high is 69 with a low of 49, tomorrow may very well be a high of 90 and on Saturday it might snow.

So this morning as I kissed my favorite boys goodbye and I felt that perfect brisk morning of fall blow in through the garage, I knew exactly what I had to do. I grabbed my laptop, a bottle of water and some peanut butter crackers and I headed out to the backyard to write, knowing if I didn't enjoy this morning I would regret it later.

Good choice, Kristen. Good choice.

seven day forecast for DFW

Waiting to exhale, Cheyenne style

2009-09-06T20:53:00.060-05:00

There was a time when people were unclear about the definition of irony. Is jumbo shrimp ironic or just an oxymoron? Thankfully, in 1996, Alanis Morissette cleared up all the confusion when she released her single, Ironic. Now when you need to know if you are staring down the face of irony, just ask yourself is it like rain on your wedding day or a free ride when you've already paid? Maybe it's that good advice that you just didn't take. Or perhaps it's like 10,000 forks when all you need is a knife, in which case I say start poking the idiot who gave you all the forks until he brings you a knife, but that is just me.

And then there are the times when you don't even need to ask because you know not only are you staring irony right in the face but irony is laughing at you while raining on you, stealing your money, and forking you all at once.

And to make things worse, you're in Wyoming.

I was born and raised in Butte, Montana. At 18 I made my way to the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas, where my brother was also attending college. About twice a year, usually around Christmas and Spring Break, I visited my parents in Butte. The choice to drive or fly was generally made by the health of my bank account.

In spring of 1996 (ironically the same year as Ironic hit the charts), I was broke, which meant one thing -- Road Trip! This was no ordinary road trip though it was my first girls only road trip. My roommate and best friend became my co-pilot, navigator, and karaoke partner. After growing up in Texas, she was looking forward to a week of snow and mountains, not to mention one of the biggest St. Patrick's Day celebrations and the only St. Urho Day celebration in the country.

It was a drive that I knew well, although I had only made it a few times without my parents. My 1994 Chevy Cavalier would take us through five states in 26 hours. We stocked up on beef jerky, Mountain Dew, and good music. We made it through Texas in a mere seven hours and New Mexico in two more. Three more hours brought us to Denver and I knew we were half way home. This would have been a logical place to stop, but with three states and four Mountain Dews behind us and the Sister Act II soundtrack blaring on the stereo we made a decision that only two twenty year olds living on beef jerky would make. We decided to drive straight through.

Image via Wikipedia

For those of you who have never driven straight up I25 through the middle of Wyoming, you aren't missing much. It's about a five hour drive, but it feels like 14. It's hilly, it's windy, and if you don't hit a deer with the front of your car it's pretty likely that one will go ahead and jump right into the side of your car. I'm not sure why. Maybe they are hoping you will open the door, pick them up, and drive them out of Wyoming.

Now before all the Wyomingites start hating on me, let me say a couple other things about Wyoming. I have quite a lot of relatives that live there and every time I have ever visited I have met some of the nicest people, which does make it worth the trip. There are also some beautiful parts of Wyoming. Straight up 25 just doesn't happen to be one of them. So when Kim suggested we drive through it in the middle of the night, I popped open another Mountain Dew, put on Bon Jovi's greatest hits, and settled in for another 12 hour drive.

About mid-way through the Cowboy State (approximately 1 a.m.) we decided we should probably stop and stretch our legs. One thing you should know about Wyoming is that cities do not come frequently and when they do finally appear, stores are not open 24 hours. Not even gas stations. Luckily we found a rest area that was open and well lit (another perk in WY is the well maintained rest stops).

We headed in to wash our faces and brush our teeth. Ladies, I want you to think back with me for a minute to the mid nineties when you did not leave home without your Noxema. Well lucky for us, we did not. Unfortunately, we did leave home without towels. And Wyoming apparently was ahead of the curve with green movement because there were no paper towels, only hand dryers, a fact we failed to notice until our faces were dripping wet (and smelling like Noxema). Wyoming in March, is, how should I put this, freezing and we had left Texas that morning where it was 85 degrees so both of us were wearing sweatshirts over our t shirts. We decided with the lack of a better option, these would make good towels.

As we giggled like little girls we saw an actual little girl come out of one of the stalls with a somewhat frightened look on her face. Not thinking much of it, we gathered our stuff and walked out as one of us (I honestly don't remember which one) said, "I bet she thinks we're drunk."

Five minutes later we were back on the highway headed north. I was driving about 10 MPH under the speed limit on the lookout for suicidal deer. Ten minutes later I saw red and blue lights behind me. Confident he couldn't be after me, I kept driving. In fact, I was pretty sure he must be after the car that had been tailing me for the last five minutes and had just raced past me. As the lights got closer Kim finally said, "Kristen, I think you need to pull over."

Let me replay the conversation for you. The officer's words are in blue because, you know, he's a police officer and mine are in green because, you know, I was clueless.

"Ma'mm. Do you know why I pulled you over?"
"No sir. I really don't."

"I'm going to need to look at your license and insurance."
"Yes sir."

"Have you been drinking this evening?"
"I'm sorry, what?"

Hello irony! This is where Kim burst out laughing, which I seriously doubt helped our case much. I explained to the officer that not only had we not been drinking that night, but neither Kim nor I had ever had a drink. I told him that we had been driving since about 5 a.m. and explained what had happened at the rest stop. As I got to the end of the story (which knowing me was about 10 minutes long) I could see him start to smile under what I'm sure was one of the largest cowboy hats I have ever seen. My story matched up with the call that he received from the parents at the rest stop. I started to breath a sigh of relief.

"I'm going to need you to take a breathalizer test."
"I'm sorry?"

"Although I don't believe you have been drinking, state law requires to give a breathalizer test to anyone who we receive a tip for suspicion of drunk driving. Please step out of the car."
More hysterical laughter from my passenger.

As I stood on the side of I25 holding the breathilizer machine up to my mouth I thought about the irony of the situation. Here I was a white 20 year old college student who had never taken a drink of alcohol who was reported for drunk driving by a 10 year old. I didn't know whether to be offended by the whole situation or proud that the family cared enough about their safety and the safety of others to call the police and that the state cared enough about everyone's safety to test all suspected drunk drivers. Now that I have my own family I think I fall more on the side of proud.

I blew a 0.00. The officer let me keep the print out as a souvenir since I told him nobody would believe that I would get pulled over for drunk driving. I still have it in a box under my bed.

As you plan your Labor Day celebrations remember that many cities and states now have a no refusal detail in which police can get a warrant to draw blood to check the blood alcohol level from people who refuse a breath test. Me, I think it's much easier to just get a designated driver, even if you just plan to have a couple drinks or if you forget to bring a towel -- especially in Wyoming.

Waiting for The One

2009-08-31T16:17:00.009-05:00

The following is cross-posted on Sonja Cassella's blog, Fort Worth Renaissance. I am honored to have had the opportunity to be a guest blogger on Sonja's blog. If you haven't had a chance to check it out, I hope you will. I'm sure it will quickly become a favorite of yours,as it is mine. Fort Worth natives (and those who would like to be) will enjoy her unique perspective of and beyond.

Waiting for The One

I’ve met many women who tell me that the reason they spend so much time sitting across the table from uninteresting men, laughing at jokes that aren’t funny and eating a dinner salad when what they really want is a big juicy steak topped with bacon with a side of bacon is that these dates, no matter how horrid, help them create a checklist of they are looking for in a mate.

- Bob may have been obnoxious but he had great teeth.

Image by occhichiusi via Flickr

- Seth had bad breath but he held the door open for me.

- Tyler slurped his soup, talked about his ex-girlfriends all night, tried to grab my breasts when we got in the car, and ate my cucumbers, but he has a job.

- James dresses great, talks to his mom three times a week, loves musical theater, has never been married, offered to take me shopping, give me a make-over, and set his roommate Brian up with my best friend . . . wait a minute.

I view dating from a different perspective. I believe dating allows you to create a list of things that you don’t want in a life-long mate. Once you find someone who doesn’t match that list, you know he (or she) is the one.

Since this may be a new concept for you, let me illustrate with my personal example. Other than my husband, I’ll use descriptors rather than names. However, it is important to keep a couple of things in mind.

- These examples are 10-15 years ago (I was very young when I started dating).

- Most importantly, just because I (or you) place something on this type of list, it does not make the associated person bad or flawed (barring physical or verbal abuse). It just means they weren’t The One. When it comes down to it, most of my ex’s could list a flaw or two of mine (I’m not eliciting a challenge).

The Things I Didn’t Want In The One - As Learned From My Ex-boyfriends

- High School Obsession – Drank too much.

- Long Term High School Boyfriend – Didn’t get my sense of humor.

- Short Term College Boyfriend –More interested in my body than my mind.

- Long Term College Boyfriend – Wanted me to be a mild mannered, size 4, blond, Southern Baptist vegetarian.

Then I met Richie and he wasn’t all of the things I didn’t want.

We met in college, so I won’t tell you we didn’t enjoy a few cocktails on occasion, but there were distinct differences between him and my High School Obsession. First, he was 21 not 17. Second, he knew the difference between having a drink, and drinking to get drunk.

Not only did he get and appreciate my sense of humor, he made me laugh.

Richie and I both majored in Communication Studies, which provided a common interest, but even outside the academic realm there never seemed to be a shortage of areas for discussion. I won’t say he wasn’t interested in my body, but he always respected my decision to wait until I was married to have sex.

Richie and I were friends before we started dating, which has its advantages, one of which is by the time we started dating he had already seen the real me. The loud, silly, bacon loving, frizzy haired, charismatic, size 8. That is the girl he fell in love with.

The advantage to creating a checklist of traits you don’t want as opposed to a never-ending list of must haves is that you enable yourself to see your potential mate for who they really are and not who you want to make them into. Because the truth is, as much as you may believe you can, you cannot change another person, no matter how much you love them or how much they love you. That is why, whatever your expectations, if a potential partner does not meet them, you will both be much happier if you cut your losses and move on than if you spend the next ten years trying to change that person. I tell you that as someone who spent three years a very miserable size four, blond vegetarian.

But, then it happens! You find someone who isn’t all the things you don’t want. It may be someone you have known for years or it may be someone you just met. All you know is that this is the person you want to spend the rest of your life with. And you should. Because when you know, you know. And when that happens, I promise, you won’t need to date one more person to figure it out. Because your list will be complete.

How did you know he or she was The One? Share your thoughts.

The Perfect Walk

2009-08-20T14:12:00.079-05:00

I wasn't the type of girl who spent hours dreaming about my wedding day. Maybe it was because most of the time I was in the backyard digging holes, or fishing, or lighting my brother on fire (only once and he asked me to do it). So to those who knew me, it was no surprise that when I started planning my wedding it didn't include a fancy church packed with 400 people watching me walk down the aisle wearing a hand stitched wedding dress with a 28 foot train as live trumpeters played The Wedding March followed by the release of 12 white doves as my husband and I ran through the church and were carried off in a horse drawn carriage to a country club serving a gourmet dinner with foods that I still can't pronounce.

Because if you know me at all you know that I would have tripped over the dress, been scared of the doves (because I don't care what anyone says they can poke your eyes out) and sadly, I would have asked for a side of bacon with my chive blini with caviar and creme fraiche.

There were only a few non-negotiables when it came to my nuptials. Since my dad is a pastor, I wanted my him to marry me. And since my dad would be performing the ceremony, I wanted my brother to walk me down the aisle. And eventually, I knew who I wanted to marry.

Ten years ago today I took the perfect walk that ended with saying "I do," to a man who has been true to every vow we said on that day.

We often joke about how many things went wrong on our wedding day. In fact, people who believe in bad omens wouldn't bet that we would make it to our first anniversary, much less our tenth. Let me give you a brief overview.

- Our photographer was two hours late.

- The AV tech was late. All of the microphones, the cd player and AV equipment was locked up. The wedding party (including me) was walking out to music on a CD because my brother (who was also playing the music for the rest of the wedding) was walking me down the aisle. At 3:50 my dad came into the bride's room (where the photographer was still frantically taking pictures to make up for being late). He said, "Kristen, don't panic, but the AV guy isn't here yet." I said, "Dad, I don't care if everyone has to stand up and hum Here Comes the Bride. At 4 o'clock, I am walking down that aisle and getting married." The AV guy showed up five minutes before the ceremony, which started exactly at 4 p.m.

- Richie's cousin, who was singing the song during the lighting of the unity candle, learned a Steven Curtis Chapman song. Unfortunately, he learned the wrong Steven Curtis Chapman song. Luckily we discovered this during the rehearsal (albeit at the very end), so we turned the solo into a duet with one of my bridesmaids who knew the right song and it turned out to be very lovely.

- The unity candle wouldn't light (photo on left). Lesson learned - If you are getting married, or know someone who is, tell them to light the unity candle during the rehearsal. Otherwise the wick is still covered in wax from the factory and you have to burn that off before the candle will stay lit.

- At the reception, the band was two hours late (do you see a theme here?). Again, the sound system was locked up, so we had two hours with a dance floor but no music. We ended up dancing our first dance an a cappella version of Shania Twain's From This Moment sung by one of my best friends in the whole world. (The very same one who sang the duet). Our friends and family circled the dance floor and the sound of Kim's heavenly voice filled the ballroom. To this day, it was the most perfect dance of my life.

- Time for the champagne toast and you guessed it, no champagne. We decided to just use punch. They were out of punch, so we opted for water, straight from the drinking fountain.

The thing is, if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. The best memories from my wedding are centered around the things that went wrong. With all of the wedding day craziness, when the doors opened and I started walking toward my future husband, his eyes were locked solely on me. The look on his face told me that if the whole world came crashing down around us we would be okay.

And sometimes it does. And we are.

During the past 10 years, we have been richer and poorer, in sickness and health. Through better and through worse. And what I have found is this. It isn't the days where you are rich and healthy and better that you find out what your marriage is made of. The days you know that the man or woman you married is the one you want by your side til' death do you part is when you are poor and sick and worse. It is when there is no champagne and the band is late -

and you dance anyway.

Chapter 2; Pg.1 - The Mommy File

2009-08-12T16:12:00.035-05:00

August 3 of this year marked the fifth anniversary of my mommyhood. We celebrated, as most people do, with a party in honor of my daughter's birthday, as opposed to a day of margaritas and manicures celebrating the fifty pounds I gained, stretch marks on my thighs, 14 hours of labor culminating in a grand finale of pushing a little bundle of squished up mush, ten fingers, ten toes, black hair on a little round head topping what I'm sure were the biggest shoulders ever out of someplace that shoulders should never be pushed out of.

Because I believe that motherhood should be a lifelong celebration, I not only carry with me joy, love, overwhelming pride, and wallet size photos, but also 7 post baby pounds that I vow to never loose that remind me of how precious my children are to me. See how I made that about my maternal calling and not my undying love for Ben and Jerry's. Feel free to go ahead and use that for whatever you need.

Anyway, for the past five years, my life has been described by two words that are probably familiar to many of you; working mom. For those of you who don't know, a string of health issues led me to resign last week, making this the first time I haven't worked outside the home since I was 16. In addition to our five year old we also have a 16 month old, so staying at home with them is definitely a full time job. My daughter starts kindergarten this year and I have already volunteered for several committees, which means I am already laying out plans to make the elementary yearbook will be better than most high school books with an accompanying website, blog, and flash video.

Monday was my first full time mom day. Some of you may know that I actually haven't been back at work since April when my "routine surgery" went awry. However, there was something different about being off on leave and actually not having a job to go back to. If I was going to be a full time mom then I was going to rock at it. It was somehow okay for me to just sort of scrape by as a mom when I was working 50 hours a week, but if this was my only gig then I better knock it out of the park.

Even after a couple pain killers and an Ambien sleep would not come Sunday night. Maybe it was the seven day migraine I was battling or the relentless abdominal. Or maybe it was the fact that I had just resigned from my job of eight years, wasn't sure if I could qualify for disability, and didn't know when we could schedule the surgery that supposedly could fix the stuff first one screwed up. Either way, my insomnia left me plenty of time to plan my first day in my new career as a full time wife, mom and writer.

First on the list was to get up with the kids and make their favorite breakfast - pancakes and scrambled eggs. Then turn on the tunes and spend a little time cleaning up the wreckage left over from the swimming party we hosted the night before.

However, when the alarm went off at 6 a.m. my pain told me that this day might not be all that I had hoped for. No worries. The kids weren't up yet and I had time to take some pain medicine before the pitter patter of little feet was outside my door demanding food. By 7:15 my daughter's face was 6 inches from mine asking me if it was time to get up yet. After my attempts to convince her it wasn't failed (darn the sunrise), she was ready for breakfast.

Although the pain meds had kicked in and so had the drowsiness that the bottle warns you of. So, when my daughter asked me if she could have a Pop Tart for breakfast, I said sure. In fact, I didn't even get out of bed to get it for her. Dreams of homemade (or even microwaved) pancakes were quickly replaced by Pop Tarts in front of the TV.

Okay - regroup.

I told myself that breakfast aside, I could still get the house cleaned, load the dishwasher, put the laundry away, write a blog post, go to the grocery store, and make dinner. I had illusions of making that play dough out of flour and baking soda (or salt, or something) that my grandma used to make for us when we were kids, but those dissolved somewhere during the hour (or two) that the Disney Channel was raising my children for me.

I quickly learned that working at home is a lot like working the office. I had a "To Do"List" that seemed to get longer instead of shorter even though I was busy all day long. On the above list, I managed to find the living room floor, but not vacuum it, load and run the dishwasher but not unload it, and put one load of laundry in the washer, but on the dryer. If you note the date, the blog post is a week late, and the clean laundry has been in a pile on the floor for six days. I did make dinner, but instead of a pecan crusted salmon with steamed broccoli and cornbread I whipped up a deluxe banquet of Manwhich and Cheetos.

Added to the To Do list were several games of The Littlest Pet Shop Game (which, by the way is the most confusing game ever), dancing, dress up, races between of the Batmobile and Barbie car.

I was in bed by 8:30.

As exhausted as I was, I still didn't sleep well. My mind was swimming with questions and realizations from this first page of the new chapter of my life. Was I ready to give up a full time career as a successful PR professional to spend my days changing diapers and playing The Littlest Pet Shop Game (even if I did get to be the ferret)? Was I a bad mother to even have these feelings? The day, although exhausting, had made me realize how wonderful it was to spend time with my children without the pressure of work hanging over my head. It was literally the first time I had ever been able to enjoy being with my kids without worrying about a deadline, a board meeting, a looming crisis, or an upcoming event. I wrote a speech the day I brought my daughter home from the hospital from crying out loud.

As I lay there waiting for the Ambien to kick in I thought about my last five years as a working mom and aboth this new chapter in my life. I thought about the things I missed along the way the last five years while I was doing my corporate To Do list. I thought about the things I would miss while doing my mommy To Do list. I made a decision right there in my watermelon pj's not to regret any of my choices, in past or present chapters. Those choices made me who I am, and more importantly, they made my kids who they are and after spending a day with them I confirmed what I had guessed all along; Our kids are pretty cool people.

So whether you are a mom working outside the home or a mom working at home please share your tips, tricks and ideas because, let's face it, some days are Pop Tart days for all of us.

Photo credits: You guessed it, those are my beautiful, fun, smart, and incredibly talented kiddos.

Closing a Chapter

2009-08-10T08:29:00.008-05:00

When I was growing up I aspired to be four things things; a country singer, a hair dresser, Ms. America, and the first female President of the United States. My mom had somewhat dif

Image via Wikipedia

ferent plans for my life. As early as I can remember - somewhere around, oh I don't know, birth, she would tell me, "Kristen, you are going to grow up, graduate from high school, go to college, graduate from college, fall in love, get married, and then have a baby."

When I would share my dreams with her, she would explain that while I was a wonderful singer (I sounded remarkably like Reba McEntire thanks to my dual cassette player), it would be hard to achieve that dream because country singers have to sing in bars (my dad was a preacher, so that was out). She said that if I still wanted to be a hair dresser after I went to college and got my degree, then we could talk. She didn't really address the Ms. America issue, but I was only 5'4", and Ms. Montana never made the top 25, so who were we kidding. She did, however, believe that I could be the first female president, which is why she didn't vote for Hillary.

My mom got most of it right. I did graduate from high school and college, although I must admit I fell in love before I graduated. We waited until we graduated to get married. Aside from a few kareoke stunts, (all in bars) I haven't made it big in the country scene. Aside from a few botched haircuts (sorry Richie) I really haven't made it big in the hair stylest scene.

Nowhere in my plan did I end up in Texas working in school PR.

For the past 12 years I spent five days a week dedicating my life to spreading the good news about Texas Public Schools. It may not be as glamorous as Nashville, but it has been the most fulfilling job one could ask for. Public schools have long been a whipping board for people who usually have a political agenda and probably have not set foot in one in the past 30 years. Almost everyone will say that education is their number one priority and yet very few people will step up to the plate when it comes time to actually vote to fund that priority or to volunteer to make those schools a better place.

Public schools accept all students, regardless of ability, income, race, limitations, special needs, language spoken, parental support, or even if they have a home to go home to. We are very aware that many of our students eat their only two hot meals when they come to our schools. What you hear is that public schools these days aren't safe. What you don't hear is that for many of our students, school is the safest place they go all day. It is an escape from their life on the street, a life of abuse. It is the only chance that they have. It is the only place they go where someone believes in them. You don't hear the stories about the teenage mother who goes back to school and works to graduate while the district pays for her child to be in daycare. If not for that success story of public school, we would have a single mother with no way to support her daughter.

And still, with all of these challenges, Texas public schools are succeeding at a higher rate than ever before. Test scores are rising, even with ever increasing standards. More students are graduating and going to college or getting certificates that will allow them to go into the workforce with a skill. There are more success stories than ever before.

I encourage you to visit a public school near you. If you haven't been into a public school in the past ten years you will be amazed what you find. You will see dedicated teachers utilizing technology and the latest teaching methods. You will find incredible diversity in even the most suburban districts. You will see challenges and you will see successes.

I closed the chapter on my time in school PR last week. I resigned from my position as the Director of Communications for Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD for health reasons after nine years in the district. But as I move on to a new chapter in my life I will continue to be an avid supporter of public schools. I hope you will take another look at our public school system. I realize it isn't perfect, but I am certainly proud to have been a part of it.

My Final Tuesday Deadline

2009-07-28T17:26:00.011-05:00

It is no secret that print media is struggling to find its way in a 24/7 news cycle where people get news delivered to their television, their desktop, their laptop, their phone, and almost anywhere but to their front door in the form of a newspaper. Staying relevant is difficult, at best, for a daily paper. Now imagine trying to find your place as a weekly paper. When the expectation is instant results, waiting seven days for breaking news just ain't what it used to be.

The Northwest Times Record is the latest casualty of the trend toward e-journalism. Steeped in tradition, the NW Times Record has always prided itself as being "Your Community

Image via Wikipedia

Newspaper." True to its tag-line, the paper focused on covering stories that its community cared about; school openings, city council and school board meetings, athletic events and Kiwanis Club fundraisers. It was the paper where you announced your daughter's wedding engagement and where I announced the birth of my daughter.

This Thursday will be the last issue of the NW Times Record. With a Thursday print day, I have been making Tuesday deadlines for the last eight years. Today was my final Tuesday deadline. The letter to the editor below sums up my relationship with the Times Record and its owners, publishers, and my friends, Art and Joan Jones. Thursdays in NW Tarrant County won't be quite the same.

Dear Editor,
In 2001 I came to EM-S ISD as the Public Information Officer of what was then a small suburban school district. My job was to facilitate communication with the parents, employees, taxpayers, and community of Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD. My background in public relations had taught me that in order to effectively do my job I would need the help of the local media.

Enter the Northwest Times Record.

Coming from the media market in Dallas, I was skeptical to say the least, but after my first conversation with owner and publisher Art Jones, it was evident, I wasn't in Dallas any more. Art and his business partner, editor, feature writer, and wife Joan, were eager to publish good news, of all things. Something that I wasn't used to, but was definitely glad to hear. In fact, in my eight years here, I can't once recall the Times Record turning away a good news story, something that I don't think can be said for any other news institution I have ever worked with.

Don't get me wrong, the Times Record wasn't all sunshine and roses. They covered their fair share of controversial stories as well, many of which included EM-S ISD. But every time, and I mean every time, that Art got a tip that involved our district, his first phone call was to my office. I can't even hazard to guess the number of calls that I received that started with, "Kristen, Kristen, Kristen, let me count the ways you can help me today." He never ran stories based on anonymous tips, no matter how juicy the information, and believe me, some of it was really juicy. He always checked his facts and as such, his stories were fair and showed both sides. Another dying art in media today.

Northwest Tarrant County is losing a great voice in the Times Record. We have celebrated achievements together, tried new recipes, re-lived Friday night's football game, and kept up to date with City Council and School Board actions.

Thank you Art and Joan for all of the hard work and dedication, but mostly the heart that you have put into the Times Record over the years. This is the last Tuesday deadline that I will have to make, and the first I have sent with a tear in my eye.

All my best ~
Kristen Escovedo
Director of Communications
Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD

Waiting for perspective

2009-07-23T15:32:00.012-05:00

Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a lab rat? Living in a glass cage surrounded by doctors, pharmacists, chemists, grad students, and some guy named Rob who doesn't actually have any medical credentials but is working on a film about a particular disease that the lab rat didn't have when he was captured from the wild, but that he is secretly hoping he might catch so that he can document it.

Throughout the lab rat's time in the glass cage, which is not particularly uncomfortable as far as rat living quarters go, but still is a glass cage none the less, he is moved from station to station, where he is subjected to a battery of different medical tests, some with needles that take blood or fluids out, others that inject blood and fluids back in. There are X-rays and scans of sorts, electric and non-electric probes, which even for a rat are somewhat humiliating. Hair is shaved, hair is grown back, hair is braided into sort of cute little dread-locks, which isn't so bad. After each test the lab rat is given some pain medication for the discomfort and returned to his glass cage to await the next test.

Perhaps the most frustrating part for the rat - aside from the constant staring at his own reflection - is the fact that although the doctors, pharmacist, chemist, and even Rob are constantly performing tests, the rat never gets the results of the tests. Or, he is given results of the tests, but the results of one test contradicts the results of another test and when that happens, you guessed it, they have to perform yet one more test to see which of the first two tests provides the correct test results.

All the while, the lab rat's medical bills are piling up because some of the tests are not covered by insurance, some are considered in-network, some are out of network, of course anything that Rob does is considered purely experimental. The lab rat's family has to sell all of the little rat family's possessions just to pay the bills, even though they are hoping that the government is going to reform health care, they aren't sure how that will affect lab rats, but that is another blog post entirely.

Over the past nine months, I have found myself in the position of the rat. There have been many waiting rooms along the way, which I'm sure will be their own posts, but today I just want to give you a brief overview and talk about the waiting room I found myself in this week.

About nine months ago I started experiencing severe abdominal pain. After five months of trips to various doctors, tests that I blushed to explain to my husband, and trying various doses of numerous medicines, my pain increased. Needless to say, this was not the desired outcome, so we scheduled a hysterectomy. It was a routine surgery. A little anesthesia, the doctor goes in, takes out my uterus, I stay in the hospital overnight, I'm out of commission two weeks, three at the most, and I'm as good as new.

Fast forward three and a half months later, where after a blood transfusion, an 11 cm hematomoa, several infections, and an ovarian cyst, my ovaries have fused together and are somehow stuck down in the scar tissue.

The result: My pain is worse than it was to start with. Many trips to the hospital, emergency rooms, doctors, pain clinics, and physical therapists have left me in a situation that seems more hopeless than the one I was in nine months ago.

It was in this waiting room that I found myself looking for a little perspective.

You might not believe it, but there are physical therapists who specialize specifically in women's issues. My PT works out of the Carter Rehab Center in Baylor All-Saint's in Fort Worth.

For those of you who have never been through physical therapy, the waiting room alone is enough to make even the more middle aged of us feel pretty young as most of the clients are, shall I say, old enough to fully take advantage of the senior citizen discount at IHOP. This particular facility also has a work-out area which would definitely be somewhere that I could feel like a rock-star running a 28 minute mile, which sadly is pretty good for me even before I got sick.

During my session I was working on some exercises that had me lying on my back with my knees bent in front of me. From that position I could see a gentleman walking toward me out of the corner of my eye. I could tell that he was using a walker and that he was moving at an extremely slow pace. Because I was on my back I couldn't see any details, but I could hear his therapist encouraging him to move his left foot and then his right. Move his left foot and then his right.

I did several sets of exercises over the next five minutes or so as the gentleman made his way toward me. It had probably taken five minutes for him to walk about ten feet. All along the way I heard the therapist encouraging him to move his left foot and then his right. I could see his shoes come into my line of sight - the bright white tennis shoes that old men wear with black socks and shorts during summer time. That thought made me smile.

As I completed another set of my exercises the gentlemen came fully into my site and immediately my perspective changed. He was 6'4 with a strong athletic build and was 35 -37 years old. The look on his face was determined. Frustrated

They passed the table where I was sitting and turned to begin the long journey back across the gym.

I thought about journey that I had been on and immediately I was thankful. Yes, I was in pain, but in a minute, I was going to stand up and walk out of that room.

I remember when I was in high school someone told me, "Before you complain because you have no shoes think about the man who has no feet." I was reminded of that quote yesterday.

I hope that as I spend time in my little cage, when I look in the glass, instead of always seeing myself reflected back, I will see the reflection of others who have gone before me, beside me, and who will go after me and it will help me keep my perspective.

Image by Rick Eh? via Flickr

Waiting for true love's first kiss

2009-07-20T15:17:00.026-05:00

Like most little girls who grew up reading fairy tales and watching Disney movies, I had a lot of preconceived ideas about what my first kiss would be like. Although I hadn't quite worked out all of the logistics I felt somewhat confident that it would take place in a picturesque setting, with my own theme song playing softly in the background, and small woodland creatures nearby cheering me on or perhaps making some kind of chocolaty snack that my boyfriend and I could share after that magical moment when our spirits and our lips combined to be one.

While this may seem far fetched, keep in mind that I grew up in Montana, so the serene setting and woodland creatures actually shouldn't have been that hard to come by. But alas, the waiting room for my first kiss was not filled with sunshine and butterflies, but instead with vampires and zombies.

Let me set the scene. It was the week before Halloween, and as was tradition, our church was hosting its annual Halloween party. Two important notes: this was 15 years ago, before Halloween was replaced with "Fall Family Festivals" and I didn't live in the Bible Belt where it would be completely unthinkable to hold a celebration of Halloween in a church. Our church held a Halloween party, complete with a haunted house, and our youth group was in charge of staging and executing the event.

But this would be no ordinary Halloween party. This was a night where destiny was shining down on me. My boyfriend, whom I had been dating for three weeks, would be at the party and I was sure that this would be the night where I would move from being 15 and never been kissed to 15 and breathless, wobbly knees, hold me close or I may fall to the ground and need to be resuscitated by yet another kiss. Now, as adults, three weeks may not seem like a long time, but three weeks in the high school First Kiss Waiting Room is like six months in the real world - it's kind of like dog years vs. human years.

Other than a few games of spin the bottle at birthday parties, I had never actually been kissed. However, because of my duties in the haunted house, I was literally stuck in the attic most of the night. I don't know if you have ever worked in a haunted house, but these types of jobs are different then your average day job. As visitors entered the haunted house, my job was to scream at the top of my lungs and them lunge at them with my hands covered in "blood" (a mixture of Karo syrup and food coloring - much more realistic than ketchup for those of you keeping score).

Mid-way through the party, I went downstairs for a quick boyfriend check and what did I see? Another girl, we will call her Jessica Rabbit for the moment, was sitting on his knee. There she was in her size four stone washed jeans, flipping her long blond hair back over her shoulder and laughing at him like she thought he was funny. I was devastated. I was supposed to be pretending he was funny and flipping my hair around - or something - and while I'm busy scaring the begezzes out of people, Ms. Rabbit was moving in on my man!

Well, as you can imagine, I did what any intelligent, loving, Christian, girl would do in this situation; I had my best friend tip me off when little Ms. Rabbit was coming through the haunted house where somehow an entire bowl of fake blood was accidentally doused on that pretty blond hair of hers. Very reminiscent of the scene in Stephen King's Carrie only much more satisfying and well-deserved.

Unfortunately, this mishap caused her to have to leave the party early, putting my plans back on track.

As the party started to wind down, I knew I had to make my move. My boyfriend started walking out to the car with his friends and I walked out with him, my hands, hair and shirt all stained with red Karo syrup. I looked more like a trauma victim than a princess. And although there was a distinct lack of squirrels and bunnies there were plenty of power rangers, spider men, and Barbies with plastic masks who had gathered around. The little munchkins seemed to sense that something magical was about to happen and they wanted to be a part of it. That and all the candy had run out inside the party. In fact, I can't think of anything that could have made the night less romantic, except possibly if my head would have started spinning a' la The Exorcist. But at this point I was committed and nothing was going to stop me from leaving that sidewalk without a kiss.

I quickly reached up and gave him a hug and thanked him for coming. He started to pull away, but I kept my arms around his neck and the hug lingered. Our eyes locked and I knew this was it. He started moving in closer and our lips were so close that they were just about to touch. I stood up on my tip toes so that I could reach his lips. I noticed that he closed his eyes so I closed mine as well. I tilted my head just slightly and took a deep breath in. The air around us was chilly, so I could feel my breath as I breathed out slowly and my lips finally touched his.

The kiss lasted only a few seconds and then I felt his arms loosen. He said something about talking to me later, got in the car and drove away.

I looked up at the beautiful night sky above me determined to take in all the sights and sounds of the moment, took a deep breath, and began to cry.

It was awful!

It was sort of like when you get a piece of meat in your mouth and you have to keep chewing it and chewing it but you can't swallow it so eventually you have to just spit it out.

How could something I had waited my entire life for be so incredibly terrible? Was it me? Was I a horrible kisser? I mean, I really didn't have much practice, other than the pillow, my hand, and the inevitable truth or dare games. I had read a lot of Judy Blume books and even a few of my mom's Harlequin romance novels, which I was sure would have prepared me for this night. I wasn't expecting actual fireworks, I wasn't that naive, but I wasn't expecting the night to end in tears. Come on!

The night ended with me crying to my best friend and my dad taking us out for Happy Meals, which I still contend can fix almost anything. There is some kind of happy chemical in those french fries . . . I'm just saying.

My first boyfriend did not end up being my true love, although he did end up one of my closest friends in high school and college. It's funny how life works out that way.

I've had a lot of kisses along the way, some good and some not so good, but perhaps none quite as memorable as that first.

Are we there yet?

2009-07-17T22:33:00.004-05:00

Image via Wikipedia

The older I get, the more acutely aware I seem to notice that life is a series of never ending waiting rooms. We are constantly shuffled from one waiting room to the next, be it literal or figurative. When we are young we can't wait for our next birthday or Christmas to arrive so that we can attack the presents like hyenas and devour the meals our mothers spent 12 hours cooking in a matter of minutes.

The school year is basically a nine-month waiting room for summer breaj, broken up with smaller waiting rooms for Christmas break and spring break. As we get older we can't wait to graduate high school and then college, after which we (along with our parents) can't wait for us to get our first real job and move into our first place. Sometimes we find ourselves in more than one waiting room at a time. Example: While waiting to graduate from college, many of us young women were also waiting for our MRS. degree. And no sooner do we swallow that first piece of wedding cake than are we shoved by our loved ones into yet another waiting room where people keep asking us (often inappropriately soon) when we will start making babies.

I could go on, but I'm sure by now all you are doing is waiting for me to get to the point.

Whether it is something as simple as waiting for your baby to roll over for the first time or something as complex as watching a loved one as he slowly passes from this world to the next, waiting rooms cannot be avoided. Before you start hitting the "comment" button and telling me that we need to enjoy today and not worry about tomorrow because worrying about tomorrow will only rob of us our joy today, please hear me out. I am not talking about dwelling on these issues. I am not talking about anxiety, although that can sometimes not be avoided, and I am not talking about spending so much time dwelling on the problems, or joys, of tomorrow that you do not focus on those happy times of today. But just as we all had to wait our turn in line at the drinking fountain as children, we must still often wait in line as adults. And in my experience, it isn't getting any easier.

Over the past two years I have experienced numerous health problems causing me to spend a good deal of time in hospitals, emergency rooms and doctor's offices, all of which come with - you guessed it - waiting rooms. My experience in these literal waiting rooms have taught me some nuggets of wisdom that I believe are relative to the figurative waiting rooms of life. Which lead me to the purpose of this blog.

This blog is designed to be a place to talk about those everyday waiting rooms; both the silly and the sad; the practical and the poignant. I think you will find that we will have a lot in common and I look forward to hearing about your experiences as well. After all, no one wants to sit in a waiting room alone, no matter how good the reading material.