Your Spouse Is Hotter Than You Think

Your spouse is hotter than you think and you used to be really into each other. Those are two of the Top 10 Reasons to Date Your Spouse, one of my favorite fun pieces. I love the way it looks with the conversation hearts this month in Coulee Parenting Connection. Also, it’s on the cover. I like that.

How do you keep the spark of romance alive? Having been married for more than 17 years, this is a challenge I face–like, all the time. I have developed an interactive talk/session/chat for women’s groups or couples based on the ideas in this article. In fact, I’ll be at the First United Methodist Church in Springdale in a couple of weeks. Click here to see my tips, check out my schedule here, and if you like what you see, invite me to talk to your group too! (I love to talk.)

PS – What are your hot date night plans for Valentine’s Day?

Images: CarbonNYC, Flickr, Coulee Parenting Connection

Racing, Writing, and Marriage: All About Marketing

When I got the call to help promote some local appearances for NHRA drag racer Hot Rod Fuller, I was all, no problem. When I was asked to write a post about it, I was all, hmmm… do my readers really care about a race car driver giving away pizza at the Walmart? However, they said he’d give me an interview, and I need practice so it was ON.

Plus, I had plans without children that evening. The free DiGiorno stood in for dinner.

Read more

Sorry Salahi, I Stopped Believing

Dear Family,

I might have been kidnapped.

Unlike Michaele Salahi, if this real housewife goes missing, it’s probably true. With the house and the kids and the job, and tripping over your combined 76 pairs of shoes, I just don’t have the time to orchestrate a fake abduction.

Besides, who would I count on to contact the right media? You’re all too busy with school, work, and imaginary sports. And you know what they say: No publicity is no publicity.

Read the rest of this post on Modern Mom.

Image Credit: Andrea Rinaldi, Flickr

He’s a Smooth Talker, Clearly

When I started representing Peekaboo Magazine on the morning news earlier this year, I immediately went to Target to stock up on liquid foundation and extra blush. On my assigned Mondays I have gotten up at 4:45, plastered on a TV-worthy mask, and tried to be perky for the cameras. It’s fun, I’ve learned a lot, including the fact that people who look small on TV are actually of the Elfin race. I now understand eating disorders and addictions to plastic surgery. Let’s just say hi-def keeps you humble.

The news segments continue to be a wonderful experience, but one thing had to change: the drag queen makeup. I had been toying with the idea of toning down the makeup for weeks and then I got the perfect opportunity. I had to work a shift for a school fundraiser immediately following my last appearance. I’d be sorting books in a dusty warehouse, with a bunch of moms I’d never met. I feared My Dancing with the Stars look would not be well received.

So I wielded a lighter hand. With the exception of a little extra blush, I wore the same makeup I wear on any other day. (Okay, the days I actually shower and get dressed in something more than yoga pants.)

As soon as I’d finished at school, I came home and watched the clip, which of course is not hi-def. I asked my husband later if he’d watched the news that morning.

“Yeah, depressing topic.”

“I know. How did I look?”

He knows the answer to this one. “You looked great.”

“Thanks, but did I look different?”

Flashes of terror, confusion, and decision moved over his face. “Yes,” he said.

“I’m not asking you to say I looked different. I want to know if I did.”

“You looked great.”

“But did I look different. Because I did my makeup differently.”

“Uh… yeah, you did.”

“What did I look like?”

“You looked… clean.”

As opposed to all those others times I’ve been on video looking like a dirty girl? “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. You just looked really clear.”

“Like I was in HD?”

“Exactly!”

 Like This? Try These:

• Miss You, Babe
• How My Husband Got Kicked Off My Sales Force
• Carpe Diem, Carpe Di-Ass

 

Image: ThiagoJ, Flickr

 

 

Miss You, Babe

When I am out of town my husband rents Angelina Jolie movies, smokes too many cigars, goes fishing, and… apparently drinks my liquor. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

A couple of weeks ago I went to California to promote Blacklisted from the PTA and to attend, for my very first time, BlogHer. The kids went to grandma’s house, leaving my husband free to his leisure time activities. As you can see from the list above, these are few.

The second night into the conference I got an email — something about sitting on the deck and cool drinks going down smooth on a Saturday afternoon. First of all, that girly cocktail was sent to ME by the kindly LADIES (sensing a theme?) at The Balancing Act for ME to sample. Don’t get me wrong, I am all about sharing, but when my husband had called earlier in the week to tell me the Cuervo had arrived, I didn’t think his Patron-on-ice tequila-sipping-snob self would break into the sweet stuff.

He was drinking WATERMELON margarita, my Jolly Rancher flavored chick mix. What was next, sucking down blueberry Jello shots? Not cool, Better Half.

I soon learned that even she-drinks can go to a boy’s head. When I called to check in before going out for the evening’s [mild] debauchery, my husband told me he was “checking out” my pictures on Facebook.

“You’re stalking me?”

“I guess so.”

“Like if we weren’t married, you’d be looking at my photos like I’m some hot chick?”

Not that I would know about that sort of thing.

Okay, you got me. There was that one guy from high school who “liked” some of my pictures but I swear I unfriended him as soon as he sent me that creepy message. Fine, I unfriended him after the chat where he showed me his–

How did we get so off topic?

Tequila. Yes, that was it. And Facebook pictures. There are some great shots on there. At my birthday party, dancing with my BFFs, at the book launch…

“I love this one of you in the parade,” he said. “With the kids.”

“You mean the one where my hair is a mess, I’m wearing no makeup, and I’m holding up the PTA banner?”

“That is a really good picture of you.”

Poor guy. He really did miss me. To prove his love, he saved all of the sugar-free stuff for me, which was even better mixed with the so-many-calories-they-won’t-even-print-it-on-the-label watermelon drink. But it’s not like I have to watch my weight. I’m the hot chick in the PTA parade, remember?

More Stories That Make My Husband Wish I Was Still a CPA:

• Passing the Clipboard
• Not in the Frommer’s Guide to NYC with Kids
• It’s Not You, It’s Not Me

Image: Lela Davidson

Dear FCC: The nice people at The Balancing Act and Cuervo liquored me up in exchange for this anecdote. Send me some free airwaves and I’ll write about you, too.

From Pillow to Pedometer in 6 Easy Steps

I texted her last night. Run – 6:30? The response came back… something about getting home late from a “business dinner” and having a “presentation” due “early” in the morning and although she “wanted” to run, she wasn’t going to.

Fine. No worries. I’m a big girl. It’s not like I NEED the knowledge that she’s waiting at her doorstep in the pre-dawn light to pry me out of bed. I can do it all by myself. Besides, my husband is leaving town and this will give me a chance to have coffee with him and say a proper goodbye instead of dashing off while he’s still in the shower. You know what this is? It’s a BLESSING IN DISGUISE! (I have to shout that last part in my mind to drown out the voices telling me that I know damn well that it will be too hot to run by the time I finish “drinking coffee.” (I know, the quotes, I’ll stop.)

At least I didn’t change the alarm setting. I still got up at 6:00. After I hit the snooze a few times, it went down like this:

1. “Hey, Babe, let’s have coffee.” And I’m talking actual coffee here. Who can run after drinking coffee? Not me, that’s who! I’m not willing to pee myself in the name of fitness. For funny anecdotes, sure, but not merely for shapelier thighs.
2. Ooh, look! Laundry! I should totally fold that load before I leave. (Also, it’s important to have certain domestic duties witnessed, to back up the occasional tirade. “I slave away ALL day for you people and where is the GRATITUDE???” <– You’re with me now, aren’t you?)
3. I’m not yet in my running clothes when I kiss my husband goodbye, shut the door, and notice a neat stack of bills on the desk. That looks fun! No–I’m strong–I WILL run… just as soon as I dust the bookshelves.
4. There is a dilemma in the closet over whether or not the black of my tank matches the black of  my running skirt. And I should really get some new socks. By the way, hello sock drawer! Do you need organizing, Little Buddy?
5. When I stop to pee (***coffee***) I notice the ring around the toilet bowl. It’s not the first time I’ve seen it. Since vacation, with catching up on work and unpacking and stocking the pantry and all that LAUNDRY, I haven’t gotten to the bathrooms. Suddenly I crave the scent of Comet cleanser. I need a HIT of Comet in my lungs, Baby! My husband is gone, so it’s not like I’m in it for the Holly Homemaker points. I actually want to clean the toilet more than I want to run. I may need help.
6. Dragging myself away from the scrubbing bubbles, I emerge, victorious, on my front steps. (I’m not going to burden you with the bandaid-on-my-heel detour.)

Today… I run! Those are, after all, “my” legs on the cover of Blacklisted from the PTA.

If you only knew what’s pumping through my earbuds…

Image: Robert S. Donovan, Flickr

You Might Like These Too:

• This Savasana Brought to You by George Costanza
• What’s Wrong With This Advertising Model?
• Carpe Diem, Carpe Di-Ass

How My Husband Got Kicked Off My Sales Force

You may have heard I have a book launching next month. July 12th to be precise. Blacklisted from the PTA is available in paperback and Kindle. In case you hadn’t heard. I’m also having this big party to launch the book out into the world in style, and *god willing* sell a bunch of books — like enough to cover the cost of the Asian nut mix and the DJs at this party. I have a team of Uber Salespeople. All my best girlfriends really know how to move product! They set me straight several weeks ago about my meager sales goals.

“That’s your goal for 2011?” one of them said, face all scrinchy like I’d tried to serve her a virgin margarita. “No, no, no. That’s NOT your goal for 2011. It’s the goal for your launch.”

How could I say no to that kind of optimism? So off I went making posters and plans.

Cut to last night. I told my husband I needed to find someone to work checkout, run the credit card swiper. ”I can do it,” offered my sweet, well-meaning better half.

“Oh, no,” I said. “I need you to help with sales. Work your charm on all the ladies.”

“Okay, gotcha,” he said, puffing up. I had already mentally settled on a suitable checker when he added, ”What if somebody wants a refund?”

Seriously? A refund? Is this the first question my top salesman — my only salesMAN — should be asking? I’m not selling ill-fitting tops or outdated meat. It’s a book, MY book. Most of the people coming to the party are personal friends and acquaintances, or at least those who’d like to sell me life insurance.

THERE WILL BE NO REFUNDS. Got it?

That wasn’t the worst. I explained the discounts — you know, the cash incentives that compel people to purchase multiple copies of the most amazing collection of stories ever compiled behind a gratuitous image of legs and stilettos? He looked at me with the scrinchy face.

And said…

“Why would anyone buy more than one copy?”

My turn for the scrinchy face.

“Are you kidding me?” I said, “Friends, sisters, moms, birthdays, stocking stuffers, hostess gifts book clubs—”

Followed by his stop-acting-like-a-crazy-bitch calming gestures.

“Okay, okay. I didn’t know your marketing plan.”

My marketing plan, to be clear, is this: sell a lot of books.

So if you’re coming to the party, my husband will be easy to spot. He’ll be the one running the credit cards.

Image Credit: meghannash, Flickr

More About the Joys of Marriage:

• Showered in Miscommunication
• Match.com’s Got Nothing on This
• I Frighten My Husband, Daily

Showered in Miscommunication

If there’s one thing the relationship experts harp on, it’s communication. Almost all the best-selling books about marriage include the words language, communication, talking, or conversation. Whatever works for you, I suppose, but through more than 16 years of marriage I have learned that communication is overrated.

Sex, now that’s a worthy goal. It’s a form of communication, after all. And hotel sex? Even better.

To this end my husband and I packed an overnight bag and tossed a twenty at the kids on our way up to Eureka Springs for some much needed time away. We had reservations in a lovely haunted hotel, complete with tall ceilings, warped windows, and hundred year old furniture. After we’d settled in and opened the same riesling we drank on our honeymoon, I showered and started to get ready for our big night out. (Where big night out = eating pasta on a deserted balcony at the only restaurant that stayed open past 8pm.) Anyway, I was at the sink setting up the hair infrastructure when my husband started opening the drawers to the dresser.

He pulled out a penguin made of terry cloth and that soft but scrubby material, something you’d find overflowing from a basket at Bath and Body works during penguin awareness week.

“It’s a penguin loofah.” He turned it around in his hands.

“It’s not a loofah,” I corrected, “and I can’t believe you’re touching it.”

He looked at me and then the penguin.

“Seriously,” I said. “Put it down.”

He set the penguin back in the drawer and closed it slowly, methodically.

“What’s the big deal?”

“What do you mean what’s the big deal? You touched someone else’s scrubby. That’s disgusting.”

What he wanted to say: Get over it, freakish germaphobe. What he said: “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

I applied a second coat of mascara as my husband came up from behind me and put his hands around my waist.

“Seriously, wash your hands. I don’t want someone else’s ass germs.”

Confusion washed across his face. “Oh come on. The face thingy?”

I stopped applying blush. “That’s not what it’s for.”

Confusion was replaced by realization.

“So that thing hanging in our shower– that fluffy thing? You use it– on your– “

“Ass crack.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“You’re lying.”

“You don’t really use it on your face, do you?” It took several more minutes for me to convince him that I wasn’t just messing with him, torturing him for sport, as is my custom. ”It’s scrubby and soft. That’s what it’s FOR! It’s an ass scrubber.”

He sat on the ancient sofa and shook his head in disbelief, saying more to himself than to me, “I specifically don’t use that thing on my ass because I know it’s for your face.”

“That’s funny, Babe,” I said. “Because I specifically don’t use that thing on my face because I know it’s for your ass.”

Match.com’s Got Nothing on This

Last night my husband and I were watching TV when a Match.com commercial came on. Did you know that 1 in 5 relationships start online? I did not know that. Being an online kind of girl, it doesn’t really surprise me. I meet a lot of people online. Then again, I’m not sleeping with any of them.

The last time I was on the market, you had to do things the old-fashioned way, face-to-face with lipgloss and cheap beer. There was no easy weed-out mechanism and you couldn’t multitask a first date while simultaneously finishing up a work presentation and watching The Bachelor on DVR. Okay, I’m exaggerating. Nobody worth dating watches The Bachelor. Don’t get me wrong. I fully grasp the allure and I understand the desire to use an elaborate system of checkboxes to find the ideal mate, but, like unicorns and fat-free pizza, I don’t believe such a thing exists.

I turned away from my MacBook to face my husband, “Do you think we’d be matched up?”

Personally, I doubt any man-made algorithm would have put us together. Which may account for why we are still together.

My match looked at me and held back a sigh. “Did the internet even exist when we met?”

“No,” I said. “But we did have Match.com. It was called a bar.”

If you liked this one, check out these:

• Clubbin’ OKC Style
• A Night at the Wine Bar
• Sexy Things My Husband Won’t Do

Ask the Bubbly: Babies Laughing at Paper

Today’s question comes from a father who never had the chance to rip paper for his son.

Pity.

Or is it?

Dear Lela,

What’s up with all the laughing baby videos lately? And why didn’t any of those parenting books tell me that I could get my kid to laugh just by ripping up paper? This could have saved me a lot of sleepless nights when my kids were babies. I sure wish I had known about this miracle baby-enchantment strategy then. I feel cheated.

Frustrated Father

Dear Frustrated,

Take heart, and enjoy the videos while you can. The baby-laughing-at-ripped paper phenomenon will be short-lived. The reason you never read of this supposed miracle baby charming technique is because it is not a time-tested method. Unlike tickling a baby’s belly or dancing him around to vintage Britney Spears, these seemingly innocent giggling baby antics are nothing but precursors to what is referred to in the trade as meltdown. (Not to be confused with blowout, which is a marked discrepancy between human elimination and diaper capacity.)

Videos of babies laughing at ripped paper last approximately one minute. You do not see the moments preceding or those following. Note that the baby paper film genre is dominated by male directors. At some point during the day of filming, this man receives a rejection letter of some sort, a past due utility notice, or mortgage statement with an unfavorable escrow account adjustment. Just prior to making the video, his gainfully employed partner says something to the effect of,

“Get your lazy ass off the couch and do something around here.”

At this point, the man chooses from among the many household chores what he believed to be the easiest task: childcare. And because he is Daddy, aka the Fun Parent, he passes the time with Junior by making him laugh. Specifically, he rips the offending rejection or bill. (My sources have no idea why this works or how it has caught on so quickly, but I suspect it has something to do with the influence otherwise unemployed daddy bloggers.)

Daddy rips; baby laughs. It works.

For about one minute.

Then Daddy bores of this tiresome routine, because let’s face it, watching babies laugh isn’t that satisfying, not like picking March Madness brackets or eating an entire piece of leftover pizza in two bites. So the funny man stops the show and the baby starts to cry. Translation of baby’s wails: “What do you think you’re doing? Get back here and rip me some paper, Fool!”

Here’s where Mom steps in. No one has actually seen one of these videos. No one wants to.

Enjoy the foolishness of others, but consider yourself lucky, not cheated. At least during your sleepless nights there was a chance, no matter how slim of sex. Not so for the paper rippers.

Got questions? I’ve got answers:

• Girl Scout Dilemma

Ask your own questions in the comments or drop me a line.

Image Credit: Creativesam, Flickr

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