Monthly Archives: July 2009

As I’m preparing to get out the door to the BlogHer Conference in Chicago I realize that it’s the travel I dread. Once I’m surrounded by 1,500 like-minded women, I’ll be fine. By like-minded I mean they’re women who have drank the proverbial Kool Aid of Social Media. I miss my kids like crazy and I’ve been gone just minutes.

I can’t wait to get to some of the sessions, waiting to hear Jane Gassner speak is like waiting to hear from any celebrity you’ve admired from afar.

I do have another mission though.

I’m bringing gifts. Not just any old gifts either. I’ve got tee shirts from 10 Again (yes, that same line you see at Barneys and Nordstrom), fragrance and cosmetics from Sephora, full outfits from I Am Beyond, DVDs from Brainy Baby and Guitar Hero for your Nintendo DS.

The giveaways will be completely arbitrary. I’d love to make new friends, so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Whrrl. Pop me an email at onlineauthor at gmail if you’re in the building at BlogHer (or one of the fabulous parties) and I’ll find you and delight you.

Just be camera ready, because I take a lot of pictures.

I’m going to embed the Whrrl Widget so that you can follow the fun live, it’s like a real time scrap book. I’ll do a recap and hopefully we’ll get to see what’s in the goodie bags live.

As soon as I catch my breath, I’ll get you a decent post about the women I’m meeting here. They are extraordinary.

I don’t know how a marriage withstands two careers. I’d like to know, and I’d desperately like to experience it, but I’m teetering at the edge of real work, and I’m less certain than I’ve ever been.

The deal we made included me being home, raising kids and supporting my husband’s career. I have been mostly satisfied with this choice. I loved being a newlywed wife and decorating our shack modest home. I adored the first years with my daughter and the freedom to watch her blossom. I clung to every moment of our son’s toddlerhood, as I knew he’d be my last baby. During most of this I shared caregiving duties of my Grandmother with my own mother.

I had a thriving eBay store and I went to grad school, all in my spare time. My family was well cared for. I was fulfilled.

Now, I am not. Now I feel suffocated and bored and alone. I can play tennis, but my friends are working. I can blog, but I’d rather be in a room with someone. No one really needs me here any more. It’s just making beds and cleaning windows, dusting furniture that no one ever sits on and making supper.

I know being a housewife has value, but it’s tedious and dull and incredibly isolating. It’s fine to go out a little and network with folks from the LA Tech scene, but let’s face it, those are young men. I don’t have anything to offer them, and they have even less to offer me. Girls in Tech is always great, and it gets me out a little bit, but not nearly enough and it’s not always convenient.

I feel terrible for being ungrateful for what is surely a pampered existence. I love my husband. He is my best friend the only teammate I need. I adore my children, I love them with a force that I cannot possibly describe. I also like who they are. All this just adds to the guilt and shame of the words:

It’s not enough.

My husband is a bit baffled and would support me if I wanted to get a job. I suppose there’s something I’m qualified to do outside the home, but who would pick up the kids? Who would be at school for the presentations and the chapels and the volleyball games? Who would do the grocery shopping and cook dinner? Who would drive them to and from school and get to hear all the best conversations? Who would coach soccer? Who would love them?

I hate that I don’t love being a stay at home mom every day. I hate that I have to make a conscious decision to not resent the life and lifestyle that my husband and I worked so hard to achieve.

I know that this is the life I wanted. I know that these are the same feelings of a housewife fifty years ago, and I sound like a throwback and a wimp and a prisoner of a middle class miracle.

This is where I’m at. I’m 39 years old and I’m not happy even though I have it all.

Twitter is fun, please join me there.

If you are a story teller try Whrrl, and then send it to Twitter and Facebook. If you are going to be at BlogHer on Thursday or Friday friend me on Whrrl. I will be the geek bearing gifts.

If this post feels too short blame Will.

If you saw me last Tuesday, you’d have seen a very swollen hand. I was stung while trying to cut down a strip of Trumpet Vine that supports a little wasp’s nest. I was absolutely miserable, and hardly able to make a fist for two days.

Everyone has asked the same questions:

What were you thinking? I was thinking I would cut the section of vine down and the wasps would go away.

Why didn’t you buy a can of spray? Because if it kills wasps it also kills cells in our bodies. No one in this house is allergic to stings so the whole risk reward ratio was skewed in the wasps favor.

Why did you try to cut it down so close to the wasps nest? Why not take a larger section? Ahh, now that’s a good question. Apparently my garden is host to many creatures, including a tiny songbird. She’s in there, sitting on her eggs. I can’t bear to evict her.

Tonight I went out back, armed with only a garden hose and full water pressure, I simply squirted water at the little predators, and guess what? The nest fairly disintegrated, and tomorrow I’ll send my husband out there to snip off the section of vine where it once resided.

Score one for the Jew.

Earlier this week, at the Tupperware party I had a few remarkable conversations. Rick Goings (the CEO of Tupperware) was telling me about the growth of the company, and (unlike any other man in his position) he wasn’t talking to me about the product. Rick was talking to me about the people. He said that the way to success is to, “find a great parade and walk in front of it.”I suspect that Rick does a lot more than lead a great parade. What I heard was that women in India and the Philippines were changing their lives. I listened as Brooke Shields talked about the early days of Tupperware Parties and the fact that men didn’t necessarily love the idea of their wives working. Tupperware is more than pop culture. Tupperware has always been about women joining together.

I understand that the mission of Tupperware the brand must be to be to fulfill the needs of it’s shareholders. I can’t shake the notion that the mission of Tupperware’s CEO was empowerment of women and girls, and that the money was just one component. (more…)

I have an ongoing hamster issue. This time last year our son, Alexander, was given a hamster for his seventh birthday. Said hamster escaped again several months ago, and after many weeks of hamster stalking we threw in the towel and got a new hamster for Alexander.

If you are a friend of mine on facebook you may have seen some of my recent updates, they look like this:

Be vewy vewy quiet, I’m hunting hamsters.

I found a little stash of dog food in the kitchen last week, so I’m pretty sure that our free range hamster is hanging out there. I dutifully stay up late at night, and search for her. Though I’m not sure what to do with her if I did catch her.

Which brings me to my confession.

The dog started barking at 3.30 this morning and I was up from then until 4.30. I realize now that it’s because he was after the hamster. When my alarm clock woke me up at seven, the only thing I could think of was setting up rat traps to catch and kill the hamster.

I’m pretty sure I won’t do it; but I wouldn’t exactly promise.