So here’s the thing. Jason loves to shop for clothes with  me. This would be fun, except for the fact that he hates to spend money. That means that he wants top brand names at dirt cheap prices all the time.

This wouldn’t be a problem if he had time to shop on a regular basis, but he doesn’t. In fact, with three small kids and a Dave Ramsey budget, we hardly ever shop.

But Jason needs jeans and he needs them badly. He is not aware of this fact, since he’s taken an oath of new apparel celibacy for the next two years (again, thank you Dave Ramsey). But I can’t send him out in stupid clothes.

So I was on the internet looking for bargains for the June Bug (who has already outgrown all the winter clothes I bought her on clearance last year) when I spied an $88 pair of Gap jeans for $29, and they still had Jason’s size left. That sounds like a good deal, right?

Wrong.

I would like to publicly thank the Banana Republic for ruining my husband’s wardrobe. Last year he found a pair of jeans there for $17.99. Do you have any idea what that does to the life of future jean purchases? Those stupid jeans have set me back years, years I tell you. Banana set the bar so low that he’s now determined to only buy jeans if he can get the same quality for $17.99 or less.

I’m really tempted to tear the tags off these new jeans (which I ordered) and tell him I won them in an online shopping contest for women with cheap husbands.

Thursday, October 1st, marks my wedding decade. Considering the fact that every pebble we’ve trampled this year has been singled out and celebrated, the party has kind of lost some of it’s initial zing. We already took our anniversary trip, what more is there?

And so, we’ve decided to celebrate on Friday, October 2nd, at the BYU game. With Jason’s dad and brother. And Bronco. And The Team. That’s right, all of Jason’s favorite people in one big happy stadium.

But hey, I’m a good sport and recognize that it’s his anniversary too, why not do something for him this year? (Did that sound convincing? Cause I’ve been really working on my tone…)

“Hey,” Jason says this morning, “Make sure you’ve got a babysitter for Thursday night.”

“Friday,” I say. “You mean Friday.”

“No, I mean Thursday.” I turn around to set him straight and that’s when I see it–his eye is all twinkly-like.

“Why? What’s Thursday?” I suddenly feel like a puppy who’s about to be taken for a walk.

“Our anniversary. We need a sitter.”

“I know it’s our anniversary, but I thought we were celebrating on Friday, with your dad and brother,” was that too transparent?

“Well, don’t you want some time alone with me?”

That’s like asking a women if she’d like a piece of Adam’s Peanut Butter Fudge Cup Ripple. Of course I want alone time.

“What? What are we doing?”

And that’s when he says it, those magical little words that all husbands should memorize and use annually.

“It’s a surprise.”

A surprise? For me? Something you planned, because you love me, that you know I’ll like, because you love me, that includes just us and no extended family or offspring or trips to the hardware store? Could there be anything more wonderful and magical for an attention-starved woman than the knowledge that her man has customized something just for her?

If men only knew how easy we were. Forgot our birthday? No problem! Just say, “It’s a surprise,” buckle us in the car and drive to The Outback. Ta da! We’re sold.

Just because something is a surprise doesn’t mean it has to be big or grand or obnoxiously colorful. A good surprise doesn’t need extra people or props, nor does it have to break the bank. A bucket of KFC and a romantic park at twilight and we’re putty, putty I say. And hey, if you ask us we’ll even get the babysitter for you.

I don’t care if we end up at Cafe Rio splitting a burrito on Thursday, at this moment and for the rest of the week, I feel special. More than special, I feel special to Jason. And while I love the rest of the world, he’s the one, the one who counts.

Saints preserve us, I adore that man.

For those of you who don’t know me in 3D, I take Christmas cards seriously. Very seriously. Like, start in July seriously. Already  my mind is working and thinking and planning and scheming for this year’s creation. One year (before I started writing for real) I wrote up a mock newspaper article about Jason and I, got blank newspaper from the local press, printed and “clipped” it for everyone. I actually had a family member call to see if I could get any more copies of the paper the story ran in. Yeah, I’m that good.

(Okay, now I feel pressure.)

Check out this week’s article for the secrets to my Christmas Card Diet. Because what’s the point of sending out a card without a photo? I hate getting cards without pictures. I love them for remembering us, but I want to SEE them.

I feel horrible. I am an awful, horrible, terrible terrible mother (who’s having a terrible terrible week).

Why did nobody warn me that raising girls is so very different than raising boys? I’m serious, I can’t even pull up my pants without help from her. My house is a wreck, and I’ve been trying so hard to clean it this week. Why are my efforts futile? Because of her. She thinks she’s the boss of the universe.

When I get out the vacuum, she wants to vacuum with me. Do you have any idea how long it takes to push the vacuum over nine square feet of carpet when you’re only 21 months old? Or what it’s like to load a dishwasher when you’ve got a thirty pound piece of bossiness standing on the door taking everything out?

(Let me pause a moment to put her in time out before she breaks my lap top, because of course, we have to blog together.)

And I made the mistake of getting my sewing machine out this week. The problem with sewing projects is that they take time. You can’t keep yanking things out and packing them up again, especially when my sewing moments are few and far between. But I find that if I don’t remove the power cord after each and every use, Martha Stewart comes in and tries to reupholster the couch.

On a totally unrelated note, I’ve been whiling away the wee hours surfing ebay. In fact, I just got my kids the coolest Christmas present ever, thanks to a suggestion from my niece, Kelly. I bought an old vintage Fisher Price record player from 1978, plus a ton of old records for kids, including Strawberry Shortcake and Batman and Robin.

And if you’ve got any garage sales in your neighborhood this weekend, might I suggest you hit them up for your toddlers before the good stuff is gone? I try to do a lot of my Christmas shopping for them this time of year, getting the good stuff second-hand (or twice loved, as I like to think of it). Thriftiness is a virtue, and makes the hunt so much fun.

The lunch room has it’s very own class system. At the top of the food chain are the kids who bring a duffel bag of food each day, complete with an animal, vegetable, mineral, a bag of potato chips and half a dozen cookies. Second tier would be the hot lunch class. Nice, middle of the road, average eating. Then there’s the lame brown baggers. The kids who get uber healthy, homemade food that is often about as palatable as cardboard.

This year I figured the safest option for Harrison was hot lunch. Now I’m wondering if I should have gone with the cardboard. Check out this week’s article or click on my face to read the whole hot story.

I was talking to a girlfriend on the phone yesterday and we got on the subject of food, or more specifically, how it can make us fat.

This particular friend is going through what can only be described as a rough patch. In her corner, life is kind of like a cheese grater, all the time. Still, she’s managing to hold it together as good as any roll of duct tape, with the excpetion of one area: her weight.

Because let’s face it, stress and anxiety and awfulness is going to come out somewhere if we don’t make a conscious effort to channel it. She was telling me that in AA they replace the need for alcohol with God, and like any good addict, she sees the need to replace her eating with a higher power.

There is one small problem with being a food addict vs a toxic substance addict. Every single day you have to eat. You can’t just quit. I think it is harder to overcome a food addiction than anything in the world because we can’t escape food, period.

The thing is, no one can do this alone. Not only do you need God in your life for strength and support and Heavenly help, but you need a friend. I know, without a doubt, that if I didn’t have a wonderful girlfriend and an awesome sister available at all hours to talk me down from the pantry ledge, and periodically pry that box of brownie mix out of my stressed out fingers, I would be in a very different place.

The Biggest Loser is now back on prime time, and they’re pretty open about the fact that not only do you need a diet and a trainer, you  need a friend. Successful weight loss hinges on the buddy system. The battle against food cannot be waged by yourself, you need a team of help and support to make it happen.

If you’re in these shoes and wanting to make a change, find a friend. Pray for a friend. You need a flesh and blood supporter who’s available to chat about food or laugh about cravings or give you some outside options. Pick someone who needs support back.

It’s the first step on the road to a happy, healthy life.  Make it.

My husband left us yesterday.

Don’t worry, he’ll be back on Friday.

What is it about Jason going out of town that  makes me revert to single lifestyle behavior? For instance, instead of blowing my hair out, I let it air dry today. Hello Jane Austen, it is so good that I don’t live in the pre-hair dryer era. I look like I stuck my finger in an electrical outlet.

And I made a huge list of things that should be attended to (like toilets) this week, but upon waking up to a big empty bed, thought to myself, what’s the point? No one important is peeing here this week, why kill myself off?

Because let’s face it. I don’t do solitude. I am far to extroverted to enjoy the conversationless peace and quiet of an evening to myself. I get all anxious and start monologueing in my brain about things that shouldn’t be bothering me, and worrying that I said/did something sometime to offend someone, just because they didn’t greet me with a double cheek kiss last month when we ran into each other in the grocery store.

That’s when I start to call people. Be so glad you’re not on my speed dial. (It is critical that I do not partake of caffeinated beverages during these times. They turn me into an anxious, chatty, energizer bunny.)

When it comes right down to it, I need people. I’m lucky to have a best friend that lives just down the road and is willing to smack me around a little when I get like this. What would we do without girlfriends to attend us?

Let me tell you, I tried talking to Jason during his lunch break today, and I think he’s slightly worried about my babysitting ability. (Really, I know that just because we have a few rats that come down from the hill to run through our backyard doesn’t necessarilly mean we’ll soon be struck with the Black Plague, but still. A person can’t be too careful.)

Just another manic Monday.

So my Top of Utah Voices column came out on the opinion page of the Standard Examiner earlier this week. I got gutsy and wrote something all stancy, like we talked about. My column is about that supermodel who’s suing a blogger for saying something mean about her on the internet. As a user of the internet and a writer, I think this is a pretty poignant topic, especially since she apparently has a case.

The thing is, I was steeled for some kind of negative backlash. You know, the old “famous people have feelings too” line or something. I can tell you  now, I was not prepared for bad mommy hate mail. And I got it.

At the very very very beginning of the piece, I say this:

“So I’m driving down the road the other day, jamming to my talk radio and doing my best to avoid listening to the fast food requests pouring in from the little parasites in the backseat, when I hear a news story about a famous super model blah blah blah…”

Do you see anything wrong with this statement? Cause I didn’t. And my editor (a father of three) didn’t. In fact, it was the one part of the article he pointed out that made him laugh. Why? Because I called my adorable, high-maintenance babies ‘parasites’. And quite frankly, sometimes they are.

See, here’s the thing. Every stay-at-home-mother out there deals with the stress of being a full-time mom one way or another. Some women cry, some use Prozac, and some use humor.

I find it very hard to believe that even the saintliest mother hasn’t walked into the kitchen and found an entire bag of sugar dumped all over the floor–courtesy of the toddler standing there with an uncapped Sharpie in her hand–and not wanted to scream. (I would like to tell you that this is a hypothetical scenario. It is not.)

Personally, I try to laugh–although I haven’t completely dismissed the Prozac option.

I was talking to my sister about this “my kids are angels and I cherish every moment” mentality, because there are real  women who feel this way, and man, I wish I were one of them. She pointed out an interesting detail. She suggested that some mothers will never, ever see their children as anything but a Heaven-sent blessing.

The problem is, the stress of raising kids is real, Heaven-sent or not, and those squelched feelings of frustrations and anxiety are going to surface somewhere.

I’d rather deal with them right here, loudly and plainly, mixing laughter with my hair-pulling and tears, instead of seeing them come out in my marriage/blood pressure/weight gain. For me, laughing about it is healthy.

(For the record, please know that I might joke around here, but I am very serious about my babies. Their health, happiness and welfare is my number one priority, every single day. Well, every day after 7:00 am. Cause before 7:00, they’re on their own.)

If you’re interested checking out the article, follow the link right here to read the rest of my highly opinionated piece.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Glee post I wrote on Monday about teens having sex. I feel like something more needs to be said.

The fact is, we must talk to our children about having sex, and I don’t mean about having “safe sex”. Many schools have chosen the “they’re going to do it anyway” approach, and in some cases they’re right. But what about all the kids who don’t realize that their virtue just might be worth hanging onto?

Oh, how I would like to take those lovely young girls in my arms, hug them tight, and beg them to wait. Wait for the wonderful, beautiful thing that happens between a man and a woman who love each other. Don’t sell out for a quickie in the backseat of someone’s car, or a sweaty intense moment at a party.

Guard yourself and keep that very, very special part of you safe until you’re ready to give yourself to a man that you love and trust. A man, not a boy who can’t see beyond your zipper and bra. Sure, you’re in love. That’s not a good enough of a reason to have sex, because sex is so much more than that.

There is power in intimacy, both physically and emotionally. The girls who go to high school where my sister substitutes have no idea how beautiful and valuable they are. They see themselves as sex objects, and so become such. They’re actually surprised to hear people tell them that they can and should wait. All they hear these days, from adults and kids alike, is that everybody’s doing it so “be prepared”. That, is a tragedy.

We should talk to them and give them a reason to wait. Sure some won’t, but think of all the girls who will. I wish I could parade Jason around in front of them and say, “See? See how much wonderful is in store for you if you hold on and wait for a man who offers love and commitment?”

And I’ll tell you right now, there is nothing more fun than ten years of sex with a companion that you’ve promised your heart and soul to. No one-night stand or three-week fling can compete with that. Find a man who not only says he loves you, but will be there to support you, physically and emotionally, and you’re ready to have sex.

It doesn’t matter what kind of choices a girl has made in the past. It’s never to late to wait.