Okay, let’s dispense with the reality up front. Yes, of course I am most thankful for my family, our good health, the fortunate life we lead, yadda yadda yadda. That goes without saying, well except that I felt I had to say it. You know, to make sure you all know that I’m not a complete, superficial jerk.

However, I am woman enough to admit that there are some things, yes….some superficial things, for which I am also grateful.

Oh come on. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.  You have them too. Well, here are mine. Not in any particular order because, well, that takes too much thought.  And the holidays are coming and you’re lucky I’m posting anything at all!

TOP TEN SUPERFICIAL THINGS FOR WHICH I AM GRATEFUL

1. Hair color.

2. Friends who are professional hair stylists and work out of their garage so they have no overhead and can therefore cover my grays add shine and shimmer to my locks at a discounted rate (thanks Patrice!)

3. Simply put… Coffee

4. Two-ply toilet paper that doesn’t pill – yeah, you ladies know what I’m talkin’ about.

5. The REMOVE button on Facebook

6. Trader Joes – healthy food, not much thinking, ‘nuf said.

7. Juice It Up Smoothies – the only way I can get fruit into my kid.  Thanks Terry and Zorka!

8. Digital cameras with endless memory so I can chronicle every second of my kid’s existence without paying the big $$$$$$$ on developing like we did the generation before us did in the stone ages.

9. Flip Flops – Like Linus on “Peanuts” who goes crazy when he becomes aware of his tongue, I LOATHE the “awareness” of my toes jammed into dark, cramped spaces.

10. All those studies that say dark chocolate is good for you.

11. Waxed dental floss

12. Molded bras – Man, the twins get cold! Also, a good solution for assymetry, uh, not that I need it.

13. Netflix on demand – A nice way to immediately satisfy my jones for “Zombieland” and “The Young Victoria” in one sitting!

14. Sting/ Sheryl Crow and that Train song about the lipstick stain on the front lobe of his left side brain.

15. The pitch shifter on the karaoke machine – my family and neighbors… also thankful.

16. Those Mr. Clean Magic sponges. They’re freaking magic!

17. Kids Eat Free coupons.

18. Caller ID… I won’t go into details on whom I am screening… in case they’re reading this…

19. A husband in the bedroom with bad eyesight… until he gets lasik in which case I am now grateful for….

20.  ….the lowest setting on the three-way bulb in the bedside table lamp.

 

 

And there you have it. And now you know what zombies and Queen Victoria have in common. Me!

Wishing all you MAMMAKAZES a wonderful and warm Thanksgiving filled with love and family and kids and all the good things in life.

And thank you for your continued support of my website.

 

 

Well, unless you’re from another country that doesn’t celebrate Halloween, you probably spent the last weekend scrambling for costumes for your little ones – or maybe even yourself!

I’ll admit, Halloween is my all-time favorite holiday. It’s just the right combination of gruesome and charming to satisfy my sensibilities. And I do go a little all-out. Not as much as some people mind you. I mean, I really admire those folks who erect entire haunted houses in their garages, complete with that fake- looking scarecrow sitting in a chair that turns out to be real when you walk by. BOO!

When I was younger and living in KC, every Halloween my friends and I would go haunted housing and back then they were AWESOME! That was before all the safety laws that prohibited carefully hidden slides that would unexpectedly send you plummeting to a lower level or kept “performers” from touching people and scaring the bejeezus out of them. I blame this on Personal Injury attorneys and hairline fractures. They’ve taken the fun out of Halloween. A different kind of Boo!

So now I focus my spooky energies on my kid, who has inherited my love for all things fanciful, dramatic and, well, over-the-top. So naturally when she decided the day after Halloween last year (and she ALWAYS decides her costume a year in advance) that she wanted to be a GLAM VAMPIRE for this Halloween, we hit the after Halloween clearance sales and stocked up on all that was glitzy, gruesome and glamorous. And we got it at 50 to 75% off!

And this is what we came up with. Yeah, she won her 3rd grade costume contest and managed to put a fright in multiple parents who saw the ghost of teenagers future (specifically their teens) when they looked at her. And they could be right. The fake lip ring and nose piercing was my kid’s idea. She also picked the costume, the hairdo and the rhinestones. We decided on the design together. I drew it. Oh, and the little rhinestone bite marks on her neck were my idea.

Amazing what cheap rhinestones, eyeliner pencil and eyelash glue can do, huh?  The cost of the whole get-up, including the dress? Less than $20 bucks. Sure it took over an hour to apply all those rhinestones TWICE (once for her school’s Halloween Festival and once for Halloween). But it was worth it. My kid was happy and I got to channel my creative energies on my favorite holiday of the year!

Mommies need creative outlets too.