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I’ve been a blogger since Monday and and its already Thursday!! I’m super impressed with my stick-to-it-tiveness. I’m really hanging in there! There’s only 3 other things I’ve been this completely committed to for this length of time. Marriage, Motherhood and Tennis…

The first two I’ve been sorely tempted to quit, but it’s awkward and embarrassing to fail and difficult to retire. The third, tennis, I could walk away from anytime I choose. The truth – it might be easier to quit a marriage than hardcore tennis culture.

People have told me I should write a book. It’s possible that I do have a book in me, but, I’d never finish it. I’m not that focused.  Just ask my mother.

When I was a little girl, I was an enthusiastic Project Starter. I’d get an inspired idea about something I wanted to make and go straight to my mom for funding.  Mom would give me the money and off I’d go on my bike to TG&Y to procure supplies.

About 9 years later, when I moved out of my parents’ home and they were redecorating my bedroom, my mom called to tell me how many unfinished projects fell on them when they opened my closet. Bags after bags of unfinished afghans I was going to crochet, halter tops I intended to sew, lanyard key chains I forgot to macramé etc. etc.

And that’s just the tangibles- I once started a rock band that I never got off the ground properly and many other ideas, too numerous to mention, that never came to fruition.

But blogging?  Maybe this I can do. Seems low pressure. It’s my kind of endeavor- Be your own boss and work from your own home in your robe!!

I just went to a website, entered my email address, chose a password, downloaded a picture and presto a ho was born. That’s not a typo. Blogging is turning me into a little ho.

When those “likes” and texts from friends started coming in, I saw my OCD kick in like never before! I started acting like a junkie. I asked my own mother 5 times to read my blog. She kept saying she had been “busy.”  Not to be ageist, but at 75, a “busy day” is a quick trip to Costco. I finally swallowed my pride and told her she was featured in it. That reeled her in…. She promptly texted back,

“I read your piece Sissy, that was just real darn cute!”

It was only Tuesday and I was already up to 4 FOLLOWERS!

After I made an adoring fan out of my very own mother, I started aggressively asking all my friends to read my blog.  I even got motivated to learn how to “share a link” and then started pestering my socially reclusive friends who, “aren’t on Social Media,”  (and might not otherwise have the opportunity to read my prose.)

It’s shameless. I’m like those multi-level marketing people who prey on their friends for business. I’ve started badgering my “contacts” like I’m selling Mary Kay and they have the only face in town.

I also think I sound a little evangelical about this blog, texting people “FOLLOW ME!”

So I’m going to calm down a bit. If you like the blog post, then follow me. If you don’t follow me, its possible that you’ll go straight to Hell.

But here’s the really good news: if you throw me a party at your house and 10 of your friends decide to follow me, I’ll give you 20% of my profits. And then if each one of your friends gets their friends to follow me…

…you get the picture.

Not long after Gracie left for college and my grief was still quite palpable,

I happened to be playing tennis at one of my friends’ neighborhood courts, when a child’s birthday party started taking shape at the community pool next to us.

Out came the balloons, the piñata, the cake etc.. Then the squeals of tiny party-goers, as they arrived, joyfully anticipating the festivities.

So intensely focused on my tennis game (aka the tennis coma) I didn’t realize until I drove home that this birthday fete had traumatized me.

By the time I got home I had worked myself into an emotional tizzy, weeping and sniffling. My Jimmy was instantly concerned and wanted to know if something ACTUALLY bad had ACTUALLY happened- like a wrecked car or a speeding ticket….

When I told him about the party and how it made me feel (like I should still be stabbing Capri suns open with that sharp little straw or blowing up a pair of floaties) he was visibly relieved and suggested we, “go make some margaritas and sit by our pool, where there are no screaming children.

And then he actually said these words by way of comforting me, “We can talk about how life has passed us by!”

Not cheered in the least by his response, I decided to call my friend Kathleen…. We have been friends for about 11 years, so, admittedly, she didn’t know me “back in the day” when I was at the top of my game, raising and hosting lavish birthday parties for my first batch of kids.

Our friendship was fomented by the friendship of our youngest children – Which explains how she reacted when I told her how seeing this dear little party made me melancholy, longing for the days when my Tommy and her Michael were little boys….

“I don’t know about that,”  she said, “The last birthday party you and I threw jointly was at my neighborhood pool and, after you plopped 10 Little Caesers pizzas down on the picnic table, you plopped yourself down, got on your cell phone and didn’t surface til the party was over!! We had kids drowning, fighting and trying to kill each other and you were pretty damn oblivious!!”

Man, harsh… So maybe I’m romanticizing it all now that its over, but there was a time when I was Queen of Children’s Birthday Parties – making the invitations by hand (store-bought? Not for my princess!) and painstakingly copying cakes I saw in magazines (inspiration before Pinterest)

So, I worked the math and realized that I’ve thrown over 100 birthday celebrations for 5 kids in 28 years.

Alas, those days are gone, and apparently have been gone for longer than I realized.

Somewhere along the way I went from “all over it” to just “over it” and never even noticed. But in my defense, kathleen had that party under control, as evidenced by the fact that not one single guest drowned, and those pizzas were so easy and affordable!!

Me and emilie celebrating her very first birthday party! You better pace yourself young mother-of-one-with-so-many-more-to-come!!

I was sitting with some friends on another friend’s patio one beautiful Oklahoma evening, enjoying a nice glass of cabernet and watching our hostess’s dog run around the backyard, relentlessly retrieving a ball every single time it was thrown. I’m pretty sure I was pondering how foolish this animal must be to continue to go after the ball each time we threw it, instead of flipping us off (which admittedly , would be hard to do with a paw – which is why I’m glad I have fingers)
Right about that point, my dear friend said, ” I’m glad I had her rest this afternoon…”

Here are the questions that immediately formed in my head: She had her rest earlier that day? How does one make their dog rest? Why would anyone make their dog rest? And lastly, when my dogs aren’t busy chewing up my patio cushions and pooping in my closet, they appear to rest without encouragement from me…

As a battle-scarred mother of 5, I’m no stranger to making those under my care rest. And it often wasn’t easy. Different tactics helped – such as bribery, reading a story and even pinning them down -outweighing them by 100 lbs or so.

With this many under my belt, you’ll forgive me if I am not overly- invested in whether or not my dogs nap.

With that said, however, this shift toward Americans treating their dogs as though they were their human toddlers, warrants a small amount of contemplation, or as They would say on SNL, “what up with that?”

I believe this social phenomenon has its roots in the shrinking of family size over the past 50 years or so. With the advent of birth control options, we can control how many offspring we spring off…. and, with less kids in the nest, we have a lot of love left to give our dogs…

Now, lest you hear judgement in my voice, please understand- I’m not criticizing anyone else’s choices. Just attempting to alleviate my own guilt…because there’s a huge possibility that I won’t put the dogs down for a nap this afternoon. In fact, if I ever mention that I “put them down this afternoon,” think the worst…

I know that I’m entirely responsible for my current problem. Well…maybe not entirely responsible….anyone with a mother knows, one is  never  entirely responsible for a problem of one’s own making. Our mother must be somewhat to blame – in fact, I believe the very title of MOTHER, loosely translated, means, “one who must be blamed.”  Anyway, I digress, as I attempt to deflect…

This is the text I received today from the University of Arkansas. (Not from the university per se, but from one of their students)

I admit that me and my daughters (and my mother, as well as her mother and her grandmother before her) are what we refer to down South as a “clothes horse” or I guess “clothes horses” in the plural form…we adore the purchasing and the wearing of the latest styles and fashions. Case in point- my mom is 75 and just sent me a “selfie” of the outfit she wore to dinner last night.

This family tradition has never been a huge problem. We’ve married indulgent men.  Sure, there’s been the occasional marital squabble and the minor fibs (“What? This old thing?  I’ve had this for awhile now”…etc etc). It’s never been anything we couldn’t finesse.

In fact, I’ve always found it somewhat amusing. Once, I met a friend’s little neighbor child who had just gone to her first day of kindergarten. I interrupted her prattling on about her teacher and her new classmates by saying, “more importantly- what did you wear?” I found out later from my friend that the child’s mother didn’t find this as amusing as I did…

That mother would probably be happy to know that I am reaping what I’ve sown…

The challenge for Today’s Thrifty Mom On A Budget is social media. Back in the good old days, (before Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat)  a Savvy Girl could rotate her wardrobe. For instance, an outfit she wore around “school friends” became an entirely new ensemble when worn around “church friends.”  Well, those days are gone apparently. The clothes I purchased in the spring for Gracie to wear to her Oklahoma High School graduation festivities, and naively assumed she could wear in Arkansas for freshman social events, are “over exposed.” Because they have been seen by thousands frolicking all over Facebook and Instagram, they can’t be repurposed in Arkansas.

Too bad I never saw this coming. There seems to be only two solutions:

-take your Mother’s clothes (they’re “like new,” as no one in the Social Media Set looks at anyone’s mom.)

-buy all new clothes – so you have something new every day

This post is a warning to younger moms with daughters: what is adorable at 3 and tolerable at 12, is quite expensive at 19.  Laugh now – pay later!!

I told Jimmy yesterday, “We have to watch the Arkansas game today at 3!”

To which he replied, “why? It’s going to be a total blow out!  They’re going to obliterate the other team!”

To which I responded, “to see Gracie on TV!”

Suppressing amusement, he went on to explain how ridiculous I  sounded, adding “they don’t show the Pom girls on TV- only the football players.  That’s why it’s called a football game!”

Now… I’ve been married to this man for 30 years and he is rarely wrong.  But  I’ve also been required to sit through (read “suffer through”) 30 years of college football and I would swear on my life that those cameras cut over to the  cheerleaders and Pom girls occasionally when there is a lull in the on-field excitement.

As such, I insisted and prevailed.  We watched the game and the cameras cut to our daughter for a nano-second twice in 3 hours. Once, it was just her little freshman head peeking out from behind a senior…But wow, was it ever exciting in a living-vicariously-through-your-kids kind of way!

I guess in the end, we were both happy – I was  happy to realize after all these years watching college football with the camera cutting over to those beautiful girls- he never even noticed!! (Eyes only for me??!!)

And he was happy to have one of his children in uniform on a College football field – even if its his daughter!!!