She's back. With Things to Say.

Well. For a girl who likes to talk as much as I do, especially about myself, I have taken quite the hiatus. Of course, I do have an excuse, one of the "I was with child" variety. This excuse comes in handy for a person such as myself. You know the kind, the ne'er do well, I'll do it tomorrow, ah screw it type. But the fact of the matter remains, I was with child and that made me one hundred percent, no beating around the bush, ridiculously and utterly booooring. Cocktails anyone? Nope, I'm pregnant. Designated driver? Screw you, I'm pregnant. Want to come hang out, eat and watch tv? Since I'm pregnant I will do that in solitude in the privacy of my own home, thank you very much. And therefore, rather than bore you with the completely mundane stories of swollen boobs and an overwhelming desire for Honey Nut Cheerios, I took a break from the blog.

But I'm baaaack, with lots and lots of things to say. Mostly about myself, of course, but I have decided that I am now going treat this blog as an act of public service. You lucky ducks. I am going to tell you the things no one discusses publicly about early parenthood. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely - in a pull out your hair, why am I still fat, sweet Jesus this kid is going to kill me kind of way. I don't mean to offend anyone, but the truth isn't always pretty, my sweets.

Too often we are inundated with Facebook newsfeeds and Instagram shots of smiling babies and skinny mommies with perfect hair and makeup. Posing with their perfect husbands. In their super clean house with their Norman Rockwell painting puppy. I, of course, am totally guilty of that which I disdain. "Look at me!!" my pictures scream. "My baby is totes adorbs and my husband and I get tons of sleep and we are happy happy happy!"

No one has to know that less than 1 shutter click before, my super sweet baby was screaming like a banshee while I frantically struggled to free my five hundred pound boob from my super sexy nursing bra while my husband wrung his hands in complete helplessness asking "what can I do?" What can you do?! There's nothing you can do! This tiny human is going to take all of us down with her! Even the perfect pooch decided to seek refuge in the garage rather than succumb to the mania occurring in her living room. (Which, Coco likes to remind us, was peaceful, serene, and baby free 9 months ago. No judgment.)

Did I mention that this picture was the first time I even attempted hair and makeup in like a week? And it only took me about five hours to pull it all together!

Then, just like that, the screaming subsides, the pooch cautiously ventures out of the garage, and for one beautiful moment we find ourselves in the eye of the storm and click! We get that perfect picture, post it on Facebook, and laugh diabolically. Muahahaha! Those Greenes sure have a charmed life.

I hope you find this funny and relatable.
Don't get me wrong, I am blessed in ways that I couldn't have even imagined possible. But that won't stop me from dishing the dirt.

And talking about myself.

Aren't we so perfect?!
photo courtesy of Audrey Marie Photography

Cheers to 30 Years

Today, I no longer stare down the barrel of 30 - I have been shot square in the face with a brand new decade. I saw it coming, but nothing prepared me for voluntarily waking up at 6:30am the day I entered old agedom - I suppose now I will rise with the sun, eat dinner at 4pm, and buy a set of knitting needles. I'm going to need an afghan. These old bones get cold. Luckily for me, I have always enjoyed a good 3pm happy hour, so that won't be affected. However, I may have to old lady up my choice of drink. A gimlet is starting to sound delicious.

Now since I'm up at the crack of dawn when I should be sleeping in to prevent the forming of any more wrinkles, I am taking a moment to reflect on the decade that has just booted me out of the nest. Those roaring 20s sure were some formative years, so let me take some time to share with you the life lessons I learned the hard way.

Lesson #1 - Hippie Haute Couture and the Difficulty of Free Love

I arrived in Santa Cruz with tie dyed dreams searching for a drum circle to call my own. I was convinced that a dorm room poster of Phish and a Bob Marley quote hanging on my door would ensure me the friendship of our dreadlocked counter culture. But breaking into the inner world of hippie hoopla is harder than you think, regardless of your bootlegged casette tape of the Grateful Dead and your love of all things Dylan. No longer would wearing a Save the Manatees tshirt suffice. I had to look the part. So I dragged my clean hair and freshly showered behind down to the local hippie clothing store, where I proceeded to spend much of my student loan money (which I am still paying back, even at the ripe old age of 30) on shockingly expensive patchwork pants. I raced back to campus, knowing that these patchwork pants were going to score me a slew of hippie besties. No such luck.Turns out that just because you enjoy a good Cherry Garcia, you will never be one of them.

Especially, incidentally, when your parents make you sign a contract that you won't dreadlock your hair. The odds were stacked against me from the start. I was doomed to a destiny of friendship with squares.

Lesson #2 - Carlo Rossi is a Party Stopper

Walking into a party with a jug of Carlo Rossi is awesome. Just hook one finger into the handle, throw it over your shoulder, and drink it like you just don't care. And believe me, you won't - you're young, you can handle a cheap wine hangover. And though your fellow party goers may not tell you at the time, you will be forever remembered as legend - wait for it - dary.

Lesson #3 - Don't Date the Locals

Just don't. Find yourself a nice boy (or girl) from a nice town from somewhere far away.

Lesson #4 - Major in Something Useful

I majored in Sociology. I can take one look at my surroundings and determine that I know all there is to glean from a social setting. I may even quote Alexis de Tocqueville and act all super smart with my pseudo intellectual comments. But I still don't understand statistics and sociology never got me a job. There is a real world out there, folks. Don't forget that as hard as you try to hover on the outskirts, eventually you will be forced into it. And when you do, it's nice to be able to be employed.

But don't get me wrong. Working for the man sucks.

Lesson #5 - If You Marry A Man Who Steals Steamrollers, You Asked For It

There is never a dull moment with Mr. Greene. But what did I expect, when one of my first dates with said husband was a cozy, intimate little setting at his arraignment. One fateful night, Mr. Greene thought it would be a great idea to hotwire a steamroller and drive it to the beach. Sounds fun, right? And it was all fun and games, as it always is, until someone gets caught.

Now 7th Avenue in Santa Cruz is no back country road. In his defense, Mr. Greene is from a small town in which hotwiring a steamroller may be heralded as local heroism. For years, the town would remember such an antic. It would be handed down from generation to generation, shared over pitchers of beer at the one and only town bar. Shared as a parable at church sermons. Perhaps even a statue of said steamroller stealer is erected. However, in Santa Cruz it is seen as a serious crime, for which you will go to jail.

And hence a love story was born. And here I am, many moons later, with a ring on my finger. I asked for it.

Lesson #6 - Don't Trust the Chocolate at a Phish Show

Just don't. Unless you're into that kind of thing. Then do.

Lesson #7 - Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

I once was riding on a super packed bus to downtown Santa Cruz, on my way to my mediocre job at a juice shop which shall remain nameless. I suddenly got very dizzy, and passed out. When I came to, I was staring into the dirty face of a funny looking man with a Peter Pan hat. His hat had a hole cut into the top, and coming out of the hole was one gigantic dreadlock. Of course I immediately decided that dizzy or not, this man was not my knight in shining armour and I should get out of this situation stat. However, this crazy one dreadlocked Peter Pan man helped me off the bus and bought me an Odwalla. Then, in a cloud of fairy dust, he disappeared back to Neverland.

Lesson learned.

Lesson #8 - Leave Town

Mr. Greene and I had finally had enough of our little college town, and hightailed it out of there to the happening community of Woodland. And though we ultimately did not stay there forever, I made the best friends in the world and had some very funny experiences. It's where I attended my first Demolition Derby. It's where Mr. Greene proposed. And it's where I, along with my closest friends, almost died on Cache Creek. Your 20s are supposed to be full of adventure. Never stay in one place for too long. You have the rest of your life to settle down.

Lesson #9 - Blame it on the Alcohol

Enough said.

        Sub-Lesson #9 - Don't Drink Tequila in Mexico

        Again, enough said.

Lesson #10 - One Day, You'll Look Back and Laugh

True story. I have burnt many a bridge and done many a stupid thing throughout the past decade. I was a much different person at 29 than I was at 21, and I get dizzy looking back and thinking about all the crazy antics that I somehow escaped from. While many things still make me cringe, I am able to laugh about it now - although some of my laughter is just a nervous, how could I, hope no one remembers that kind of laugh.

My great-grandma used to say, "This too shall pass". I just didn't know it was going to go by so quickly. So cheers to 30 years! Now someone fetch me my walking stick. You should treat your elders with respect.

Rose Colored Glasses and Other Such Nonsense

I often live as though life is just one big sinkhole. You know, one day you can be hanging out with the 2.5 kids and the family dog in your picket fence encased front yard, marveling at the beautiful weather and maybe even enjoying a cocktail or two on your front porch. You're probably inhaling the smell of sweet jasmine, thinking, "Self, I've sure made it. This is the American dream. Nothin' can bring me down!" The next day, boom! You walk out your front door onto your wrap around porch meticulously decorated with Adirondack chairs and maybe even a porch swing, then promptly fall right into a giant sinkhole that manifested itself overnight. You didn't even have time to drink your morning coffee and read the paper before you're neck deep in a sticky situation.

I treat life as though the glass is perpetually half empty. If there is a silver lining, all I see is the storm cloud. If there is a rainbow, I focus on the rain that preceded it. And if the Dodgers are winning a game, I sit back, cross my arms, and wait for them to give the game away.

So of course, given my depths of despair attitude and penchant for all things negative, I tend to ignore the signs that life is giving me lemonade rather than lemons. I am Chicken Little, running around screaming that the sky is falling. I'm the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe - a story that, incidentally, has made me terrified of little children. I am the Boy Who Cried Wolf. You get the picture. Everything is over exaggerated, hyperbolized until I have become convinced that I am going to fall headfirst into the rabbit hole and spend the rest of my life trying to figure out why, exactly, a raven is like a writing desk.

Because I was obviously not issued my rose colored glasses, I ignore all large, hand painted arrow signs that I am in fact heading in the right direction. I married a country boy raised by Giants fans, who willingly decided to forsake the pride of San Francisco and fully commit himself to the boys in blue just to have a harmonious marriage - because, you know, marriages break up over baseball disagreements all the time. And when he agreed to move to Southern California to follow my dreams, did I thank my lucky stars and think about what a fortunate gal I am? Why no! I instead grumbled to myself that it would never work out, we would never hop on the 5 and head south in a uHaul without looking back.

When we opened our first joint savings account, the online banking system randomly gave us an icon so that we would know it was our account. Can you believe it was a picture of seagulls? But did I think, hey, what a lucky sign! Nope. Instead I thought man, seagulls sure are ugly birds. And when we opened our joint checking account and were given a picture of San Diego as the icon, I figured we would never live there in a million years.

One day, my job miraculously asked me to move to San Diego permanently. Not too long after, my husband got a fantastic job in San Diego as well. Instead of marveling at this serendipitous situation, I focused on how much I hated that he would be traveling a lot and never home. And when our landlord decided to sell the house we were living in right out from under us, I definitely did not view it as a fantastic opportunity to find our dream home.

But find our dream home we did, complete with a fancy below ground pool, honey! We were handed the keys to a home of our very own just this afternoon. Not without signing our souls away to the bank, of course, and over extending ourselves to the point where we might become the weird recluses on the block who never leave their front yard...

But never mind that. Today I am going to revel in the positive because come on, we all know that there is no way a raven is like a writing desk. The sky never fell on Chicken Little, and I can only trust that the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe pulled herself up by her worn out boot strap, told those little whipper snappers to stop whining, and went on to move into a beautiful Louboutin and live happily ever after.

You're Killing Me, Smalls!

The 4th of July is my favorite holiday. It never turns out quite like I think it's going to, but nevertheless it is tied up with Easter as the all time best holiday of the year. (Please see It's Not a Party Until Somebody Cries) Whenever I picture what type of celebration I am going to have, I picture the Sandlot. Maybe a pick up baseball game on a dirt diamond, fireworks exploding as we play the all American pastime. A block party where all of the neighbors get together and barbeque hot dogs and hamburgers, everyone decked out in their red, white and blue finest. Dads looking like Ken dolls drinking scotch and beer, moms popping mother's little helpers as they scramble to make a potato salad that can feed hundreds of demanding children, who, incidentally, are using their outside voices. Okay...this isn't sounding as awesome as it was at first. But you get what I mean.

By the way, didn't you all have a crush on Benny? I know that at my age I risk sounding like a bit of a cougar, but Benny was so cute! I believe he is single handedly responsible for my love of Converse sneakers. And then he grew up to be a Los Angeles Dodger, as if he couldn't be any more crush worthy! Though once he made it to the big leagues, he was not very good looking. At all. It was nothing short of tragic.

Anyway, I always set out with the best of intentions to create a holiday that brings back a sort of all American nostalgia, a tapestry of all things patriotic. Think s'mores and pool parties, barbeques and the Beach Boys, tossing the baseball around and the smell of hamburgers wafting through the air. Instead I usually drink way too much beer, and find myself watching my husband do dangerous things with fireworks while we all belt out a very off key rendition of Proud To Be An American. Hey. What can you do. Nothing ever ends up quite the way you plan, but it's still my favorite holiday.

So this 4th of July, remember that it doesn't matter which side of the aisle you are on (although come on, let's face it...there is only one right side!). Whether you celebrate by drinking beer, lighting fireworks, going on vacation, or eating veggie burgers, don't forget to take a moment to revel in your freedom and thank the powers that be for all the opportunities provided as a result of that freedom.

Unless you live in California, where you either have to have a permit, pay a hefty fine, pay a lofty tax, and prohibit all things profitable. But hey, the marijuana is legal!

Have a safe and happy 4th, ya'll!

"Let me tell you something, kid. Everybody gets one chance to do something great. Most people never take the chance, either because they're too scared, or they don't recognize it when it spits on their shoes." ---The Babe, Sandlot

Photo Courtesy of blog.moviefone.com

Paranoia in B Major

I don't even know if I can express the level of amazingness that was this weekend. While I am pretty much wrecked from the events that made up the best weekend ever, and it has once again solidified that in fact I am way too old for this stuff, I am floating around in a dreamy cloud of awesome. Even a nasty email at 8am from the boss man couldn't plummet this girl back down to earth. I'm just going to hang out in an ethereal state of mind for the next few days, because these moments don't come along often enough and it's possible that another won't show its face for a long time.

I spent years plotting my escape from the small town of Woodland, and my brother-in-law's wedding to his longtime love made me want to hop back into the country life immediately! As the bride and her bridesmaids were enroute to the wedding ceremony, we decided that a little detour at the best watering hole in town was in order. Six girls in their beautiful dresses saddled up to the bar and slammed none other than Coors Light, ya'll! And, of course, a trip to this fabulous bar is never complete without a shot of Starbursts....and with a nice o'le buzz we yeehaw'ed our way out of the bar and back into the limo to get this little lady hitched!

Photo Courtesy of the Sweet Life Photography

The ceremony was in a little white church out in the country. Not only was the ceremony touching and beautiful, we were allowed to drink champagne while sitting in the pews. Now that's my kind of church! Jesus did turn water into wine, so I guess it's perfectly acceptable to have a party foul that may have allegedly resulted in spilt booze on the church floor. I'm not saying it actually happened - but I'm not denying it either.

Not to stray off topic, but I lived across the street from a Catholic church for years. Upon first moving into this house, I noticed that very often when someone drove by the church, they would do the sign of the cross. Now, I am a Catholic myself, so this intrigued me. For years, I spent hours in church making similar signs and enduring the drudgery. So I got to thinking. Why not make church a little more fun? And since alcohol is definitely fun, why not make up a drinking game? AND since I lived in a country town and I am not opposed to a little front porch sittin', it only makes sense to post up on the porch, pour myself a cocktail, and drink every time a car drove by and its passenger made the sign of the cross. You decide...Sacriligous or just plain genius? Perhaps you should not judge. This should probably stay between me and the big man upstairs. (Jesus, not Jay - FYI)

Anyway, back to this wedding. We hopped into the limo and moseyed on out to the reception venue - another breathtakingly beautiful location. The little details and the choice of music made this reception one big, fabulous party. And the party didn't stop when the last of the guests had made their way home. We went back to our favorite bar and painted the town red. I mean we didn't stop until beers were thrown, husbands were kicked out, and the maximum amount of fun was wrung out of the wedding tapestry.

But don't think that the weekend stopped there. Oh no, ma'am. My sister-in-law and I have followed around our favorite band, the Avett Brothers, for years. We first saw them back when tickets were 8 bucks a pop and they played tiny venues. I promptly fell in love with the music and the banjo player, Scott Avett. *Sigh* Mr. Greene loves this band as well and has allowed me to maintain my crush all these years, even flying with me to Everett, Washington to go to a show. Never in a million years did I think I would meet this band anywhere other than in my dreams...But luckily I am married to the man of my dreams, and he made my dreams come true on Sunday night.

We danced the night away to the sweet melodies that only a banjo and some boys from North Carolina can bring, and then went up to our friend's hotel room to continue the party. Mr. Greene discovered that the Avett Brothers were out in front of their tour bus, and piled us into the car and got us over to them. Now let me tell you, I was terrified to get out of the car. I know it's hard to believe, but I am not the world's smoothest talker. And I probably wasn't that night either, but the conversation replaying in my head has me looking like the coolest girl the Avetts ever did meet. That's the way I intend on remembering it and no one is going to tell me differently. I mean, just look at how calm and cool I am handling this chance encounter:

So, in a nutshell, my dreams have come true. The weekend would only have been perfect if I had mad banjo skills, played Scott a tune, amazed him so much that he asked me to come along for the tour and we lived happily ever after. (Sorry, Mr. Greene! I love you!) But I guess some things are meant to stay dreams so we can live with the hope that the possibility of something just as amazing can happen to us yet again.