Menopausal Mother

Welcome to another edition of Fly On The Wall group blog postings hosted by Karen of Baking In A Tornado. Today, four bloggers are bravely opening the door to their homes so that you may get a sneak peek at what goes on behind closed doors!

The nosy fly buzzing around my house was super excited this week to see another Doyle grandbaby ushered into the world! My son's wife gave birth to a baby boy! This is our first grandson---we have two granddaughters from my oldest daughter, so you can imagine my joy at having a third little human being to love. As much as we hated the Covid lockdown, at least something good came from it. 

I almost forgot that today was Fly On The Wall day since I have been so preoccupied waiting for this grandbaby to be born, but the fly DID overhear some interesting (and as always, weird) bits of convo this past month:

Buzz around these other links for a peek into some more homes:

 

Baking In A Tornado                  https://www.BakingInATornado.com

Never Ever Give Up Hope             https://batteredhope.blogspot.com

Menopausal Mother                   http://www.menopausalmom.com/

Wandering Web Designer      https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

     Cooking is something I do well. I enjoy spending time in the kitchen and I'm proud of the meals I prepare for my family. But it wasn't always this way.

     Right after I got married, I decided to host a dinner party for my family. My cooking repertoire was limited to mac & cheese, bean burritos and scrambled eggs, but this didn't stop me from attempting a gourmet meal for company. The recipe I found in a popular women's magazine looked simple enough----chicken with a creamy wine sauce nestled in the buttery layers of a flaky pastry shell.

     I prepped in the kitchen all day, cleaned my tiny apartment from top to bottom and lit candles to enhance the cozy mood I wanted to create. The evening started off perfect with lively conversation and plenty of wine as we snacked on appetizers.  Once my family gathered around the table, I couldn't wait to serve them my masterpiece. It was the first real meal I'd made since returning from my honeymoon and I was damn proud of it, right down to the chopped parsley I sprinkled over the top of the chicken breast.

     The results were not what I expected.

     The room fell silent as everyone chewed....and chewed....then quickly reached for glasses of water to wash it down. Puzzled by their behavior, I lifted a forkful of the stuffed pastry into my mouth and was horrified to discover that the meal that had taken me three hours to prepare tasted like wallpaper paste and had the same consistency of glue. It was inedible, and I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed than when I dumped all the food in the trash bin and ordered pizza for everyone. I learned from my mistake though, and after experimenting with a variety of cooking techniques, I was finally able to host more dinner parties, which were fortunately a success.

     But there are still plenty of things in life that I suck at and that I'll probably never be able to improve upon:

1.) DRIVING:  I've always said that if I win the lottery, the first thing I'm doing is hiring a chauffeur because I hate driving. I still have nightmares about the crash dummy videos they showed us in Driver's Ed class. Anything over 35 mph is risky to me, which means you will never find me on the interstate. I don't like making left turns at intersections without a turn signal, either, so that pretty much limits how far I can drive from my house. I'm still waiting for the day we get George Jetson cars that fly. Maybe then I'll finally be able to make a left turn.


2.) ACCEPTING COMPLIMENTS: I like to be appreciated just as much as the next person, but compliments on my appearance make me feel awkward. I don't know how to accept them because  my insecurities won't allow me to believe them. My husband tells me I look tousled and sexy in the morning when I crawl out of bed, but when I look in the mirror,  I see Medusa cracked out on Flakka.

3.) DIETING:  I can stick to a diet for about three days, until the food starts tasting like something my husband dug out of the mulch bin. That's when dreams of juicy cheeseburgers and greasy chicken wings invade my sleep, and I wake up to a soggy pillow that looks like its been gnawed on by a pack of hungry wolves.

4.) RETURNING PHONE CALLS: I'm awful at returning phone messages and will text the person back rather than get stuck in a twenty minute conversation. Who uses phones nowadays to talk? The only calls I get are from debt collectors or people trying to sell me buy-one-get-one-free deals on cremation urns.

5.) GROCERY SHOPPING: Being the Foodie that I am, nothing pleases me more than being surrounded by chilled cases of gourmet cheeses or the smell of warm bread on racks by the bakery counter. I love to go to the grocery store with a budget in my head and a shopping list in my hand, but that's when I become A.D.D. and am easily distracted by all the pretty displays. It never fails that despite promises to my husband of sticking to the items on the list, I come home with five pounds of dog biscuits and a tub of Goober peas.


6.) FASHION: A fashionista I am not, and I'd rather pick the lint out of my air conditioning vent than shop for new clothes. Years ago when my kids were young, I bought them clothes made by a company called Garanimals, that took the guess work out of matching clothes for children. All a parent had to do was buy items with matching animal tags---a giraffe-tagged shirt went with a giraffe-tagged pair of shorts, and so on. I need some Garanimals today, but in an adult version, because I have no clue how to put the perfect ensemble together. The one thing I'm good at is matching black with black. And yes, I'm totally cool with people thinking I attend a lot of funerals.

7.) SINGING IN PUBLIC:  When I was in college, I was a soloist in the school choir, sang at many of my friend's weddings and occasionally stood in as a lead singer for a few bands. I loved singing until the day I entered a voice competition and forgot the lyrics. Being booed off stage was not my idea of fun, and I vowed never to sing in public again. Fast forward fifteen years to a good friend's wedding. I agreed to sing for her even though I was nine months pregnant and experiencing Braxton Hicks. The night of the wedding, my nerves were shot but I sang my heart out until a swift contraction caused me to hit a sour note that left the congregation wincing in their seats. I'm pretty sure there was a coyote howling at me all the way from Montana. For that reason, my singing is now limited to the shower.


8.) WORKING OUTDOORS IN THE HEAT:  I love gardening, as long as it's only 65 degrees outside or cooler. I live in sunny south Florida, so this means I only garden 2-3 days out of the year. I want the garden to look nice all the time, but there's nothing worse than being drenched in sweat, covered in dirt and under attack by an army of hungry mosquitos. My only other option is to weed the garden after midnight with a flashlight.


     Even though there are numerous things that I suck at, there are plenty of things I excel in. I'm a good wife and mother, and I'm great at multitasking----I can sing off-key in my car while wearing all black....and make the smoothest right turn you've ever seen.


***NEWS FLASH***  This has been an amazing week for Meno Mama! My NEW post, "My Love Of Pets Started To Affect My Marriage" has been shared in several major magazines, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Women's Day, Country Living and House Beautiful. I'm already loving 2016!!

***WANT MORE MENO MAMA? Catch my NEW humor post, " Why I Don't Sleep With My Husband" featured on Bonbon Break this week! You can read it here: http://www.bonbonbreak.com/why-i-dont-sleep-with-my-husband/

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how much I like to highlight the absent-minded situations that my husband gets into. His intentions are good, but somehow his plans always go awry. Case in point: One afternoon when we were hosting a backyard barbecue, my husband offered to do all the cooking. He'd forgotten to replace the old gas line to the grill, and was happily flipping burgers when he noticed a small spark by the gas tank. Grease from the meat was splattering everywhere and hitting the leaks in the gas line.

We narrowly missed a gas explosion that day when the grill burst into flames. The black plumes of smoke sent the partygoers scrambling out into the street. Fortunately, most of our friends discovered a sudden fondness for Cajun-style burgers.

Another example of good intentions gone wrong occurred years ago when a hurricane approached our coastline. My husband thought it would be "fun" to pack our family of six into the minivan for a quick trip to the nearby beach to watch the storm whipping up the waves. Little did he know that the hurricane was a fast moving storm, and that it was closer to our area than he suspected. When the wind began rocking the sides of the van, he broke the land speed record to get us home before the hurricane hit.

Rather than leave the minivan in the driveway, my husband decided to park it on the side of the house for better protection from the oncoming storm. It was a new vehicle, and he was determined to keep it from being crushed by a fallen tree. In his rush to maneuver the car to safety, he put it in reverse and backed into the tight space of our side yard. His foot slipped  off the brake onto the accelerator and the van lunged backwards, slamming into a tree. The glass in the rear window shattered into a million shards just as the rain started lashing the streets. The kids had a hard time containing their giggles while they watched their wind-blown father struggle with a roll of duct tape and a plastic tarp in the middle of a hurricane.

My husband easily falls into these situations because he is a kind man who is always happy to help others. He'll carry heavy bags out to the car for elderly shoppers at the grocery store, assist a stranger changing a tire on a busy highway, or rescue a stranded friend in the middle of the night.  But sometimes these little acts of kindness backfire.

One morning he was in a crowded elevator on his way up to a job interview when the woman next to him spilled a stack of business cards onto the floor. Being the chivalrous man that he is, he bent down to retrieve the cards for her when he heard something rip. Everyone in the elevator stood silent, and at that moment, my husband realized his brand new slacks had split wide open from stem to stern.

Needless to say, he spent the entire interview with his backside to the wall.

It was the most recent incident, however, that will go down in history as the EPIC PHONE FAIL.

Last week when my "Spandex" book was published, my excited husband sent out a large group text on his cell phone to share the good news with everyone on his contact list. A few days later, one of his buddies responded to the text and asked what he could do to help out. My husband JOKINGLY texted back, "Buy the book, F@#*ER!"

After he hit "send" on his cell, it dawned on him that he'd accidentally sent the message to EVERYONE on his contact list. This included not just our close friends, but the plumber, the minister, our vet, the jeweler, the dentist, all of our doctors, the electrician, the A/C guy, our contractor, my mother, the friggin' MAYOR, our hairdresser, and all of our neighbors. It even went to the physician who performed our colonoscopies.

Now I'm worried that the next time I'm due for a colonoscopy, the doctor might "conveniently" forget to give me anesthesia.

I think it's time for my husband to go back to using a rotary phone.





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