Stumbling Toward Enlightenment

Enough writing about the toxic people out there. Now onto the actual toxins . I've been on a three year quest of trying to rid my household of as many toxins as possible, and, well, it's impossible. It's one thing to replace the Windex with a spray bottle of vinegar (and a splash of lavendar oil to make it smell pretty!), or to change out the Tide laundry detergent with 7th Generation, but that's just the first step. It gets harder! Let's take cosmetics, ladies. It is scary and disgusting how many chemicals the makeup companies are able to cram into our SPF moisturizers and blush. I cruise the aisles at Longs (woops--'CVS' now) and feel like I'm making an informed decision when I choose the more expensive but 'natural' Aveeno or Neutrogena product. WRONG. Both brands are owned by Johnson & Johnson, who like all the other big company names use synthetic petrochemicals like formaldehyde, 1,4-dioxane, and phthalates. I mean, when was the last ti...

There have got to me more people like me out there, but I just don't get status symbols. I don't get the McMansion, I don't get the BMW/Audi/Lexus thing, I don't get the I-became-a-surgeon-because-of-the-prestige thing. I have , however, spent a lot of time around people who have spent their lives chasing these things and I have to wonder what it's all about. I mean, do they really care that much about what other people think? One word of advice: if the people in your life judge you based on how many palm trees surround your 'estate,' or on how many times you upgrade your vehicle, those aren't friends. Get rid of them promptly and find some new people that just want to hang out and enjoy some common interests. I must just be selfish, because there is no way I'm throwing that much money down for someone else's viewing pleasure. There is also no way I'm spending my cash upgrading my kitchen every three years. My car is 9 years old and I love ...

Every day when my husband comes home from work, I have dinner waiting. The house is fairly tidy, and the kids are clean and fed. That's where the 1950s scene ends. He takes a few moments to decompress from his commute, changes into comfy clothes, and swoops our sons up and into the other room, leaving me to enjoy some silence, tea, and/or a good book. He thanks me for all the hard work I do on a regular basis, and tells me that I'm a great mom and a great partner. We're a team, and this is what I expect in a marriage with children: that wonderful concept, co-parenting . That certainly wasn't the name of the game in my parents' day, although my Dad was a pretty hands-on father when I was a baby. He changed diapers, got up at night to feed me, and took over the childcare when my mom worked her weekend shifts at the hospital. I suppose I always assumed that is what men do--parent their children--and I married a man who believed in the same. However, I'm finding tha...

A dear friend asked me recently what I felt my true age to be. We had just enjoyed brunch on a beautiful day in her Victorian era flat in San Francisco and at that moment I was feeling about 29. That was the age in which I started to really come into my own. At 29, my mother once said, you're young but the world starts to take you seriously. However, I'd like to change my answer. I've often thought lately (the last year or two) that I really feel about 50. Not that I'm starting to have aches and pains, but that I've lived a lot. I've played mother to people in their twenties, I'm a bit worn in (like a good paperback) by motherhood, I'm a little sad, a little hopeful, and a lot more tender. I've seen enough of life to know what matters and what really doesn't, and I finally feel at home with myself. I'm not really searching anymore, and I don't play games with people, and I write a nice thank-you card. So, I feel about 50--and in a good wa...

Enough of the pity pot posts--just needed to get that out, I guess. So I've had two dreams now that my son K grows up to be a chef. One in which my mom is telling me that it's his destiny. The funny thing is, I've never been much of a cook myself and have only recently been loving spending time in my kitchen. I'm the one who ate top ramen for dinner in college, who had white rice for breakfast when finances were tight. Now, my son has changed all that. I cook from scratch and I cook healthy, for the first time in my life! Partly because I'm cooking for a family now and I'm having to put more thought into our meals, partly because I'm paranoid about getting sick like my mom and leaving my kids behind, and partly because of K's sheer enthusiasm in the kitchen. He insists on helping me cook, bake, mix, whatever. I can't make toast without him wanting to get up on the counter and watch. I was never that interested in what my mom was making (and now wish ...

It is a foggy night outside my window as I type, and I soak in the winter. I love the dark months of the year, unlike most people. The only thing that sucks about the change of seasons is it always makes me homesick. Homesick for my mom's house, which thankfully I can still return to, but will never be the same. Homesick for belonging to a family and not being able to go "home for the holidays," as everyone else seems to do each year. Sometimes I feel like an orphan. My last grandmother passed away recently, and so I am officially at the top of my female family line. The hardest thing over the last three years has been having no family home. I have lots of extended family, but they all have their own immediate family circles, of which I don't belong. I am so very thankful that my two aunts always extend their home for me to call my 'homebase.' Me and my kids stay with them any time I travel to Stockton, and I just don't know what I would do without them an...