Just Like Starting Over

Its August, and the start of a new school year. Its also the chance to redeem oneself from the from the perils of January resolutions and start over. It seems like we all have great plans to lose weight or save more money or whatever it is that we think we need to change or improve. It’s a few weeks after we set those lofty goals that reality sets in, and plans go awry. However, its not to late to start over again.

In fact, it would be too late NOT to.

 

The best way to start over is to just do it. Don’t make excuses why it didn’t work last time. This is tabula Rosa. You have a fresh slate, just do it. What has already happened, happened. You can’t change it so don’t stress about it.

 

Make a list of goals. What do you want to accomplish? Write it down. Be specific. I am a big fan of vision boards or look books. Its easier to make something happen if you have a concrete idea of what you truly want. I put pictures, quotes and written goals on mine. Look at it every day, even for just a moment. It keeps it fresh and helps motivate you to achieve your dreams.

 

Round up the troops and garner support. Tell your family and friends what you want to accomplish. Encourage them to be on your team and help you succeed. The more support you have, the greater the likelihood you will reach your goals.

 

Be realistic. You are not perfect. Expect that you will have off days and might not always be 100% successful. Its ok. The problem will be if you don’t dust yourself off and get back at it. I try to build in cheat days or cheat meals or a day off from working out. That helps me not feel guilty if I want to sleep in or enjoy a potluck dinner or just have ice cream with the family.

 

Have fun. If its drudgery, you won’t stick to it. Don’t get caught up in the perfect diet plan that restricts what you can eat totally or a work out that you hate. You won’t keep at it, and you will be looking for excuses to cheat. I’ve done all the diet programs out there and nothing has stuck. There isn’t a magic pill or diet or workout that is going to fix you. You have to do the hard work yourself.

 

Remember, its what’s on the inside that counts. If you eat because you are stuffing feelings, diet and exercise isn’t going to fix the problem. You need to fix what is the underlying issue first. Its like when my son had road rash. A scab can’t form over it, so it has to heal from the inside out. The same when we have wounded feelings or stuffing emotions. We need to heal from the inside out too.

 

Have a reliable measurement tool-and reward yourself. Get a manicure or download a song when you reach a benchmark. Buy a new outfit or shoes. A book-whatever jazzes you. You need the motivation to keep you going. I love when I’ve reached a mini goal-like getting a month’s worth of scrapbooking caught up-and I love to reward myself too!

 

Its never too late to start over. Get in there and get on with life!

On the Radio

Last Friday night, I had the opportunity to see the Rock Garden Tour at the Orpheum Theater inSioux Falls.

 For those outside of South Dakota, it’s a South Dakota Public Broadcasting radio show featuring a rock & roll gardener (Flower Man) and his sound effects/straight man, Oil Can. The show I went to was being taped for a TV special on SDPB later this year. It has the same feel as Prairie Home Companion, although I think Rock Garden Tour is a lot funnier.

To experience it for yourself, you need to click HERE http://rockgardentour.com/category/bits-and-peaches-podcast/

You won't be sorry! 

I moved to South Dakota almost nine years ago, and I am proud to say its my adopted home. Living in the Rushmore state has its quirks. There are weird names for food (taverns vs. sloppy Joes), odd place names (Hecla, Presho-just to name a few) 

Which are immortalized in this video: http://youtu.be/O6NyvBMiz3w

 and the hay capital of the world, Gayville. Come bale some hay there: http://youtu.be/mMPNX0F7Sxk

The Rock Garden Tour celebrates this place in their bits and their music, and all are funny. When I left the Orpheum, my sides hurt from laughing so hard.

If you are not in South Dakota, you can check out their website at www.rockgardentour.com or listen to previous shows at SDPB.org/radio

There really wasn’t anything that didn’t work.

It was a great show, and I am grateful for the opportunity thanks to the Orpheum to attend it.

Blurred Lines

I’m a little tardy to the party on this topic, but…I’m putting in my two cents anyway. I needed a bit of time to process this whole thing. I had the misfortune of seeing Miley Cyrus’ “performance” with Robin Thicke on the VMA’s the other night.

Wow.

I remember back in the day seeing Madonna roll around on the floor in a wedding gown, back in the day. I also remember how shocking it was. (Seems so innocent now.) Then in the 90’s, we had Britney proving over and over that she wasn’t that innocent with the flesh colored body suit and the snake and later on, the kiss with Madonna. The VMA’s try to shock, because it gets people talking. I get that, and I try to think that I am not so uptight or that much of a prude to be “outraged” by these antics.

Then came Miley. And Robin.

I don’t have a vested interest in her as Hannah Montana. I have a son, so it wasn’t the right demographic. Her dad’s first CD got a few spins back in the day. I remember watching Growing Pains, which starred Robin’s dad, back in the day. Back before Kirk Cameron went all guerilla Christian on us, and he was dreamy. Here are two celebrity kids, and I question if they would have ever gotten any attention or a record deal if they weren’t the child of so and so.

I am the mother of a tween son. My little guy is almost 11, and is becoming more cognizant of pop culture. Up until now, we’ve kept him fairly insulated, with monitoring video games, internet usage and viewing habits. He’s listened to the music my husband and I listen to, without much say in things (other than requesting Michael Jackson’s greatest hits and a few Lady Gaga songs). We do not watch the VMA’s, because both my husband and I know nothing good can come out of it (we grew up with MTV and were first hand witnesses to some of the more “shocking” performances). Since I am attempting to raise my son with a strong moral compass, I have reminded him time and time again that all people deserve respect and to be treated fairly.

What has me more upset about the situation the most is the fact that all the attention is focused on Miley Cyrus, and Robin Thicke is being virtually ignored. He is equally complicit in this, and I guess gender stereotypes die hard. There is a culture of slut shaming that has reared its ugly head again in the wake of this. All I hear is Miley, not Robin. I watched the uncensored video of his hit song, Blurred Lines, and its obvious he is at the very least, co-conspirator and at the most, instigator. In fact, I was more offended by that video than I was by the “performance”. Again, it’s the objectification of women as vapid objects to be paraded around and not good for much else. Feminism in its pure essence fought very hard to stop the objectification of women’s bodies. Unfortunately, that has been, in the words of my 10 year old son, an epic fail.

I do not want my son to think its ok at objectify women. I don’t want him to think its ok for women to be an object rather than a person. Instead, I want him to see women as his intellectual and social equal. I want him to see beyond a woman’s physical appearance and learn that she is much more than that. Having people like Robin Thicke as a potential role model will not allow that to happen. One day I will not be able to censor his TV viewing or internet access and he will come across things like this VMA performance. I hope that my husband and I instilled enough morality for him to know that this is wrong, and to switch it off.

 

Twisting by the Pool

 

This past weekend, it was hot, humid and steamy on the northern plains. In other words, it was the perfect weather to go to a water park.  I should mention that I am not really a water park kind of gal. For one thing, you really need to wear a swimsuit to a water park. Despite all my professions of loving my body as it is, its hard to feel all pumped up about how you look in a bathing suit. I do it because my son loves to go swimming, and as a mom, I owe that to him. So vanity aside, I put on the spandex and go.

I haven’t been a water park fan since the days of Vernon Valley Action Park. It was a water park (using that term loosely) in Vernon, NJ. It was the happening place back in the day, when I was in college, mostly. There was a rapids ride, in a tube like Congo Rapids at Great Adventure, that was a lot of fun. There were some slides that were super terrifying that I inevitably got hurt on. Then there was this grotto like swimming hole that was always filled with creepy guys and idiots thinking they were cliff diving in Mexico. One of the slides gave you a major wedgies so badly you could hardly walk afterwards. Good times.

It was Jersey Shore, minus the shore.

Weird NJ has an entire section on their website devoted to "Traction Park".

Mashable even made a documentary about it. Check it out here: http://mashable.com/2013/08/28/action-park/

As a result, I am not a fan of water parks.

However, my son’s scout troop was going as their beginning of the year kick off. We went to Wild Water West, which is on the outer limits of Sioux Falls. Seeing the rising water slides in the distance always makes my kiddo happy. I was fully prepared for a long, heat filled day with overpriced, unhealthy food and crowds galore.

I was pleasantly surprised.

They had salads. Greek yogurt. Frozen grapes. Water.

Oh yeah, and funnel cake.

Little Man (who, I must add, is not so little any longer) loves the wave pool as much as I do. The first time he went in, he was hesitant, but learned to bob with the flow. It made me think of the Whitman poem:

 

 Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,)
Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,
Endlessly cry for your castaways, but fear not, deny not me,
Rustle not up so hoarse and angry against my feet as I touch you
         or gather from you.

From Walt Whitman’s As I Ebb’d with the Ocean of Life

 

 

There is a pirate’s ship play area. 

Its designed for kiddos, but of course teens and even some adults (like me) can’t resist. I went on there to make sure my son was ok. There is a giant pirate head that fills up with water, and then pours it out in a giant, whooshing dunking motion. 

My son said to me that it happens every 45 seconds. We stood and counted together, as we waited to get dunked. Not very long ago, my son was terrified of having his hair washed and getting water on his head. That day, we were drenched by gallons and gallons of water.

He convinced me to go down the slides with him. We laughed and had more fun than we’ve had together lately. We climbed ropes and gangplanks. 

We shot water cannons at others. And got dunked over and over again.

 As we were getting ready to leave, he grabbed my arm and told me to look at the sunset starting. “Mom, isn’t it beautiful?” Yes, son. Yes it is.

Color Me Impressed

I am not ashamed to admit that I spent my formative years in the 80’s. It was a magical time for alternative music. It was the heyday of the Violent Femmes, 

Husker Du, 

the Smiths, 

Depeche Mode 

and more. That and more included the Replacements.

 They never received the name check recognition of other bands of that era. 

They were never one hit wonders (thankfully they remained staunchly Left of the Dial). Their one chance at superstardom (on Saturday Night Live) infamously imploded on an epic scale.

http://youtu.be/HsQNS6cZRus

Instead, they earned the title of influential. This, at least, insured that they would not slide into obscurity after they disbanded in the early 90’s.

http://youtu.be/GZkrCH6jub8

A few years ago, they were the subject of an amazing documentary, Color Me Obsessed, [reviewed here: http://mommydomchronicles.blogspot.com/2011/10/left-of-dial.html]

(http://youtu.be/yfSbPLABCyk) which (I hope) introduced them to a new generation of fans. 

I was shocked at the variety of artists claiming influence by the Replacements-everyone from Colin Meloy of the Decembrists (http://youtu.be/cP1X2fNK0rg)to Brian Fallon of Gaslight Anthem (http://youtu.be/OKJd44zxq4Y) to Johnny Reznik of the Goo Goo Dolls. [disclosure: I was shocked at that last one]. My son loves the song Can’t Hardly Wait.( http://youtu.be/wDCrVy9Tveg) When he was younger, he would get excited when it came on my iPod.

Instead of watching the VMA’s (sorry NSYNC, you were not the reunion I cared about). 

I was scouring You Tube and Slicing Up Eyeballs for video and photos of the Replacements playing at Riot Fest in Toronto.

Photo courtesy of Slicing Up Eyeballs

 This was the first time they played together live since I was in college. [note: I am now a 40 something Midwestern mom] My husband, whose musical taste remains staunchly in the Kiss-Styx-Journey camp, didn’t quite understand why I was squealing with delight over a grainy, poor sound quality Vine video. The delight kept coming. I was excited beyond words. Caryn Rose has a great review (with salty language) at http://www.jukeboxgraduate.com/2013/08/concert-review-the-replacements-riotfest-toronto-august-25-2013/

As much as I would have loved to say that I was there, I am now a 40 something Midwestern mom, 

and its not the point in my life to play groupie and chase my favorite bands from festival to festival.

 Its not the time for me to brag, “yeah dude, I was there for the Mats. It was epic.” I’d rather say “yeah dude, I was there when my kid blew his first notes on his oboe. It was epic.

The Rainbow Connection

My son learned to read when he was about 2. By the time he was in preschool, he was reading books on a 2^nd grade sight word level. Despite not really having functional speech, he was able to read books clearly, carefully enunciating each word.  Despite that, he didn’t really talk to us or even with us. I didn’t get bombarded with the typical toddler why questions. However, he knew his sight words. He could recognize shapes and sounds and the world around him. He loved to spell too. He had a spelling toy that he quickly grew bored with because the words were not challenging enough. The most frustrating piece was that he would use phrases from books or movies as his conversation, which is called echolalia. Sometimes what he parroted was related to what the topic of conversation happened to be. Other times it wasn’t even close, and one had to decipher what was being said.  Even today that happens when he’s super excited or very tired. He exhibited all the classic symptoms of hyperlexia, which is defined as:

 

The precocious ability to read words without the prior training in learning to read, typically before the age of 5.

 

It is extremely common in autistic kids. It is thought that somewhere between 5 and 10% are hyperlexic. As his verbal acuity developed, there was less of a dependence on reading, and more on speaking. By the time he was in 2^nd grade, reading was now more of a chore than a desired activity. As part of his homework, he had to read for 20 minutes any day (not just limited to books-it could be anything). We were struggling to find something that would pique his interest and make him want to read. He loves dogs, and I found this great blog called Love Always, Bear. 

It was the original “dog with a blog”. It was written from the dog’s point of view, and always was sweet and adorable. Bear was a golden retriever who was a rescue, who lived with his “parents”, and brothers Oliver and Fuzz (who predeceased him) and his two sisters Rosy and Annie. All were rescue dogs (my favorite breed). The mom liked to dress them up in outfits and take pictures, much like I used to do when our dog was a puppy. The posts were always entertaining, and Little Man looked forward to reading them daily. When the parents went on vacation to New Zealandand there was a several week break, we went through Bear withdrawal. As my son grew, we still looked forward to reading Love Always, Bear together. He especially loved it when we would tweet Bear and get a response back.

 

Sadly, Bear became ill earlier this summer and had a poor prognosis. This past weekend, he crossed over the rainbow bridge. Our hearts break for Bear’s family as they mourn his loss. We are grateful that a dog encouraged a little man to read for pleasure and more. We will always love you, Bear.