I'm an Aspiring Mama now!

Hello to my five favorite followers!

I finally took the plunge and got serious about my writing. I'm working on branding myself, getting my manuscripts published, and working on two novels. Yeah, I'm crazy.

This is the last post here at Deadlines and Diapers. If you would be so kind, check me out at Aspiring Mama. I'd be most honored.

;)

Nope...still going crazy...

Remember me? You know...the crazy mom who is always finding a way to go even crazier? Yeah, that's me.

Right now I'm dealing with a family situation I can't get into online (which makes for shitty blog reading, I know...) which is severely limiting my blogging time and actually forcing me to take a 5 day trip to Detroit. Oh, and I forgot to mention that I leave on Buttercup's second birthday. Count me in for Worst Mother of the Year.

I am SO peeved, but also relieved that she's too young to know the difference between her birthday and a cupcake, so I'm trying to take it in stride. I'm really the only one upset by the whole thing, and Buttercup gets to score big with multiple mini-celebrations, especially when I get back home.

On the blogging front, I still have to post at Berrie Sweet Picks to let my readers know I still exist and am trying to dig myself out of the current hell-hole I find myself in. Hopefully my sponsors will be understanding about the delayed reviews and contest postings.

That's really all I have for now. I do still plan to merge the blogs and get my new idea up and rolling, but that will have to wait just a little bit longer. Family calls and I must do my duty as a good Mexican daughter should.

Sweet dreams to all. I'm off to kiss some sponsor booty and hope they don't all black-list me.

Why Berries will be going (slightly) less crazy

Life in Pauline-land is unusually crazy right now. I've got family drama up the booty, a husband who is working so many hours I may as well be single, and no maid, nanny, ghost-writer, or clone to pick up any of the slack.

In fact, I'm sitting here at 9:45 p.m. wondering why the hell I am blogging instead of sweeping, swiffering, unloading and reloading the dishwasher, folding the laundry, or making the hubby his lunch for work tomorrow.

That's right, folks...when Buttercup goes to bed, Mommy clocks in.

But back to the reason I actually stopped trying to make my house look like less of a nightmare and decided to log in: Deadlines and Diapers, Berrie Sweet Picks, and The Celiac Kid will (hopefully soon) be no longer. Now, don't freak out! I know you need a daily dose of me to stay sane (riiiight!).

I'm not going anywhere...I'm just in the process of getting a new domain, switching over to wordpress, and combining all three blogs. Trying to keep up with three with any kind of regularity is a nightmare, and it just makes more sense to be able to sit down at one place and cover it all. Contest, reviews, life as a mommy to a Celiac Kid and wife to Celiac Dad, and the random crap I write about here...

*sigh*

I feel so much better now that I have officially made the decision to stop going crazy!

So please be patient! I will try to keep posting on all blogs until the process is complete. Stay tuned for the new blog name!

(I'm also in the process of starting an entirely NEW and separate blog...but that is a new topic, a separate post, and just one more reason why I am a permanent resident in the mental ward.)

What to do...

So, all three of you who read my blog might know that I blog elsewhere, too.

There's Berrie Sweet Picks, where I try to stick to product reviews and giveaways...and then there's The Celiac Kid, where I may have blogged a total of 7 times about sneaking my gluten-containing snacks when Buttercup and her daddy aren't looking. But blogging (at least for me) isn't paying the bills, so making time each day to sit down and update each blog is pretty much impossible. (So is staying sane, but that's another blog post.)

I'm working on a changeover to Wordpress, and before I take any actual jumps, I need to determine if I am keeping my blogs separate or if I am combining two of them or even all of them into one. And if I do that, which blog name do I use? Or do I create a new one?

I need advice, and would love to hear your thoughts!

My hoarse little princess

It's the cutest and saddest thing I have ever heard. Buttercup has a really bad cold right now and is actually losing her voice. Hearing her talk right now makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time. Poor little princess. ;)

You mean, people LIKE me? (Or..."F-bomb warning.")

I'm sitting here amazed. People are reading the blog.
People I KNOW are reading the blog! And so are complete strangers. Some of which like what I say enough to start following my crazed ramblings. Wow. That means I need to get interesting.
So what do I write about? Or rather, what do I write about that I can actually talk about? There is so much going on in my life that, for one reason or another, cannot be shared.
Oh how I wish I could. I've got a regular Mexican Telenovela, complete with all the drama and dramatic background music, that would make for an awesome plot to a best-selling novel. But so much of that drama is off-limits, so I'm left with the boring trimmings.
"We went to Target today and I bought a few new skirts!"
Or...
"My mother's poodle is driving me insane with the constant barking at imaginary shadows. Maybe I'll feed him to the coyotes and pretend to be upset when he turns up 'missing.'"
Or...
"Buttercup said her entire ABC's for the first time this past week! Even the "Next time won't you sing with me" part!"
And of course we can't forget about...
"Hey world, who wants to read my breath-taking description of waiting for my nail polish to dry?"
Right....that's exciting shit. No wonder you keep coming back to see what is up in the oh-so-tantilizing-adventures-of-Pauline.
It's not that I don't want to share. It's just that well, there's a real fear of completely opening myself up to friends and family. Strangers? Yeah...that's ok with me. I don't know you so I don't mind sharing that on my first "date" with my hubby after five months of him being gone for work, he decided to point out the incredibly long chin hair that magically morphed itself onto existence somewhere between applying my lipstick and getting into the mini van. At least he was gracious enough to let me run back into the house so I could grab the tweezers and take care of the little bastard while en route to see our movie.
And then there's the subject of my ever-expanding ass and apparant disregard for my health. Yeah, I know wishing the cellulite to go away and making deals with the Devil to suck 35 pounds of still-here baby fat off my once-trim thighs and belly aren't doing me any good. I know I need to eat right, work out, and stop burying my "Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret"-type feelings under layers of cheesecake and hidden chocolate bars.
But knowing and actually doing are two different animals. Doing and continuing-to-do-so are even more so. And sometimes, it's just easier to pretend the bigger clothes I am buying were just mis-labled than to dig up the energy to give a real damn about myself, ya know? (And chocolate is just so fucking good!)
Shit like that is fine for strangers to read. People I know? That's where it gets weird.
The funny stuff? Sure, email me. Text me. Call me and laugh. Because that "Hey sweetest, you might want to take care of that chin mullet before we get to the movie theater" moment was priceless.
But the inner-most thoughts shit? The diary-like entries where I contemplate my place in the world and what kind of person I am and if I'm ever actually going to figure myself out? Can we just pretend you didn't see that? That I'm not someone you know and instead just some kick-ass writer you happened upon while blog-hopping?
The written word is me naked. And expressing myself on the world-wide web is akin to walking outside to get the mail in nothing but my toe nail polish. It doesn't matter who sees me, or if no one is there to wonder what the hell I was thinking. I'm still standing there, naked, wondering why I didn't think to grab my robe on the way out front door.

"T" is for Toddler

Why is it the littlest and strangest things that make the big and important things so glaringly obvious? And how did a little cloth tag almost bring me to tears? I've been looking at bigger and bigger numbers on Buttercup's frilly little girl clothes since the day we came home from the hospital, but this time totally freaked me the hell out.

It was a surprise to say the least. I certainly was not expecting to get sentimental while sorting through my latest Old Navy online shopping purchases. But there I was looking at terry cloth dresses and cotton shorts and sweet little tank tops, all with a 2T on the tag, and I wanted to hyperventilate.

Buttercup will be 2 in June, and she's growing like a weed. At 22 months, she's already taller than most kids her age, and not much shorter than her new older boyfriends here in AZ. (Shhh....don't tell her daddy.) But because she was lucky enough to inherit her daddy's long legs and lean frame, I've gotten plenty of use out of her 12 and 18 month skirts and shorts.

But the number never bothered me either...3 mth...6 mth...9 mth...12 mth...18 mth...24 mth...

In fact, I honestly don't think it's the number that made me realize how fast Buttercup is growing up. It's what comes after it. And this time I wasn't looking at "mths." I was looking at a big, ol' "T".

That's right. As in "Toddler." As in "You blinked too many times," and "Guess what? She ain't a baby, anymore."

As in "Holy shit! I have a K-I-D now!"

A baby? That's different. All I needed to do was change diapers, pop a boob or a bottle into her mouth on demand, read to her, shop for cute little outfits, and make baby food.

Seriously, aside from throwing in a love for her so great it cannot be defined, it was pretty much easy street.

But a kid? A kid? Those need to come with instructions. They come with opinions. They need guidance. They need discipline. They need good role models to help them learn responsibility and ethics and all the rest of that jazz that is so necessary for growing up into a good and decent human being. And they talk back, on top of it all. (Buttercup's been saying "no" to me since she was 10 mths old, so I'm in for one hell of a ride.)

I don't know if I'd feel better if I went back out to the store and got Buttercup a wardrobe full of 24 mths, or if I'd just be fooling myself into thinking I can hold off toddler-hood for that much longer.

I know I'm not the first mom in the world to realize time flies when kids are growing up, but this is the first time I've had a baby grow up on me. And all I can say is, "wow."

Why I'm still blogging

I have one follower. My blog is never going to be made into a Lifetime Original Movie of the Week, nor do I expect to have any publishers knocking on my email inbox begging me to sign with them for my much-anticipated memoir.

And ya know what? It's ok.

I have seen and read so many amazing blogs since I started sharing my thoughts on the internet. I've dreamt of becoming the next big It-girl blogger. And when I wrote my first post, I guess my ulterior motive was to create an instant internet sensation.

Right.

Not gonna happen.

So I started Berrie Sweet Picks. It's fun to review products and I love that so many great people are helping the blog grow by checking in on a daily basis, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if I stopped giving stuff away that my readers would probably disappear pretty quickly. ;D I love it but I seriously sometimes feel like i'm trying to bribe the cool kids to let me sit with them at the lunch table.

Do I have any gimmicks here? Other than my snappy writing style and uber-interesting life? Hell no! This is just me as naked as can be.

I'm a good writer, but not the best. I'm a reporter and can write the hell out of other people's stories, but I'm not so smooth when it comes to turning out personal prose. And sometimes I wonder if I should keep writing here. I have what? A few people who check in here every so often? And if the name of the game is numbers and hits and google page ranks and whether or not the blogging thing is actually help paying the bills (and it isn't), then what's the point?

The point, my beautiful and lovely lone blog follower, is that there doesn't need to be a point. The best blogs-I think-happen because the authors are really writing for themselves and not with the sole intention of impressing a faceless world of strangers. And that was my mistake up until now.

I should be writing here for me. And if you happen to like what I'm saying, then cool beans for both of us.

A random thought...

Pasta bread bowls from Pizza Hut...seriously, America? And we wonder why we have an obesidity epidemic?

What I know

It's weird how life can go on and simultaneously stand still.
I haven't posted here since December of 2008. And in that time, Buttercup has turned into an incredible little girl, I have successfully moved myself and most of our belongings from Michigan to our new home in Arizona, and Sweeter is back home with us after a long, long time working out of state.

But for all three of my loyal readers checking out my blog on a daily basis, my life ended (at least for a while) in December of last year.

I'm not sure why. It's not like I didn't have anything to write about. It was more like I had too much that I couldn't. Feelings would have been hurt, dramas would have become more dramatic, and issues would only have become more complicated.

"Write about what you know," they always tell you in college fiction writing classes. Sure thing....but no one ever bothered to tell me what to write about when "what I know" was off limits.

I haven't been writing much else, which I suppose makes sense. Yeah, I'm blogging at Berrie Sweet Picks, but I can't really count that as deep, soul-searching prose. I may be sharing my opinion on products, but I'm not exactly getting in touch with my inner-self while doing it.

It's the tail-end of April now. Buttercup will be 2 in June. I'll be planning the world's smallest birthday party this Mexican has ever thrown, and missing the craziness we left 2,000 miles ago almost as much as I'm glad to be away from it. I've been in Arizona for six weeks, I miss the smell of the water in the air but don't miss the inevitable depression that comes with living in ground zero of the armpit of the current ecomonimc crisis.

And aside from the "publish now" option provided to me by Blogger, I haven't done a damned thing worth writing home about. No articles in the local magazines. No stories assigned by the Big Boys in Detroit. No frustrations from a hard-working writer looking for work...because I really haven't been. I've had too many excuses in the past 12 months or so to keep me work and guilt free.

First my dad died. That's a pretty damned good excuse. He was only 50 and no one was expecting to be planning his funeral just six months after his biggest birthday to date and six months before my 30th (where he was supposed to give me a hard time and laugh and..well...it doesn't matter now, anyway.)

Then Buttercup turned one. Really. I was depressed and it was easy to ignore the opportunities to throw myself into working when I could just as easily let myself believe that a 12 month old was making it too hard for me to sit down at the computer to type.

And when Sweeter got his new job and I had to play single-mom for a few months? Forget it. Life as I knew it (and all related blogs) were immediately put on hold while I got us ready to trek cross-country from what we knew and loved (and sometimes hated) to the unknown (and all related possibilities.)

Here's to tomorrow. Let's see what may unfold.

Santa: All I want for Christmas...

It's 1 a.m. and I just sat down to blog. (And that would be because Buttercup just fell asleep.)

I doubt I'll get a lot done; it's late, I'm tired, and I'm sure anything important I type tonight will be chock full of typos.

Today was long, but fun. We tried taking Buttercup for Santa pictures, but after dressing her up and trekking out to the mall, her screams of sheer terror the moment we sat her on the lap of the jolly fat man in the red suit basically nixed that idea right in the bud.

So instead, we settled for this photo right here of me and Buttercup outside of the Santa area, or what Buttercup liked to call "The Safe Zone."

The rest of the day involved eating a belated birthday lunch with Nana, shopping for clothes (for Buttercup, of course) and then heading home so I could run out, yet again, to the grocery store in order to avoid having to leave the house tomorrow in case that blizzard actually hits us.

A great day, all in all, but I'm sure you noticed I didn't mention anything about work. And yeah, that would be because I didn't do any.

Bad freelance writer, I know. But sometimes work just has to come second.

Of course that means I have to work double-time tomorrow on my calls for the Metro Parent story, and somehow find the time to clean my house, blog, and spend time with Buttercup.

Ya know, Santa? Mommy wants a clone for Christmas. Think you can handle that?

Deadlines and Diapers revived

Wow, look what happenes when I get busy and actually work! That's right, the blog gets neglected!

I can't say my recent absence made me any money, as I have only one paying assignment I am working on right now, but I am really getting a move on my business ideas, networking, and forging new potential partnerships as things progress.

Right now, I have four (yep!) business ideas in the works, and two of them are specific to freelance and writing services. Three of them I can't talk about yet, but only because I have to trademark them first!

As for the writing businesses, I have domain names purchased and a web designer I am trying to get a hold of, but we are in the very early stages yet.

We know that one will offer writing services such as resumes, cover letters, wedding vows, eulogies, addressing invites for special occassions (and thank you notes hand-written by us!), as well as a few other services we think will appeal to a variety of clients.

So how's that for secretive? ;)

I promise to be back soon. With the holidays, a deadline looming for my article, and trying to get these ideas rolling with Buttercup tugging at my pant leg, I'm up to my neck in deadlines and diapers---and as crazy as it all sounds, this is the kind of thing I live for.