I'm not a Mom on tv, but I play one in Real Life.

Saturday is my one day off a week. I have an adjusted work schedule so I can be home more with the kids in the afternoons. But that means I work 6 days a week. Because we’re a retail store, we don’t close for a lot of holidays. I mean, holidays are when “regular” people have an extra day to shop! However, in the last few years we’ve changed that a bit. Holidays like Labor Day and Memorial Day have proven to be low sales days, so it hadn’t been cost effective to stay open. Which means that we were closed today. That makes a second day off this week. Oh Glory Be!!

I slept in! And then I watched a Dance Moms marathon on Lifetime until noon. The kids and I made a big batch of nachos and played Life. That would be all the kids that still live at home, including my two teenage sons. Tad ended up with so many kids, he needed a second car. For whatever reason, we all found that hysterically funny. (FYI, I totally won!) Afterwards, we watched Judge Judy and made s’mores in the microwave. Sean got in some bike riding.

The kids are putting away some laundry now. Tomorrow is school pictures and I do like them to look a little spiffy at least one day out of the year! Soon it will be baths, books and bed. Skye did get a little snuggle time in with Runner. He still is the world’s cutest, tamest and oddest hamster. I think he believes himself to be a small dog. A couple of weeks ago, the kids put him on my bed next to me while I was reading. He curled up and went to sleep. He also likes to take food out of your hand and eat it (rather than storing it in his cheeks for later) and he will just sit in your hand and hang out. He never bites or tries to get away. His cage door has been accidentally left open on more than one occasion and he’ll just be sitting in there looking at us like “will someone close this thing for me? I wasn’t raised in a barn!”

You might notice a slight redness at the inner corner of Skye’s eye. The muscles that were surgically shortened a couple of weeks ago are in the final healing stages. She’s self-conscious of it, but its only really noticeable when she is looking hard to either side. The doctor said her eyes are healing up incredibly fast and the surgery went better than he could have hoped. He believes this will be the last corrective surgery she will ever need (knock on wood, fingers crossed, salt over shoulder, whatever other superstitious rituals will help!) She has strabismus, in her case her eyes turn outward. Thank goodness her vision is 20/20 regardless!

Tomorrow its back to our regularly scheduled programming of work, school, work, stress. But it’s a short week and Saturday will be back again before we know it. Yay!!

Today was one of my blessed days off. Last Saturday I took the kids bowling, and to see the latest Spy Kids movie. The previous Saturdays were filled with birthday parties, a baby shower, and work obligations. I decided today required some much needed homebound vegging. I slept in, watch Food Network all morning, and caught up on my blog-surfing.

Sean and Skye spent the morning constructing this: The tv is in there, as are a variety of stuffed animals, a dvd player, Runner the hamster and goodness knows what else. I think there’s some sort of strategy session going on. I hope it’s not a hostile take over. I think Sean had his calculator in there, so they could be balancing the budget. You’re welcome, Congress.

After lunch, Jason took the littles over to my parents’ house for some end of summer swimming. The weather here is still awesome, in the 80s, and the kids have been begging all week. I figured they’d get to get their swim on and I could enjoy a little quiet time at ye olde homestead, which I never, ever, ever get. The problem is my mom-ness got the best of me. Within 10 minutes of them leaving, I had a load of laundry going and was in the kitchen scrubbing out the sink. Why? I can only assume a great illness has befallen me. I loathe housework, that’s why I have so many kids. With four still at home, I should NEVER have to scrub out the sink. And yet, I got some perverse SATISFACTION from that damn shiny clean sink. I need to call my doctor. I’m sure this is the first sign of an aneurysm. Or stroke. Or possibly complete mental breakdown. If it happens again before Tuesday, I’ll rush down to the ER immediately. I promise.

About the time the kids got back, I was just settling into an Extreme Couponing marathon. I spent a little Facebook time, finished the Spy Kids movie review, and had delegated the rest of the laundry to the kids. Obviously, I was feeling better. Whew!

I did have to run to the grocery store for dinner fixin’s. I really need to get better organized! I’ve started bringing one of the little kids with me, to get some extra one on one time in where I can. And because since they’re not babies anymore, they don’t slow me down. It was Skye’s turn and seeing her little eyes light up because its her turn to go with Mommy – well, it made my heart go all ooey-gooey.

So as we’re walking down the back isle where they were restocking the meat cases, Skye asked me “Mom, is it meat season?!” Ah, we are city girls!

We were out of one of our household staples, ice cream. Look at what we scored: Circus Animal Cookie ice cream!! This was like just the perfect end to the perfect day! I think this must be why people love Saturdays so much!

Today was the first Saturday all summer that I haven’t had other commitments or work (at least, that I can remember.) Obviously, the kids and I needed to go do some bondin’. I thought about taking them into the City, maybe the SF Zoo. But for those unfamiliar, late summer is heavy “marine layer” weather in the Bay Area. Think streets of London type fog. Jack the Ripper would totally vacay here.  Not really ideal weather for traipsing around the City. Ok, the City would be fine, but driving across the Golden Gate Bridge on a Saturday morning when you can barely see the car in front of you. Not awesome. We’ll wait til October, thankyouverymuch. The beach was out for the same reason: foggy 50 degree weather. Not inviting. At least to me. The kids would have loved it. But I’m a selfish Mom that way. Plus, it was windy and I didn’t want sand blowing into my Kindle.

So I started thinking of indoor things we could do up here in Marin or Sonoma county. Movies came immediately to mind (naturally!) but that’s only about 90 minutes worth of entertainment. We needed something additional. And then it struck me (the puns are starting already!) Bowling! The kids have been begging me to take them bowling forever. The closest lanes are about 20 minutes away (plus bowling is no longer a cheap activity!) and so there are always a million and one reasons why we can’t go. Well today, those excuses were kicked to the curb. It was decided. Bowling AND a movie! Wicked AWESOME!!

These days, when I say kids, I mean Sean and Skye, and usually Tad. Cali doesn’t live at home anymore and is very busy being a responsible adult. Jason does still live at home, but he’s all gettin’ his responsible adultness on too. So “the kids” I’m actually referring to the ones who are not legally adults. It pains me that I have TWO who are legally adults. But I digress…

Tad, Sean, Skye and I hit the lanes for almost two glorious hours. We barely managed to squeeze in two games. It totally surprised me how long it takes 4 people to bowl 10 frames twice. And we pushed it hard and fast through the second one. They put the rails up for the kids, and I can tell you it helped improve my score immensely! They had flyers advertising family dollar nights and we decided we’d be making the whole bowling thing a regular activity. Sean wants his own bowling ball. I think it may be a while before that happens. But I do hope to be posting again soon about our latest bowling exploits. Strike on, my friends. Strike on!!

Sean snapped that one of me. Not my best angle. These days, I’m not really feeling a best angle, so I guess it doesn’t matter. But I bowled with my kids and lived to blog about it, photographic evidence and all.

Afterwards, we went to a matinee showing of Spy Kids: All the Time in the World in 4D. Aroma-vision is the 4th dimension. I’ll be doing a movie review of that tomorrow. That is a whole other post!! I’ll spare you that for now (and on that pun, I close!)

I’m reading Jillian Michael’s new book “Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life“, cause you know, who doesn’t want to do that, right? At the end of the first chapter, there’s a quiz. The questions are supposed to help you figure out how to get the most out of your life. And the very first question “What is your favorite thing in the world to do?” has me stumped. My without-thinking-about-it-gut-answer was SLEEPING! Ah, such is the life of a working, single mom of five. But sleeping is like the antithesis of “doing”, so I don’t think it qualifies. And that left me wondering… I haven’t  been able to move past that question and it’s been nearly a week now. What do I love to do?

And after a week of deep, introspective thought, I realized that this answer hasn’t changed since I was in elementary school.

I love to write.

So, why don’t I write more? I guess that’s the next question I need to answer.

I actually know the answer to this one already, though admitting it requires a level of introspection I don’t really care for.

I don’t write more because I am afraid. Afraid of laying myself bare, of allowing that level of vulnerability. Afraid of being raw and exposed. There is nothing more powerful than the written word, that whole pen is mightier than the sword and whatnot. I write here on my blog about my life and family and movies and everything else under the (California) sun. But I used to write fiction. I have thousands of stories swirling around in my head, just waiting for me to bring them to life. My fear is that what is in my head won’t translate to paper (computer screen) and what I write will just sound lame. Inept. Stupid. I’m afraid of looking and sounding stupid.

“But what if people don’t like what I write.” Or criticize it. Or mock it (I tend to be a hyper-critical mocking-type reader, so I basically fear myself.) I am insanely insecure. I have zero self-esteem and self-confidence.

I need to get over myself. And just write. Gosh darn it.

And so that is what I’m going to do tonite. Wish me luck!