I'm Moving!

Welp, after 11 years on Blogger, I think it's time to make a change. I'm moving to Substack. Blogger has been a great fit for me over the last decade, but it's time for me to move on and try something new.

Social media platforms are changing all the time. When I started this blog my only other option was WordPress. Facebook and Twitter existed and Pinterest was in its infancy. Now I'm on Instagram, SnapChat (barely), and TikTok as well as those original three. And there are countless platforms for blogging now.

The changes have been fun and frustrating. Lately, it's been more frustrating than fun. The algorithms change weekly and the censorship is getting out of hand. I'm getting in trouble on Facebook for sarcastic jokes I made in 2014. Sarcasm is hard for idiots and AI to understand. 

Blogger was good once too, but a few years ago Google started cracking down on my language (f-bombs and vagina talk are frowned upon, I guess). Who knew Silicon Valley was so prudish??

I have been feeling the need to go back to blogging but I wanted more control over my content. When a friend told me about Substack, I realized that's where I should be.

So, starting August 29th I'm going to be blogging over on Substack. This blog will still exist, of course. All of the archives will be here and you can always come back and read your favorites (I'm looking at you, Elf on the Shelf), but anything new will now be on Substack.

But the only way to get my new blog posts is to subscribe to my Substack.

My free content over there will be like the old days over here: observations on stupid shit, rants, funny stories, and general nonsense. There will also be more ways to interact with one another and create a community over there. 

There will be a paid option as well and it will be $5 a month. You'll get more and different content for that investment, including access to the creation of a new PEOPLE I WANT TO PUNCH IN THE THROAT book. 

Man, I Don't Miss This Sh*t

It's been a long time since I've been embroiled in the everyday drama that goes with having kids in organized sports but yesterday I saw an article that brought me right back.

In case you didn't hear, there was a Texas Little League game where a volunteer coach (who is also a real-life police officer by the way) allegedly shoved and hit kids on the opposing team after his team lost. For fucks sake, they're nine-year-old kids and this dude can't control his shit and show good sportsmanship for two whole minutes??

No, of course not. 

Are You a Willful Wife?

Readers like to send me links to blogs or articles they think I might feel strongly about. This week I received a link to a blog called Biblical Gender Roles. I didn't even have to click the link before I felt "strongly."

But I took a deep breath and decided not to judge the blog by its title. After all, I'm always irritated when people scoff, "People I Want to Punch in the Throat? That sounds so violent!" I didn't want to instantly assume that this blog was written by a homophobic dude with control issues and a God-given desire to dominate the inferior females in his home. That would be wrong of me. I needed to read his writings first before I decided what to think of him.

And then I saw the title of the blog post: 8 Steps to Confront Your Wife's Sexual Refusal.

Fuck that guy. I already hate him.

Douchey Dads

I was attending an auction at a chic country club and  I arrived early to help the organizers set up and I was surprised to find the bar full of young, well dressed (if you can call expensive plaid shorts well dressed), golf playing, thousands of dollars a year for dues paying men sitting around drinking and yukking it up.  I wanted to say, "Hey...where do you guys work that you can spend half of a Tuesday golfing at this expensive club?"  (I also wanted to hand all of them my real estate business card, because these guys look like the type who might need a good divorce attorney and Realtor in their Rolodex's at all times.)

I started setting up tables, but I just couldn't control my irritation at these guys.  Everything about them rubbed me the wrong way.  Their stupid plaid shorts, their expensive drinks and the yukking. God, the yukking.  I've never heard laughter that was so phony and so forced.  It sounded like a combination of sea lions and parrots barking at each other.

Designer Vaginas are a Thing Now

I don't know about you ladies, but as I get older I'm finding that a lot of things are .... changing.

My laugh lines aren't disappearing when I'm done laughing, my middle is getting softer, I'm taking more and more trips to the hairdresser to keep the gray hairs under control, and my libido isn't what it used to be.

None of these bother me (and the Hubs) as much as my waning sex drive. I've been looking everywhere for a solution and I've yet to find one. Until today.

Nothing is NOT Acceptable

Last week I was trying to think of a Mother's Day present for my mom. I'm 42 years old now and a macaroni necklace just doesn't have the same impact it used to 36 years ago. I felt like every gift I was thinking of was a crappy gift, so I asked my readers on Facebook to tell me the worst Mother's Day gift they ever received just to make sure those weren't the ones I was considering. I got the usual responses of Dustbusters, brooms, step stools, tools, and irons. However, as I scrolled through the hundreds of answers, I noticed the same gift popping up over and over again.

People Who Complain They're Busy, But They're Busy With Stupid Stuff

Does that title make sense?  I doubt it.  Let's see if I can explain.

OK, so you know those people who complain about how busy they are - but it's not with work or anything really "important"?  It's more like, "Oh gawd, I'm sooooo busy, because Eustace and Duncan and Dorset have Tae Kwon Do on Mondays, baseball practice on Tuesdays, violin and cello on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, soccer all day on Saturdays, baseball for the OTHER team they play for Wednesdays, and Kumon on Fridays."  My head wants to explode just reading that.


A few years ago, before I had any kids, I was showing a house to my client and on the wall of the kitchen the home owners had a schedule with different colors for each kid.  They had four kids and from what I could gather each child participated in 2-3 activities per week and didn't get home from their activities before 9 PM on most nights.  These were elementary and middle school aged kids.  When did they eat dinner?  When did they do their homework?  What time did they finally get to bed?  When did they have time to play with their Ponies and Legos or ride their bikes?

People Who Work With Children, But Don't Like Them

What is the deal with people who work in professions designed to cater to children and then they can't stand children and/or they have no patience with children?!

We take our kids to a pediatric dentist.  He costs us far more than a "normal" dentist because he is a specialist, but I wanted to take my kids to a dentist who supposedly wouldn't scare the shit out of them and who I assume is trained to work with the under 12 crowd.

This guy has an office that looks like a carnival.  He has kids movies on the big screen, aquariums full of beautiful, bright fish, video games, stuffed animals, goody bags, balloons and, of course, ice cream (he's gotta make sure we still keep getting cavities - he knows where his bread is buttered).  His staff dresses in matching outfits that are different colors every day and they all have perky, glow in the dark smiles.  That's where the fun ends.

Top 10 Reasons to "Love Me" or "Get With Me"

In honor of Valentine's Day this week, the Hubs has submitted a guest post for today.  He has no filter (this is the man who called our neighbor's 2 year old a liar) so this should be interesting.  I've given him absolute freedom to write whatever's on his mind without any edits from me.  So here you go:

8 Ways to Say "F*ck You"

8 Ways to Say "Fuck You"

I've noticed a real trend on the internet lately. The passive aggressive "fuck you". We've all been a victim of it and I'm betting we've all dropped one or two of our own on a douchebag here or there.

I've rounded up some of my favorites, but I know I missed a bunch, so leave yours in the comments!

Why My Children Have No Right to Privacy

My friend Kim at Let Me Start By Saying wrote an essay that was featured on the Huffington Post. It was about reading her five-year-old daughter's diary. Kim knew her daughter had been writing in her diary and Kim wondered what was going on in her daughter's head. She took the key and opened the book. She was apprehensive. She was worried she might find out that her daughter was sad or angry or hiding something. Instead, she found that her daughter was happy and loved her life. Kim wrote a sweet and endearing post about this experience and her relief to find her daughter happy and healthy.

Stan the Mann Got His DNA Results Back!

If you've been keeping up, then you know a year ago I changed my mind about dogs and we adopted Stan the Mann Doggo. When he got him we were told he was a "Retriever Mix." We were handed a wriggly little puppy with lots of loose skin, giant paws, and huge brown eyes. As he's grown over the last year and a half, he hasn't lost the loose skin or the giant paws or the huge brown eyes, but he also has never resembled a Retriever of any kind. In fact, we weren't sure what kind of dog he was.

From certain angles, he definitely looked like he had some Beagle in him or some Boxer, but we just didn't know.

So, over Christmas, the Hubs bought a dog DNA test from Wisdom Panel as a surprise for our family. We'd finally find out Stan's genetic makeup.

He sat down and let me swab his mouth and then we sent off the sample. In the meantime, we all wrote down what we thought the results would be.

My list was:

1. Retriever.

2. Beagle.

3. Boxer.

4. Chihuahua (just to be an ass).

Over the weekend, Stan's results landed in our inbox, and shocked is an understatement. 

We knew Stan was a mixed breed, but we didn't expect him to have 15 different breeds. But the most shocking part was that NOT ONE BIT of him is Beagle or Boxer.

He's a little bit of a lot of breeds, but he's 28% of one particular breed that came as a huge surprise. It was such a surprise that I asked my readers if they could guess. I ran a contest and anyone who guessed correctly would be entered to win a signed copy of one of my books (thanks for entering - the winner has been notified). 

I saw a lot of Boxer and Beagle guesses (we weren't the only ones who could see that, I guess). Several Labs and Pit Bull guesses. A TON of Bernese Mountain dog and St. Bernard. And one lady who guessed Chow Chow because every rescue she knows in Kansas City has a little Chow Chow in it. Her theory is there's a Chow Chow on the loose around town living his best life. I kind of agree with her theory since Stan is 6% Chow Chow.

But so many of these guesses were wrong. And I'm not surprised, because Stan the Mann is 28% Akita!

I don't see it. It's hidden in there.

For those of you who guessed Pit Bull, you were close. That's second on the list at 14%. He's also 1% St. Bernard which apparently really shows through when he's wearing his tie. And that wrinkly skin of his? I'm assuming it's from his 2% Chinese Shar-Pei.

Here's the whole shebang:

I guess the dog shelter wasn't wrong when they called him a "Retriever Mix." He's a whole lotta dog, but as many people said in the comments, he's 100% a good boy.

Stan also wanted me to remind you that MIDLIFE BITES: ANYONE ELSE FALLING APART, OR IS IT JUST ME? is now available everywhere books are sold.

Anyone Else Falling Apart Or Is It Just Me?

So I'm pretty sure I'm going through a midlife crisis. I feel like I'm falling apart. I feel like the more I try to keep from falling apart, the faster I fall apart. I feel like I'm drowning and I can't breathe. And, on top of all that, I also feel numb. I'm not positive that's a midlife crisis, because when I Google midlife crisis or signs of a midlife crisis, so much of the information points to how men feel or how men can cope. There's not a lot of information out there for women.

I thought, Maybe it doesn't happen to us? No, I think it's more like we don't talk about this stuff. 

I was reminded of a story about my overwhelmed great-grandmother asking her doctor for some help and he told her, "Nice women don't discuss such things."

Nice women don't discuss such things.

I guess it's a good thing I'm not a nice woman? Because I'm ready to discuss this uncomfortable topic.

I'm miserable. I've been feeling this way for about a year now and I was afraid to say anything even to my closest friends and family. It's a really shitty thing to say out loud, because I know it hurts the people close to me, plus it just sounds like typical suburban angst. If I was a refugee somewhere, I wouldn't get the luxury to say, "I'm just not happy." I'm not running for my life, I'm not watching people around me get murdered, I don't have any real strife in my life, so what the fuck? Buck up! Right?  

I don't know, though. Don't I deserve to be happy? Don't I owe it to myself? Isn't that what I'm always preaching? Or am I supposed to keep this all to myself and just muddle through and not make waves?