Moms Who Drink and Swear and I Have a Conversation

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A (Good) PIWTPITT Book Review

Did you notice that April was new book release month? I noticed this last year when it seemed like everyone and their mother had a new book coming out. Last year I was kind of bummed because I didn't have my book ready. I wasn't even sure what my book would be about. Wah wah (that's my sad trombone sound).

This year I'm not bummed, I'm so excited, because several of the new April best seller's are my friends! (OK, so I've never actually sat down and had a cup of coffee with any of these women, but that's only because Kansas isn't close to anyone! Wah wah. The beauty of the internet is I don't need to have coffee once a week with these girls to feel like we're friends.) I'm so excited for all of them and I just know their books are going to be big successes!

Have you read these books yet? NO? What are you waiting for? My review? OK, well, here's a quick look at them:

Moms Who Drink and Swear by Nicole Knepper - If you ever thought you were the only mom who drops the f-bomb while making a new friend in the McDonald's Playland in your pajamas, you'd be wrong. I'm going to start hanging out in my local McDonald's in my pajamas hoping Nikki will pick me up. This funny and heartwarming book will make you feel like you're not alone in this crazy world.

Nikki may have a fierce sounding name and she might like to call her kids "crotchfruit," but let me tell you a secret: Nikki is a big ole' softy. This girl loves those crotchfruit like no one else. She adores her husband and idolizes her parents. She can be funny and witty and then turn around and make you cry with her honesty and her poignancy! This book is a love story to her family and we're so lucky that she's letting us read it.

Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures by Amber Dusick - Have you ever seen a crappy drawing of chewed up bubble gum stuck in a little girl's undies or a disgusting public toilet where you're trying to potty train little boys or a harried woman mesmerized by the Target "eye"? No? Well, then you're missing out.

Amber is one of my favorite artists. I would frame some of her crappy pictures and put them on my wall if I had a color printer. This book is full of hilarious and adorable stories about Amber and her kids. Yes, her kids are cute and funny, no she does not think they're ah-may-zing. Amber is real and has no qualms telling you that her kids won't eat their veggies because they're "too fucking hot" or give her some time on the throne.

Motherhood Comes Naturally and Other Vicious Lies by Jill Smokler - I don't know about you, but I have noooo trouble being a mother. I love what pregnancy did to my body (let's face it, it wasn't that great to start with), I enjoy bathing with an audience of two, I live for middle of the night wake ups when kids are crying, and I plan to get tons of sleep once they go off to college. Sleep is over rated. (Says the woman writing this at 4:30 in the morning.) You disagree with me? Good! Then this is the book for you. Jill shares the biggest lies you'll ever hear like going from two kids to three kids is a breeze and Mother's Day is all about you.

Do these books sound like your cup of tea? Want to win a copy of them? I've got a free copy with your name on it. All you have to do is leave me a comment on the blog between now and April 26th telling me why you think it's important to have a sense of humor when you're parenting. I'll pick a winner and announce it Friday on my Facebook page, so make sure you're following me there if you want to win. 

Psst .. Hey husbands, if you don't win these would all make great gifts for Mother's Day. You know what else would? I Just Want to Pee Alone! 

Disclaimer: Yeah, I got these books for free. See? I told you guys I was friends with these writers. They didn't even make me pay or anything. That's like 50 bucks worth of free books! You know me well enough by now that if I didn't like these books I'd tell you, so you can trust me when I say these books are awesome. 

If you like what you read, please follow me on Facebook orTwitter!

My 2013 Resolutions

I told you how well I did keeping my 2012 resolutions. Maybe a 50% success rate? Eh, not too bad I guess.

Now it's time to come up with some resolutions for 2013.

1. Get more Twitter followers. I really suck at Twitter. I'm getting better and I promise I'll interact with you over there if you follow me. Facebook is where I have more followers, but Facebook is frustrating me. I haven't been able to see my feed for a week now. It shows me three status updates from last Saturday and then says "There is nothing more to show you." Ugh. So, I'm trying to do more on Twitter. I'm getting more comfortable on Twitter. I even started a Twitter party on Sunday nights. Just follow the hashtag #spikedpunch and you will find me and a bunch of my friends chatting about some badass, way cool shit. For instance this week we discussed the riveting topics of American Girl dolls, Skylanders, sex, and Justin Bieber - there's a comma there so it's not sex with Justin Bieber. Join us this week!

2. Say I love you more. I'm good at saying it to the little people in my life, but not really great with the big ones. I will make more of an effort this year. However, in case I fail miserably, please know I love you.

3. Sell more books. I have a number in mind, but I don't want to put it here in case I don't meet my goal because then I'll feel like a loser. All I can say is my number is fairly large, so please tell a friend . . . or eight . . . about my book. Thanks, I love you!

4. Hang up my coat and/or drink more water. This was actually an idea I got from a reader. She commented that last year she resolved to run twenty 10 mile runs and she did it. (Good for her.) But since she did that last year, this year she was going to resolve to do something easy like hang up her coat or drink more water. I'm stealing her resolutions flat out. I've decided to make it an and/or proposition since I don't mind drinking water, but hanging up my coat seems as useless as making my bed (another thing I don't do). I'm just going to get back into my bed in a couple of hours, what is the point? I will need my coat the next time I leave the house, so why bother hanging it up? Looks like it's going to be more water.

5. Write more. What I mean by this is write more in advance. It is nearly midnight as I sit here writing this knowing full well that I have promised it to you by the morning. I do this all the time. I am constantly working under pressure and I would like to get some posts written in advance that I can throw out there on days that Kimye doesn't announce they're having a baby and the world waits with bated breath for my opinion.

6. Publish two books. Yup. Not one, but two. I'm working on them both of them right now.

7. Read more. I did fairly well this year with book reading. I'm not sure how many I read this year. I put a lot of them on Goodreads. This year I want to add some blogs to my reading list too. I try to read a lot of blogs on my phone when I have a few minutes here and there, but it's difficult for me to comment. I want to figure out how I can comment. I've been very open in the past about being a comment whore. I love comments. I read them all and it bums me out when people don't comment. Since I know how that feels, I can't read without commenting, that would totally suck. I will comment this year!!

8. Clean my house for 10 minutes a day. In 2012 I said I'd clean my house for 5 minutes a day and that didn't seem to work. I've decided to up it to 10 minutes this year. If nothing else, I can use this time to hang up my coat.

9. Get my hair cut by a real professional. I was trying to save money in 2012 and one of the things I scrapped was an expensive hair stylist. I've been going to one of those discount franchise places and my hair looks like it. I went to get my hair cut last week. I wanted a cute, fun, messy-ish pixie cut and I came home looking like a raggedy pinhead. A friend posted a picture that same day of her new haircut which was essentially the haircut I should have, but don't. I about cried when I did a side by side comparison. I need a pro this year. Luckily, the Hub is on board with this decision too. He's tired of me wearing a hat all the time because my hair is so crappy.

10. Keep working with Kris at Staring Line Fitness. It's been a week since I've worked out with Kris and she's going to be mad when I show up in my fat sweat pants, because my skinnier ones don't fit again after my holiday eating fest. But I'm ready to get back to work.

11. And one last one . . .

Thank you Moms Who Drink and Swear!

Happy New Year! What are your resolutions?