Hey all! I’m super excited to be writing here at Urban Moms, especially
because if I don’t keep myself occupied I end up with way too much time
on my hands and pretty soon I’m declaring that it would make a lot more
sense if the months were in alphabetical order and next thing you know
I’m telling the cashier at Safeway that it really ought to be called
Bebruary. Because if you really think about it, Bebruary just makes way
more sense.
Anyway. Probably I should introduce myself before
further dazzling you with more of my best ideas. I am Elizabeth, and I
am 34 ish and I am a stay at home mom with two kids. Eli is almost
four and he is a whole lotta child. I love him dearly, but the fact
remains that he is a whole lotta child. Katherine is almost eight
months old and she is unquestionably the sweetest baby the world has
ever known and should in fact come with a warning label that reads
“Please do not make life decisions based on this baby most of them
aren’t like this.” Also of note: neither one of these children sleeps
worth a damn.
I am married to a dashingly handsome
paleolimnologist named Erik, and I don’t really know what that is
either. I am fairly certain that it has something to do with mud, and so
I tell everyone that he invented Post Its, although probably Post Its
would be a lot more lucrative than paleolimnology, but whatever.
Together we have traded square footage for sunshine and we live in a
very small house in California and while we have no basement and we
store our extra strollers in our car, we Sacramentans can grow quite the
tomato.
I am a big fan of oversharing on the internet, and I do that on a fairly regular basis over at my personal blog, Princess Nebraska,
but please be advised: It’s not about princesses or Nebraska. And
then I also write all sorts of scintillating business about stuff like
steam mops and double strollers over at Style Lush, in case you just haven’t gotten enough of me yet.
In
other news you didn’t really care about, last year, I read 150 books,
although I may have counted the time I read The Cat In the Hat out loud
three times. (I totally counted the time I read the Cat In the Hat out
loud three times.) This year I’m hoping to read 150 books again,
although not the same ones I read last year. And I’m trying to write a
young adult fiction novel, but pretty much this “writing” consists of
staring morosely at a blank screen on my laptop while announcing loudly
“It’s not like I’m going to just DREAM up a young adult novel Stephenie
Meyer style” while desperately hoping to just dream up a young adult
novel Stephenie Meyer style.
Most all, though, this the year
that I Get Happy. I have made the executive decision that life is too
short to spend it moping around feeling miserable, and like all my other
great ideas (Bebruary!) I have a plan. I am right smack dab in the
beginning stages of Elizabeth’s 12 Steps to Happiness, and I am hoping
that by writing about them here, I can figure out which ones are most
important, if there are some that I should let go, and heck, maybe I’ll
even get crazy pants and lucky number 13.
The 12 Steps to
Happiness are not a life list, and they are not a set of goals. And
it’s also important to me that they not become a List of Things I am
Currently Failing At, because let’s be honest, that list already exists
and it’s plenty long enough already. Really, the 12 Steps to Happiness
are just simple things that I’ve noticed make me feel better when I do
them, especially when I do them every day, and because I’m just the kind
of person that needs things written down, well, I am writing them
down.
Because really, when it comes right down to it? Couldn’t we all use a few more chances to smile every day? I know I could.