Welcome to the Friday the 13th launch of this blog !! Should I have organized a launch party? Thought up some new canapes or new crudite display? Perhaps whipped up a fluffy cocktail or two? Well, I would have, truly, but I was way too busy trying to come up with the least offensive, yet descriptive and alliterative title for this blog. The blog, which, by the way, I only just thought about starting two days ago on Wednesday the 11th. So yes, lots of thought and careful consideration have gone in the preparation. (She says, somewhat sarcastically, but in a good way !!)
The decision to do this was born out of two events in the past few weeks. One, I bought the book "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. This book, somewhat in the style of "Julie and Julia," (my favorite chick flick) chronicles a year in the authors life, where she decided to examine happiness and try some things to make her everyday life happier. No grandiose changes, no moving to India required. Just perhaps some new ways of looking at things. Hmmm, ok, I thought, I might actually be able to deploy some of those tactics, and thereby make my little corner of the world, or my house, a brighter place.
I was also invited to speak to a MOPS group last Wednesday. MOPS = Mothers of Preschoolers. Lest you think me some internationally recognized motivational speaker....(though I actually am that, cause I've spoken twice at conferences in Romania, while travelling with a mission group from my church, and I've spoken at a women's retreat and a Mother's Day Tea here in the US of A) But I digress...get used to it. (that and the parenthetical aside) My talk was about some shortcuts and easier ways of doing things, in the day of the ordinary mom. Cleaning, lifestyle, hygiene, health. All sorts of good stuff. Boring stuff, made fun.
I entitled my presentation "Methods of a Manic Mom." Manic, meaning "frenetically busy, frantic and showing wild and apparently deranged excitement and energy." I believe this to be an apt description of most moms. Working moms, single moms, married moms, stay at home moms, etc. The one possible exception, might be moms with lots of servants, but I've never walked a mile in their Christian Louboutin's, so who am I to judge? At any rate, afterwards several of the women came up to me with questions, and compliments. I realized I had much more I could cover. Lots. And Lots. Perhaps enough for a, drum roll please, BLOG.
So"Methods of a Manic Mom". Cool title for a talk in front of a bunch of women I know pretty well. (Rule #1 in public speaking...know your target audience) In Blogworld though, that's kind of a hefty directive, since you have no control over who your actual audience is. I do, however, know someone who suffers with manic depression, and it's a very real, very serious situation. As a result, I, who does not usually worry about political correctness, did this time. Well, we've all got to grow at some point. At any rate, that left out my very clever alliterative title number one. Therefore I came home from my wildly successful talk, and literally sat down and opened my college dictionary from 1985 to the "M" section. (Yes I knew where the dictionary was, and no, it hadn't been opened since probably 1997)
Many candidates were found. I kinda liked "malignant." Then came, "made up," "maelstrom," (a whirlpool of extraordinary size), "mainspring," "malleable," "Martha," "margarine" (don't ask) "mastermind," "maverick", "metropolitan" (had to scratch that, cause I live in the burbs) "mom with a mission", "mobile." All rejected - mostly because I would have to explain why my title was clever, and when you have to do that, one wonders, is the title really clever after all?
So I finally settled on "Methods of a Mostly Managing Mom." Which really is what I am. I've been in the Mom biz for several years now. I've been in the woman biz for even longer. And, mostly, I manage to do ok. Sometimes I manage to do great !!! Sometimes I manage to just get out of bed and call that good. Sometimes I manage to mess things up royally. But when I do that, I can usually manage to make amends and start over. All right, I'm done with the alliterations. I promise to come up with other literary tricks in the coming posts to catch your attention.
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