Midday

Although I do have work to do, my schedule right now mostly involves being home. It's a change and a challenge for me. 

I don't like being a stay-at-home mom. It's hard to type that without adding the obligatory qualifiers most of us add to such a statement. Like, "But I'm glad I get to have this time with my children" (which is true). It's hard to say because it seems mean, and like I'm disparaging the job of staying home with kids (which is definitely a job) by saying I'd rather be working more hours out of the home, or full time. And then I worry that people who do work full time will tell me I'm crazy. That I'm lucky I get to be with my children. 

But I'm finally mature enough - sort of - to acknowledge my desires without fearing I'm making some sort of misogynistic or anti-mom statement. It's just the way I feel. I adore my children, but when I spend time away from my house, working on other endeavors, I enjoy my time with them more. I'm trying to admit things like that without feeling guilty, and meanwhile, to make the best use of my current schedule and situation, which is most likely temporary, so that it's fun for everybody involved.

Because being home with my children involves some things I truly love, and one of those things is having lunch with Gabriel when I bring him home from the preschool he attends three mornings a week.    

We listen to "Fresh Air" on the local public radio affiliate and sit on the couch and eat together, even though I have tried to enact the "no eating on the couch" rule about a million times since SOMEBODY likes to crawl all over the furniture like a monkey when he eating, which not only gets incredibly messy, but is a choking hazard. Luckily Nora's at school when I'm admonishing him for such actions, because when she hears me warn of potential dangers, like choking, she basically has what is as close to a heart attack as a five-year-old can get. She likes everybody to follow the rules. 

When it's just me and my youngest, though, we break them a little. And it's one of my favorite parts of the day. 

At least I am good at putting on a scarf

I readily admit that I'm not good at technical ventures, like using tools to organize my email inboxes or utilizing my MacBook to its full capabilities. I don't know how to turn on the editing function in Microsoft Word, so when I'm perusing a document, I'll just switch the text color to red and write my edits like that. I'm 36, and this is not going to change.

I don't know how many of you watch the show "Parks and Recreation," but I love it, and there's a scene in a fifth season episode where the character Tom Haverford chastises his officemate, Jerry, for the way he checks his email. It goes down like this:

“Tom: Oh my God, Jerry? When you check your email, you go to AltaVista and type “please go to yahoo.com”?

Jerry: Well, how else would I do it?

Tom: You don’t have your email bookmarked? Do you have any bookmarks?

Jerry: What’s “bookmarks”?

Tom: God, Jerry! You don’t deserve the internet! ”

I identify with Jerry in this scene so much. For example, when I write on this blog, what I do is Google "Squarespace" (which I'm now using for hosting) and then I click on the link and log in from there. Instead of having the sign in page bookmarked on my toolbar. Because I don't know how to put a link up on the toolbar.

This morning, as I was performing the usual search-and-click ritual, I decided, enough already, I needed to learn how to put a link on the toolbar. To be totally honest, another event that prompted this decision occurred earlier when I was trying to log a different blog where I'm a contributor: what I do is search my Yahoo email inbox for this particular email from a particular guy who works at the news establishment that produces this blog. He once sent me instructions for logging in, and relocating that email, which is about half a year old, is how I do it.

I mean, come on, Cara.

Yahoo is apparently having problems this afternoon, so I couldn't log in, couldn't find the email, and couldn't write my post, which got me motivated. 

What I did, of course, was begin Googling "How to put a link on your Firefox toolbar." But before I got to the end of the sentence, I'd been provided these suggested phrases based on my initial words:

Which made me feel better, because apparently A TON of people don't know how to put a tampon in or, ahem, a condom on, and a great many of poor souls think the internet is going to give them immediately effective advice on getting their baby to sleep. Also, a curse on someone?! 

And yeah, feel free to point out that this image also shows that I'd Googled "How to take a screenshot," so that I could use the above picture on this post. I'm hopeless. But also lucky that in this modern age a search engine can provide you the information necessary to do anything. You guys, anything.