Tag Archives: how to

The More My Butt Sags the Shorter the Shorts

I’ve found that this is a foolproof way to firm those dimply lumps of fat and lift that butt. Wait, did I say foolproof, I may mean fool-worthy, ahem, the jury’s out. But either way, I’ll tell you my theory, and I’m sure you’ll thank me later. Well, that or send me hate mail, but definitely one or the other.

Lately, I’ve been delving into how totally insane and irrational I am. I know, it’s fun for you too. So, I’m taking a look at one of my “tricks” that makes sense in my effed up mind. My rationale is that the more sagging and cellulite I have the shorter the shorts I must wear. Like, as a punishment. Oh, you think I’m kidding, but I kid you not. Continue reading →

Siblings are Not Supposed to Compete for Parental Favoritism | is This True

What, are familial relationships not about winning? I’m sorry, I’m an only child, I never had to compete for parental favoritism with siblings. And I must admit, my son’s essay puts him slightly ahead of his sister in the race for my love. I’m totally kidding. I love them both, but you can’t love them the same, can you?…

As this is the end of the school year, all of my children’s work has slowly trickled into the house. You know, like the way Andy Dufrene releases the bits of wall in Shawshank? Tests, artwork, essays, scraps of scribble.

One of the prizes in the huge pile of things that will never make it to the circular file was a piece on who my son admires most. It started with this line, “I look up to my Dad and my Grandparents, but the person I admire most is my Mom.”

My first thought?

I won! Yep, you heard him. He admires you other people too (or maybe he just wrote that to be politically correct), but I’m in a class by myself. He said so… Continue reading →

Top 5 Reasons Moms Should NOT Take Sex Advice from Magazines

Many women’s magazines have a “Mom” version of a “How To Have Better Sex,” most of which make me feel like I should keep an extinguisher by the bed, along with a bucket of cold water to douse on myself and my partner when we begin to spontaneously combust from sheer passion. “How to Keep Your Love Life Hot, and Your Sex Life in Flames.” “10 Ways to Reignite Your Marriage.” “How To Turn Up the Heat In the Bedroom, Without Singeing the Sheets.” (Oh, I like that last one)

Seriously, I’d like to disband the sex myths propagated by magazines, and have a little straight talk here? Be warned though, the side effect of discussing such truths could be a shockingly unsatisfying revelation that your unsatisfying sex life is just that… unsatisfying.

Let me break it to you (in case you haven’t figured it out already), sex after kids is often not so hot, or often for that matter. That said, here’s what I think about the most common tips given to moms about sex.

1. Tip From a Writer Who Clearly Has No Children: Don’t forget to “Set the Mood,” you know, candles, aromatic massage oils, and sexy lingerie.

Brutal Honesty Response: Are we still taking time to set the mood? I mean, isn’t that what got us here in the first place?

Listen, if there’s no lingering gas odor in the room and you’re in an old t-shirt without any holes, I say you’re as sexy as you need to get.
Work your dimmer switch and voila… ambiance. Better yet, utilize the TV as a source of beautiful ambient light. If you can get the volume to an audible level, you can work in sex without giving up The Voice. It’s called multi-tasking, something we moms are all too familiar with.

As for a massage, I’m lucky if I don’t get one of my kids’ leftover Doritos corners embedded in my thigh. Wait, when I ask my husband to flick it out and slide the remaining crumbs off my tush like sand paper, does that count as a massage? Well, arguably, it’s more like an exfoliation, but it’s undeniably hot.

2. Tip From a Writer Whose Kids are Not Involved in 500 Activities: Continue reading →

Phrases we Could Teach our Kids to Say – to Make us Feel Younger Smarter and Prettier

“…It may be too late to train our hubby’s to dole out the ego boosting compliments, but our children? Yes, yes (twist handlebar ‘mooostache’ if you have one), we can work with this. Here’s a list of phrases I’d like to teach my children to say. Feel free to borrow it – it’ll make you feel good…”

Not my little girl... but still pretty cute.

The other day my daughter said, “I bet people who just meet us think we’re sisters.” Frankly, that’s a bet I wouldn’t take, but who am I to sneer in the face of lovely sentiment? I mean, that’s the kind of phrase you would have to train (or pay) a child of 7 to say, but no, she did it on her own volition. No, coaxing or prodding, not even in the hopes of getting a new Barbie out of the deal. Though I think a phrase like that deserves a new iPad – at a bare minimum.

The effect of this simple observation, that my clearly brilliant child made, was utter joy- total narcissistic mirthfulness – and that’s not a phrase I use often, as you can imagine.

This got me thinking: If this tiny guileless thought could make me feel so great, why can’t we train our children to say things that will make us feel more hip, young, or smart, and less twitchy or stabby?

Truth is, Continue reading →

Productive Things to do While Doing it – The Cure for Boring Married Sex

You might be thinking, “Jenny from the Blog, the Jen X’pert, silly girl – that’s just you. My sex life is as hot and heavy as ever.” Well, to you I ask this, “When was the last time you had sex on a surface that didn’t have sheets?” (Hmmm? been a while huh?) “Ok, when was the last time you had sex not between kids asleep time and you asleep time?” I rest my case – B-O-R-I-N-G… Continue reading →

Camp Phone Calls Could End my Marriage

Who knew the highly anticipated camp calls would be such a blow to my relationship? (BTW – I’m not always this overbearing, but when my baby is 1000 miles away for a month and I get 10 minutes to talk to him… it’s ON….)

Okay, it’s camp time and everyone is getting their calls from the kids. What I’m finding is that I want to strangle my husband during and after each call. The crazy thing is, I’m apparently not alone.

Look, we moms are ready. We’ve stayed up until the wee hours waiting for the pictures to download and we’ve studied them. We know what our kids have done each day and whether they look like they’ve made friends or they’re feeling left out. We know whether they’re arms are around a friend or they’re sitting uncomfortably next to someone with their hands in their lap.

We can tell every detail and our minds are racing to find out the truths behind the images and we want to hear their sweet little voices. We also know that what we have to say is way more important than what our hubbies have to say and we let them talk simply because well:

DONOR, Ahem, Father

Me: “Jake, your hike looked insane yesterday. Was it fun? How cold was the water? Were the rocks slippery? Are you wearing your sunblock? Your headgear? Do you love the rock wall? How long is the zip line? Who’s the other boy with braces? Is he your best friend? Is anyone mean? Are the counselors nice? What are you eating? How big is the zipline? Was your camp cooler looking than the one you played baseball against on Tuesday?”

Sure, I spouted off a lot of questions… there’s a lot to ask and only 10 minutes to talk. After he gave me a one or two word response to each, I moved on to the next. I looked over to see the frustration in Mark’s eyes. A couple of times he started to butt in with an “ummm, Hey Jake, do you umm” and I bowled right over him with my inquisition. Then he looked at me sideways and I whispered, in that angry whisper that would be a yell if you could speak louder, and say “What? Have your questions ready.”

Mark: Jake, have you gotten all my letters?

Jake: Yep

Mark: Which ones?

Jake: Ummmm, Well the one about my new team when I get home, and ummm, I don’t know, I don’t remember them all.

Is he f-ing kidding me? I sit on hold for Verizon longer than the time I have allotted to talk here, and my husband wants Jake to rattle off about letters??? This is not an acceptable caliber of conversation! And I’m am the conversation rater, I’ll have you know.

Mark: Did you get the one where I bowled a 300?

Jake: Oh, yeah. That was awesome. Did that really happen?

Okay readers, I have to interject here. You’re thinking this is high enough caliber right? Well, I mean how often does someone who is not a pro, actually bowl a 300? What I should share is that he’s not so much talking about this:

as he is talking about this:

Yep, I’m listening to my husband waste time talking about Wii f-ing sports!

So, I interrupted again…. “How was your camp-out? Were you scared? Did you sleep through the night? What song did you do in the lip-sync; you looked like Eminem.”

Again, Mark gave me the look, but this time he put the phone by his side in annoyance.

So, again I did the whisper/yell: “You are so selfish, you don’t want to hear him talk ‘cuz I’m asking all the questions?”

Me: Do you have a girlfriend? Do you like the go carts?

Mark: How many go carts are there?

Did he just ask that question? I told him last week there are 2. TWO Freakin’ go carts. Great, now he’s wasting my time with shit he already knows. Tic, Toc, baby.

Mark then went on to rattle off the line up for his travel baseball team this season and tell him about the bat he just ordered…

Mark: Guess which bat I got you?

Jake: The Louisville Vertex?

Mark: noooo

Jake: the new Worth?

Mark: noooo

Jake: Nike Aero?

Mark: noooo, I’ll give you a hint, it’s made by Easton.

Is this happening? Does anyone feel my pain here?

Apparently, you do… I had a friend tell me that she just took the phone out of her husband’s hand when she felt he was done. Two minutes she gave him and then she plucked it right away from his eager ear. They didn’t talk to each other for the rest of the night.

Another said she arranged all calls while hubby was at work.

A third said Her husband’s only question was, “Is your bed comfortable?”

“You gave him one question and that’s all he could come up with?” I asked.

“No, I would have given him more but he lost his privileges based on his first.”

And yet another told me she can’t deal with the calls because her hubby’s voice changes. “It gets all high like he’s talking to a dog– Hi Lindseeeeeeey, how are your Friennnnds? Are you, woushey woo having fun? Hmmm? Huh?”

Tell that man to "HEAL"

In the end, I realized that we moms want OUR time to be all ours. Even if the hub is right (and he was). All my babe wanted to do was hear us and all I wanted to do was get answers to every thought and query I’ve stored in my head from the minute he set foot on the plane.

Luckily for my hubby the calls are infrequent enough that our marriage will withstand these bumps in the road. Next year, I’m just gonna tell him they did away with calls altogether due to the rise in the divorce rate.

Take a sec to check out some of the humor that any parent can relate to: The Day My Son’s Ladybug Ran Away – who knew saying goodbye to an insect would be so hard? or I May Have Run Over an Elderly Person While Driving Carpool. OH, ENTER TO WIN a robotic floor cleaner and a bag of goodies from iVillage’s “Stuff We Love” leave a comment here to sign up.

– JENNY FROM THE BLOG

Summer Trend Report : How to be a Chic Mom

In my latest assignment, I sat down with Andrew Taylor the director of a major company that just totally revamped to find out what’s hip for summer. Wanna know? You gotta watch:

http://youtu.be/NvgS39SkWhA

What’s your favorite trend for summer?

Is it Hard to Say NO to Your Kids? |Jenny’s Topics and Tips

This week in Jenny’s Momtourage Column, Jenny from the Blog asks: Why do I find it so hard to say “no” to my children when they clearly have no problem saying it to me? She also gives 5 tips to help any parent stand their ground. Good Luck! READ MORE

“Top 5” for NBC: Top 5 Energy Boosts for Parents

This weeks’ TOP 5 Segment. It’s not that moms are lazy, we’re just worn out… and rightfully so, we do it ALL! Here are the top 5 ways to put more spring in your step, more perk in your parenting, more wahoo in your work, and more hyperactivity in your homemaking! Okay the last one sucked, but you get the picture.

Ninety is the New Eighty | Jenny from the Blog

It’s hard to look younger when you keep getting older.

They say forty is the new thirty, and thirty is the new twenty. The problem with everything being “the new”something is that it gives people (and by “People” I mean me) less chance to look young for their age. Frankly, I feel about twenty most of the time, which I guess is the new ten. However, when I attempt to run up a flight of stairs or decipher the hieroglyphic message in the spider veins on my legs, I’m reminded that I’m not twenty anymore.

Remember that “hot you” that made heads turn? Continue reading →

How to Stop Nagging -Ask Jenny From the Blog

In The Suburban Jungle’s newest segment: Ask Jenny From the Blog, I answer important marriage and parenting questions with honesty, and wit. Please do not hold me responsible for tantrums or divorce.

Recently a friend asked, “How do I stop nagging my husband?” I used the decade of marriage as a basis for my answer and gave it to her straight, “You don’t. You just learn to nag more efficiently.” The definition of nagging is to ask or criticize someone repetitively, to the point of being bothersome. Well, if they learned the first time you said it, you would be a brilliant wife and he would be husband of the year. Let me impart a truth I have discovered after a 10 years of nagging. You have to train a husband, which is not unlike training a puppy. Except that a husband takes much much longer. If you saw my 6 month old puppy actually chewing the wall, this truth could send you running for the hills.

The key is to open the lines of communication and reward rather than reprimand. I know that sounds cheesy and Dr. Philee, but it is something you may not realize until you’ve wasted much time trying to mold your man through bitter seething complaints and snide remarks.

I am still training my husband… everyday. If I had known when I was first married what I know now, I think I would be giving much less correction, and much more Snausages. I remember the conversation that started a new path to less nagging. It was not so long ago. I said, “there has to be some word, some signal that I can give to tell you that I am about to complain and possibly correct something you’ve done. The signal would imply that what I am about to say may be critical and will most definitely annoy the crap out of you. I know that, but I must get it off my chest if I am to remain happy. I need you to hear me without sneering, ignoring, focusing on a mindless commercial or diverting your attention towards the kids.

Seems easy right, asking someone to listen and absorb when alerted to do so? Well, men are stubborn creatures. So, to make it fair, I agreed that the signal could be whatever he chose, as long as he agreed to open his ears and keeps his eyes from rolling. He decided I should say, “I suck and you are awesome.” Please, is that the best you can do? In return for your full attention, I would have said, “I’m a psycho bitching wife who doesn’t deserve such a strapping specimen of a man, while flashing you and doing a jig, but we’ll just go with your suggestion.”

This is your chance to set some ground rules and have some fun while doing it. Pick a signal that is totally disarming and let him know that the only person who hates nagging more than he does is you. Most importantly, when he does a good job, don’t forget the praise… and the Snausages.

Please send questions to [email protected]

Disclaimer- Jenny is not a trained professional! Though you may find her brilliant and insightful, she has been called odd and insane. Please keep that in mind when following any of her advice. Also, no animals were harmed in the writing of this piece (in case you were wondering.)

Do You Interrupt People or Finish Their Senten…’I Do’

Interrupting and finishing other people’s sentences is something that many busy people do, ahhem… like myself, and it’s certainly a bad habit worth changing.

Let’s be honest peeps. Women like multitasking and men like quick results. Neither preference is conducive to dealing with long winded conversations with grace and patience.

MORE HUMOR: 15 Random Things I Wouldn’t Know If I Weren’t a Gen Xer

I’m the typical multitasking mom. I walk into rooms with no clue why I’m there. I forget to switch laundry and have to rerun it… I can barely remember my last thought, as I have already moved on to 7 others. (Something about laundry, right? Sadly they often are. What? There’s a lot of laundry.)

When I talk to people, I find myself wanting the pace of the conversation to fit into my packed schedule. Well, that or I have something to add that is much funnier than what they’re saying and I just can’t wait to say it.

If you’re trying to explain your feelings on a subject and I already get where you’re going, I may ever so “politely” hurry you along by either responding before you’re done or telling you “I get it,” while you’re still speaking. If you’re truly lucky, I may help you get your thought across by finishing your sentence for you. I know, no thanks necessary.

MORE HUMOR: 40 Things Every Mom Should Have and Should Know by 40

So, I recently read an article that discussed the side effects of such lovely behaviors. Not only is it rude (who knew?), but it actually makes the speaker unconsciously feel rushed, nervous, and annoyed; both your pulses speed up, which can cause irritability and a defensive tone to erupt.

That would totally explain the wrestling match I got into with homeless man in the street. What? The light was about to turn, I had to help him along so I could hand him my 26 cents.

What again? I don’t keep a lot of change in my car.

Sheesh, you people are real sticklers huh?

I’m sorry, was I putting words in your mouth again. Well, I’m clearly working on it! SO, BACK OFF!

Moving on, the fix for this embarrassing habit is simple: Be Aware; Be in the conversation on your own end, and allow people to finish their thoughts before chiming in. Make a point to remind yourself of this before going to a meeting, picking up the phone, or having lunch with a friend.

*Make a real effort not to interrupt even if you’re two paragraphs into the next conversation, unless of course, they are boring the crap out of you. There’s just no excuse for that.

Technically, being incredibly boring and wasting someones time with inane mumblings should be considered rude as well, no? In some tribes it’s punishable by death. Death by boredom!

Oh, the irony.

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