The Thing About John Edwards...

Here's the thing. John Edwards is one of those carved out of cream cheese guys that seem to swarm onto the political scene. A year ago, he had it all. He was certainly a viable candidate running for President of the United States of America. He had his fans. With his family values and sick wife to garner him the sympathy vote, he stood to do well. He had the clean cut, middle aged good looks that would win him the female, swooned over Bill Clinton, set. He was from the south, giving him an edge down there. He was political gold, but even then, I wouldn't have voted for him.

Now I have a million reasons why I wouldn't vote for a liberal candidate. Obviously, his left leaning political views don't quite mesh with mine, but I must confess that isn't the biggest reason he never had my support. It was the hair. OK...I know that sounds shallow, but if people decided they liked Clinton based on his saxophone skills, I think they can give me a pass for disliking Edwards based on that mop that rides on top of his head.

When I came out with my hair issues last year, my more liberal friends rolled their eyes and jumped all over me. They couldn't believe I was shallow enough to base my support of a candidate on hair. I told them that I wasn't shallow. I was just using good old fashioned common sense...something that seems in short supply these days.

It wasn't so much that I didn't like the haircut. It was the fact that he paid $400 for that hair. I mean, if a guy pays $400 for a haircut, shouldn't it look better than that? What does that say about the guy's judgement? Do you really want a guy serving as your Commander in Chief, that thinks that haircut was worth $400? I have seen better hair coming out of Supercuts for a mere $9.95. It shows a complete lack of common sense and good judgement...two things I value in a candidate.

My friends laughed at me back then, but ever since the Enquirer broke the story of Rielle and the mainstream media finally joined the party and corroborated their headlines, they are having a hard time arguing that John Edwards has good judgement. We don't even have to get into the morality of the situation, just the fact that he did a woman that looks like Camilla Parker Bowles, is enough to tarnish anyone's opinion on the man's judgement.

The Stroller Graveyard

Maybe you have heard of the airplane graveyard. It sits outside of Tuscan, housing thousands of old airplanes. They sit quietly in the desert waiting for their fate. Some are turned to scrap. Some are used for missile practice. Some are salvaged for scraps.

I have something like that in my garage. I like to call my collection the stroller graveyard. My daughter is almost three and in the three years she has spent on this earth, she has amassed a huge stroller collection. Who would have known that one little toddler could use so many modes of transportation.

We have the travel system. This is the stroller that includes the base and carrier that is used as a car seat. Then we have the lighter stroller she graduated into once she no longer needed the carrier cars eat. There are the countless umbrella strollers that were usually purchased because we were out for the day and suddenly realized we didn't pack the stroller. There is the jogging stroller and the jeep stroller that was purchased for no other reason than the fact that it has a steering wheel and my wonderful husband couldn't say no when my daughter looked up at him with her big green eyes while playing with it in the store.

Now that my daughter is basically out of strollers, they are all sitting in the stroller graveyard, waiting for the day they can once again be useful. That day is coming, as we just discovered that we have a baby on the way. My husband and I have vowed to each other that we will not be purchasing any more strollers for the new baby. If we do, we might have to get rid of a car just to have room in the garage for them. We don't even plan to purchase a sit and stand. We figure that our daughter will be three when the new baby is born. It is time for her to get used to using her legs like the rest of us.

Of course there is a stroller that has caught my eye...maybe one more wouldn't hurt...this one just looks so fun...I just might have to buy it...what do you think?

Martha Stewart or Martha Raye?

I wanted to be Martha Stewart before it was cool to want to be Martha Stewart. I spent long hours picturing my house looking like it jumped from the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. In my imagination the smell of cinnamon and vanilla wafted through the halls competing with the smell of baking bread that was coming from one of my two convection ovens. Of course a rack of lamb would be roasting in my Viking gas oven and I would have enough matching china plates and linen napkins to serve all 40 of my guests in the formal dining room. Then reality hits. I don’t like lamb, I have one electric oven, and although I have beautiful wedding china, the sad truth is, as a proven klutz I am more comfortable using the less expensive stuff for everyday. I cook and I bake and I keep a clean house, but it certainly isn’t fancy or elegant enough to grace the pages of a magazine. At first this kind of bothered me, but then I realized I am normal. As much as I love HGTV, The Food Network, and shows like This Old House, I have come to realize that they set a standard that I can’t hope to ever achieve. My life is real. It is filled with diaper changes, nursery rhymes, running toilets, runny noses, and barking dogs. I am like millions of other American women out there who don’t have someone to pre-measure their spices into cute little glass bowls, so they can gracefully slide them into the dishes they are preparing. Other than my husband, I don’t have “production assistants” doing the dishes that pile up when I make a “gourmet” dinner. I don’t have a garden tub (unless you count the old tin washtub in the backyard that we hose the dog off in), master suite complete with sitting room and balcony to retreat to (my only private place is the shower and since my daughter learned to open doors, it isn’t always that private), or pots hanging on a display rack in my restaurant style kitchen. (I do display my pots and pans…usually in the dish strainer on the counter as they air dry.)I don’t have the big lofty house you see on shows like House Hunters. I live in a 55 year old brick cape cod. The kitchen is much too small to accommodate Paula Dean or Rachel Ray, but I love it. To me it is cozy. When I roll up hotdogs in Pillsbury Crescent Rolls and throw them in my 1968 Frigidaire electric wall oven, the kitchen warms up in a matter of seconds. The bedrooms are rather small and the 1950’s tile in the bathrooms might make the designers on Trading Spaces shudder, but it is our home and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. We have a huge basement that is big enough for a whole playgroup of preschoolers to tricycle round and round in on a cold winter morning. We have a half an acre of back yard that includes a wonderful slope for sledding on when I am ready to pull my hair out because of the preschoolers riding around the basement. We have scuffed up wood floors that came from a skating rink and a root cellar that is perfect for hiding my secret stash of chocolate. It may not look like an interior decorator put her magic touches on our house, but it certainly does look like a happy family lives with in its walls.Maybe they should make a show on HGTV about real women in real houses. That would be true reality TV. Heck, I could star in it. I can see it now. We would have a regular segment on how to fancy up Hamburger Helper. I could give all sorts of useful real life tips, like how to get finger paint off of the family cat, or how to tie-dye a shirt that has been hopelessly stained by baby spit up. I could have a weekly spot about plumbing, where call in viewers win a prize if they guess what my daughter flushed down the toilet this week. Of course most segments would be interrupted by baby cries, spills, or an occasional telemarketer or wrong number calling, but that would give me an opportunity to demonstrate real world multi-tasking skills. I could show people how to talk on the phone, mix up a batch of brownies, prepare stew in the crock pot, fold laundry, break up a fight between the dog and the cat, pick up toys with my toes, retrieve a bug from the baby's mouth, wash baby bottles, water plants, answer the door, and plunge a toilet, all at the same time, with a child on my hip.On second thought, maybe the show wouldn’t work. After all, my kitchen is much too small to fit me and all the cameras and equipment. I wouldn't want to constantly worry about a cameraman tripping on the roller skate that seems to always be left on the stairs, and I would hate to see the production crew come down with the endless colds and flues that my family so generously shares with each other. Besides, maybe the idea of a true to life home show wouldn’t go over so well. We usually watch TV to escape reality and because we enjoy the fantasy it presents, so why would people want to tune in to watch what could be their own life on the screen? Then there is the fact that my family would watch the show and every time it aired, I would get a phone call that started off with words like, "I can't believe you didn't wash that off before you gave it back to the baby!" or "Why did you let my granddaughter play outside without a sweater on today's episode? I saw on the weather channel that it was only 80 degrees outside today." I guess for now, I will have to keep watching the existing shows and dreaming of a life with a perfectly organized pantry.