We've had a face lift!

Well, our blog has had a face lift. As Elisabeth wrote in the last post, our writing group celebrated our first year anniversary this month. With this milestone, we're also growing. We're growing as writers and as friends. We are working hard to accomplish our writing goals and hope that 2010 is full of published works!

You'll notice that the blog has a new header. Thanks to Sara, who is not only an aspiring children's writer but also a talented graphic artist, we have a very nice logo up top. We thank her so much for all of her hard work in putting that together. It's perfect!

We also have our facebook fan page up and running. This is where we will share news related to our work, where we are submitting and announcements of when someone has been published. It's a forum where we can interact with and better share our writing with the community of Fort Collins and beyond.

Thank you for reading and your support of Reality Writes!

Kristin Mastre

Moms need appreciation too

I have just finished an extraordinary amount of effort ensuring that each member of my family had a good holiday with lots of gifts and great food. They have no idea what kind of brain power and planning this takes and the hours that I spend on their happiness, not just at Christmas, but every day all year. I feel like they take it all for granted. It seems like instead of hearing anything positive, all I hear is the negative about what they didn’t get or don’t have or what I didn’t do right.

Here’s one example of what I’m talking about.

Today my 17 year old daughter is going snowboarding with her friends. She needed snowboarding pants, since of course the ski pants I own and offered to lend her were “too big and too mom-like” for her, which means that they were not hanging low enough on her hips and they actually button at the waist. So, she decided that she needed to urgently shop for stylish pants and I got dragged along. She received money for Christmas from several relatives, but of course she doesn’t feel that she should spend her own money on these pants. It is a given in her mind that I will buy them for her. Oh, and then there is the lift ticket and the snowboard rental. When I tell her that this would be a good use for her Christmas money, she glares at me and tells me that she needs to save that money for gas, since I don’t let her have an unlimited debit card like “all of her friends’ parents do”. I manage to get out of the store convincing her that she should pay $20 towards her pants, which she virtually throws at me. No thank you for the gifts that she just got for Christmas and no thank you for the $50 that I paid towards the snowboarding pants.

I hope she is having a great time snowboarding today with those other entitled and self-absorbed teenagers.

Meanwhile, this is what I did today. I went alone to the gynecologist for my annual exam and came home with a pamphlet labeled “Perimenopause”. My doctor counseled me that this is a time of mind, body, and spirit transition and that my emotional mood swings and everything else I’m feeling right are normal. After leaving the doctor, I went to the grocery store and shopped for my family. Is it normal to sacrifice every part of my being for everyone else but myself?

All I know is that I want to cry and I simply want one of my kids to say “Thank you”.

Peggy McNeal