Let Me Re-Introduce Myself...

Soon it will be a new year, but this is not the reason I'm writing this post. I'm writing this because I want things to change in my life, and the only one holding me back is me.

So I will no longer be afraid to speak my mind- Especially if it's funny.

Let me re-introduce myself. I'm a wife of a fantastic husband and also the mother of two really great kids. All three drive me to madness, but it's a good kind of madness. The kind of madness you can actually write about and not get yourself (or your family) arrested. I'm a Jacqueline of All Trades, but have yet to consider myself a Master of Anything, though people like most of my creative endeavors.

Except the one time I tried to make a dish involving hamburger and uncooked rice. Ugh.

I have no intention to ever call myself a Master except when it concerns big messes. That I know I'm good at- and so far no one else has denied it! Call yourself a Master when you're not, and people call you a braggart. When others call you a Master, yet you don't consider yourself one, people call you humble.

My husband is both The Greatest Handyman Ever and the Encyclopedia Britannica. But these are not his only talents. He can also cook up a storm- if I were to compare ourselves to famous cooks, I'm Paula Deen and he's somewhere between a pastry chef and Rachael Ray. I'm the down home cook and he's the gourmet cook. Let's just say between the two of us, we eat well around here.

He can also clean the house better than I ever could, because he likes to clean- in fact, he can not only do it better, he can do it faster than me- Maybe because he likes it so much. All I know is he's done the entire house before I'm finished half of a single room, and it looks great. Dagnabbit. He's better at a lot of stuff than I am except rolling out pie crust. He can't roll a crust to save his life, but he can pull a fifteen course meal out of the oven in thirty minutes. Weird.

He's also my GPS whenever I get lost. I could call him from anywhere on the planet and he can tell me where I am and how to get home before I get a word out. Strange but true!

My son has finally made it to his teen years, and we call him Wikipedia- he takes pride in that nickname, but unlike my husband, Mr. Encyclopedia, our son is just like the 'Wiki' version- full of 'factual misinformation' that people feed into him. Having Aspergers, he takes many things said in jest as a fact, and will back those 'facts' up with stuff he pulls from out of the blue- but it sounds good to ears younger than himself who don't know any better. When he's wrong he's really, really wrong... but when he's right, he'll blow your mind!

I found out that my son is great with little kids. We went to a summer picnic where there were at least twenty children, and he had all of them playing games he invented. He kept them running around and entertained for a good five hours; my husband and I received kudos from parents that had real, uninterrupted conversations since they gave birth. He's an amazing kid!

My daughter is a girly tom-boy who loves to wear dresses and climb the monkey bars- but not at the same time. When she was little she heard her brother screaming about a waterbug in the bathroom, and she was the First Responder, heading for the Room Of Death with her shoe poised to strike. She's our little Warrior Maiden, and though bugs are beginning to freak her out now, she is always sticking up for others at the schoolyard. She's not afraid to tell someone they're not being nice, and comfort the victim until she can guide him or her to one of the school aids. I can totally see her in a prom dress packing a taser gun. Don't mess with the dress!

She gets excited about everything. I love that about her. She has a big heart for animals and nearly broke down in a puddle of tears when she heard she was still too young to volunteer at the animal shelter. We watched Animal Cops together a lot over the summer, and she wants to save all of them. I think we'll need a bigger yard first.

Both kids are super awesome when it comes to helping others. I am one blessed woman- when these people aren't driving me crazy!

I should include our two cats, Boo-boo and Scootch. One was named after Laverne and Shirley's stuffed cat (even though he's grey and white and not black like the stuffed kitty on TV) and the other kept getting underfoot, and I had to constantly tell him to 'scootch out of my way' all the time. So the names stuck. Boo-boo likes to knead and lick my arm when he wants comfort, and Scootch has learned that if he leaps onto my desk and sits on my mouse (which I'm usually using at the time) he will get some pets and attention.

They're here to make me see the lighter side of life when I start taking things too seriously. Scootch isn't the most adept at ' sticking the landing' and falls off of things periodically- he's our clown. Boo-boo is a one-person cat and has taken a shine to me, but is only now warming to my husband after a year of being in our care. Neither one wants to be cuddled to death by the kids though, and they will swat at them, only using their claws on the rare occasion when the kids refuse to back off.

Sometimes they remind me of my kids whenever I'm eating; they put their little noses near my plate, asking in their own less noisy but more subtle way if I'm going to finish what I have. Nine times out of ten they walk away from the tidbit offered, which is more than I can say for my kids, which will not only take a bite, but take my plate and hork down the whole thing if I let them. Especially my son, who burns off the calories before he's even finished chewing.

And yet I'm the heavy one in the family. Go figure.

Now a few more nasty truths.

My house is a mess. Not just a dinky little I-really-need-to-clean-up-that spot kind of mess, but more like a dear-God-where's-the-shovel? kind of mess. We were in the process of moving, but the finances fell through, so now I have a partially-packed house where the only organized things are in the boxes.

I also have a lot of clutter, because I'm a packrat and I'm lazy. I hate going through stuff. It takes forever. And most of it is stuff that would fit nicely into a junk drawer. In fact, most of it was in a junk drawer before I decided to clean out. Pencils that break when in the sharpener, screws of all sizes that might have come from things we tossed out; dead pens, dried-up rubberbands; parts to things that might be important, but only my husband knows what they are. And that's just scratching the surface!
I'm getting a box that says 'Fossils' and tossing it out into the trash when it's full. After twelve years in the same rental home, I believe most of this untouched clutter could legally be called fossils, so I wouldn't be lying. Much.

If this keeps up, they might be calling Hoarders on me. My husband probably would have already, but he can't find the phone.

I. Am. Lazy.
If I can get away from cooking every night, I will. Making bigger meals helps, but it makes a bigger mess. I'm still deciding whether it's worth it or not. However, soup can be made in bulk with little extra mess, so I plan on making it more often.
I like sitting in a sunny window and reading the day away, as well as fighting off monsters on my PC. I was a facebook addict, and had to stop because the family was being seriously neglected due to my awesome facebook farming skills and my arcane powers of destruction. Fun but totally time-wasting. And that's not why God put me here!

I am a Christian.
This is not a nasty truth, but some people do give me a wide berth when they see me holding a Bible. It's like they think I'm going to start running about the schoolyard yelling 'Repent!" while smacking everyone upside the head with the Word. Oh, I've thought about it (sounds like fun actually), but I'd never do it. I'm not a nut, religious fanatic, or cultist. I love Jesus and He loves me, and Satan and I will never be buddies. Period. I'll mention God on this blog, but I will never be preachy. I hate preachy people. But I will tell you that God has done a lot for me, where I have yet to return the favor- like I ever could. God is good all the time...and me? Well, let's just say my record is not remotely close to exemplary.

So that's me and mine in a nutshell. I promise I will give you no less than my best efforts, and I won't be afraid to tell the truth. Not that I've lied in the past, but you can keep the truth hidden by keeping silent. I'm tired of muzzling myself.

I'm Beth Brubaker, and I'm lazy, messy, and lose my cool with my family sometimes. I love to laugh, sing, and I cry during sappy girl flicks. I love to eat, read, and find joy in the little things. I love God, my husband, my kids and my cats, in that order. And I love to write.

Nice to meet you! God Bless!