This is my 454th post here in this blog!  My first post was on December 29, 2005 which seems like a different lifetime.

In all actuality, it was a different lifetime.  I started blogging mostly because I wanted a way to share a part of my daily life with my family, none of whom live near me.  It turned out to be a very effective way to keep people informed and caught up on our lives, mostly our kids.

On top of that, I love to write.  It’s fun for me and at times has been the easiest and most accessible creative outlet I have had.  At any given time I have about 20 blog posts written in my head…time is the only thing I have a hard time creating!

However…I do believe it’s time for me to move on from here and allow my creative juices a new outlet!

I’ve loved my time here, loved writing and sharing my thoughts and my kids antics – thanks for reading!

Peace & Love -

Jaelene

Lately the kids have been bugging me to re-do their rooms.   Mostly they want new paint – some really crazy schemes I might add.

So I told them that if they would help me clean out their closets, toys, etc. on a weekend then I’d take them to Lowe’s to look at paint and then to Ikea to look at furniture.  So they did.  And while I’m helping Jackson (of course – it’s always Jackson) we had a great conversation.

Jackson: Mom, can I have a frig in my room?

Me: No.

Jackson: Ugh, fine what if I just get a small one?

Me: Dude! What were you talking about before? A big one?

Jackson: Duh, yeah

Me: No. No big one, no small one.

Jackson: What if I only store water in it?

Me: NO, no frig’s in rooms.

Jackson: Crap.

So then we go to Ikea and we’re walking around and Jackson is thirsty.  So thirsty he can’t possibly walk more than five steps without telling me that he’s thirsty.  I tell him to give it a rest and we’ll deal with it at the end of check-out and he says “This wouldn’t be an issue if I had a frig full of water in my room.”

Which gives me a segway opportunity.  Awhile back I bought a print from Etsy that I had seen featured on a different blog.  It seemed so perfect but once I got it I really struggled with where to put it.  After dealing with so many people that have to stand to pee I decided above the toilet in my main bathroom was perfect because chances are if you’re standing in the spot to read this print, it’s more than likely true.

Perfect, right?

There are a few areas of my life where what I say doesn’t really resemble reality.  I don’t like cats.  Haha, jokes on me – I have three.

A few years ago, you may recall, I inherited two cats.  The two cats were hard to get used to at first but eventually they just became a part of our life.  They are pretty good – there are some antics here and there…like HELLO, there is cat pee on the kitchen floor.  Which, side note, I finally figured out was a sign that the water bowl for the cats was not up to their expectations.  Unfortunately it took me like 25 mornings of stepping in cat pee while trying to get to the coffee maker with one eye open to figure that one out.

So after 2 or 3 years of cat life I decided I was going to get a dog.  Remember that? During the search for a dog we sent Jackson to summer camp and he got all doe eyed and begged me to bring a kitten home and I conceded.  Remember that?  Yeah.  That’s where I went wrong.  Right there.  Let me tell all of you in really clear terms – If you ever get divorced do not get your kids a pet to make up for it.  It’s dumb.  When it all wears off and the dust settles you’ll still be divorced, your kids will still know you got divorced and you’ll have another living thing to take care of.  There are no winners there.  Well, unless you’re the pet.

Anyway, after we got the kitten I was still looking for a dog.  Then That Guy, who has two dogs, started a new job that requires him to travel. A lot. I offered to watch the dogs on occasion.  So one of the first times that happens my girlfriend also happens to be going out of town.  So there was a week where I watched doggies for That Guy and my girlfriend.  That week I was in charge of three kids, three cats and four dogs.  The only benefit of that week? I called off my search for a dog. Forever.

As time has progressed since we brought the kitten home from camp…the kitten has turned into a monster.  Seriously.   A monster.  Not only is the kitten insane, he loves water.  This is a dangerous combination, apparently.  The best way to change a cats behavior? Spray it with water.  This cat? LOVES IT.  I’ve found this kitten in my kitchen sink with his paws stuck in the garbage disposal and when I turned on the faucet to convince the cat to leave? He acted like a fish. Jerk. A jerky fish.

Recently Jerky Fishhead Mambo fell in love with our water cooler.  When someone dares to pour themselves a glass of water? Mambo comes running from his evil lair to jump on the counter and stare at the bubbles popping up in the water cooler.  The intensity of his love for the water cooler increases on a daily basis.  We went from a little jump up, some observation before we move about our day to racing down the stairs, using the chairs around the island as leverage to catapult through the air to skid across the counter and land at the water cooler before the first bubble appears.  When humans at my house get water they have learned to duck or get out of Mambo’s way.

The other morning things escalated to unreal level.  Maybe he was bored. Maybe he decided he wanted to make his own bubbles.  Maybe he’s the spawn of Satan.  We will never know which of these is true (it’s the third one though) because he can’t talk, he can only howl like a dog but that’s a story for another day.  Mambo decided to just go ahead and make his own bubbles.  The kids and I were sitting around the island eating breakfast and packing school lunches when Jerky Fishhead Dog Howler Mambo decided to start at one end of the counter, run, and ram the water cooler with his Dumb Kittenhead.  I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty funny.  Guess who it entertained most? The owner of Jerky Fishhead Dog Howler Cooler Rammer Mambo – Jackson.  Shocked? Yeah, me neither.

That’s Jerky right there – ramming the water cooler. Blerg.

So.  This love of water? It presents a peculiar problem for me.  For whatever reason, the shower in the master bedroom of this house has no door, no curtain, no nothing.  This is weird.  When you take a shower there? You have no privacy.  The lack of privacy is made worse by the fact that in bathrooms that have double sinks there tend to be HUGE mirrors.  So yes…when you shower in my bathroom if you happen to turn your back to the water, which happens often, and if you open your eyes, which also happens a lot, you will see yourself in a HUGE mirror.  I’ve adapted to this and for the most part I’m really careful to warn my kids that I’m getting in the shower and I make sure my bedroom door is shut. I do this because…well there isn’t a door separating the bedroom from the bathroom.  Yeah, I don’t get that either.  So when you walk in my bedroom, if someone is in the shower…if you look to the right you’ll see a full on naked person in the shower in the mirror.  Not kid friendly.

Anyhoo…..the other day….I was home alone.  So guess what? I didn’t tell the cats I was taking a shower and I didn’t shut my bedroom door.  And while I was in the shower I turned my back to the water to rinse my hair, I closed my eyes, stepped to the left, felt something weird, looked down, and screamed.  I was taking a shower with  my cat.

Jerky Fishhead Dog Howler Water Cooler Rammer Pervert Mambo.

A few years ago I sat in on a performance review at work and at one point the employee, who was lamenting his upcoming 30th birthday, expressed his disappointment in himself.  His life plan at 30 had him as a Professional Engineer, running his own firm and driving a Mercedes.   So he made this life plan at who knows what age and here he was completely down on himself because he hadn’t done it.  He wasn’t even close.   As I was thinking about this personally I felt bad for the guy because he didn’t even know himself well enough to know what was very obvious to me and his manager – it was the most unrealistic goal this guy could set.

I remembered that moment a few nights ago when I went to yoga for the first time in a long time.  The teacher talked about how setting goals was something everyone does at the New Year but she felt like setting an intention was more appropriate, more flexible and forgiving.  Maybe that guy would have been better if he would just set an intention to reach a spot in his career where he felt fulfilled.  Certainly more realistic.

I’m not much of a resolution maker or goal setter.   I mean last year my resolution was to accessorize more…..something I pulled off well by the way.   Lately, however, I’ve been feeling like I have a lot of pieces to a puzzle in my hand and but I can’t quite put them together.  Like I can visualize something I need to do but I can’t put it into words….it’s a feeling just for me to understand.  Definitely some kind of “New Year” energy.

I read something by my favorite author that has been stuck in my head:

“Humility is the awareness of the vastness of what we do not know, the smallness of our own lives in the context of the cosmos and, never-the-less, our desire to tend the one small life we have been given, to continue to have hopes and dreams alongside the growing awareness of how much we don’t control.”

I think my New Years intention is in there somewhere, I just have to find which puzzle piece it is.

Jackson’s resolution is to be more awesomer (his words, not mine!)

He’s got a lot of room to make that happen.

Hope you had a great New Years Celebration! I’m looking forward to 2011!

For the next week I have a feeling every time I sit down with my best friend The Internet or turn on my Plan B Best Friend The TV there is going to be some sort of Best of, Decades Best, Yearly Best Top Ten List. And really, why not? It’s such an easy way to sum up your year, or life, or lack of life. My blogging has been sporadic this year because let’s face it 2010 has been a very strange year for me. Lots of days where staying in bed seemed like the most reasonable thing to do, followed up by lots of days where hiding in the pantry while eating ketchup sandwiches seemed so logical. HOWEVER, not only is my penchance for typing in all caps still intact, I also had some of my most memorable moments of life this year. So how’s about we end this year on a super-duper positive note? Yes. Let’s.

This list? Not in any order so if you are in picture #10 don’t think your moment is better than picture #7 because it isn’t. This is an Eleven Way Tie for best moment of my year!

What can I say about this? A lot.  This year will be the year where I figured out who my friends are and my parents? They top the list for sure.  In the past 15 months my mom has spent about six weeks here helping me, cooking for me, filling up some empty spaces at really hard times, sitting in the Golden Buddha crying with me until they turned off the lights and told us to GET OUT, and being an all around One Person Support System.  Of course her One Person Support System is my dad who gladly helped her be able to spend that time here by holding down the fort back home and I couldn’t be more appreciative of them both.

This year for Mother’s Day my kids and I spent some time at a resort in Tucson that has an awesome Lazy River that allowed me to lay in the sun while my kids floated past and yelled things at me like “I had to pee but guess what? Now I don’t”  I love my kids.

When Colten was at surf camp this summer there were a few times that I logged in to look at pictures and I saw a kid that was independent, confident, having fun, getting tall and then I would realize that was my son.  This picture is my favorite from that week he spent away.

My lovely partner in crime took me to Mexico this year and helped me get comfortable with being a single lady.  Additionally later in the year she provided, hands down, one of the funniest moments of my life which thankfully I have no pictures of but can tell you the fire hydrant survived.

This year Jackson  survived, actually thrived through, two weeks at camp.  He also – mostly due to that look on his face right there – managed to convince me to bring that kitten home.  That decision goes on a different list though, the list of “holy crap what did I just do” list.  Seeing him at camp after two weeks off was one of those “omg I love that kid right there” moments.

Mustaches! This year has been filled with random sharpie mustache moments but this one is my fav! This year I traveled to Philly and went to the best concert ever (I love you Kings of Leon) with my brothers & sister-in-law and we had loads of fun and I might still be hung over from that weekend in August.

Speaking of finding out who your friends are – this year I’ve become really close to two of my cousins thanks in no small part to Facebook.  They’ve been supportive and entertaining and in October they came to town and we ran a 5k together – Erica’s first ever and she did AMAZING.  We had so much fun eating, laughing, and shopping.

Okay first off – look at how that kid fell asleep! Who does that? Austin – that’s who.  Because that kid goes and goes and goes all day until he’s done and when he’s done, he’s done.  He slept like this for at least 30 minutes and when we showed him the picture his response? “Sweet! Now I know what page I was on – thanks mom!!” That’s Austin – the glass is always completely full, even when it’s not.  This is probably my favorite picture of the year.

DISNEYLAND! I took the kids to Disneyland in October and we had an epically good time having fun together – I loved every moment of that trip, even the typical family vacation dumb moments.

If I had to pick a number one moment of the year this would probably be it! This is me, obviously, and clearly I’ve been crying just abit because those stairs in the background? I just got done climbing them and that was the last part of my journey from the bottom of the Grand Canyon.  Look, this is gooberish and corny but there have been several times since then that my internal dialogue has gone like this “Dude. You hiked down and back out of the Grand Canyon with 40-ish pounds strapped to your back – surely you can get off the couch and do those dishes”.

Hey Look! It’s That Guy! That’s his blog name – That Guy.  I chose that name because it’s interchangeable…if That Guy becomes a Different Guy you can still use That Guy without having to go through the whole naming process again.  This might be disappointing to him because he asked to be called Something from Star Wars but…no.  Just because this is the last picture doesn’t mean it’s number one.  It’s just the last picture because I look happy and that’s where I’ve ended up this year – at Happy with That Guy.  The End.

So you might know that I decided to change my name back to my maiden name which, holy moly! what a load of work this is turning out to be.

Turns out you use your name A LOT! It’s on everything I own, every bill, etc. which I had a plan & expected to deal with but I didn’t realize what a pain in my butt it would be at work! Guess what? When you put a little tag line at the end of your email that says “please note my email address has changed to jsmith@…..” you will get some emails back congratulating you on your wedding. Uhhhh, thanks!! Send me money.

I’ve been able to do fun things like have Jaelene Samsal sell her car to Jaelene Smith (she got ripped off), get hit on by a just-released felon at the Social Security Office, and completely forget what my last name is on at least 3 occasions. So far the best is when someone asked me to spell my name and I said “J-A-E-L-E-N-E S-M-I….I don’t have to spell that part, do I?” The other lady was like “Uh yeah, I’m good with the Smith part”.

In other news we had a nice Thanksgiving today despite Jackson’s almost constant protest that only 6 people at Thanksgiving was a travesty, a complete injustice to the holiday. What can I say? Jaelene Smith is going to go ahead and do life a little bit different. She doesn’t set a kid table and is perfectly content with a Plus 2 for dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so many little ideas in my head right now I’ve had a hard time settling on one or even two coherent thoughts for this space.

There’s a lot going on upstairs and there’s a lot going on in real life too. Kids, work, trips, friends, really weird crazy people run-ins on the freeway, etc. If the person who I’m paying by the hour to help me make sense of it all hadn’t taught me how to breathe (finally! I can breathe!) I’d probably be in a coma by now. Which, by the way, if I’m ever in a coma PLEASE, the first thing I want you to do is check to see if I’m wearing my contacts. I’m so paranoid you won’t do that and I’ll survive the coma only to find out I’ve been blinded by wearing contacts for too long. I don’t know where on my list of fears that is but it’s definitely Top 10.

So until I settle on some coherence, which might be never, I’ll settle with – life is good. The kids are on break from school right now and we took the opportunity to have some fun (Finally! Some fun! While Breathing!) and go to Disneyland.

My kiddies won’t be at my place for Halloween so we improvised and celebrated at the Mickey Mouse Trick or Treat Party. We had SO MUCH fun! Colten dressed up as the Old Spice Guy (google it peeps) and that provided some of our funniest moments for sure.

No coherent concentration or per hour advice needed for this….Love Those Guys.

It’s been a really interesting thing to have my kids not here for an entire week every other week. Let’s just ignore the “Dude I miss my kids part” and discuss the “What the Heck do I do with this Free Time” part.

After about five minutes of analysis I realized that I have never lived alone. Ever. That is a little bit intimidating when you are sitting in a house that is too big to sit in alone. Thank goodness for cats!

At first I just did the same thing I’ve always done. Come home from work, eat dinner, watch TV. But without the homework, the baths, the bedtime rituals…..well I was sitting down on the couch at 6:30 to watch TV for the night. That gets old really fast!

Thankfully my life has evolved a lot since then and I’ve learned a lot, I might even be willing to use a little cliche and say that I’ve found out a lot about myself that I had lost due to Life and Motherhood. And since you know, or at least ought to know, that I love to write lists I’m clearly going to present some of these things in a list that will be a mix of serious, humorous and sarcastic. That’s just how I operate here. And everywhere else.

Wherein I tell you my Words of Wisdom:

* As it turns out I can cook asparagus for dinner every night if I want and NO ONE complains. This is awesome.

* Speaking of dinner….I can cook it at 6:00, 8:00, 10:00 or Never o’clock.

* And one more dinner thing – last night I ate Ritz crackers with Brie cheese and then a soft pretzel at the movies for dinner. So easy and no clean up.

* I don’t have to come home after work and believe it or not, it took me months to figure that out.

* I like to read. I mean I really like to read books. I didn’t forget that totally but I kind of did. I just finished Little Bee and loved it. Next up is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

* Dating is weird.

* I don’t actually like to watch TV very much. I honestly did not know that.

* Without the pressure of having to get kids to school it is virtually impossible for me to get to work on time…I have too much free time in the morning!

* Dating is weird but also useful in filling free time. And to have someone else to turn to and say “Can you BELIEVE that outfit” while watching Project Runway and feel a little less insane because at least it’s a human and not a cat.

* I like to be able to go to the bathroom in my downstairs bathroom with no fear of what I might find.

* Dance parties are fun even without Austin break dancing.

* I miss Austin’s break dancing.

* Weekends are SO AWESOME AGAIN!!!

I think I’m starting to embrace and maybe even appreciate my time alone. I mean I really don’t have a choice – the time is going to be there regardless of how I use it or how I feel about it and it feels good to finally feel good about having that time.

Now before I blog again I have to figure out what I’m going to call The Person I’m Dating. Because there is a Person that I’m Dating and while he has a name….well that’s not really my blog writing style to use it, now is it? I have a couple of ideas…none of which I will ask him if he likes. I think I’ll just put them in a hat and pull one out. Sometimes my siblings tell me that’s how my name got picked and sometimes I believe them.

Which reminds me that yesterday me and The Person that I’m Dating were looking at some Chinese Astrology stuff and next year is the Year of the Rabbit. Given that I was born in the year of the Rabbit I’m super excited about this – I think next year is actually going to be The Year of Jaelene, lol!! You’ll see that on the mats in Chinese Restaurants in a few years….2011 The Year of Jaelene. Mark my words folks!

In thinking about blogging and getting back to blogging I find myself asking myself what I should write about.  Such a weird question since I used to write all the time so I looked back through lots of my old posts to remind myself what was happening here before I hit pause.

Duh.

It’s hard to get a good size pic off the Kate Spade website (or at least it WAS before it WASN’T) but man, those socks are cute.  I’ve been mulling over how to apply them to my life and haven’t quite come up with a solution but trust me, I will.

I’ve been working on my house a little bit – I’ve got some hard wood flooring now, some different little things like coffee tables and such but I’m still missing Orange. I’ve been wanting some Orange in my house for so long, and like the socks above, I haven’t really been able to apply it properly yet.  I’m also lacking some seating in my family room and I keep thinking those two things can be remedied at the same time.

That’s Orange.  Tangerine actually.  And it’s a chair.  And can you imagine my cute sock covered feet draped over the edge reading my next book? I think that would be so cute – cute enough that it ought to be the new ad for those socks.  An ad that can be copied in a Larger Scale into my blog…maybe with some glitter and shiny lights and definitely with some hair & make up before the picture and every day there after.  As royalty payment.

I digress.

In other news the kiddies are back to school, several weeks ago, and that’s going exactly as you would probably think it would be. The other morning something like this MAY have happened:

Me – Jackson please brush your teeth

Jackson – (dances around with his kitten)

Me – Seriously Jackson, it’s time to brush your teeth

Jackson – (starts putting on his 1,978 silly bands one at a time)

Me – Dude, we are going to be late, brush your teeth

Jackson – (lays on the floor and asks someone to roll him in a blanket like a burrito)

Me – JACKSON BRUSH YOUR TEETH OR I’M GONNA TAKE YOUR XBOX, PUT IT IN THE STREET, AND LIGHT IT ON FIRE

Jackson – Wah? Did you say something? Am I suppose to be doing something?

So ya know, nothing has changed there.

The kids back in school also means soccer (blech) and apparently Jackson joining Scouts.  Yes, the Scouts where you promise to do stuff like obey, be righteous, and learn how to tie Awesome Knots.  Can you guess which promise is the one he intends to fulfill?

So life is back on again.  I mean it was always on but somewhere in my “hiatus”…okay so the past year of my life where I’ve been absent from my blog? We’re just going to call that the “hiatus” and always with the quotes….so recently in my “hiatus” my life as it is now started to feel normal, like it is what it’s suppose to be.  Like a pair of skinny jeans that for awhile I was expecting to pull them out of the dryer and find out that they don’t fit anymore and never will again but guess what? That didn’t happen.  They totally fit and might even look good.