Overachieving Elf on the Shelf Mommies

By now we have all heard of the adorable little Elf on the Shelf. Almost everyone I know has one.  Some people even have two!  (Now I'm having guilt for not having two, because apparently I need two because when my kids are adults they'll each want one from their childhood.  Ugh.  Not looking forward to that conversation with the Hubs when I tell him why we need another Elf.)

The Elf is a handy little thing to have.  The little bastard keeps my children in check this time of year.  When there is even a HINT of rebellion all I have to do is say, "Elf" and they snap back in line.

I'm Moving!

Welp, after 11 years on Blogger, I think it's time to make a change. I'm moving to Substack. Blogger has been a great fit for me over the last decade, but it's time for me to move on and try something new.

Social media platforms are changing all the time. When I started this blog my only other option was WordPress. Facebook and Twitter existed and Pinterest was in its infancy. Now I'm on Instagram, SnapChat (barely), and TikTok as well as those original three. And there are countless platforms for blogging now.

The changes have been fun and frustrating. Lately, it's been more frustrating than fun. The algorithms change weekly and the censorship is getting out of hand. I'm getting in trouble on Facebook for sarcastic jokes I made in 2014. Sarcasm is hard for idiots and AI to understand. 

Blogger was good once too, but a few years ago Google started cracking down on my language (f-bombs and vagina talk are frowned upon, I guess). Who knew Silicon Valley was so prudish??

I have been feeling the need to go back to blogging but I wanted more control over my content. When a friend told me about Substack, I realized that's where I should be.

So, starting August 29th I'm going to be blogging over on Substack. This blog will still exist, of course. All of the archives will be here and you can always come back and read your favorites (I'm looking at you, Elf on the Shelf), but anything new will now be on Substack.

But the only way to get my new blog posts is to subscribe to my Substack.

My free content over there will be like the old days over here: observations on stupid shit, rants, funny stories, and general nonsense. There will also be more ways to interact with one another and create a community over there. 

There will be a paid option as well and it will be $5 a month. You'll get more and different content for that investment, including access to the creation of a new PEOPLE I WANT TO PUNCH IN THE THROAT book. 

Man, I Don't Miss This Sh*t

It's been a long time since I've been embroiled in the everyday drama that goes with having kids in organized sports but yesterday I saw an article that brought me right back.

In case you didn't hear, there was a Texas Little League game where a volunteer coach (who is also a real-life police officer by the way) allegedly shoved and hit kids on the opposing team after his team lost. For fucks sake, they're nine-year-old kids and this dude can't control his shit and show good sportsmanship for two whole minutes??

No, of course not. 

Are You a Willful Wife?

Readers like to send me links to blogs or articles they think I might feel strongly about. This week I received a link to a blog called Biblical Gender Roles. I didn't even have to click the link before I felt "strongly."

But I took a deep breath and decided not to judge the blog by its title. After all, I'm always irritated when people scoff, "People I Want to Punch in the Throat? That sounds so violent!" I didn't want to instantly assume that this blog was written by a homophobic dude with control issues and a God-given desire to dominate the inferior females in his home. That would be wrong of me. I needed to read his writings first before I decided what to think of him.

And then I saw the title of the blog post: 8 Steps to Confront Your Wife's Sexual Refusal.

Fuck that guy. I already hate him.

Douchey Dads

I was attending an auction at a chic country club and  I arrived early to help the organizers set up and I was surprised to find the bar full of young, well dressed (if you can call expensive plaid shorts well dressed), golf playing, thousands of dollars a year for dues paying men sitting around drinking and yukking it up.  I wanted to say, "Hey...where do you guys work that you can spend half of a Tuesday golfing at this expensive club?"  (I also wanted to hand all of them my real estate business card, because these guys look like the type who might need a good divorce attorney and Realtor in their Rolodex's at all times.)

I started setting up tables, but I just couldn't control my irritation at these guys.  Everything about them rubbed me the wrong way.  Their stupid plaid shorts, their expensive drinks and the yukking. God, the yukking.  I've never heard laughter that was so phony and so forced.  It sounded like a combination of sea lions and parrots barking at each other.

Designer Vaginas are a Thing Now

I don't know about you ladies, but as I get older I'm finding that a lot of things are .... changing.

My laugh lines aren't disappearing when I'm done laughing, my middle is getting softer, I'm taking more and more trips to the hairdresser to keep the gray hairs under control, and my libido isn't what it used to be.

None of these bother me (and the Hubs) as much as my waning sex drive. I've been looking everywhere for a solution and I've yet to find one. Until today.

Nothing is NOT Acceptable

Last week I was trying to think of a Mother's Day present for my mom. I'm 42 years old now and a macaroni necklace just doesn't have the same impact it used to 36 years ago. I felt like every gift I was thinking of was a crappy gift, so I asked my readers on Facebook to tell me the worst Mother's Day gift they ever received just to make sure those weren't the ones I was considering. I got the usual responses of Dustbusters, brooms, step stools, tools, and irons. However, as I scrolled through the hundreds of answers, I noticed the same gift popping up over and over again.