Weekly Wrap-up

I Smile Because…

February 25, 2013 by ashersmom 2 Comments

My mind has been mommy-fied. Or mommy-fried. I am pickled.

Saturday, I had an idea for a funny piece about how different watching the Oscars as a parent is from watching the Oscars as a person without kids. I wrote it, prepared graphics and posted it, but it was Saturday afternoon. And the Oscars were, ya know, the next day. Like last night. I’m a little late to the party. As usual.

So…all I heard were crickets. Nice, relaxing crickets. Unless you’re a writer waiting for readers and then, those damn annoying crickets — I want to go outside and smash them all with a baseball bat coated in Raid.

Even though the Oscars are over, I think you’ll still enjoy it. It’s called The Academy Awards Drinking Game, PARENT EDITION. Feel free to apply it to all awards shows you watch in the future. Or even just the evenings in general. It’ll make them better, I promise.

To use my kindergartner’s new favorite word…BLERG.

Today, I’m over at Bonbon Break with an original piece I wrote for them called Letter to Me, circa 2003. I was daydreaming about what my life was like 10 years ago one day, just thinking about how if I drank a little too much and was hungover the next morning, it was no big deal because I’d just lay around all day watching Sex and The City and eating Krystal Chiks anyway…and that got me wishing I could communicate with myself back then and tell that girl to LIVE IT UP WHILE SHE STILL COULD. So I did. Read it to find out what I wish I’d done with G. Love (of G. Love and Special Sauce).

Sorry, honey.

Here’s a little sneak peek at the anthology I’m gonna be a part of. Along with a bunch of other seriously funny ladies, as you can see by the back cover. Stay tuned to find out the release date…but it won’t be long now!

Here are links to a few of the other funny bloggers who’ll be featured in the book in case you just can’t wait to check them out.

From Funny Is Family, 20 Things I Learned in College (but not in class). I can’t get enough of this one.

And while we’re flashing back, another one that makes me giggle is this one from Nurse Mommy Laughs: Life Lessons From Roller Skating Camp.

I really am just sitting here smiling like I have some idea WTF is up. But I don’t. I really, really don’t. I have no effing idea.

I’m sure that smiley face guy has no idea either. He and I have just become friends.

Blerg.
Like T&T on facebook. Follow @toulouseNtonic on twitter. And pinterest. And instagram. Basically, just follow me around all day, mmmkay?

Filed Under: Mommy stuff, Weekly Wrap-up Tagged With: academy awards, Back in time, books, Drinking Games, I just want to pee alone, letters, oscars

Holiday Wrapping (up)

December 22, 2012 by ashersmom 6 Comments

I’m feeling so warm and fuzzy today. Looks like your (sometimes) weekly newsletter will be short on the snark.

Never fear. My snark well runs deep and strong. It’ll be back, probably by the end of this update.

The 12 Days of Chrismukkah

Last week, I got my husband tipsy and talked him into doing this: The 12 Days of Chrismukkah and my 1st vlog. If you like pumpkin latkes, menorahments and hannucookies, or if you have no idea what those things are (because I made them up), or if you just like to laugh at people who either sing badly or reluctantly, check it out. Who doesn’t wanna spend 2 minutes laughing at a person in a yarmulke and another in a ridiculous elf hat totally effing up The 12 Days of Christmas song?

One of my favorite posts about vaginas (is it weird that my blog has enough posts about vaginas that I can say that?) was featured on BONBON Break last week. If you haven’t joined Bonbon Break, I highly recommend. Kathy and Val are the nicest gals going, and every day they offer you a lovely chocolate-coated bite of the best things going on in the blogging world. Subscribe at www.bonbonbreak.com, like their facebook page and follow Bonbon Break on twitter.

One invigorating move in the Momsanity workout.

Also last week on Bonbon Break, amazing mom blogger Keesha of Mom’s New Stage offered a great (and funny) new way to work off those holiday pounds with her MOMSANITY workout. She was ~~masochistic~~ kind enough to allow me to illustrate one of the moves. After you eat these scrumptious vulva candies, get in a Momsanity workout and you’ll magically fit into those pajama jeans without an 80s-style deep-knee-bending and muffin-top-squooshing-down struggle.

This week… I have to stop and take a sip of mimosa and watch the sugar plums dancing in my head. Oh what a week. This is gonna sound totally like humblebragging but I just can’t help myself. I’m so excited and grateful about reaching some milestones I never in a million years thought I would reach.

With the generous help of some blogger friends, not only did I break my all-time hit record in a day but doubled it on Wednesday. And even on Thursday, as things wound down, there were still more pageviews than my previous record.

How did this happen?

I guest-posted on Mommy Shorts with an article about the Top 10 (hilarious) differences between parenting your first child and parenting your second. Mommy Shorts reported over 1000 facebook likes on the post (I asked her if she’d added a zero or two) and some of her readers made their own funny contributions. Check ‘em out on the Mommy Shorts facebook page. And thank you, Ilana, for lending me the Mommy Shorts power for a couple of days. It was fun. Really, really fun.

Then, ON THE SAME BLESSED DAY, a blogger I’ve stalked since before I started my own blog featured one of my posts. I’ll just say first that her blog is called MotherhoodWTF and from the first moment I visited, I was hooked. Allison says all the stuff about mothering you wish you could say. Profanely. And intelligently. Is she profanely intelligent? Or Intelligently profane? Who cares? It’s all the same to me and I love it. You will too if you have a sense of humor about parenting. And you must, or you wouldn’t be here.

sweet potato latkes with bacon turn into hash browns

Sweet Potato Latke Notkes. Add bacon to make them even more of a Chrismukkah disaster.

And in the perfect blogging storm of Wednesday, I was also featured on CraftFail again. Yes, again. This time with my disaster-of-a-shiksa-bride sweet potato latkes. If I wasn’t so stubborn, I’d stop trying with the freaking crafts. But I never learn. Ask anyone.

And then last night, I reached 1000 twitter followers. Happy sigh.

I also posted this silly little thing full of stories about pets pooping out holiday decorations. Or more accurately, TRYING to poop out holiday decorations.

Hold on, let me check the snark well. Nope, all dry.

Thank you so much for your support. This blog gives me a lot of happiness these days. I’ve been writing it for 2 years or more, but there’s something about it these last few months…I’m guessing the difference is you.

Here is my simple advice to you as we head into the final days before Christmas. 1. Do NOT go to the mall. 2. Tipple. Tipple hard.

Happy holidays.

Toulouse

Awesome things I read this week:

The ABCs of Raising Boys

Jesus Crashed My Birthday Party

Elf Shaming

Like Toulouse and Tonic on facebook. Follow @toulouseNtonic on twitter.

Filed Under: Christmas & Chrismukkah, Mommy stuff, The 12 Days of Chrismukkah, Weekly Wrap-up Tagged With: Chrismukkah, CraftFail, Mommy Shorts, MotherhoodWTF, twitter

White Girl (W)Rapping

November 16, 2012 by ashersmom 9 Comments

It’s the Friday (w)rap-up, dawg.

This week, at Toulouse & Tonic, I wrote my most favorite post ever — a profane expose about the dysfunctional Berenstain Bears clan. Special thanks to Ninja Mom for letting me be one of her stealth assassins.

If you enjoyed The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV: Bitch PLEASE, you’ll want to head right over to Ninja Mom’s Character Assassination Carousel. You’ll find links to loads of other hilarious take-downs of your most hated kiddie lit.

I want to say a special thank you for all the “liking,” sharing, tweeting and commenting…your support of the Berenstain Bears piece helped me have my biggest visitor day ever on the blog. And if you think I cared, you’d be very, very right. Cared is not a strong enough word. Obsessed is more like it. I spent the entire night staring at my stats page like a half-wit and constantly hitting refresh to see if I was there.

Hubs got in on the T&T action too, getting mucho husband-shamed over at Mommy Shorts. That’s him in the party hat. Isn’t he cute? But what he did was very, very, very bad.

Did I mention he asked me for a 3-month break on being made fun on the internet? More like 3 days. Ha!

Keesha Beckford interviewed me for her incredible blog, Mom’s New Stage. And she made me sound cool so, ya know, she rocks. Read it and find out why it’s stupid that I was posting recipes when I started my blog. You’ll also find out that I can’t answer ANY question in one sentence. Not even when the question says, “Answer in one sentence…”

The Christmas season will be in full swing as soon as you push your chair back from the Thanksgiving table. You might want to consider preparing yourself for the inevitable family dysfunction by reading Spending the Holidays with People I Want to Punch in the Throat. You’ll laugh, your giftees will love it, and shhhh…it’s a very inexpensive gift. Buy it on Amazon.com by clicking here.

Or even better, I’ll give you a chance to win an autographed copy or a Kindle Fire. Just enter here.

Next week, we’ll back on the bully shaming train. Friends and strangers have joined in, posting their own stories and I’m gonna share some of those with you. The stories are touching and even inspiring. Like the Bully Shaming page on Facebook and follow on twitter @bullyshaming. If you have a photo to share, tweet it or upload it here.

I’m EXHAUSTED from outing bears, shaming my husband and giving away copious lovely Christmas gifts. Blogger problems.

Enjoy the weekend and come back next week!

You like me. You really, really like me. Or do you? Subscribe to receive an email every time I make a post. It’s the best way to be sure you don’t miss out when I do something shameful worth laughing at. Which is ALL the time. Just go to the upper right corner of my blog where it says, ya know, “subscribe,” and put in your email address. Then be sure to confirm your subscription when you get a follow-up email. That’s all there is to it. I’ll love you forever. And I promise to never ever ever share your info with anyone else. How’s that for friendship?