My mother answered my phone call and listened intently as I told her that I was going through another low with my writing. I read to her the first line in Leo Tolstoy’s book, Anna Karenina, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”. I whined to her that I was incapable of creating beautiful prose and that my writing had no depth.

My mother has always believed in my writing and has been my guiding light as she refuels me with her positivity. I take her intellectual praise as the greatest gift since she snubs mediocrity and lives to read. This time her response to my cry for help was not what I expected, “That’s wonderful honey”. When I asked her to elaborate she explained that she was excited that I had no debt.

It is my mother, my sister and a handful of friends who keep me positive and on track. As I plow through these moments of low self esteem they do not accept failure from me encouraging me to explore my own voice and telling me to enjoy the journey and not focus on the end result. I am always so impressed by their words of undying wisdom, they are the ones who should be writing!

Ahhh the journey. Whenever somebody mentions anything to do with travel I slip into a deep reverie. I have never stayed in one place for this long without taking off somewhere, anywhere, to break up the monotony and my life is truly getting more and more monotonous as I deal with troubled finances and rejection letters.

So I think I’ll take off for the desert tomorrow, just me and the kids. We’ll explore the rocks, soak up the sun, inhale the air and reconnect and hopefully I’ll come home with a renewed interest in my writing.

OMMMM

Can’t go to the desert without getting naked!

We are flying once again to visit Grandma Nicky in Florida. I don’t know how we are going to pay for it but I know that I am needing to get away. Wade is all for it. He loves those ten days he blessedly gets of peace and quiet. To his credit, he is usually refreshed and ready for us by the time that we return.

The boys are dying with excitement. We have missed two years of visiting Florida and the boys are craving their lawless grandmother who serves them ice cream for breakfast and breeds chaos.

Brevitt is excited to reconnect with all of Grandma’s friends and chat with them by the pool in between splashing them with canonballs. Axel can’t wait to search for shells and throw things off of the balcony and Tucker, who secretly eats dirt, is excited to finally blast off in an airplane and secretly eat sand.

The boys and I saw an ad for Singapore Airlines in a magazine. They asked if that was the airplane we were going on. I almost spit up my tea. Would that airlines had advanced so much that we each had our individual huge seats with costumed stewardesses and gourmet meals.

While walking through first class the boys often loudly questioned why we are so poor that we have to sit in the back by the bathrooms and pay $6.00 for spam and crackers. I find it useful to take these times to stress good working values so that they too can sit in First Class.

I called my mother, Nicky, to tell her that I had just booked the tickets and she gushed with excitement, “ooooh, she said in her refined English accent, “I’m so glad your finally coming. We will have such fun”. That’s what I love about my mommy, she is very much in denial when it comes to the realities of life.

Last time we visited, pre Madoff scandal, Michele and I with our combined six children and our mother, treated ourselves to a nice hotel room on the beach for a few days. Growing up visiting the finest hotels in the world we felt compelled to give our children a taste of the good life.

Since there were no waves to play in, the men did not come on this trip. Without them life was a lot less stressful. The kids loved running around completely undisciplined as we three elders laughed and lounged without a care in the world. Brevitt and Devon would go down to the restaurant in the mornings and drink their coffee together while eating chocolate croissants. We were overdue for a vacation and couldn’t care less about meals or schedules. We did whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted and so did the kids.

This behavior cannot last long without the inevitable trouble happening. Unbeknownst to Michele, Nicky and I, the unsupervised six kids disturbed the peace once again knocking on hotel room doors and than taking off down the hallways. We were sitting in the hotel room when suddenly Brevitt came crashing into the room and hid under the bed. The story started to reveal itself as each child sheepishly came back to look for him. Apparently a very irate hotel guest had shouted at Brevitt and told him that she was going to call the police for noise disturbance. We left him for a good half hour under the bed shaking at the prospect of going to jail. I love those life lessons!

I am filled with fear from all of the airplane crashes that have been occurring but refuse to give up travel. After all, I made it through the stages of walking up and down the aisles with my social babies and no longer have to change stinky diapers in the disgusting, tiny excuse for bathrooms. What I do dread is the cramped seats, re-circulated germs, smelly people and snotty, unhelpful stewardesses who take pleasure in waking me and my sleeping children out of our blissful drooling sleep to see if we want coffee. Why sleep if you can stay a wake caffeinated.

I am ready to face the challenges of flying knowing that the end result will be ten days spent with Grandma and the kids in the warm sun wearing nothing but flip flops and bathing suits. This is far better than ten days spent struggling daily with ski equipment, terrain parks and hours searching for activities in our Vini-man.