Continued from here…

I *get* it that we are a generation who are raising a generation for whom the word “moderation” only applies to blog conference panels, but I think we all have a collective problem with taking things a little too far.

I mean, look at Pinterest. One day it’s a fun place to tag that handmade Christmas card you don’t want to forget about, and then next day, it is the Single! Greatest! Things! to Ever! Happen! to the Internet! and then one more day later, Momma say Pinterest is Da Debil.

We take good things and we make them clip art crap. We did this with religion, politics, the ozone layer, the letter Z, zombies, reality tv, ninjas, meals that come with toys, A&E, Christmas, and we are now doing it with breakfast meats.

My guess is that we are an undefined generation raising an undefined generation and so we are grasping at something to define ourselves by, and that we put more credence in the phrase “you are what you eat” than we do “everything in moderation.” But you know what? I don’t want to tell my kids I’m part of Generation Bacon.

Bacon lubricant is too far, people. It’s TOO FAR. So are each and every one of these things.

Bacon Lube

*They* say everything should taste like bacon. *I* say there are some things that taste bad enough. {Bacon Lube Website}

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

I hate cupcakes.

There, I said it. Saying this here is akin to walking into a crowded Roman street and shouting, “Jehovah!” but I had to take a stand. I. Hate. Cupcakes. Tell me where to hand over my mom-blogger card.

You see, the frosting-to-cake ratio is all wrong, unless you scrape half the frosting off with your finger, rip your cupcake in half, and shove the frosting in there – but science has proven that as soon as you get a finger-full of cupcake frosting, it is going in your face, and you are helpless to stop this. Then all you’re left with is this sad little dry bit of cake that was really nothing more than an Overthought Frosting Delivery System, and that makes you question why you even bought it in the first place, and then you start to question everything in your life, and next thing you know you’ve moved to Canada and stopped shaving and smell like New York in August and your mother is crying and I’m telling you, cupcakes are the enemy.

About a year ago on my personal blog, I posted a picture of my feet on a scale that read more than it did when I had a 40 week old human being swimming inside of my abdomen. I posted that picture in one of those “if I just put it out there” moments, like people do when they try to quit smoking again or decide to stop blogging, and we all know how well that works out.

I’m not willing to say how many more pounds that that I weigh now, and that’s minus one uterus.

So I’m not eating carbs, again, which is harder than it sounds because I make the best mashed potatoes on earth. (I have been proven guilty of this, beyond a shadow of a doubt, by a jury of my peers.) I made some tonight and managed to not eat even one bite of them, and it almost killed me, but I just ate more salad and cried a little bit to myself and the craving passed.

Seriously, quitting smoking wasn’t this hard.

When I was a child, my father lived in an apartment directly between my house and my brothers’ day care provider. He was a single man in his mid-thirties, working at a tech company with a two bedroom bachelor pad, a Beta deck, not-entirely-orange furniture, and six children between the ages of 13 and one. Six children, mind you, who would all descend on his apartment like a plague of hormonal locusts every other Friday night, consuming every natural, unnatural, and Nintendo-based resource in our path.

Children, like bees, can smell fear.

When you are a bachelor with six children from two different mothers who are all expecting you to feed and entertain them four nights per month, there are a few questions you need to ask yourself, like, “Why didn’t they invent condoms before the 80′s?” and, maybe more importantly, “How am I going to appease six children who’s names I can’t even keep straight all by myself and live to tell the tale?”

Shredding cheese, that’s how.

We haven’t had a working microwave in six months. Yes, we are okay, and no, we don’t need you to send any help.

I realize that there is an entire crop of parents out there who have never lived in a world where a microwave didn’t exist, and that realization makes me start pricing out power chairs and Geritol. However, being ancient enough to come from a time before magic boxes that cook things and/or manage your satanic pest problem, I resisted owning a microwave for many years. I also had absolute disdain for dishwashers.

I have trust issues. Basic household appliances are not exempt.

Maybe it was because I stayed home with my kids for so many years that I always dreamed of having a job that would allow me to travel for work.

This year, I learned the meaning of the phrase, “be careful what you wish for.”

I took a freelance job with Busy Dad that had me on the road at least once every month in 2011. Over the course of 12 months, I got really super good at going through airport security, knocked a few items of the ol’ life list, and ate some amazing food. My twelve most memorable meals of 2011 are after the jump.

{Every week on my personal blog, I write a food post. I kind of thought that having a blog called Cucumbersome and not putting food posts on it was the most disgusting sort of waste, so I’m trying it on for size.}

Shrimp Scampi is just like every boyfriend I’ve ever had.

I’ve tried a lot of different ones, and not one was ever quite right, not a single one ever totally *did it* for me quite the way I’d hoped for, but I always feel like there’s some untapped potential going on under the surface so I keep coming back for more.

I am a glutton for greasy, tart, wine-soaked punishment.

But like they say…you want something done right, you really ought just do it yourself. To get it right, it turns out all I had to do was take matters into my own hands.Yes, we are still talking about pasta.

A few months ago, my full-time client decided that my job was so crucial to the company that they should hire someone permanently to do it. Someone in California. I’m in Texas, and that’s a heck of a commute for anyone, so overnight, we lost half of our monthly income.

It’s not personal, it’s business aside: Look really hard at your freelance contracts, and make sure you have a severance clause written in for full-time freelance work. Learn from my mistakes, people.

I’m still out of work, like everyone seems to be right now, and so as a family we’ve had to cut costs every single place we can. Places like my bangs. Trust me, that picture hurst me as much as it hurts you, but it had to be done.

And my hair looks *totally* cute now. That’s kind of the point of this post…a lot of things I was afraid to trim off the budget turned out to be things I don’t really even miss, now that they’re gone. And so, here are five nearly painless places I probably should have cut my budget back a long time ago.

Legal disclaimer aside: Neither Babble, nor this blogger, endorse the *trimming* of one’s own bangs. Some things in life should just be left to the professionals.

My son came home from school today, lamenting that a four page essay on his favorite room in the house was due tomorrow. I probably should have had a few words for him about putting assignments off to the last minute, or learning better organization skills, but I honestly didn’t hear much after “essay”.

Four page essay. Giggety.

We wrote together for five hours, outlining a story, crafting a tale, spinning a web of parallel structures and asymmetrical adjectives. In the end, we had the best four page essay that’s probably ever crossed that grade six teacher’s desk, and I am totally okay with the fact that it would have only been half as good had I not helped him.

Most people’s memories of holiday dinners involve sitting at a kids’ table, dry white meat and a drunk relative. I have none of that. My one and only memory of holiday meals involves a few strangers at my front door with a brown paper bag.

And they pretty much changed my life.

We didn’t celebrate holidays growing up for religious reasons, but we also didn’t do a lot of other things, like have a working parent in the house, or have any income aside from government assistance, or eat on a regular basis.

The thing with being raised the way I was – under the thumb of a controlling, overbearing, fundamentalist religion – is that they teach you to be thankful for every little thing you have, because most of us had so little. Every night, I would lay in my bed and thank god for my many blessings, while my stomach grumbled and I wore my brother’s handed down underwear. We rejected the outside world, and for the most part, they rejected us back…until the night when I was able to give thanks for the kindness of strangers.