It's not mom jeans but it's not good either

photo from here

The worst thing about not working? My outfits, hands down. Now that I'm an urban farming co-op mom who doesn't work outside the home, things have really taken a nose dive in the fashion department.

It's a small price to pay for my freedom, and I hate to get too cliche about how much chicks love shoes but, well, I sort of love shoes a whole lot, and at this particular moment my life really only calls for shoes I don't mind getting spattered with poster paint or filled with sand.

Even looking at clothes has lost its luster. I'm like a depressed person trying to muster the will to get out of the house. What's the point? I think as I pass racks of really cute, black Japanese-y tunics and big ol' Beyonce earrings that would normally have me filled with a rekindled will to live.

I have recently been inspired by a bunch of the preschool moms who manage to pull off these cute yoga wrap/clogs/jeans ensembles, but then I remember the pendulous muffin top that I am working with these days and my fashion slump comes back.

What I need is a uniform. It must involve black Dansko clogs because in a fit of wanting to fit in, I bought a pair. All suggestions welcome. Photos especially appreciated.

Sometimes Beyonce is better than Motherhood, but maybe a Backyard Shed would change all that

Well, I'm glad that's over.  Nothing left but the endless presents with no place to go, the extra five pounds, and the trails of glitter left by Maggie's fabulous new shoes. Christmas, for me, was sort of a drag.  Too much obligation and wrapping.  Too many runny noses and schlepping from here to there. I like my regular old over-scheduled life better. 

As I write this my kids are using their new Christmas scissors (favorite presents: Elmer's glue and scissors) to chop up the New York Times Style section.  Before I was ignoring them to write my blog, I was ignoring them to read said section.  Not ignoring them totally.  I would look up occasionally and comment in the saccharine-laced voice of disinterested parents everywhere on their stellar Mr. Potato heading and marvelous tea party preparations. But really, I was hidden behind an article about style makeovers for 2009.  

And here's what I wonder.  Am I the only one?  Is it possible that I am the only mother around who is sometimes just straight up bored with playing with her kids (although not to level of this woman, tut, tut!)?  There must be others like me, other grown women with little tolerance for the endless making of make-believe cookies and Playdough snakes.  

I once had a friend who sniffed with disdain at those mothers who listened to their ipods while jogging with their strollered infants. "I mean, what better music could there be than the cooing of your own baby?" she asked with great scorn.  Of course, this was back before either of us had kids.  But even then I suspected she was off, that as delightful and wonderful as they are, kids would get a little tedious.  Even their musical cooing would not always trump a great novel, or an episode of The Wire, or even the new single by Beyonce.  

A thing I like

The Mister gave me Stylish Sheds and Elegant Hideaways for Christmas (here's the Shed Style website).  What would you do with a backyard shed of your own?  I'd like to say I'd finish my novel and learn to read music, but really I'd probably nap and stare out the window. All I know is that as lovely as a nice George Clooney fantasy can be, it doesn't hold a candle to a good shed-of-one's-own fantasy.  I want one of these from Modern Cabana.