I've been told that I should blog. I apparently have many opinions and provide others with much entertainment Not sure if that's meant in a good way or not! So, here we are... Life in the Shades of Orange universe. Shades of Orange you say, why such a title? Well... orange happens to be my favorite color, but then as life would have it... I have a kid with an anaphylactic allergy to Annatto - a natural colorant that changes cheese (among many (oh so many) other things) from white to orange. So, rather than have his face swell up and the traumatic (for me) administering of epi-pens... we pretty much eat nothing orange any more. Except for Doritos and Cheetos - as they are artificially colored. Who'd have thought that 'all natural and organic' girl would suddenly be happy when she saw the word artificial! My kid may end up with an extra limb... but he'll be alive! Anyways... Annatto can also be the slight tinge of yellow in vanilla ice cream and butter or for a full on red (though Paprika is more commonly used for that). There you have it... Shades of Orange (you know... yellow<-orange->red... get it yet?). Thankfully I love to cook - which makes our house much, much safer! Apparently, this allergy has also made me an incredibly bevy of information regarding the crap that is put in the foods we buy and how to look up ingredients online. My husband wants me to write an app for the ingredients thing. I think he believes in my ability to prosper a tad to much. He's the dreamer, leader and entrepreneur I'm the little worker bee that prefers someone else be in charge! I had my stint in management and loved the mentoring side of it - hated the politics of it. Office politics suck. Political conversations about our government/candidates engage me. Hmm...
So... for the intros... I've already established that I'm a mom who likes orange but can't eat it (except orange peppers (the bell variety not the habanero kind (although they are awfully cute) anymore - I was a spice aficionado in my youth (even had that awesomely cool poster of various kinds of chili peppers with spice rating) - as a mature adult... spice and zantac are always together)); I'm a mid-level worker bee (in the IT industry); I'm apparently very fond of run-on sentences (bite me you grammar police); I'm incredibly Type-A and my heroes are the likes of intelligence or rants - think Einstein meets Dennis Miller and Dennis Leary. Yeah... I know... they really shouldn't go together in the same sentence; and I'm HORRIBLE at phrases (had the nickname Ace for years because I replaced 'my' for 'the' in the phrase Ace in THE hole). For some period of time (during my haitus from the IT world to be a stay-at-home mom (sort of... I took part-time tele-commuting programming jobs a good portion of the time)), I wrote a local 'family friendly events' column for Examiner - but then I realized that making pennies wasn't worth it and it wasn't going to get me a career at a newspaper or in a Social Media or Blogging gig... so I got a real job, back in the IT world, and now punch a clock again. What else... I love to read and I love words - my favorite books, in fact, are the dictionary and thesaurus. 'nuf about me though... let's meet the family...
In the left corner, weighing in at... no, no, no. My husband is in no way a fighter. He has told me (and anyone who will listen (and watch) his (gregarious) storytelling, the story that he was once in a bar fight with friends in which they pre-decided who had what guy. My dh ('dear husband' for you internet challenged folk) took his guy to the bar for a beer while everyone else duked it out! So, I think we will call him Mr. Happy (yes... yes... I am totally stealing from the Roger Hargreaves book series!). I suppose I could have picked Mr. Perfect, but then we'd have to deal with his Mr. Ego other self. So, Mr. Happy is a higher level sales/marketing guy for a vaccine company. NO... I will not tell you which vaccine company. He's athletic, sometimes in an obsessive way, having competed in triathlons and now avidly playing lacrosse while still cross-training (but not competing). He loves to do things for our kids - he coaches their sports teams (football, basketball, lacrosse), is a Cubscout Master and volunteers for Boy Scout outings. He also loves to torture them with his love of outdoors and sports by regularly making our weekends active and full (the man can not rest... he absolutely, positively has to be doing something always - me, notsomuch... the kids and I are more than happy to plop in front of the tube and watch something stupid!). He eternally believes in positivism (glass half full... ugh...) and even has stupid voicemail messages like 'Smile and you will make someone else smile'. Gag! Makes me wanna punch him right in the grinning... no, not really - that would come across like I support domestic violence. And I don't. Mr. Happy is awesome (when he's not annoyingly happy), intelligent, funny (in a goofy way and sometimes annoying ham-like way), good around the house and sexy. Simply put, a keeper - so... you can't have him!
Our oldest, Little Miss Sassy Pants (yes... I know that isn't really a Little Miss book, but she fits the title so I'm keeping it!), is technically my step-daughter (Ack! That would make me the evil step-mother... a fact that her real mom has tried to manufacture for years but keeps failing at... epic-ly). I met Mr. Happy and Little Miss Sassy Pants when she was two and from the very beginning we just connected. She's now a teen and in high school and I think we are even better now than we were when she was little. That, or she has me very snowed! Seriously though, she is amazing and made me believe that I was a really, really good parent (then her brother's came along and all illusions have been destroyed) because of how amazing she is. She's also beautiful - inside and out. Just like the Bruno Mars song - she's perfect just the way she is.
4 years younger than Little Miss Sassy Pants, Mr. Chatterbox came along and dominated our world. We used to fight about who's baby he was - mine or Little Miss Sassy Pants. He's hyper and witty and funny talented. He's our middle-child and a middle-schooler, but never middle of the road. Much like his mama (that'd be me) he is one extreme or another. He's a groovy saxaphone player, a runner and an xc skier and has played lacrosse since first grade (I blame him for Mr. Happy's current monetary and time obsession). He's my mini-me, which is really cool but also at times incredibly frustrating as we can be the best of friends or worst of enemies. Fortunately Mr. Happy's around for tag-team parenting when Mr. Chatterbox and I start to verbally spar! Recently he introduced me as a freak (because I like comic books) and a geek (because I work in computers). Nice, eh? He is definitely the child that is going to break me... but I look forward to every single moment of it!
And then came Mr. Cheerful. He's smarter than the rest of us (and we are afraid, very very afraid), incredibly articulate and a total charmer (a chip of the old man's block) - he is Mr. Happy's mini-me. He's the kid with the allergy (ironic that Mr. Cheerful is orange, is it not?) and the most mature of us all in handling it (mama's a wreck... Mr. Cheerful's got it all under control). He's finding his way in the world trying to not be compared to his sister or his brother. He is still at the elementary, but not for long. He plays football, basketball and lacrosse. He's still my cuddle-bug, but won't admit it to anyone. He is a thinker, and when he speaks you know that it's been well-thought out and deliberate in his approach. He is incredibly empathetic and reminds us to be civil and loving when the rest of us are acting poorly. Which we are, acting poorly, often - we are a family of talkers, and interrupters, and sometimes quite obnoxious.
While he hasn't ever lived with us, I can't introduce the family without introducing Mr. Cool (yes... I know blue is not a shade of orange, but just run with it, okay? Brown would have been just too drab for Mr. Cool!). He's my adult step-son who I also claim as mine. Thankfully his real mom thinks that's a good thing. I totally adore and love his real mom and think that if I'm even a fraction like her then I'm in a good place. Mr. Cool hangs out with us about once a month - he's clear on the other side of the metro and in his early 20's - so he's busy being 20-something which translates to working then hanging out and being cool with his friends. We love when he hangs out with us and have come to figure out what bait to dangle to peak his interest - boating, camping, disc golf playing, bonfires and seems to be okay with board game nights too. And... he appears to love my cooking. Either that or he's figured out how to dangle bait in front of me too! *grin*
And there we have it... welcome to Shades of Orange. Don't expect anything spectacular... I'll focus on allergies, our lives in a blender (get it... blended family - lives in a blender?), ranting about this then ranting about that and then some more ranting! Mostly this will just be a place to share more about our lives with our extended family because they just don't get enough of it on Facebook. Enjoy!
