I Love Oversharing

I'll admit it.

Summer's gotten the best of me.  

By that I don't mean I am lounging by the pool immersed in a hilarious book like Paige Kellerman's At Least My Belly Hides My Cankles.  

Nor do I mean I'm sitting on a park bench reading the kick ass anthology, featuring some of the funniest mom bloggers in the business, I Just Want to Pee Alone.

And no, I'm not sipping a glass of Viognier finally catching up on the dozens of New Yorker issues that I have been hoarding with the best of intentions. 

I have my two kids, aged 3 and 4.5, at home with me three full days a week, and I swear they are trying to kill me.  By 11 a.m. I am considering giving someone a horse tranquilizer.  When they refuse to nap I start thinking about booking myself a one-way ticket to Papua New Guinea.  And by bedtime, which has more in common with a biker bar brawl than a peaceful childhood ritual, I'm ready to climb into a barrel of gin. 

I know some of you do this every day all year round, and are now rolling your eyes so hard you're actually burning calories.  

But it's all what you're used to, you know? 

Anyway, I'm not teaching very much this summer, and I am WAY better when I work. I teach dance part-time and somehow that little bit of framework outlines all the supposed to's for me.  

It tells me when I'm supposed to plan classes. Write. Do social media stuff.  Be with the kids, cook, shop, and socialize.  And when I get to hang out with Hubby.  It feels like a disciplined person going into a grocery store with a carefully planned list.

Now all this unstructured time makes me feel like I can't make toast and somehow landed as a contestant on Top Chef.  I spend eons trying to figure out what to do, and come up with some slop that would be rejected by a whole colony of subway rats.   

I can't get anything done.

So there, you have it.  My big share of why lately, this blog has been as busy as a bikini shop in Antarctica.  

Since Mom's New Stage has been rather empty, I'm only too happy to share the work of my blogging buds who have been serving up the awesome.  

As a blogger, you can never overshare.  

Here goes...

1.  Johi of Confessions of a Corn Fed Girl and I both do a Friday interview series and decided to interview each other.  Johi's piece, "What You Mock, You Become"  in IJWTPA, was one of those that I read and wondered how this woman had stolen my soul.  Johi is a hoot, and I credit her with giving me permission to tell the world that George Constanza is my soul mate. I only wish I'd been more wine-fueled when I wrote up her questions.

2.  Ever felt when you talk to your kids you sound less like something from a time-honored parenting book, and more like the bitchy girls' table in the middle school cafteria?  No?  Well then, please take your perfect self and go hunting with Dick Cheney.  If you're like me, i.e., not that parenting superhero, Nicole Leigh Shaw's post on passive-aggressive parenting will make you feel way less alone.

3. Kerry of House TalkN is up to amazing things, including the That's What She Said Tour.  Actually it's not a tour yet, but it will be.  If you don't know this blogger you need to sidle on up to her STAT.  Her post about doing the "crazy mom walk" over to her daughter and then having to check herself and correct herself is a treat for the imagination (you know that walk), the soul and the eyes.  

4. Inspired by July 4th festivities, Frugie of The Frugalista Blog wrote a thoughtful and honest piece about our country.  If you like big ol' heaps of jingoism on your American pie, this post isn't for you.  Actually, I take that back.  It is PRECISELY for you.

5.   The 2013 BlogHer Voices of the Year have been announced.  I was not one of them and spent a sad evening being Grumpalicious with my family and crying into my G&T.  C'est la vie.  I am thrilled for the winners, which include some bloggers who should be ruling the world by now.  If you are looking for some more knock-your-socks off blogs to read, start following some of these babies.  

And don't forget to like, follow, pin, stalk, show up on the doorstep of, and promise your next-born child to the bloggers I mentioned!  

I'm totally kidding.  

They probably don't need any more children.