Dumb Mom’s Guide. Best Book Club for Moms.

And, no, it’s not Oprah’s.

It’s mine! 

I started my very own online book club (scroll down when you click the link to SIGN UP)!  For awesome people who like to read books that probably won’t change your life, stretch your brain, or make you cry.

Books that are pretty much just like this blog, only with more magic and kissing.

Think Twilight and other YA paranormal type books, with a little non-vampire-y, contemporary romance thrown in.  And the occasional non-fiction parenting book tossed around when I’m inspired to seek real life direction because The Dudes are being particularly annoying to me and those around us.

But it’s mostly about connecting over books.  And getting to “hang out together” even though we can’t actually hang out together.

Maybe we’ll come up with a hot name (like, um, The Book Dummies, eh?  Eh?).  And then, we can fight the other book clubs (which you can only join if you also agree to stick with me).  Or have read offs.  Or, um, something gangster like that.

I know, I know, you don’t have time to read.  I really sorta don’t either, because instead of reading I could be sleeping or, um, sleeping.

Because I never get to enjoy a full night of uninterrupted sleep.  Because someone is always crying, or barfing, or knocking on my forehead and then climbing in my bed and donkey kicking my kidneys all night.

I get it. 

Clearly, I get it.

But, a book club led by yours truly will be worth it, and almost as much fun as sleeping.

I seriously don’t even know who I am anymore.

How old am I that sleeping is one of my most favorite things to do?  That I can only think of like 2 things I’d rather be doing than sleeping (eating cupcakes and, um, okay I can only think of one thing I’d rather be doing than sleeping), and it makes me sound fat?

Lame.

But, my book club will NOT be lame.

It will be fun, and awesome, and thought provoking.  Okay, probably not that last one, but I’ve got fun and awesome covered for sure!

I know, you still think you don’t have time.  But, I say you do.  We can go ahead and agree to disagree as long as in the end, you see that I’m right!

Dumb Mom’s Guide to Finding Time to Read: 5 Time Saving Tips to Make You Happier Because You Can Devote Time to Reading with Me

1.  Teach your kids the fine art of pretend.  When I was about 4 years old, I told my mother that I really badly wanted a sibling.  She got me a demon cat that tried to rip my face off instead.  When we all realized that it was a total fail and took the little punk guy back to the shelter we’d bailed it out of, she decided to sit me down and teach me how to play pretend.  So I’d stop bugging her to play with me.  And get off her case about her inability to conceive a human baby.  Thanks to her, I can still entertain myself quite satisfactorily.  Teach your kids to do this and they will stop hounding you to play with them all day, leaving you time to sit on the couch and grunt and nod when they show you what they did with Ralph, their cape wearing, pretend human-dinosaur-leopard friend.

2.  Stop cleaning your house so hard.  No one appreciates it anyway, right?  And it gets messy again just 2 seconds after you put the Pledge and Mr. Clean away.  So, make it easier on yourself.  Once at bad camp I was watching some random show about some random mom with a ridiculously high number of small children.  She said she had daily chores that she assigned herself and she really didn’t deviate much from that.  So, for example, she’d say Monday is sweep, mop, and bathroom day.  And Tuesday is maybe vacuum, dust, and sheet change day.  That way she never got overwhelmed, she never missed a chore, and everything stayed relatively clean.  Good idea, right?!  So I modified it to fit my needs.  Monday: make kids sweep, don’t even think about mopping, and close the bathroom door so it goes away day.  Tuesday pretty much the same.  Either way you go, you have more time to join my book club and get your read on.

3.  Menu plan.  For me, this is the only way I will even cook.  Because if I didn’t plan it and prep it in advance, my family would seriously wind up eating frozen pizza and quesadillas every night of the week; two things that are fast, easy, and known crowd pleasers around here.  Knowing what I’m going to cook in advance saves time, money, and worry, plus it makes it virtually impossible for my kids to complain about what we’re having because they know that they either accept what I make, or eat the can of lima beans we have stored in the pantry in case of disaster.  The entire county could blow up and I doubt they’d even eat those lima beans then, so I pretty much always win this one.

4.  Get a good hiding place.  As The Dudes age they are getting wise to this one.  Which doesn’t mean I’ve given up, it just means that I have increased my number of hiding places in order to keep them guessing.  At this point they know the location of about 90% of them, but it still takes them a while to find me.  Which is perfect because, usually, by the time they actually do, I’ve polished off a chapter and cupcake and am refreshed and ready to reenter the chaos. 

5.  Just join the discussion group.  It’s like the awesome version of Cliff’s Notes (remember those?!) because there will be interesting discussion topics, and spoilers, and character analysis in the form of trash talking the annoying things our favorite fiction friends do in their totally unreal lives.  Everything you’ve never wanted in a book club, but are excited to find right there at your finger tips.  It’s like the Jersey Shore of book clubs and I get to be J-Wow!  So, maybe you can’t read this week’s selection because every living creature in your home was barfing on you or because you’re on vacation and, as every mom knows, you have absolutely no time to read and relax because you’re too busy attending to the constant entertainment of your husband and children.  No big deal.  Come over to the parenting BY dummies discussion group, tell us about your barfing family and your covered in sand children, and then weigh in on whether you enjoy sparkly or non-sparkly vamps best!  Just like in high school, actually reading the book is optional.

Convinced?  Be sure to pop over to the discussion group and tell me I’m pretty introduce yourself to the group!

*Please note, replacing reading of my blog with the reading of my book club selection is not on option.  Always choose the blog first, always!