You should totally write a blog, they said.

It'll be easy, they said.

Firsts are tough. I'm going to make this one as easy as possible. My first blog post after what was not my first glass of wine of the evening. Thank you to my friends for setting this up. Thank you for yelling at me to write. Thank you to my youngest child who wrote her name on the bathroom wall, on my most favorite wallpaper that I have ever seen, in ballpoint pen while sitting on the toilet: now I have something to write about!

Living with this 4-year old is like living with Banksy. She tags everything: furniture, walls, bedding, the dog. I'm not making that up: she has written on the dog-- in marker--on more than one occasion. Today, when I saw the writing on the wall--not an idiom--I was pissed. Yelling pissed. "LUUUUUUCY!" pissed. We were expecting guests any moment for dinner and there it was, Bansky strikes again.

Then I heard my Mom laughing. That calmed me down. Made me pause, take a breath. My Mom passed away from Alzheimer's Disease three years ago today. I hate this day because it makes me so sad. The week leading up to it makes me weepy, grouchy, depressed. I miss her so much. But today, I heard her laugh as I was screaming my daughter's name in the bathroom, so loudly it caused my husband to come running.

It took me a minute to realize what I was hearing. I didn't think it was funny at all, who the hell would laugh at this? My Mom would.

"You've finally met your match," was what her laughter meant to me. "Relax, it's not a big deal. Slow down. It's wallpaper. Who cares?"

She's right. She's still right and she's not even here anymore, how is that possible? Maybe it's the wine, maybe it's the good friends who were over tonight setting up this blog, or the good food and conversation, but hey. I can't believe I screamed over someone writing their name on my wallpaper. What's the big deal? It's just a blog. It's just my first post. It's just wallpaper.