Author Archives: alexis

by Alexis Novak

Last Christmas, I swore I would be in a larger house by the next holiday season or I would stab out my eyes. Well it’s Thanksgiving next week and here I am searching my clogged garage for those damned knotted-up Christmas lights. My now family of four in 1440 square feet with our belongings bursting out of the windows is my definition of cluttered chaotic hell. Objects jump out and smack you in the face when you try to open any cabinet door. I can’t even mutter the words closet space without tearing up. Even my dog Max is becoming claustrophobic.

But In 2005 when I moved into my circa 1930 bungalow that I called “My Old Lady” I was smitten. She charmed me with her history. I wrote this about her:

“She stands a strong and noble ship, an almost-antique lady with curvy arches and a spunky spirit. How did the former owners paint her that flat blue-gray? To me, she yearns to sing and dance in greens or even red. She peaks out from behind the massive oak and calls ‘Hello’ from the street, in a southern tone that invites you in for tea- an offer my husband and I couldn’t refuse. She teaches us her moods and her how’s. How much plastic surgery will she take to achieve the perfect balance of history and modernity, all the while still respecting her beautiful bones.”

Now My Old Lady just pisses me off. Today my sentiment would sound more like this:

Dear Old Lady,

We tried to give you a facelift and make you pretty but you are set in your elderly, archaic ways that we no longer find charming. Older people need way more upkeep than we bargained for. Their bones break and they spring terrible surprises on you. As they age it keeps getting worse…everything malfunctions. Our modern needs cannot be met. You are stubborn! It is never enough for you! Please hang on a little longer though so we can find you a more suitable caregiver.

Fondly,

The Novaks

I know that’s cruel and not entirely fair to My Old Lady. We are to blame for our current state of house bloat too. We dramatically underestimated the illusive kid factor. Somehow small people have a magical power of shrinking square footage to an extent that defies all logic. We planned on starting a family in this house. We planned on all the accompanying baby gear that Babies R’ Us told me we had to register for or else face parenthood ill-prepared. Still the kid stuff has beaten up my frail house. This was not the plan. Every room looks like a playroom, something I’ve always detested. Of course this makes my small house feel even smaller.

There is a real art to living happily in small spaces that I am still studying up on. Some methods that I have gleaned from smarter neighbors similarly-situated- purging and editing your belongings often, not buying too much superfluous crap, and not birthing throngs of children.

But, it is Thanksgiving, so in that spirit I will quit my bitching and serve a little gratitude about my so-called messy and cramped life.

We are living (insert big yawn here) within our means. While we dream big, we live small- a lifestyle that only financial people like my husband and Suze Orman can appreciate. It isn’t sexy but we are debt-free. We won’t foreclose, short sell, or float two mortgages until bankruptcy like many people did. My children have decent college funds. We will not move up in square footage until we sell our current house. Sigh. We can sleep at night.

For now, I will care for My Old Lady and try to remember what it was that I loved about her in the first place. (It is difficult to do this while the children are running over my toes with their doll strollers). That is when I can retreat to my daydream about my future rewards of delaying instant gratification, like an organized, delicious, walk-in closet worthy of Carrie Bradshaw. One day. Soon.

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by Alexis Novak

I once had a college boyfriend who fancied himself a fashion stylist. Going through my cluttered closet he eyeballed my vast sweater collection and scolded, “Don’t buy another cream sweater….ever.” I laughed because I knew in that moment that I would never get serious with a man that told me how to shop. I also had to admit that I had a problem. I was dressing the wrong co-ed. I had been shopping for a girl that lived in upstate New York, not one that lived in steamy Florida like me.

Fashion’s call of drama and escapism has always been hard for me to ignore. My mom was a model and frustrated fashion design student herself so clothes, magazines and fashion talk colored my childhood. In my twenties, I never let my boring financial realities hold me back from my wild clothes-horse imagination and had the credit card debt to prove it. Through outfits I was creating! And it was costly.

Today, I stand in front of my closet, staring at the carnage of my younger selves I shopped for once upon a time. In full fashion identity crisis mode, I fondly remember those old friends.

There was my English teacher self- all Ann Taylor Loft skirts and knit tops with matching knit boleros. Kind of conservative but lots of color and chunky jewelry punched up the fun a little. I wore so much brown in those years that I have sworn it off since.

Then there is the evidence of the Atkins Addict I become at 27. She wore all the designer denim when it started getting really expensive and the back pockets told people how cool you were. She also loved anything BCBG, stilettos and leather hobo bags with fringe five times the size of her head.

There is also a vintage gal in the mix from shopping thrifts since high school. Dresses from the 40’s in gem stone colors with waists tinier than we can imagine girls ever fitting into. Lucite purses and bangles, peep toe shoes, swing jackets, vintage fur! I once shopped a Miami thrift hours after Madonna’s stylist cleaned them out of vintage Pucci. Vintage is my fashion porn.

I can’t leave out the Pregnasaurus of the last three years, less about porn and more about camouflaging new body changes that could only be described as shocking. Mostly stretch cotton Gap and Old Navy, but some gifted Pea in the Pod.

And of course I still own a ginormous sweater collection just in case I ever move to Vermont.

After I reminisce with the old gals, I am left wondering who the hell I am today and what does she want to wear? I can only answer chic and comfortable without tragically trying to look forever 21. The problem is that “Mommy Chic” clothes do not exist as far as my shopping eye can see. On the continuum from Frumpedinka to Fashionista, I fall on the Fashionista side but haven’t hammered out the new mom details just yet. My fun is in the reinventing. And inventing. And reinventing.

I am sure my college ex would criticize my current assortment of rarely-used camel, cream, off-white and white cardigans. What he didn’t understand was that I never dressed for him. The fantasy has always been just for me.

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by Alexis Novak

You know how it is smart to avoid politics and religion discussions when in mixed company? I would like to add minivans to the don’t-even-go-there list. In the last year I’ve discovered how vehemently parents feel on both sides of the minivan debate. Since when did the choice to minivan or not to minivan become a debate anyway?

As I currently research my next vehicle purchase, I am getting a lot of push-back from my husband when I’ve confessed my minivan yearnings. My brother attempted to translate. He explained to me that to men a minivan equates to the “death of youth”. My cousin’s husband’s concurs and his motto is that driving a mom mobile means “you’ve completely given up on yourself”.  As my lease runs out on my Jeep in 30 days, my husband is furiously searching the internet for an SUV or crossover that can do all that a minivan can on the inside and not look like one on the outside. I wished him luck! I had already come to the conclusion that a decent alternative doesn’t exist unless you want to drive a living-room sized SUV and break your back lifting the kids up, in and out of it.

I can’t help but think all this anit-minivanism stems from the Toyota Sienna’s commercials.

Toyota’s marketing of the Sienna, a.k.a., “swagger wagon”, has attempted to sell that “parents driving minivans are actually pretty cool”, or looking a little deeper they say, “we know minivans aren’t really cool but our keen sense of humor wasn’t destroyed by the children and we still know how to laugh at ourselves”. (I can agree with the latter.) I think these ads back-fired and left some parents saying, shut up Toyota, they are not cool no matter how hard we are laughing at the ads of parents rapping in front of their pimped-out Sienna. They polarized the parenting set.

But a minivan is a minivan is a minivan, right? There must be something more as two dear friends of mine admitted they both cried the day they bought theirs home. For me, driving a mom mobile doesn’t attack my dwindling coolness since my self-proclaimed coolness these days is most directly connected to being a mom. Are minivans sexy? No. Practical and safe? Hell yes. For the current phase in my life, the practical wins out.

Am I a tad worried that my minivan will make my butt look big? Of course. But then there is the IPod doc, the DVD player, the remote controlled doors, and the seven different seat formations to alleviate my concern. I could also crank Notorious B.I.G. with the windows down and cruise my ‘hood on the days I am feeling more soccer-mom than hipster.

I am no Women’s Studies major but I believe men hate swagger wagons because a minivan is like a giant womb on wheels and we all know how they feel about being called a vajayjay. The delicious irony is that they are not the primary drivers of the metal, 6,000-pound womb. The moms are. So the mom vote, and in this house, mine, should count twice. No womb left behind.

Next month, look for me driving a black minivan around with orange flames licking up the sides. I find it cool to embrace my current reality. The sexy red corvette will just have to wait.

*EDITOR’S NOTE*  Are you a hot minivan mama?  H&H would like to feature you!  Send in a photo of you and your van with the answers to these questions to lea@hotandhealthymom.com:

1. Your name and of course, your minivan’s name and year of conversion

2. The funniest or most surprising item found in your minivan?

3. If money weren’t an issue, what’s your dream car?

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by Alexis Novak

When my husband I were first married we had very specific video selection rules for each other at Blockbuster on Saturday nights.

Me, the blushing bride: “If the picture on the front has a sweaty man holding a gun, forget it.”

My Dear Husband: “If the picture on the front has three women in the Tuscan countryside holding wine glasses, forget it.”

That meant war so I vetoed all gambling, mob and war movies. He vetoed all menopausal chick flicks wherein the Diane Keaton-playing protagonist rediscovers how amazingly awesome she is, that she doesn’t need men to be happy, and then magically becomes a famous shoe designer. I nixed gratuitous violence and basketball movies. He retaliated by nixing Drew Barrymore from our house altogether. I barred bank robbery hijinks movies, old and new, even if that meant I had to sacrifice Clive Owen. We agreed somewhere over a bit of Tarantino, some Oliver Stone, weird indie flicks and a few foreign films. Sometimes he thought he was slick by trying to sell me on all the Oceans movies because of the Brad Pitt clause and The Bourne movies as he said there was a hidden love story underneath all the action. Sure, honey.

Today as parents, we’ve cast an even wider exclusionary net.

As the dad of two young daughters he is sickened now more than ever by “Dateline”, anything with domestic violence, kids being abducted, general violence towards woman and children. He doesn’t even want the news on as background noise. It does feel like Amber Alerts are a daily occurrence, but I actually want to watch How to Catch a Perve to glean tips on what not to do.

As a mom, I am now completely over dystopian, apocalyptical flicks which include but are not limited to: aliens taking over the world; a meteor heading for earth to kill us all; the food supply is gone from a cataclysmic hurricane/tornado/tsunami and we have to eat each other; a deadly viral outbreak that only Tom Cruise can save us all from; and, the entire population has turned into blood thirsty zombies who are all after one renegade pregnant lady who doesn’t know she is carrying the next Dalai Lama. I guess all that anxiety-for-fun movie watching is not what I need anymore. Being the protector of two small children has made me painfully anxious and aware of the frailty of our existence, thank you very much.

So what is left? Sometimes I can sweet talk him into “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”, “Good Will Hunting”, “500 Days of Summer”, “Reality Bites”. But it’s rare. He wants action. I want character-driven plot, perfectly-pitched dialogue and a good cry. He wants to be wowed. I want to feel. We can agree on “Almost Famous”, “Little Miss Sunshine”, anything with the brilliant Natalie Portman, and “Fight Club” (the bloody violence in the fight sequences are cancelled out by Brad’s ripped nakedness).

Thankfully, we never have these arguments anymore since we have zero spare time to movie watch. On our rare and precious date nights, we want to actually talk. Check in. Reconnect. How are you…really? How are we? We prefer talking over sitting next to each other in a dark theatre watching a crappy movie any day. And we always agree on that.

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