Have a crazy family? Is life loud and out of control? Stacey Gustafson makes all that feel normal in her new book Are You Kidding Me? My Life With an Extremely Loud Family, Bathroom Calamities, and Crazy Relatives.
It’s a great read for moms, grandmoms, middle-aged men, newlyweds, and everyone in between.
Her humor should be a currency, because we’d all be richer. There’s a laugh with every turn of a page. So get prepared with a big box of Kleenex!
I’m highly recommending this book. Here’s why:
The collection of stories found in Are You Kidding Me? are honest and easy to relate to. My favorite was “Would It Kill Ya” which vividly captures a typically mom conundrum–getting the family to help out around the house or lift a finger to pick something up. As Stacey says, “My expectations for my family are simple.
Would it kill anyone to place scissors back in the drawer after using them? Put their shoes in the correct spot? Hang up a jacket?
Be on time? Am I asking too much?” Around here, my expectations are a little on the clean-as-the-Oval-Office-side.
I have OCD and while I don’t mind the kids playing with toys and stuff cluttered about throughout the day, I do not appreciate gunk built-up on the counters like a corner fast food joint or laziness in the form of throwing laundry down from the second floor to the first floor in hopes that the Laundry Fairy is flying by at that precise moment and willing to catch and deliver the dirty underwear to the mythical washer.
I also immediately fell in love with “Hair Gone Wild.”
I’m a child of the 1970s and a teen of the 1980s. If you’re not familiar with these eras, think crazy, BIG hair and Aqua-Net hairspray! At my high school, it was a competition to see who could achieve the biggest hair. And I was a fierce contender. I could easily tease five-inches out of nothing–with my eyes closed!
Stacey traveled through quite a crazy hairstyle journey, too. Here’s an excerpt:
After Farrah (hairstyle), I went through more styles than Imelda Marcos has shoes. Remember the shag in the mid 1970s made famous by David Cassidy and Rod Stewart? Shorter at the top, downward layers in the front. Blow-dry upside down after loading on tons of styling gels, fluffy and full. Or what about the perm?
In the 1980s, I was treated to a home perm kit, courtesy of my best friends. Major frizz. Topped it off with an application of Sun In. Teased the bangs out, piled high with a scrunchie. I looked just like a poodle.
You’ll love this book if you need to use hand signals to communicate over the uproar of voices, have ever dealt with a flying fingernail, or want to send your relatives packing–for the hills. You can find Are You Kidding Me? on Amazon and connect with Stacey on her blog, Facebook, or Twitter!
