Before you start to think that this topic is anything short of BP-G (Blog Post rated for General audiences), let me assure you that it is as salacious as Mr. Rogers changing out of his sport coat and into his sweater. Dang, dontcha miss Mr. Rogers? *sigh*
The issue at hand is that the three people with whom I share a last name (one by marriage and the other two because they took up separate residence in my uterus until each was forcibly evicted when their lease was up) would love nothing more than to share my bed on a regular basis.
I can understand because my bed is a haven of comfy coziness. Plush Sealy posturepedic mattress, 600 thread count pima cotton sheets, down comforter, six pillows (not including the ones for decorative purposes only) and an electric blanket that could thaw an ice sculpture in ninety seconds. Just talking about it is making me want to go and get back in it even though it's 10:00 in the morning.
In an ideal world (for them anyway), we would share a family bed with all four of us snuggling and slumbering blissfully together all night long. The reality is altogether different. Let's start with the Boy Child.
BC sleeps like a PRCA competitor taking down a calf in a tie-down event. He's flipping, he's flopping, he's got his feet wedged in your spine and his fingers up your nose. The kid is seven, and for his own safety, he still has a bed rail on his bed. I foresee packing it alongside the requisite dorm fridge and twin XL sheets when we send him off to college. And he's a sleep shouter. Nothing like being deep in peaceful slumber, only to have the person next to you scream out, "Grab the Legos and the unicorns! I'm on deck, so STINGRAYS ON THREE!" Regardless of what the ump says kid, when it comes to MY bed, you're out!
The Girl Child is a teeth grinder. All. Night. Long. Nuff said.
To say that my Handsome Husband is a snorer would be a complete understatement. The noise that emanates from him comes in on the decibel scale somewhere between a blender crushing ice and a plane taking off. Think I'm exaggerating? We had friends over for a movie night once, and everyone had to leave early because HH fell asleep watching it, and even at full volume, no one could hear the audio. True story.
I, on the other hand, am a silent sleeper. I've shared a bed with Moms and a friend or two on a girls' trip, and they will back me up. I curl up in my little corner of the bed, fall right asleep, and you are hearing nothing out of me until after I've awoken and had at least one cup of coffee. And yes, I am a very light sleeper. A moth could break wind in the room, and I would wake up.
Blame it on the Uterine Tenants, neither of whom slept for more than two hours straight for the first six months after they were evicted. I never needed a baby monitor because I developed a preternatural sense for when they were awake. This sort of thing is a great gift if you're a vampire. A mom trying to grab four or five consecutive REM cycles? Notsomuch.
But despite my waking every weekday morning at 4:45am when the guy six houses down fires up his car to leave for work (seriously, what is he, a baker?), I challenge anyone to sleep restfully with the Shouting Thrasher, the Teeth Grinder or the Extreme Snorer. I guarantee you will find yourself seeing your bed as the goal, yourself as the goalie, the fam as the pucks and end up slashing every single one of them back into play. A woman's gotta defend her right to restful sleep. And trust me, the world is a better place for everyone around me if I get it.
Sparkly Sandman Kisses,
D
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Wednesday, December 26, 2012
My Thoughts on: My BFF Clarence
Clarence and I go way back. Twenty years at least. Been a part of my life forever thanks to Moms, but we really didn't become BFFs until I got my first job at sixteen. Pretty much everywhere I go, Clarence is there to put a smile on my face and get my heart pumping.
Now if you haven't spent any time living in the South, you probably wouldn't say "Clarence", but instead would pronounce the name as "Clearance". And maybe you don't get as excited as I do when saying it and shorten it down. Simply put, I. Love. Me. Some. Clarence.
Now just to keep things straight, 10% off at "Anyone Who Makes < $100K/yr Can't Afford Our Stuff" doesn't rank on my bargain scale. You can keep your Nordstroms and your Pottery Barns. And even though it's more affordable than those two stores, please, DO NOT get me started on Kohl's. Okay, fine. In a nutshell...
Anyone with savvy shopper sense (read: cheapskates like me) can see that they jack up their prices so that when they give shoppers an extra 40% off their "everyday low prices", plus an extra 10% off if they use their Kohl's card, plus an extra 15% from a scratch off card, plus an extra 5% off if they go through the store singing a jingle they wrote about how much they love shopping there, the stuff adds up to exactly what it would be if I walk into one of my fave bargain stores and buy it right off the rack. Moving along.
The Clarence that I know and love is the one that has me paying somewhere between 80-90% off of the actual retail price. In my and Clarence's world, full retail is for suckers. In most stores, I don't buy anything off the regular racks and shelves but head straight for Clarence for some quality time together. One of my fave times of year to do this is after holidays.
Post-holiday, I'm usually not able to get my preferred discount rate of 80-90%, but if you wait until the seasonal merchandise hits that Clarence rate, you would be buying chocolate Easter bunnies that have turned white and Christmas ornaments with no glitter left on them. I shouldn't have to tell you how seriously I take my chocolate or my glitter.
So I suck it up and buy at half off with the rest of the shoppers as I'm using my pace cart to "accidentally" bump the carts that they leave straight up in the middle of the aisle. Rookies. What's a pace cart? Try and move around me sometime as we're both walking the main aisle of a store headed for Clarence, and you'll get schooled real quick.
I've already been out this morning and done my after Christmas shopping in a few quick stops. Among other delights, I scored a Christmas gift for my niece for next year and a Father's Day gift for the Handsome Hubby. Yes, Clarence and I are together year round while shopping for any and all occasions. The holidays and birthdays don't change from year to year, kittens.
In the interest of full disclosure, I also come home, wrap whatever I got with the appropriate paper/gift bag, record it in my gift notebook so I remember what I bought and for whom, and store them in tubs. Does that stick in your craw? Have a glass of Haterade, and we'll resolve to be friends anyway.
So if you see me out and about, and I have a glazed look about me, chances are I have either just come from being with Clarence, or we are about to spend some time with one another. And lest you think I'm selfish, I will happily make introductions, and you can even feel free to see Clarence on your own time. Just play it safe and don't ever try and come between us on mine. ;-)
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Now if you haven't spent any time living in the South, you probably wouldn't say "Clarence", but instead would pronounce the name as "Clearance". And maybe you don't get as excited as I do when saying it and shorten it down. Simply put, I. Love. Me. Some. Clarence.
Now just to keep things straight, 10% off at "Anyone Who Makes < $100K/yr Can't Afford Our Stuff" doesn't rank on my bargain scale. You can keep your Nordstroms and your Pottery Barns. And even though it's more affordable than those two stores, please, DO NOT get me started on Kohl's. Okay, fine. In a nutshell...
Anyone with savvy shopper sense (read: cheapskates like me) can see that they jack up their prices so that when they give shoppers an extra 40% off their "everyday low prices", plus an extra 10% off if they use their Kohl's card, plus an extra 15% from a scratch off card, plus an extra 5% off if they go through the store singing a jingle they wrote about how much they love shopping there, the stuff adds up to exactly what it would be if I walk into one of my fave bargain stores and buy it right off the rack. Moving along.
The Clarence that I know and love is the one that has me paying somewhere between 80-90% off of the actual retail price. In my and Clarence's world, full retail is for suckers. In most stores, I don't buy anything off the regular racks and shelves but head straight for Clarence for some quality time together. One of my fave times of year to do this is after holidays.
Post-holiday, I'm usually not able to get my preferred discount rate of 80-90%, but if you wait until the seasonal merchandise hits that Clarence rate, you would be buying chocolate Easter bunnies that have turned white and Christmas ornaments with no glitter left on them. I shouldn't have to tell you how seriously I take my chocolate or my glitter.
So I suck it up and buy at half off with the rest of the shoppers as I'm using my pace cart to "accidentally" bump the carts that they leave straight up in the middle of the aisle. Rookies. What's a pace cart? Try and move around me sometime as we're both walking the main aisle of a store headed for Clarence, and you'll get schooled real quick.
I've already been out this morning and done my after Christmas shopping in a few quick stops. Among other delights, I scored a Christmas gift for my niece for next year and a Father's Day gift for the Handsome Hubby. Yes, Clarence and I are together year round while shopping for any and all occasions. The holidays and birthdays don't change from year to year, kittens.
In the interest of full disclosure, I also come home, wrap whatever I got with the appropriate paper/gift bag, record it in my gift notebook so I remember what I bought and for whom, and store them in tubs. Does that stick in your craw? Have a glass of Haterade, and we'll resolve to be friends anyway.
So if you see me out and about, and I have a glazed look about me, chances are I have either just come from being with Clarence, or we are about to spend some time with one another. And lest you think I'm selfish, I will happily make introductions, and you can even feel free to see Clarence on your own time. Just play it safe and don't ever try and come between us on mine. ;-)
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
My Thoughts on: Christmas Enchantment
If you have young kids in the house, you are probably in a pretty warm and fuzzy place as I type this on Christmas afternoon. Of course, some of you were woken up by your darlings at 5am after going to bed after midnight, so you're probably just pretty much in a fuzzy place.
I'm blessed in a lot of ways, one of them being that my kids are (and have always been) late sleepers. I think the earliest they have both been up and ready to open presents is 7:45. I am always up first, have at least two cups of coffee in me, the Christmas music on, the camera and camcorder on stand by and am waiting for them to wake up so the fun can start.
Now before you go thinking unkind thoughts about me, it's Christmas, so just share in my blessing of having slumbering children past 7am. If you can't, go take a nap. Your kids are probably in a toy/electronics gift coma anyway, so this is the one time of year you can slip off unnoticed for a midday snooze.
I think we can all come together on the notion that it is beyond wondrous and exciting to see Christmas through your child's eyes. Christmas started with a miracle, and all of its enchantment ever since is most fervently felt by children and by those of us who get to see its magical effect on them.
The Christmases of our childhoods have left us, and many of the people, warmth and traditions from those days are long gone as well. I think of my own girlhood Christmas Eves, Christmas days and Holiday travel to see family, and besides the memories being full of love and laughter, they are marked by many faces who are no longer celebrating with us at Christmas but who are in eternal celebration with the King.
So we create traditions for our kids from our memories and put our own hand print on them, hoping they will also leave a hand print on our children's hearts as well. As parents, we need to stop for a few moments each Christmas and let them leave one on ours too. Of the days when our kids are small, and they believe in all of the magic of the Season. And while they're young, we need to teach them that its magic started with the birth of a baby who brought the promise of unending love, eternal peace and infinite joy into the world.
The world Jesus was born into was uncertain and full of darkness. It is even more so today. We need to hold tight to our kids and seek out for them spaces of warmth, hope and light. And then while trying to teach our kids to live in them, on days like Christmas, we really need to stand still in those spaces and take in every bit of the spirit of them. Because long before we are ready for it, the day will come when the children are grown and gone and are making traditions of their own with their families.
So please, take a moment in the chaos that may be swirling around you today, and stop. Breathe it all in, taste it, feel it, see it, and imprint it on your heart and in your memory. And today and every day, be grateful and be blessed for the many intangible gifts of the life surrounding you and for the greatest gift of the Saviour, whose birth and promise is the truest form of Christmas enchantment you can ever know.
Sparkly Kisses from Under the Mistletoe,
D
I'm blessed in a lot of ways, one of them being that my kids are (and have always been) late sleepers. I think the earliest they have both been up and ready to open presents is 7:45. I am always up first, have at least two cups of coffee in me, the Christmas music on, the camera and camcorder on stand by and am waiting for them to wake up so the fun can start.
Now before you go thinking unkind thoughts about me, it's Christmas, so just share in my blessing of having slumbering children past 7am. If you can't, go take a nap. Your kids are probably in a toy/electronics gift coma anyway, so this is the one time of year you can slip off unnoticed for a midday snooze.
I think we can all come together on the notion that it is beyond wondrous and exciting to see Christmas through your child's eyes. Christmas started with a miracle, and all of its enchantment ever since is most fervently felt by children and by those of us who get to see its magical effect on them.
The Christmases of our childhoods have left us, and many of the people, warmth and traditions from those days are long gone as well. I think of my own girlhood Christmas Eves, Christmas days and Holiday travel to see family, and besides the memories being full of love and laughter, they are marked by many faces who are no longer celebrating with us at Christmas but who are in eternal celebration with the King.
So we create traditions for our kids from our memories and put our own hand print on them, hoping they will also leave a hand print on our children's hearts as well. As parents, we need to stop for a few moments each Christmas and let them leave one on ours too. Of the days when our kids are small, and they believe in all of the magic of the Season. And while they're young, we need to teach them that its magic started with the birth of a baby who brought the promise of unending love, eternal peace and infinite joy into the world.
The world Jesus was born into was uncertain and full of darkness. It is even more so today. We need to hold tight to our kids and seek out for them spaces of warmth, hope and light. And then while trying to teach our kids to live in them, on days like Christmas, we really need to stand still in those spaces and take in every bit of the spirit of them. Because long before we are ready for it, the day will come when the children are grown and gone and are making traditions of their own with their families.
So please, take a moment in the chaos that may be swirling around you today, and stop. Breathe it all in, taste it, feel it, see it, and imprint it on your heart and in your memory. And today and every day, be grateful and be blessed for the many intangible gifts of the life surrounding you and for the greatest gift of the Saviour, whose birth and promise is the truest form of Christmas enchantment you can ever know.
Sparkly Kisses from Under the Mistletoe,
D
Monday, December 24, 2012
My Thoughts on Facebook: Part 2-The Nitty Gritty
So now that we got through the preliminaries, (if you don't know what I'm referring to, see yesterday's blog entry) we can get down to what Mark Z needs to not do with FB that he's doing and what he needs to do that he's not.
Please don't think for a moment that I have to put much effort into not being an idiot. I realize that these days, Mark isn't sitting behind a desk and regulating much of anything regarding FB. He has people. He's probably off in Belize or something for Christmas, counting his pocket change (20, 40, 60, 80, a hundred thousand....) and not giving any thought to what the hoi polloi has to say about FB.
So really, I'm posting this not in the hopes that he will read it and say, "This is completely on target! I should have been doing this all along! I'm going to call my people at FB HQ right now and tell them to read this genius of a woman's blog, oh, and while I'm at it, I'll call my people in D.C. and tell them they really ought to add her face to Mount Rushmore!" I'm posting it to just get it out of my system.
Let's start with a person's News Feed....
1. If I bestow upon someone the High Honor of becoming my FB friend, I need options to pop up as soon as I accept their friend request and vice versa regarding how much of their life I want to see in my feed. Now if you and I are FB friends, of COURSE I want to see everything you post on FB, and I'm certainly not talking about YOU! ;-)
These options should range from "I want to know everything this person posts on FB, and in fact, if you could install some spyware on their account that gets me unrestricted access to their private messages as well, that'd be great!" to "I accepted their friend request because I know they are a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and I figured turning down the request would result in a dead bunny on my porch, so restrict their view of everything I post, and please Lord, don't show me ANYTHING that they post" And about six different options in between those two.
And while I'm on the subject of FRs, if you send me one, and I have to send you a message back asking you how we know each other, you have as big of a chance of me accepting it as my kids do of me ever accepting anything of the canine variety into our family. This also includes the men my daughter potentially dates.
2. Showing ads in my news feed needs to end NOW. Now I'm not talking about those little things on the side of your news feed. I get that Mark has to pay for FB somehow because it's free, despite what the Panic Button Pushers post on FB every six months or so. (These, by the way, are the same people who think they can find out who's viewing their profile.)
So I'm generally able to ignore the little side ads, except for that one they had for a loooong time about a gout study. (We'll skip the diatribe regarding my feelings about the feet of anyone over the age of one. I will just tell you. I. Hate. Feet.)
What really starts me on the express train to Freak the Freak Out Land is the "suggested posts" that turn up in my feed. "Suggested Post" is FB-ese for "Annoying Ad". I "hide" every single one of these, which leads me to another option to "hide all posts from (insert Annoying Ad's page name here)". I click on that as well.
FB then reassuringly tells me that Annoying Ads from ___ "will no longer appear in your news feed" Horse puckey. I have "hidden" many of these same Annoying Ads more than the average amount of times that Boy Child gets back up out of bed after bedtime on a given night. (Which is anywhere from three to nineteen depending on how many it takes to cause me to finally freak the freak out and send him scurrying back into his bed for the final time to fervently pray to God that his "real" mommy at last comes for him.)
3. Dump the "chat" feature. People don't IM online anymore, they text. Nuff said.
4. I need more options to what people post than "like", "comment" and "unlike". Some suggestions: "love", "dislike" and "this is so funny I peed a little when I read it"
Moving onto my personal home page....
1. Any pictures I post or that anyone posts of me need to come with another option besides tagging me or someone else in it. Depending on the closeness of the zoom or the angle of the shot, it needs to have a "take off 10 years" or "take off 10 lbs" option as well.
And don't give me a bunch of hooey about how everyone needs to be keepin' it real on FB anyway. What you get on FB is not the real backstage action of someone's life Honey, it's the highlight performance. Don't believe me? Go through your friends' profile pictures, and if you look close, I guarantee you'll discover that half of them are at least five years old. Mine may be only a month old, but you'd better believe it was taken by a pro and retouched! *sparkle snap*
2. Ask my permission before you post any of my activities or anything that someone tags me in to either my personal page or my friends' news feeds. I can guarantee that what someone else thinks is a "great" picture of me won't necessarily get that kudo from me. As a general rule, if I have food in my mouth, look like I'm intoxicated (which I can guarantee you I'm not), or you took the pic of my right side of my face (any girl with a nose the size of mine knows her best side!), don't tag.
Also, if we are at, say, a restaurant together, and you go to "check me in" there with you but discover in your search of nearby places that there is a XXX place of some sort close by, and you think it would be funny to "check us all in" there instead, leave me out. As a mom, the PTA president at my kids' school and a teacher in kids' church, the idea of me hamming it up at a porn venue might not go over well with some of my FB peeps.
3. Everything I post/is posted on my FB stays on my home page unless I delete it. You don't get to randomly pick and choose what gets saved. Since I am a FB addict, I like looking back at the end of the year over EVERYTHING, from my status updates to pictures and what people posted on my wall. No touchy!!
I could go on even longer than I already have with more stuff that Mark and the Geek Squad need to tweak. But most of you fell asleep before I got to number three on the News Feed suggestions, and the time is also drawing nigh to when I need to go start on Big Hair for the Christmas Eve events we are attending.
I will wrap up by saying that even though Mark and his squad don't always get it right, I will still be on Facebook unless the day comes where the PBPs have their "I told you so" moment, and Mark does start charging for it.. Because I know I have as much hope of breaking my FB addiction as I do the one I have to Words with Friends. Speaking of, I really gotta go now and catch up on my games while the curling iron heats up...
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Please don't think for a moment that I have to put much effort into not being an idiot. I realize that these days, Mark isn't sitting behind a desk and regulating much of anything regarding FB. He has people. He's probably off in Belize or something for Christmas, counting his pocket change (20, 40, 60, 80, a hundred thousand....) and not giving any thought to what the hoi polloi has to say about FB.
So really, I'm posting this not in the hopes that he will read it and say, "This is completely on target! I should have been doing this all along! I'm going to call my people at FB HQ right now and tell them to read this genius of a woman's blog, oh, and while I'm at it, I'll call my people in D.C. and tell them they really ought to add her face to Mount Rushmore!" I'm posting it to just get it out of my system.
Let's start with a person's News Feed....
1. If I bestow upon someone the High Honor of becoming my FB friend, I need options to pop up as soon as I accept their friend request and vice versa regarding how much of their life I want to see in my feed. Now if you and I are FB friends, of COURSE I want to see everything you post on FB, and I'm certainly not talking about YOU! ;-)
These options should range from "I want to know everything this person posts on FB, and in fact, if you could install some spyware on their account that gets me unrestricted access to their private messages as well, that'd be great!" to "I accepted their friend request because I know they are a few sandwiches short of a picnic, and I figured turning down the request would result in a dead bunny on my porch, so restrict their view of everything I post, and please Lord, don't show me ANYTHING that they post" And about six different options in between those two.
And while I'm on the subject of FRs, if you send me one, and I have to send you a message back asking you how we know each other, you have as big of a chance of me accepting it as my kids do of me ever accepting anything of the canine variety into our family. This also includes the men my daughter potentially dates.
2. Showing ads in my news feed needs to end NOW. Now I'm not talking about those little things on the side of your news feed. I get that Mark has to pay for FB somehow because it's free, despite what the Panic Button Pushers post on FB every six months or so. (These, by the way, are the same people who think they can find out who's viewing their profile.)
So I'm generally able to ignore the little side ads, except for that one they had for a loooong time about a gout study. (We'll skip the diatribe regarding my feelings about the feet of anyone over the age of one. I will just tell you. I. Hate. Feet.)
What really starts me on the express train to Freak the Freak Out Land is the "suggested posts" that turn up in my feed. "Suggested Post" is FB-ese for "Annoying Ad". I "hide" every single one of these, which leads me to another option to "hide all posts from (insert Annoying Ad's page name here)". I click on that as well.
FB then reassuringly tells me that Annoying Ads from ___ "will no longer appear in your news feed" Horse puckey. I have "hidden" many of these same Annoying Ads more than the average amount of times that Boy Child gets back up out of bed after bedtime on a given night. (Which is anywhere from three to nineteen depending on how many it takes to cause me to finally freak the freak out and send him scurrying back into his bed for the final time to fervently pray to God that his "real" mommy at last comes for him.)
3. Dump the "chat" feature. People don't IM online anymore, they text. Nuff said.
4. I need more options to what people post than "like", "comment" and "unlike". Some suggestions: "love", "dislike" and "this is so funny I peed a little when I read it"
Moving onto my personal home page....
1. Any pictures I post or that anyone posts of me need to come with another option besides tagging me or someone else in it. Depending on the closeness of the zoom or the angle of the shot, it needs to have a "take off 10 years" or "take off 10 lbs" option as well.
And don't give me a bunch of hooey about how everyone needs to be keepin' it real on FB anyway. What you get on FB is not the real backstage action of someone's life Honey, it's the highlight performance. Don't believe me? Go through your friends' profile pictures, and if you look close, I guarantee you'll discover that half of them are at least five years old. Mine may be only a month old, but you'd better believe it was taken by a pro and retouched! *sparkle snap*
2. Ask my permission before you post any of my activities or anything that someone tags me in to either my personal page or my friends' news feeds. I can guarantee that what someone else thinks is a "great" picture of me won't necessarily get that kudo from me. As a general rule, if I have food in my mouth, look like I'm intoxicated (which I can guarantee you I'm not), or you took the pic of my right side of my face (any girl with a nose the size of mine knows her best side!), don't tag.
Also, if we are at, say, a restaurant together, and you go to "check me in" there with you but discover in your search of nearby places that there is a XXX place of some sort close by, and you think it would be funny to "check us all in" there instead, leave me out. As a mom, the PTA president at my kids' school and a teacher in kids' church, the idea of me hamming it up at a porn venue might not go over well with some of my FB peeps.
3. Everything I post/is posted on my FB stays on my home page unless I delete it. You don't get to randomly pick and choose what gets saved. Since I am a FB addict, I like looking back at the end of the year over EVERYTHING, from my status updates to pictures and what people posted on my wall. No touchy!!
I could go on even longer than I already have with more stuff that Mark and the Geek Squad need to tweak. But most of you fell asleep before I got to number three on the News Feed suggestions, and the time is also drawing nigh to when I need to go start on Big Hair for the Christmas Eve events we are attending.
I will wrap up by saying that even though Mark and his squad don't always get it right, I will still be on Facebook unless the day comes where the PBPs have their "I told you so" moment, and Mark does start charging for it.. Because I know I have as much hope of breaking my FB addiction as I do the one I have to Words with Friends. Speaking of, I really gotta go now and catch up on my games while the curling iron heats up...
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Sunday, December 23, 2012
My Thoughts on Facebook: Part 1-In the Beginning
You may ask yourself why there has to be more than one part to my thoughts on Facebook. That's because I have a lot of them, and a blog entry really should be a length that is somewhere between the five paragraph essays you used to write in elementary school and the shortest book in the Bible. (Quick, name it! It's 2 John. Boo-yah! Yes, I was a regular "quiz out" in bible competitions as a kid. Believe me, this doesn't get you anything other than mocked by your "unchurched" peers.) Anyway....
Facebook creator Mark Zuckenheimerschlammer is not a friend of mine. Which should be obvious for three reasons. First, I can't ever remember his name correctly. I admit, I'm terrible with names. Anyone in my closest circle of friends can tell you that I can mess up names as simple as "Holly" and "Juan". I could also Google Mark Z's name to get it correct, but if I have to copy and paste your name into something because it's so long or so complicated I can't remember it, it's not happening.
Bravo for the world being a diverse place with John Smith living next to Adolf (insert 24 middle names) Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, Sr. Adolf holds the world's record for longest name. And I can't get over the fact that he's a "Sr", which means he passed that name onto his kid. Jr. must have legally dumped most of it since der Vater made the Guinness book and der Sohn did not.
But I live in 'Merica, and freedom of speech gives me the right to rechristen anyone with any name I want, especially in my own blog. Trust me, I'm not naive enough to think there aren't people out there who have given me their own personalized "nickname" that I would probably prefer not be repeated in front of my children.
Reason two Mark Z isn't my friend. (Admit it, you already kinda forgot what the subject of this post was.) I am a few hundred million bucks short of sharing his expanded zip code. Enough said. Reason three is because he does not seek counsel with me over any and all things related to a person's Facebook account. Really, this is just a dumb move on his part. Why? If you're FB friends with me, you know that I am all over FB like ants on a dropped ice cream cone.
Long before I became addicted to Words with Friends (see separate blog entry), I heard about this FB thingy, had some time when the Boy Child was napping (dang, I miss the days when my kids napped), and checked it out. BAM! Instantly hooked. FB is the ideal way for Socially Awkward False-Positive Introverts (SAFPIs) like myself to interact with others. That, and blogging of course. :-)
Don't go looking in the American Psychiatric Association's upcoming DSM-5 for a description of what a SAFPI is. That's cuz I made it up. What makes me a SAFPI is that I'm really only 100% comfortable in a social situation that involves my cozy little home, my jammies, my Handsome Husband, the Girl Child and the Boy Child. Any other scenario requires a level of extroversion that takes me out of my ideal comfort zone. Sure, I have family and friends that I like to hang out with, but most of the time this takes me away from my home, requires real pants, and often the HH and/or kids aren't all there.
And when I'm at events where I know small talk and full undergarments are required, my discomfort level goes up exponentially. Unless you know me really well, you wouldn't even notice. I cover pretty well. The trick for successful conversation with most people is to fire off a few questions about what's going on in their life and get them talking. Most people love to talk about themselves, and the burden of conversation is taken off the SAFPI.
Not only that, but by asking a lot of questions, the SAFPI creates an illusion that they like to talk and are therefore, an EX-trovert. When in fact, we are really IN-troverts, hence the "false-positive introvert" diagnosis. (Yes, I know it's all really very brilliant of me. I really should charge by the hour. And obviously, being a SAFPI doesn't affect in the slightest one's ability to have an over-inflated sense of confidence.)
So I joined FB and figured out I can have a little window into peoples' lives where they tell me stuff about their lives without my having to put on pants and ask. I can also reconnect with people who knew me back in the days when I was waaaaaay backslidden and give testimony to them that Jesus truly forgives anyone of any sin, even the doozies that I committed. And no, I'm not listing what they were. If you knew me then, you know, and if you didn't, you don't need to. Instead, spend a little time watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLY7yI1xV-M and stop being so nosy! (See, SAFPIs, do NOT like a lot of personal questions.)
On FB, I can also (depending on one's privacy settings) cyber-stalk pretty much anyone without them knowing I viewed their profile. Two points: just because I'm no longer backslidden, it doesn't mean I'm perfect. Secondly, if you believe that "you can see who viewed your profile" spam garbage, you've got bigger issues than me stalking your FB page, I'm telling you right now.
So now that we've covered "Facebook Part 1-In the Beginning" and a whole lot of other intriguing (granted, maybe only to me) social psychological things as well, I will wrap up with the promise to bring you part two tomorrow. This is where we will get into the heart of what Mark Zuckenheimerschlammer needs to be consulting me on. Believe me, it can only serve to benefit Facebookers and social media as a whole.
In the meantime, please, try not to flood my inbox with all of your demands to know what time tomorrow I will post it. I have a very full morning planned of sitting around in my jammies and drinking coffee. I also need this time to memorize my flash card questions that I will ask the seventy-five people I will be encountering at the annual Christmas Eve family gatherings tomorrow night. And to put on an extra layer of my Rx anti-pit sweat roll on.
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Facebook creator Mark Zuckenheimerschlammer is not a friend of mine. Which should be obvious for three reasons. First, I can't ever remember his name correctly. I admit, I'm terrible with names. Anyone in my closest circle of friends can tell you that I can mess up names as simple as "Holly" and "Juan". I could also Google Mark Z's name to get it correct, but if I have to copy and paste your name into something because it's so long or so complicated I can't remember it, it's not happening.
Bravo for the world being a diverse place with John Smith living next to Adolf (insert 24 middle names) Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, Sr. Adolf holds the world's record for longest name. And I can't get over the fact that he's a "Sr", which means he passed that name onto his kid. Jr. must have legally dumped most of it since der Vater made the Guinness book and der Sohn did not.
But I live in 'Merica, and freedom of speech gives me the right to rechristen anyone with any name I want, especially in my own blog. Trust me, I'm not naive enough to think there aren't people out there who have given me their own personalized "nickname" that I would probably prefer not be repeated in front of my children.
Reason two Mark Z isn't my friend. (Admit it, you already kinda forgot what the subject of this post was.) I am a few hundred million bucks short of sharing his expanded zip code. Enough said. Reason three is because he does not seek counsel with me over any and all things related to a person's Facebook account. Really, this is just a dumb move on his part. Why? If you're FB friends with me, you know that I am all over FB like ants on a dropped ice cream cone.
Long before I became addicted to Words with Friends (see separate blog entry), I heard about this FB thingy, had some time when the Boy Child was napping (dang, I miss the days when my kids napped), and checked it out. BAM! Instantly hooked. FB is the ideal way for Socially Awkward False-Positive Introverts (SAFPIs) like myself to interact with others. That, and blogging of course. :-)
Don't go looking in the American Psychiatric Association's upcoming DSM-5 for a description of what a SAFPI is. That's cuz I made it up. What makes me a SAFPI is that I'm really only 100% comfortable in a social situation that involves my cozy little home, my jammies, my Handsome Husband, the Girl Child and the Boy Child. Any other scenario requires a level of extroversion that takes me out of my ideal comfort zone. Sure, I have family and friends that I like to hang out with, but most of the time this takes me away from my home, requires real pants, and often the HH and/or kids aren't all there.
And when I'm at events where I know small talk and full undergarments are required, my discomfort level goes up exponentially. Unless you know me really well, you wouldn't even notice. I cover pretty well. The trick for successful conversation with most people is to fire off a few questions about what's going on in their life and get them talking. Most people love to talk about themselves, and the burden of conversation is taken off the SAFPI.
Not only that, but by asking a lot of questions, the SAFPI creates an illusion that they like to talk and are therefore, an EX-trovert. When in fact, we are really IN-troverts, hence the "false-positive introvert" diagnosis. (Yes, I know it's all really very brilliant of me. I really should charge by the hour. And obviously, being a SAFPI doesn't affect in the slightest one's ability to have an over-inflated sense of confidence.)
So I joined FB and figured out I can have a little window into peoples' lives where they tell me stuff about their lives without my having to put on pants and ask. I can also reconnect with people who knew me back in the days when I was waaaaaay backslidden and give testimony to them that Jesus truly forgives anyone of any sin, even the doozies that I committed. And no, I'm not listing what they were. If you knew me then, you know, and if you didn't, you don't need to. Instead, spend a little time watching this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLY7yI1xV-M and stop being so nosy! (See, SAFPIs, do NOT like a lot of personal questions.)
On FB, I can also (depending on one's privacy settings) cyber-stalk pretty much anyone without them knowing I viewed their profile. Two points: just because I'm no longer backslidden, it doesn't mean I'm perfect. Secondly, if you believe that "you can see who viewed your profile" spam garbage, you've got bigger issues than me stalking your FB page, I'm telling you right now.
So now that we've covered "Facebook Part 1-In the Beginning" and a whole lot of other intriguing (granted, maybe only to me) social psychological things as well, I will wrap up with the promise to bring you part two tomorrow. This is where we will get into the heart of what Mark Zuckenheimerschlammer needs to be consulting me on. Believe me, it can only serve to benefit Facebookers and social media as a whole.
In the meantime, please, try not to flood my inbox with all of your demands to know what time tomorrow I will post it. I have a very full morning planned of sitting around in my jammies and drinking coffee. I also need this time to memorize my flash card questions that I will ask the seventy-five people I will be encountering at the annual Christmas Eve family gatherings tomorrow night. And to put on an extra layer of my Rx anti-pit sweat roll on.
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Friday, December 21, 2012
My Thoughts on: Power Trips of the Adolescent & Septuagenarian Variety
So I bet you never thought that teens and senior citizens could have anything in common. Guess again friend. Just put them in a position of authority over others, and you will see the two groups bear striking similarities.
Now don't misunderstand me. Teens in general crack me up, and I have mad respect for my elders. My own dad is a senior citizen, and if she can work the discount to her advantage, Moms will admit to being one as well. Those over the age of sixty-five are truly old school and from the days where your toys were made of metal, as were your constitution and your character. Bottom line, old people rock, and I hope to be one myself one day. Because that's when you can truly get away with saying and doing anything, and everyone just thinks you're charming.
But back to the subject at hand. I'm talking about two specific groups of teens and seniors with authority. Teen lifeguards and senior citizen polling place workers. Give teens a whistle and a tall white chair or seniors an "Official Poll Worker" badge and a few crowd control stanchions, and the power trippin' is ON!
Let's start with the lifeguards and a caveat to please spare yourself some torment by never, I mean NEVER, bringing up the subject of teen lifeguards with my Handsome Husband. This would be akin to asking most Americans to give you their opinion on the Westboro Baptist Church, and you are probably going to be left wishing you'd never brought the subject up to the HH at all. (You and I can have a sidebar instead regarding HH's idea of appropriate behavior in the pool vs. that of the majority of the western world.)
Suffice it to say that it is HH's opinion that all lifeguards are put in place to ensure that they get the patrons to comply with the #1 Pool Rule & Regulation, which is "NO FUN ALLOWED". Granted, this rule is not posted anywhere, but it does not stop his fervent belief that it, in fact, exists. While I don't share his opinion about the No Fun rule or even his definition of what constitutes "fun" at the pool, I do think that if given a smidgen of authority, the teenage lifeguards do tend to take it over the top.
It's really not the teens' fault, as the Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment) effectively demonstrated that when given authority, most people tend to run with it. Teens are on the cusp of new discoveries such as driving, gainful employment, and other things that as the parent of a tween, I don't even want to contemplate yet. Throw a whistle and some hormones into the mix, and all bets are off!
When we are at the pool, I try and be respectful of these pups' authority as they sit in their big white chairs. I even overlook the fact that when I was (yet ten years older than) their current age, they were still sitting in chairs, albeit the kind their parents fed them strained peas from. I remind myself that I am leading my kids by example. While they may turn deaf and dumb most of the time when I am, say, giving them a "procrastination intervention", the second I do or say anything that strays from a positive "WWJD?" outcome, you know my little darlings are going to be all eyes and ears.
But really, teens, when you are whistling at my kids for hot-footing it across the 350 degree pool deck concrete, whistling at them for putting their feet in the gutter during Safety Check, whistling at them for hooping and hollering in the pool and denying my vertically-challenged seven-year-old (who can swim the length of the pool and has been going off the high dive since he was five) admission down the slide because he is 47.8" tall and not 48", you're pushing it Missy/Young Man.
Still, with the aid of some deep Ujjayi breaths, I will let it all go. Except the slide thing. Which really, really makes me want to freak the freak out. But never fear, I will not bawl out a teenager. I will ask for the inevitably college-aged "manager" and speak my piece to him/her instead. I will then get fourteen "ma'ams" and "I'm sorry"s from them and not actually any resolution. Please, my dear sweet Jesus, get the Boy Child AT LAST to 48" so I can be a better Christian. Amen.
Moving along to the seniors. I can see why Official Poll Worker is a great gig for the over seventy crowd. You're up at 4:30am anyway, so the 6:00am opening at the polls isn't an issue. You can always DVR The Price is Right and all four networks' broadcasts of the noon news, so why not make a hundred bucks being a poll worker? Given the average age demographic of the people who actually show up to vote, most of your friends are going to be there anyway, so you can socialize and supplement your income as well. BRILLIANT!
When I turned up for advance voting for the November elections this year, I started pit sweating with my first encounter with one of the OPWs. They immediately started barking at me after I came through the door. I was momentarily confused as to whether I was joining the queue at the advance polling place or the line to go through security at the airport. I'm telling you, the TSA has nothing on the OPWs when it comes to instilling fear in people.
I felt like if I turned in the wrong direction or said the wrong thing, Secret Service agents were going to swarm me and take me in the back for an audit with a contingent of IRS accountants followed by an interrogation by a platoon of Army Rangers. (I may have dated an Army Ranger or two back in the day, so maybe that wouldn't be so intimidating, but I is flat out skeered of the IRS. Not because we cheat on our taxes, but because I have reached the point where I am sometimes now referring our fifth grader to her dad for math homework help.)
I kept my head down, my mouth shut and my arms at my sides (to minimize the display of pit sweating that no Rx roll-on was going to slow down) as I moved through the line and past the posts of the Geriatric Gestapo. In all fairness, I did think that I encountered a smile or two, but I was concentrating hard on minding my Ps and Qs, so it could have just been someone reworking their dentures.
Having said all of that, I will not be dissuaded from patronizing the pool or exercising my right to vote. Because despite my having a little fun at the lifeguards' and the OPWs' expense, I really do love teens and seniors. I've been a teen, and I lost my head (way) more than once when taking on all of the new experiences those incredible and overwhelming years can throw at you.
And with God's grace, I will be a senior some day and have earned my right into being exactly who I am, and I'm sure I will not apologize for it either. So if you see me in thirty years clearing tables in the Hy-Vee cafeteria (not because I work there, but because I have nothing better to do) and barking at people while wearing my bra on the outside of my shirt, don't be afraid to come over and say hi. I would be crushed and tell anyone and everyone who would listen if you didn't.
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Now don't misunderstand me. Teens in general crack me up, and I have mad respect for my elders. My own dad is a senior citizen, and if she can work the discount to her advantage, Moms will admit to being one as well. Those over the age of sixty-five are truly old school and from the days where your toys were made of metal, as were your constitution and your character. Bottom line, old people rock, and I hope to be one myself one day. Because that's when you can truly get away with saying and doing anything, and everyone just thinks you're charming.
But back to the subject at hand. I'm talking about two specific groups of teens and seniors with authority. Teen lifeguards and senior citizen polling place workers. Give teens a whistle and a tall white chair or seniors an "Official Poll Worker" badge and a few crowd control stanchions, and the power trippin' is ON!
Let's start with the lifeguards and a caveat to please spare yourself some torment by never, I mean NEVER, bringing up the subject of teen lifeguards with my Handsome Husband. This would be akin to asking most Americans to give you their opinion on the Westboro Baptist Church, and you are probably going to be left wishing you'd never brought the subject up to the HH at all. (You and I can have a sidebar instead regarding HH's idea of appropriate behavior in the pool vs. that of the majority of the western world.)
Suffice it to say that it is HH's opinion that all lifeguards are put in place to ensure that they get the patrons to comply with the #1 Pool Rule & Regulation, which is "NO FUN ALLOWED". Granted, this rule is not posted anywhere, but it does not stop his fervent belief that it, in fact, exists. While I don't share his opinion about the No Fun rule or even his definition of what constitutes "fun" at the pool, I do think that if given a smidgen of authority, the teenage lifeguards do tend to take it over the top.
It's really not the teens' fault, as the Stanford Prison Experiment in the 1970s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment) effectively demonstrated that when given authority, most people tend to run with it. Teens are on the cusp of new discoveries such as driving, gainful employment, and other things that as the parent of a tween, I don't even want to contemplate yet. Throw a whistle and some hormones into the mix, and all bets are off!
When we are at the pool, I try and be respectful of these pups' authority as they sit in their big white chairs. I even overlook the fact that when I was (yet ten years older than) their current age, they were still sitting in chairs, albeit the kind their parents fed them strained peas from. I remind myself that I am leading my kids by example. While they may turn deaf and dumb most of the time when I am, say, giving them a "procrastination intervention", the second I do or say anything that strays from a positive "WWJD?" outcome, you know my little darlings are going to be all eyes and ears.
But really, teens, when you are whistling at my kids for hot-footing it across the 350 degree pool deck concrete, whistling at them for putting their feet in the gutter during Safety Check, whistling at them for hooping and hollering in the pool and denying my vertically-challenged seven-year-old (who can swim the length of the pool and has been going off the high dive since he was five) admission down the slide because he is 47.8" tall and not 48", you're pushing it Missy/Young Man.
Still, with the aid of some deep Ujjayi breaths, I will let it all go. Except the slide thing. Which really, really makes me want to freak the freak out. But never fear, I will not bawl out a teenager. I will ask for the inevitably college-aged "manager" and speak my piece to him/her instead. I will then get fourteen "ma'ams" and "I'm sorry"s from them and not actually any resolution. Please, my dear sweet Jesus, get the Boy Child AT LAST to 48" so I can be a better Christian. Amen.
Moving along to the seniors. I can see why Official Poll Worker is a great gig for the over seventy crowd. You're up at 4:30am anyway, so the 6:00am opening at the polls isn't an issue. You can always DVR The Price is Right and all four networks' broadcasts of the noon news, so why not make a hundred bucks being a poll worker? Given the average age demographic of the people who actually show up to vote, most of your friends are going to be there anyway, so you can socialize and supplement your income as well. BRILLIANT!
When I turned up for advance voting for the November elections this year, I started pit sweating with my first encounter with one of the OPWs. They immediately started barking at me after I came through the door. I was momentarily confused as to whether I was joining the queue at the advance polling place or the line to go through security at the airport. I'm telling you, the TSA has nothing on the OPWs when it comes to instilling fear in people.
I felt like if I turned in the wrong direction or said the wrong thing, Secret Service agents were going to swarm me and take me in the back for an audit with a contingent of IRS accountants followed by an interrogation by a platoon of Army Rangers. (I may have dated an Army Ranger or two back in the day, so maybe that wouldn't be so intimidating, but I is flat out skeered of the IRS. Not because we cheat on our taxes, but because I have reached the point where I am sometimes now referring our fifth grader to her dad for math homework help.)
I kept my head down, my mouth shut and my arms at my sides (to minimize the display of pit sweating that no Rx roll-on was going to slow down) as I moved through the line and past the posts of the Geriatric Gestapo. In all fairness, I did think that I encountered a smile or two, but I was concentrating hard on minding my Ps and Qs, so it could have just been someone reworking their dentures.
Having said all of that, I will not be dissuaded from patronizing the pool or exercising my right to vote. Because despite my having a little fun at the lifeguards' and the OPWs' expense, I really do love teens and seniors. I've been a teen, and I lost my head (way) more than once when taking on all of the new experiences those incredible and overwhelming years can throw at you.
And with God's grace, I will be a senior some day and have earned my right into being exactly who I am, and I'm sure I will not apologize for it either. So if you see me in thirty years clearing tables in the Hy-Vee cafeteria (not because I work there, but because I have nothing better to do) and barking at people while wearing my bra on the outside of my shirt, don't be afraid to come over and say hi. I would be crushed and tell anyone and everyone who would listen if you didn't.
Sparkly Kisses,
D
Thursday, December 20, 2012
My Thoughts on: Snow Days
If you're the type of person who, upon hearing there is a 5% chance of snow in the forecast, piles the snow gear by the front door, waxes the bottom of your kids' sleds, puts the weather radio on the nightstand and posts relentless FB statuses updating everyone on the impending "storm", today's blog entry is NOT for you. Anyway, you're probably outside anyway and have been since 6am when you drank your first cup of coffee sitting in your neighbor's frozen bird bath.
This entry is for those of us who, upon getting the pre-dawn text from the school district saying that school is canceled, immediately go into prayer to avoid saying a word that rhymes with "duck" that the Lord would most certainly frown upon the use of.
For some of you SDHs (Snow Day Haters), having one means you have to figure out what the heck you're supposed to do with the kids because, unlike the school district superintendant, your boss doesn't believe in snow days. So you are forced to either play a lightning round of "I can't stay home from work with them, YOU'RE going to have to stay home with them" with your spouse or to start waking up everyone you know at 5am to ask them if they can keep your kids.
Thanks to the hard work of my Handsome Husband, I am very blessed to be a SAHM, so why should I be a SDH, right? Let's break it down. Our school district builds like two snow days into the calendar. After that, we have to make them up. Now it becomes a math equation. Snow Days > 2 = Pool Days < 80. Yes, I have counted out the pool days between the last day of school in May and the first day in August. Don't get me started on how much I love the pool and summer in general. Another entry, another day.
Plus there's the fact that snow days start all blissful and fun and end up with my HH coming home from work to find both kids banished to their rooms and Mommy sitting in the car in the garage with all the doors locked and in a chocolate coma.
It all begins when the kids wake up, get over their momentary panic that my alarm clock had another Epic Fail (see my blog entry on Parenting) and that they are late for school, and it quickly turns to hoops and hollers that there is No School. They high five and hug and bond and make plans for a day of playing games together, playing in the snow together and playing like it's really going to go down that way.
I start out cautious and optimistic, like a thermonuclear physicist working with unstable nuetrons. Okay, science people, maybe that's not the correct anology. I would read your blog to find out what is, but zzzzzz...Hoo! I fell asleep just thinking about it! ;-)
As the hours tick by, the bliss quickly turns to boredom, then the game becomes "515 Ways to Annoy Your Sibling", which turns to "515 Ways to Get Mommy to Freak the Freak Out". And yes, in a Norman Rockwell, Pinterest-y world, we would be happily and peacefully crafting, cooking and singing show tunes together all day, but you know what Norman Rockwell pictures and Pinterest have in common? THEY DON'T SHOWCASE REAL LIFE!
Now mind you, our day does not go down like this in the fall, spring or summer. Ah, the summatime.... No, I won't start writing about summer, otherwise I'll never wrap up this entry. I'll just say that in the two other seasons and in summer, we're all outside together even on the hottest of days, whether that's at the pool or just chilling with the neighbors in our front yard. Everyone's happy, no one is yelling "Stop touching me!" or "Mommy, (s)he's looking at me!" or anything else that after hearing it 79 times causes me to freak the freak out.
So SDHs, let's all raise a fistful of Hershey's kisses in solidarity over our disdain for those pre-dawn texts and all of the chaos and calamity that ensues as a result of them. We will do what we can to make it through the winter, and when the end of May finally arrives, I will giddily save you a chair next to mine at the pool.
Sparkly Kisses,
D
This entry is for those of us who, upon getting the pre-dawn text from the school district saying that school is canceled, immediately go into prayer to avoid saying a word that rhymes with "duck" that the Lord would most certainly frown upon the use of.
For some of you SDHs (Snow Day Haters), having one means you have to figure out what the heck you're supposed to do with the kids because, unlike the school district superintendant, your boss doesn't believe in snow days. So you are forced to either play a lightning round of "I can't stay home from work with them, YOU'RE going to have to stay home with them" with your spouse or to start waking up everyone you know at 5am to ask them if they can keep your kids.
Thanks to the hard work of my Handsome Husband, I am very blessed to be a SAHM, so why should I be a SDH, right? Let's break it down. Our school district builds like two snow days into the calendar. After that, we have to make them up. Now it becomes a math equation. Snow Days > 2 = Pool Days < 80. Yes, I have counted out the pool days between the last day of school in May and the first day in August. Don't get me started on how much I love the pool and summer in general. Another entry, another day.
Plus there's the fact that snow days start all blissful and fun and end up with my HH coming home from work to find both kids banished to their rooms and Mommy sitting in the car in the garage with all the doors locked and in a chocolate coma.
It all begins when the kids wake up, get over their momentary panic that my alarm clock had another Epic Fail (see my blog entry on Parenting) and that they are late for school, and it quickly turns to hoops and hollers that there is No School. They high five and hug and bond and make plans for a day of playing games together, playing in the snow together and playing like it's really going to go down that way.
I start out cautious and optimistic, like a thermonuclear physicist working with unstable nuetrons. Okay, science people, maybe that's not the correct anology. I would read your blog to find out what is, but zzzzzz...Hoo! I fell asleep just thinking about it! ;-)
As the hours tick by, the bliss quickly turns to boredom, then the game becomes "515 Ways to Annoy Your Sibling", which turns to "515 Ways to Get Mommy to Freak the Freak Out". And yes, in a Norman Rockwell, Pinterest-y world, we would be happily and peacefully crafting, cooking and singing show tunes together all day, but you know what Norman Rockwell pictures and Pinterest have in common? THEY DON'T SHOWCASE REAL LIFE!
Now mind you, our day does not go down like this in the fall, spring or summer. Ah, the summatime.... No, I won't start writing about summer, otherwise I'll never wrap up this entry. I'll just say that in the two other seasons and in summer, we're all outside together even on the hottest of days, whether that's at the pool or just chilling with the neighbors in our front yard. Everyone's happy, no one is yelling "Stop touching me!" or "Mommy, (s)he's looking at me!" or anything else that after hearing it 79 times causes me to freak the freak out.
So SDHs, let's all raise a fistful of Hershey's kisses in solidarity over our disdain for those pre-dawn texts and all of the chaos and calamity that ensues as a result of them. We will do what we can to make it through the winter, and when the end of May finally arrives, I will giddily save you a chair next to mine at the pool.
Sparkly Kisses,
D
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