Spilled Milk {Wordless Wednesday}

Alternate title: How I knew my day was going to suck

Woke up to the sounds of a brand-new gallon crashing and a 5 year old shrieking. Happy Wednesday y’all!

This post is part of Wordless Wednesday from 5 Minutes for Mom.

Thursday Thirteen

This week’s edition – things I am really bad at

things at which I am really bad

Reasons I suck.

1. I am a lousy housekeeper. It’s not that I don’t care – pre-kids my house looked great. But now I find it to be much like Erma Bombeck said – shoveling while it’s still snowing – and I’m worn out.
2. I rarely finish a list. I make to-do lists and check off 90% of the things on there, but I always leave a task or two dangling, taunting me.
3. I can’t let go of things I’ve done wrong in the past.  I’m not petty – I won’t hold any of your past mistakes against you. But myself? I beat me up pretty good.
4. I’m a bad friend. Not because I don’t love you, but because I am lazy. I don’t write or call or send pictures like I should. I’m sorry.
5. I have guilt over things like what a bad friend I am.
6. I say things like “I’ll be back tomorrow with pictures“ and then I’m not.
7. I have Monk-like tendencies about strange things. I’m drawn to odd numbers. I can’t leave light switches willy-nilly – I need them to be aligned. I don’t leave the volume in the car stereo on a half number. Ever.
8. I’m not patient enough. When one of my children is sick, I am kind and loving and attentive for about half the day before the whining starts to wear on me, and by about 6 pm I can’t really talk anymore or else the words coming out of my mouth would be…snappish.  This goes quadruple for my husband, except for the part where I hold back. My defense is that my irritation is increased to match his increased level of whining.
9. I don’t like to exercise. I am completely lacking in that endorphin rush thing that other people have going on. I view exercise as a necessary evil so that I can eat.
10. I am not the mother I want to be. I am not the mother my children deserve. The world I have created for us is not what it should be. And I don’t know how to fix it all. I don’t even think I’m capable. See #5
11. I will never live long enough to do all of the things I want to do. I have a mental list a mile long of things I’d like to try, just for kicks. Real Estate license, culinary school, travel agent, interior decorator, tea room owner.  Learn to juggle, ride a unicycle, play the guitar. Visit Greece. Ski the Alps. It’s never gonna happen. Unless I win the lottery.  Which should also be on my list – buy a lottery ticket.  I’ve never done that, either.
12. I cannot feel at home here. I really love my town, a lot. But even decades removed, Pennsylvania still feels like home. I wonder if that will ever change, or if I will spend a lifetime feeling homesick.
13. I can’t ever come up with a good Thursday Thirteen list. Before I start I’m all “It’s only 13 little things!” and then after I start I’m all “13 is a lot more than I realized, people.“

I didn’t actually intend for this to be such a bummer of a list.  I got the idea over guilt I’ve been having over not blogging regularly enough.  Over all of the things I said I was going to post but didn’t.

I suck like that.

And December? Wow. Overwhelming.

I’d like to tell you I’ll do better, but I don’t know if I will and I’m at the very least going to try not to lie to you.

At least I didn’t end by telling you about the dog I think I’m going to have to put to sleep.  That would really be a low note.

Thursday Thirteen – Random things that make me happy

1)  I’m so glad I’m not one of those androgynous-looking people.  How much would that suck?

2)  My disgusting creep of an ex boyfriend is now dating someone who looks like a bad transvestite.

Crap. Maybe that shouldn’t make me happy, since it puts me in the same category as him/her. He/she?

3)  SIMP.  Squirrels in my pants.

4)  Rolling change.  Not just the money part, which is obviously great, but the actual counting and sorting and wrapping of the coins.  I enjoy that.  Coinstar be darned.

5)  Meat men who flirt with me.  At two separate stores, two different butchers have asked me out.  It’s both flattering and amusing to me.  Why two butchers?  And what kind of man asks a woman with 3 kids in tow for a date?

6)  Good friends and late nights.

7)  I made a quilt – well, 3 actually – and they’re not too shabby.  Yey me.  Quilting has intimidated me for years.

8 )  Football

9)  Thoughtful people.  Not in the grand-gesture kind of way, but people who notice little things.  I have a friend who constantly gobsmacks me with little, everyday observations and the thoughtfulness is remarkable.

10)  Stand-up comedy.  It’s rare to find a really good comedian, but when I do? My heart feels light.

11)  Unexpected mail. Who ever gets actual mail anymore? It’s always bills or catalogs or magazines or junk mail – nothing meaningful.  Getting a real letter, printed pictures, or a surprise package totally makes my day.

12)  Being busy.  I know that many people complain about this, but I seem to thrive on it.  I can’t stand to have nothing to do.

13)  Infomercials.  I don’t order, but I greatly enjoy the commercials for things like the Showtime Rotisserie.  Set it and forget it, people!  And check out the Booty Pop.  I especially love how the girl looks kinda sad and dejected, but when she slips on the silicone enhancing underwear she finds herself a gigantic lollipop and cheers right up!  And if you’ve not simultaneously laughed at the dorkiness and marveled at the genius of Pajama Jeans, then I’m not sure we can really be friends.  You know you’re curious.

I’d like to mention the Shake Weight here, but I just can’t open that can of worms. Good grief.

So what makes you happy?

Wordless Wednesday

Flawed, I tell ya

It’s been a week.  I can’t say good or bad, necessarily – it’s been typical.  Crazy.  Snafu.

So what have I learned?

~ Don’t ever count on a stomach bug being completely gone.  Sometimes they like to rear their ugly heads a second (or third) time.

Yes, I do realize I just used ‘their’ incorrectly. His/her (or simply ‘his’) just doesn’t seem proper in reference to an illness. ‘Their,’ although wrong, seemed…less so.

Thoughts?

~ Setting your clock ahead 5 or 10 minutes is not a good plan for me.  I can’t handle the stress.  I never know what time it actually is, and I live in a constant state of anxiety thinking I’m late/early/on time.  It does work, though.

Okay I don’t actually feel anxiety over that.  I’m pretty chill.  I’m late and I really don’t care.  If we’re going to be friends, you’re just going to have to accept that and plan on me being 5-10 minutes late for everything. I know it’s rude and I’m very sorry.

~ Even at thirty-something, I still laugh at the same juvenile things that would have cracked me up in junior high.  Big. Dork.

~Speaking of Thirtysomething, it’s on Netflix Instant Streaming.  As soon as I wrap this up I’m off to watch [again] and see what I remember from the first go-round.  Which, incidentally, was in 1987. How old does that make you feel?  Weird that I am now one of those thirty-somethings.  I wonder how it will seem different as a mature responsible adult.

~ Even though I have no neighbors that live behind me, and in fact I have trees directly behind the fence line, and even though there is no way that someone would be behind my house, I should probably just assume that someone might be there and wear a shirt at all times anyway, just in case. Because if I were to, say, rush to catch the ringing  phone fresh out of the shower with no regard to my shirtless state, there is a chance I could [awkwardly] discover someone behind my house.

~ Just FYI, when the power company decides to trim trees on your property, they don’t give you any advance notice.

~ I don’t do well without my phone, and I hate this about myself.

~ You should always check out your daughter’s brand-new Brownie uniform out in advance.  And by ‘in advance’ I mean more than 24 hours out from a big event.  Because if someone ordered her the wrong one, you might discover that Girl Scout stores are not open on Saturdays, and then you might find yourself scrambling to make one the night before said event.  Which is even less fun that it sounds, if that’s possible.

~ I am also one of those jerks that checks football scores from her [then-functioning] phone during her child’s big event, which was unfortunately scheduled smack in the middle of the game.  It didn’t stop me from doing it, but I did feel bad about it, for whatever that’s worth.  And I only checked twice.  The game was a blowout anyway.

~ Come to think of it, I did this in Disney last year, too, while we were enjoying the Hoop-De-Doo with Darcie and family.  Maybe my jerkiness is not new this week.

Bygones.

~ And just because I really hate to have a post without a picture…

I love that man.

3-0 Baby. Go Stillers!

Saturday Six – Energy

This is what we call cheating, because I don’t feel good and wasn’t smart enough to blog ahead.  Not sick, just exhausted, which is ironic considering what today’s topic will be.

I’m playing along with Patrick and doing the Saturday Six.  Which today, is all about energy.

Or lack thereof.

1. How often do you get eight hours of sleep in a single night?

Never.  Like – never.  I can’t even fathom such a thing.  The last time I slept this much was probably when I was about 6 weeks pregnant with Annie and slept all the time.

2. You find yourself fading towards the end of the day at work: what do you do for enough of an energy burst to get you to quitting time?

Make another pot of coffee.

3. Which work shift would be ideal for you: 8am-5pm, 2pm-11pm or 11pm-8am?

11-8.

4. Do you ever drink “energy drinks” for an extra boost?

No.  I’ve been told Red Bull is good, but I’ve not tried it.  The name is a real turn-off.

5. Take the quiz: What’s Your Energy Level?

You Burn the Midnight Oil

No matter how hard you try, you just don’t make a good morning person.
You probably don’t feel like your brain turns on until at least noon.

You tend to get energized and inspired late into the evening – no matter how early you had to get up.
Try to schedule your time so that you can be productive after dark. There’s no use fighting who you are.

{True that}

6. What percentage of the time would you say that you get up on the wrong side of the bed?

Grouchy?  I’m always grouchy in the mornings.  I like to have 15-20 minutes of no one talking to me and then I’m fine.  If I’m around a totally obnoxious morning person (like my husband) who laughs and talks and sings as soon as I’m waking up, I feel irrational hatred and a strong desire to hit said morning person.

20 minutes – that’s all I ask.

Never get it though.

You know why? Because the jerk man that I married is a button-pusher who thinks it’s funny to upset me.

Guess you can tell how I was awakened this morning, huh?

<sigh>

Off to make some coffee.

Thursday Thirteen – Quotes I love

1)  Bob Dylan: “People don’t do what they believe in, they just do what’s most convenient then they repent”

2)  Candace, Phineas & Ferb: “Mom, that’s why books have covers.  To judge them.”

3)  Leonard Cohen: “The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.”

4)  Irish Toast: “May those that love us, love us.  And those that don’t love us, may God turn their hearts.  And if He doesn’t turn their hearts, may He turn their ankles so we will know them by their limping.”

5)  Fishism: “I don’t mind losing.  It’s high profile losing that is not good.”

6)  Dick Butkus: “When I played pro football, I never set out to hurt anyone deliberately – unless it was, you know, important, like a league game or something.”

7)  Erma Bombeck: “I haven’t trusted polls since I read that 62% of women had affairs during their lunch hour. I’ve never met a woman in my life who would give up lunch for sex.”

8)  Henry David Thoreau: “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

9)  Unknown: “I can’t talk to you anymore.  It’s not that I am mad at you, it’s just that when I talk to you I realize how much I love you, and when I realize how much I love you, I realize I can’t have you… and that makes me love you even more.”

10)  Hans Bos: “While I dance I cannot judge, I cannot hate, I cannot separate myself from life.  I can only be joyful and whole.  That is why I dance.”

11)  Mitch Hedberg: “I was at this casino minding my own business, and this guy came up to me and said, ‘You’re gonna have to move, you’re blocking a fire exit.’ As though if there was a fire, I wasn’t gonna run. If you’re flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.”

12)  Mark Twain: “July 4. Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than in all the other days of the year put together. This proves, by the number left in stock, that one fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so.”

13)  Winston Churchill: “I am prepared to meet my Maker.  Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”

Eric and Football, my two great loves

~ I learned that Eric is a very sexy name.  Eric just sounds like a knight in shining armor on a white horse, right?  Like the kind of guy who can swoop in and save the day and make it look all effortless.  Eric is a name for a smart, masculine, studly dude.

~ Not coincidentally, Eric is also the name of the Hostmonster tech support guy that made the techie stuff on my blog work again.  He also didn’t tell me what a moron I am for being so completely baffled by something that was, as it turned out, insanely easy to fix.  You know, if you’re not a moron like me.

~ Hooray for working comments!

~ I may or may not have added Eric to my list.

~Okay I think this was actually a couple of weeks ago, but since I didn’t tell you about it yet, it counts as this week.  That’s how I roll.  I learned that my most common typo involves the letter o.  And therefore also usually i or p as well.  Something about those fingers just doesn’t work well, which, I believe, is also the reason I can’t seem to grasp the guitar playing.  My reach needs some work.

~If you are about to point out to me that this is the opposite hand, then shut up.  It made sense in my head for a minute and I’d like to keep it that way.

~ Beef Stew before and during stomach virus?  Pretty much looks the same.

~ In a family with more than 1 child, more than 1 throw-up bowl is necessary.  Trust me.

~ A sense of humor has helped me weather many childhood illnesses, both my own and those of my children.  I feel bad for people who can’t laugh freely.

~ Sprint totally has the best cell phone service.  Not that this is new this week, but it was reinforced this week.  We’ve used them for years and they rock.  I’ve never experienced more helpful customer service.  Yes, things do go wrong, but they always fix them and do so in a big, above and beyond kinda way.  I’ve yet to be let down.

~ I rearranged sofas in the house, bringing the one from the family room into the formal living room, and moving the hideously uncomfortable one from the formal living room into the family room.  The coffee table  moved as well, which really opened the room up.  It looks and flows better.  However it’s leather, which is also hideously uncomfortable to sleep on.  An unforeseen complication.  Drat.

Talking football now and I’m sure few of you care. Indulge me.

~ No one has faith in Charlie Batch like I do.  What’s up with that?

~ I found a Polamalu children’s book that Annie is so getting for Christmas.  She’ll be thrilled.  She adores him, and while I’d normally discourage my child from loving anyone in the public spotlight, I feel pretty confident that he won’t let me down.  Don’t know him?  You should.  Even if you don’t care about football <gasp!> Troy Polamalu is an incredible human being.

~ He’s also a really awesome football player.

~ I really, really love football.  This isn’t new information or anything, but I’m just so deliriously happy to be enjoying football season again that I felt the need to reiterate.  Football makes my heart happy.

Happy Tuesday y’all!

Writer’s Workshop: The Story of Us

3.) What was it about that movie? Describe a movie you once had memorized.

I hadn’t planned to participate this week.  Even after reading the prompts, I thought I would skip it.  But as so often happens, I was later lured in against my better judgment.

This week you’re getting an abridged version, because I’m following my own restraint policy.
The movie?  The Story of Us.

It came out in 1999, before I was married.  Before I was engaged.

While we were broken up, actually.  While I was longing for someone else.

And something about this movie touched me deeply.  It was so unexpectedly real, and showed an imperfect love in a raw way that I had never seen before.

I’m a love junkie, you see.  I dreamed of a perfect, passionate, all-consuming love.

My grandparents eloped at 16 and 17, and were happily married for 63 years before my grandfather passed away.

My parents have a beautiful story.  That Vince Gill song, Look at Us, makes me think of them every time I hear it.

I’m not so into romance.  Romance fades.  I’m not into flowers or diamonds or sweet nothings.  But love? Real love?  Love gets me, every. single. time.

Elderly couples who still look at one another with adoration in their eyes.  Couples that marry after only a few dates, because they know they have found The One.  Love that conquers all, love that endures.

That endurance, though, is usually depicted in a romantic way in the movies.  We see all of the passion and none of the reality.  The Story of Us was real to me, and it opened my eyes to the idea of love being difficult.  Imperfect.  Not fun.

In ways small and lighthearted:

It is physically impossible to French-kiss a man who leaves the new roll of toilet paper resting on top of the empty cardboard roll. Does he not see it?  DOES HE NOT *SEE* IT?

{love Rita Wilson!}

And ways big and serious:

There’s a history here, and histories don’t happen overnight. In Mesopotamia or ancient Troy there are cities built on top of other cities, but I don’t want another city. I like this city. I know what kind of mood you’re in when you wake up by which eyebrow is higher, and you know I’m a little quiet in the morning and compensate accordingly. That’s a dance you perfect over time. And it’s hard, it’s much harder than I thought it would be, but there’s more good than bad and you don’t just give up!

This movie gave me hope that even when things were bad, there might just be good lurking around the bend.

To be honest, this movie is the reason I took my boyfriend-now-husband back, after swearing I never would.  [That's a whooooole other story]

I believe that love is a choice.  That every day, you have to actively choose to love a person.  Even when you may not like them.  Even when it is hard.  Even when it isn’t fun.  Because that’s what real love is – a commitment, rather than a feeling.

From the movie Captain Corelli’s Mandolin:

“When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.  Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body.  No… don’t blush!  I am telling you some truths.  That is just being ‘in love,’ which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being ‘in love’ has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it?  But it is!  Your mother and I had it. We had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossoms had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.”

This is the love that I dream about now.

Real love.

Imperfect stories.

One tree.

Working overtime. Sorta.

Have you noticed what a posting roll I have been on?  So unlike me!  I’m trying to improve myself.  In a really easy, lazy kind of way.

I have ‘friends’ who are also trying to improve themselves.  Four of them are doing P90x.  Four!  What are the odds that I would have four such insane highly motivated friends all at the same time?  I think a couple of them are gonna have to go.  Especially since they’re posting pictures of their sculpted abs on Facebook, demoralizing me while I’m trying to goof off and eat a donut.

Just kidding of course. Anyone who knows me knows that I wouldn’t really be eating a donut.

Maybe a bowl of pasta.  With pesto.  And garlic bread.

And any other carbs I can scrounge up on my way back to the couch.

So yeah – my version of self-improvement involves ramping up the amount of time I spend sitting on my butt in front of the computer.  Yey me!

I’m not full-fledged committing, but I am aspiring to NaBloPoMo this month.

Don’t hold me to it.

But we’ll see.

Have a good holiday weekend!