Author Archives: lifeonwry.com

Weekly Photo Challenge: Mine. Gratitude Experiment: Day 52

The theme of last week’s WordPress weekly photo challenge was Mine — where you post a picture of something that is uniquely yours.

I’m a day late, but I selected this old GE photo cube that I got from my grandmother’s house after she passed away.  When I was little I was fascinated by this cube that she always had out.  It has photos on each side and a speaker on the top, with an AM/FM radio that doesn’t work anymore.  I thought the radio part was so very cool and I loved to play with it (hmmm…possibly why it doesn’t work anymore).  This was back in the days before Shutterfly and all of the sites that let you make photo gifts.  It was far ahead of its time.

The cube has a picture of a house I lived in during my early years one side, a photo of my grandmother, her sister and two of her friends on another side, a photo of me when I was probably four years old with my cat Rascal on one side, and my favorite side has a photo of my Dad carving a pumpkin with my sister and I.

This photo cube reminds me of my grandmother in all of her leopard print and gold lamay glory.  She made flashy work like no one else could ever pull off because she had a larger-than-life attitude that influenced her every moment. She could play the piano more beautifully than I’ve ever heard anyone play.  And she had a whistle that was so magnificent and strong I can hear it now.  My dad got her whistle and I love to hear it.  She was also a complete bridge-playing bad-ass and could remember numbers like nobody’s business.  I wish I had asked her to teach me bridge.

She also had a beautiful voice unlike any other. I loved the way she said my name and the way she talked. She called my Gypsy during the summers of my college years when I changed residences often.  She loved it when her Gypsy would pull up in her driveway to say hello.  She’d always offer me “Cokie Cola” and cookies and we would sit at her ice cream table and visit while the koo koo clock on her kitchen wall tick-tocked loudly behind us.  Then at certain intervals her antique clocks in the living room would chime in a series, making their own little familiar symphony.  I can hear those chimes and smell her house now.  The aroma of little scented soaps filled the house because it seemed like she had them everywhere in sweet little china dishes.

The picture of my dad and sister and I all together is my favorite side of the cube because it has us all together in it, which I love the thought of.  Also because I love carving pumpkins and Halloween is my favorite holiday.  And as you know, I have a special relationship with pumpkins as mentioned in a previous post (https://lifeonwry.com/2012/10/04/watch-out-for-flying-pumpkins-gratitude-experiment-day-50/).  And the yellow appliances, our outfits, our haircuts and the looks on all of our faces remind me of the innocence of my youth.

This photo cube is uniquely mine and I cherish it.  It sits not far from my computer where I write this blog each day, on a shelf with other things uniquely mine and sentimental.  For all this, I am grateful.  Thanks for reading!

Mike Foxtrotter, this has to stop! Gratitude Experiment: Day 51

This morning I was running late for a meeting and getting ready far too late to comfortably make it in time.  And that’s usually when it starts.  Words that would make most people blush begin to fly out of my mouth as I fumble for my mascara and search for my iphone that invisible elves continue to misplace every morning when I need to leave the house.

This is all much to my husband’s amusement.  He often laughs quietly (for fear of his life), sometimes muttering that he thinks he would hear less cursing if he were suiting up in marine barracks each morning.

Today after my explosive rant while hurriedly applying makeup with one eye on the clock, searching for my phone  and changing clothes at the same time, he suggested that I might think about substituting my litany of four-letter words with military alphabet terminology:  “Foxtrot!  Where’s my mike foxtrotting phone?  Delta it.”

Yesterday after I broke a glass in the dishwasher and exclaimed a few niceties, he asked,”Is that how Honey Boo Boo would say it?”   This is getting serious.  I know I need to clean up my act.

At least I’m becoming more aware and I think I have some semblance of control.  I actually do know when to limit my Sierras, Foxtrots and Deltas in certain circumstances when it would be totally out of line.  So why am I unable to harness that kind of self control more often?  Maybe I need to be checked in somewhere.

This afternoon I asked my almost sixteen year old son if I cursed too much.  When he told me “Well, yes Mom, you do, but it’s sort of but it’s funny.”  I threw out a curse word before asking he was serious.  “Sierra… am I that bad?”  I didn’t even realize the irony.

In a fellow blogger’s recent post, Cursing: An Editorial Style Guide (http://imissyouwheniblink.com/2012/04/26/cursing-an-editorial-style-guide/), his guidelines for optimum profanity usage are explained.

Below is rule number one:

***

1. Show some ingenuity.

Contrary to what you may have heard, using profanity isn’t necessarily a lazy way of speaking or writing. Using the wrong profanity is lazy. Choose all words with equal care, I say. My mother, who by the way is one of the classiest dames you’ll ever meet, has been known to brandish curse words in entirely unique ways, inventing whole new parts of speech. She always has the right expression for a situation. For example, walking into an unkempt room: “Holy shitstorm, it looks like the ass end of destruction in a typhoid whorehouse around here.” [Exit with flourish.] What does it even mean? I don’t know. But somehow I can picture it. She is a genius. Always be creative and specific.

***

I can only hope that one day my boys will refer to the ingenuity of my profanity with the admiration that this blogger has for his mother’s.  I know my college roommates have that kind of admiration for me to this day. I had some doozies my freshman year. They still quote me on a couple of key phrases that broke records for profanity ingenuity.

Today I am grateful that at times I am self-aware enough to know when I need to work on improving my less than ideal habits.  And for my family’s patience while I do so.  Thanks for reading!

Watch out for flying pumpkins. Gratitude Experiment: Day 50

by Scenic Reflections

Warning: The following post is a work of NONfiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are NOT products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely real. (This actually happened to me and I am not making it up.)

October has arrived and I am starting to see Halloween decorations in all the stores. Each October for the last 30 years (except for the last two), my Mother has sent me a Halloween card that says “Watch out for flying pumpkins!” She probably bought the cards, as well as some little Halloween gifts, at least eight months in advance and had everything wrapped, stamped and ready to go each year on September 1st.

Halloween is my favorite holiday when the semi-suppressed kid in me goes hog-wild decorating with creepy stuff that scares really little kids. But I must admit the lack of that tradition of a card for this last couple of years has been bittersweet since the Alzheimer’s grim reaper came to visit.  At any rate, I  tell this story at least once a year explaining why my Mom always sent me a card that said “Watch out for flying pumpkins” each year.

As I was growing up, one of my closest friends was almost as big of a freak as I was.  Actually a few were but I’m going to focus on one of them for now. I had a way of attracting them.

In sixth grade, we didn’t want to admit that we still had closets full of Barbie condos, cars and outfits, so we began disrobing them and being creepier than we already were.  We would prop them up on mailboxes and trees naked on the path between our houses ( she lived up the hill a good ten or so houses away).  We always attached notes with disturbing sentiments to amuse each other. That way whichever of us was walking would have to see them and collect them for reuse at another date. (We brought Barbie arms to each other’s weddings for photo opps of Barbie’s arm in our wedding cakes.)

We even put one in the middle of the road one time with ketchup on it like it had been run over.  Cranky Mrs. Clapp from across the street (our version Mrs. Kravitz) found me less than amusing and came and told my mother about it. What a buzz kill.  Fortunately my mother already knew I was warped.  It was in the genes.

At any rate, one year my friend and I wanted to go trick-or-treating even though we were in the 9th grade.  We wanted to be those creepy way-too-old kids that come to the door for candy and make people want to lock the door early.  Clearly we thought we were hilarious.

I wore a super realistic (or I thought so at the time) ‘old man’ mask and a man’s sports coat, and used a golf club as my cane.  I cant’ remember what my friend’s get-up was, but I’m thinking she was equally disguised so no one would realize what freak geeks we were trick-or-treating in high school.

As we strolled up and down the streets on our neighborhood Halloween haunt, suddenly a speeding car came racing by us. It kept turning around at the end of the street and racing by us again.   It was a navy blue Honda Prelude (I can’t believe I remember but I can see it now). It was a 1980s version before they came out with the new body style which I thought was super cool.  (The new body style had a “moon roof” and I used to tape magazine ads of it up around my dad’s office and house to give subtle hints of my auto preferences.)

Anyway, about the third or fourth time the Honda Prelude zoomed by us, I decided ( in keeping with my character) to wave my cane in the direction of the car and yell “Slow down you meddling kids!” full-on Hanna Barbera style.

The next thing I knew I woke up on a couch at my neighbor’s house.  The house that now had splattered pumpkin all over the driveway.  Luckily they called my Mom and when I came to, she was staring down at me as I lay on the couch.  My friend had probably crapped her pants by now thinking I might be dead, I can’t remember.  But I’m thinking she’ll remember when she reads this post.

I had a gash on my nose from where the stem of the pumpkin made its impact and it knocked me out cold. Those meddling kids had been throwing pumpkins out of their speeding car that night (super smart, almost as smart as I was yelling at a car and waving my fake cane).  My mom and her boyfriend (now my stepdad) drove me to the Emergency Room in his super cool white Firebird. As we walked in , I kid you not, my mom said to the nurses at the front desk “My daughter’s been hit by a flying pumpkin.”

The nurses at the station did everything in their power not to break out into hysterical laughter at my expense. I was sort of out of it, but that part I will never forget. Complete teenage mortification was in process and it was only getting started.

I got to miss school that next day.  The ER doc told them I had a concussion.  I sort of remember my Mom waking me up in the middle of the night to make sure I was breathing.

Word got around school about what had happened to me.  Nice, my nerd cover was WAY blown.  Turns out the person who threw the pumpkin was an upperclassman named Doug that I sort of had a crush on (I promise I am not making this up).  What are the odds? Word got around that my dad was a lawyer, so he got scared and called me at my house to apologize.  That was a super fun conversation to have with an upper classman.  I was mortified.

It all ended well and makes a great story to tell that explains the “Watch out for flying pumpkins” cards.  I am grateful that I survived the Pumpkin Incident (sounds like a Charlie Brown holiday special)  even though I miss receiving that card every year. I’m also celebrating my 50th post – half way through my 100-day gratitude challenge!   What are you grateful for today? Thanks so very much for reading!

A shout-out to the blogosphere. Gratitude Experiment: Day 49


I’m sort of speechless.  Steaming mad at my teenage son right now (different story), but still speechless and very grateful for the blogging universe.

My “Register to Vote” post, which was Freshly Pressed, has opened the doors to hundreds of new readers and followers and the wonderful blogs that belong to many of them.  I love visiting these blogs. I can’t believe I got an ounce of my real work done this past few days because I have been so obsessed with checking my blog and visiting others who visited mine.  So many great comments and likes, I just wanted to eat it all up at once.  My head almost got bigger. I am officially off the Freshly Pressed page now, so things are starting to get back to a new normal of sorts.

I so appreciate all of my new followers and readers who found me through Freshly Pressed.  Also my loyal followers who knew me before my three days of fame. I invite you to continue following and reading, as I promise to entertain you on some days and make you think on others.

More gratitude (I’m sounding like a broken record here) – I have also been honored with two awards from fellow bloggers whose blogs I truly enjoy and whose feedback is always positive and fun.  One award is the Addictive Blog award given to me by http://fortyteencandles.com and the other is the So Sweet award, given to me by http://thefurfiles.wordpress.com.  You should check them out. This blog award thing is new to me so I’m not exactly sure if there is something specific I am supposed to do or reveal, so someone let me know if this is the case. For now, I am simply expressing my gratitude for these awards, for my readers, my followers and the great blogs I get to visit each day, and paying it forward.

I close by giving a shout out and the award of their choice – either Addictive Blog or So Sweet Blog – to a few of  blogs I am loving.  Here are just a few (please accept either award):

http://janetsnotebook.com -Who found lifeonwry through my Freshly Pressed post.  While visiting this UK blogger’s site, I learned how to make the cool ‘word cloud’ graphic above.

http://j-bo.net/ – Looking for love in a litter box post was freaking hilarious.  So many awesome visuals.  Laughing is good.

http://imissyouwheniblink.com – ‘Four Ways To Stop Mean People by Creeping Them Out’ made me spit out my coffee laughing.  Again, laughter is the bomb.  I’m going to start randomly hugging people when they piss me off.

and http://transformedbythejourney.com/ – who has encouraged me from early on and whose thoughtful posts make me think.  Thinking is worth every minute of the time you spend doing it.

There are so many others but I will share more later.  In the meantime, I am grateful for all of this, and, frankly, for you reading my post this very moment.  I am one grateful gal.  Now, if only my oldest son could follow suit a little more often (although I did just get an apology from him, so there is hope).

                                

Top 10 Reasons Not To Have Petite Friends If You’re Not Petite. Gratitude Experiment: Day 48

I will preface this post with a note that I am not of Amazonian proportions. In fact,  I am an average sized person if not a tad less bulky than average.  But growing up in my family, 5’7″ actually was Amazonian.    I towered over my mother and sister for much of my life.  Yes, they were short, cute, petite little buggers and I heard quite a few wisecracks from them over the years (although it was advantageous to be taller than your older sister).

As an adult,  I have formed wonderful friendships with a few petite, some might even say tiny, friends. But I’ve realized this doesn’t do my vain ego any favors.  Too late to change direction on those friendships for sure, but I can apply these findings to potential petite pals in the future.

At any rate, here’s why:

1. There is no way I can be in a photo with these petite pals and not look like I am a giant who is getting ready to eat them.

2. I’m destined to have a “big eater” complex at restaurants with them whenever I reach for the breadbasket (let alone the New York Strip and loaded mashed potatoes).

3. My large head,  especially next to them, looks freakishly out of proportion in photos — especially if, heaven forbid, I end up in the foreground of the photo.

4 . There’s not any clothes swapping or borrowing going on with these mini mates.

5.  If I was to try on their jewelry – their rings would barely fit my pinky finger I’m pretty sure.  Not an ego booster.

6. There’s not any shoe swapping going on with these bite size buddies either.  And I’m convinced that shoe manufacturers either produce less attractive shoes in size 9, or they just look far less attractive when that long.

7. Sometimes aforementioned photos end up on Facebook and I wonder if it’s because I make them look great by size comparison.

8 .  There is the distinct possibility of jail time for me after violent reactions to any one of them complaining about feeling too big or fat (even though I know it’s all relative).

9. Few clothing items that look good on my pint size pals will look good on me when found in my size.  Let’s face it, clothing designers like the way their clothes look on small framed people and they design them that way.

10. When in photos with these friends, I usually have to lean or kneel down a bit so that I don’t tower over them or end up out of the picture frame.  This usually ends up creating an even more awkward looking photo — like I have a hunchback or spinal curvature condition.  Super sexy.

That Randy Newman Short People song kept going through my head as I was writing this post.  I wondered what his motivation was for the lyrics and thought about how controversial and mean it would sound today.  After a little research, it turns out that he was referring to people with short tempers who are small-minded.   Or that’s his story and he’s sticking to it.

Today, despite my whining, I am very grateful for all of my friends, large and small.  And for my readers, short and tall.

Traveling the world through WordPress. Gratitude Experiment: Day 47

I The city of Surabaya. Pictures from Wikipedia Commons

Being Freshly Pressed  filled my inbox for a few days, made me privy to fascinating debates about voting rights, and gave me a great ego trip.  And, I came across a few people with whom I have a heck of a lot in common with and many who are wonderful writers.

Even better, I was downright fascinated with the ability to participate in a pretty civil discourse with people from at least 13 countries, especially given that my post was somewhat political in nature.

In the past three days I’ve had over 300 views per day, with 363 just yesterday. That is crazy.  But very cool.

WordPress let’s you breakdown your visits or views by country. This is yesterday’s breakdown for my blog views by country:

Country                       Views

United States                     232

United Kingdom                   23

Canada                               13

India                                  12

Argentina                            10

Indonesia                             5

Japan                                   5

Philippines                            5

Germany                              4

Italy                                     4

Armenia                               4

Lithuania                              4

Ireland                                 4

One fellow blogger who liked my “Register to Vote” post lived in Surabaya and their blog was available in Malay or English.  I didn’t recognize Surabaya as a place or Malay as a language, so after a quick Google search, I learned that Surabaya is Indonesia’s second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million (5.6 million in the metropolitan area), and the capital of the province of East Java. It is located on the northern shore of eastern Java at the mouth of the Mas River and along the edge of the Madura Strait. It turns out that Malay is the national language of Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, and it is one of four official languages of Singapore

I also learned that Indonesia is the fourth most populous nation in the world. And the number of people who speak Indonesian fluently there is quickly approaching 100%, making Indonesian, and thus Malay, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world.

Okay, enough with the geography lesson.  But it is fascinating.

In the end, I enjoyed participating in a conversation with so many interesting people from so many countries across the world.  Who would have thought that could happen so easily?  I sure didn’t.  And for that I am grateful.

Channeling Mr. Rogers. Gratitude Experiment: Day 46

 

After a wonderful weekend with friends in the mountains, I’m breathing a little lighter and my shoulder muscles aren’t begging  for more Advil.   It’s amazing what a change of scenery, friendship and ridiculous laughter can do for the soul. (As well as good food and wine.)

And how terrific it is to be reminded that I live not far at all from mountain scenes that are living oil paintings and sunsets that songs are written about.  It gives me an even clearer idea about that high John Denver was singing about.

I know is sounds like Mr. Rogers has taken over my keyboard to describe his neighborhood.  And I might as well ask  “won’t you be mine, won’t you be mine, won’t … you be … my neighbor?” But I’m completely serious.  We all have plenty of doses of splendor and beauty not too far away if we make time to notice.

I finally got to witness the glory of autumn’s bright yellow Aspen trees dotting the majestic Rocky mountains as the sun was setting. The pictures I took on my phone through my cloudy car windows didn’t do them justice at all.  The colorful displays were more spectacular than I had imagined and I tried to take it all in. Don’t worry, I wasn’t driving.

I got to drive from one side of the Rocky Mountain National State Park to the other, all the way up and over the Continental Divide,watching the tips of the Divide’s snow topped mountains weave in and out of view.  I saw more Elk than I could ever imagine and heard their crazy orchestra of bugle calls to each other (think Ricola commercials but with huge elk making the noises instead of the Swedish guys in plaid shorts).  It’s mating season and the bugles are blaring.

I was able to swallow my fear long enough to peer out my car window into canyons far below over the steep sides of mountain pass switchbacks without a guardrail in sight.  I got to laugh with friends and family, and forget about house projects, work deadlines and school projects.  I even got to ride horses against scenery more breathtaking than I can describe during an afternoon that made my heart fuller and my eyes a little wider.

The business of life takes over in my little suburban world, and I forget about all of the natural splendor in my proverbial backyard. I also forget how to not sweat the small stuff, as the popular book says.  It really is all relative and it just takes getting outside of yourself long enough to realize it.

For this reminder, I am truly grateful. And for channeling Mr. Rogers.  Won’t you be mine?

 

My clothes are rarely freshly pressed, but now my blog is. Gratitude Experiment: Day 45

Holy cow! (And I’m saying cow because I’ve been cursing too much on my blog lately.)

I’m officially Freshly Pressed. Which is a big deal to bloggers.  For nonbloggers, this means that WordPress has selected one of my posts to put on their main Freshly Pressed page for all bloggers who follow it to see.

This has made my day, maybe my month. Hell, I think it made my year.  It’s been one of those years.

Supposedly getting Freshly Pressed is a 1 in 80,000 chance. Wordpress editors pick 19 posts per day to feature out of 451,713 bloggers, 934,065 new posts, 1,367,589 comments, and 212,837,940 words posted daily on WordPress.com.

Clearly someone was asleep at the wheel when they selected my “If you’re not registered to vote, quit reading my blog and register” post. Just kidding, it’s more likely that they agree that this is an important issue.

We’ll see how much  my blog traffic stats change after this new found, short lived fame.  I’ll try not to get a big head.  Any bigger than it already is, since my head is bizarrely large and the Sienfeld episode –where Elaine walks in the park and birds fly into her head because her head is so big and the birds can’t miss it — was based on my head size.

PS: Have you registered to vote or made time on your calendar to make sure to vote?

Today I am thankful for getting Freshly Pressed!  And for my loyal readers.  Thank you.

National “Think Before You Reply-All” Day. Gratitude Experiment: Day 44

I hereby declare today as National “Think Before You Reply-All to Emails”  Day.

It tends to happen a lot on kids sports team emails for some reason.  And a lot of work emails.

Pass the word.  If it’s not necessary to reply to an entire group on an email, please resist the urge.  And only reply to the person who actually needs to know that Johnny has an eye doctor appointment because his stye has been oozing for two and a half days, so he’ll have to miss practice today.

You get the idea.  This will save me from poking my eyes out repeatedly.  And most likely many others.

Today I am grateful that everyone I come across in the blogosphere seems pretty smart and they probably already know this.

Happy Friday.

Bill Nye the Science Guy Messes with Fox. Gratitude Experiment: Day 43

 

Getty Images

So I remember Bill Nye the Science Guy from his show ten years ago that my kids used to love to watch.  He did cool experiments and helped kids learn to like science.

I heard a rumor that he died and I hadn’t heard anything else about him in a while, so I figured it was true.

So I was shocked to see him on the TV when I was helping at my Mom’s the other day on a Fox news morning show.  Note:  I don’t want to get political or anything, but this is a channel that is not watched often at my house and I only see it when my stepdad has been watching it at their house.  I always check it out it for a bit before I start flipping channels.

As I watched, the show cut away to Bill Nye and I could tell he was getting a little hot and bothered about something.   As I listened I could tell he was going on in a bit of rant … about global warming…. on a Fox channel news showl.  These things don’t go together well.

The co-hosts looked very nervous and they were trying to get him to stop talking without making a scene.  This didn’t go with the channel’s overall point of view.  The fact that any channel has a point of view so strong that it is undeniable makes me crazy in the first place (for either political side).  I went to journalism school where we learned that news is objective.  But that’s beside the point, sort of.

So the co-hosts kept nervously trying to get him to talk about a web resource for kids that he was supposed to be promoting — instead of global warming.  They said “thanks Bill for sharing your ‘theory’.”   But Bill wouldn’t stop.  He was telling them that it wasn’t a theory.  That it was a fact, and he didn’t understand why so many thought it was merely a theory.  Now it was getting just plain fun to watch and they kept calling it his ‘theory’.

Finally they got him to change gears when one of the co-hosts said, “Well, Bill, we want our children to believe what we believe, so let’s move on.”

Seriously, that was said.  I kid you not.  My jaw dropped.  And Bill Nye begrudgingly went into his spiel about whatever he was supposed to be promoting.  And probably poked himself in the eye when he got home.

As I grabbed the remote to change the channel I thought about the whole exchange. Again, I don’t want to get political here folks, but saying that global warming is a theory and doesn’t exist baffles me.  Why believe scientists for some things that they prove and not for others? Especially if it has to do with the quality of life for all of us and our health.

Bill Nye and I suspect that it’s because if we accept it as truth, that would really hurt a lot of oil and gas companies, and other companies who don’t put the environment at the top of their list.  And those companies pay lobbyists a lot of money to get the our congressmen and women to believe that global warming is just a theory.  Or to go along with it.  And the Fox news channel is known to cater to that group of constituents.

It is a fact that Fox News pays contributing guests who actually work for one political party’s campaign to “analyze” top issues. How anyone could not see bias at work is beyond me.  Most news channels I watch bring in guests from both sides.  Fox News also regularly has to list multiple corrections and apologies at the end of shows for incorrect facts and misrepresenting data.  Again, this goes against everything I learned in Journalism school.

At any rate, the funny thing is that according to “Bill Nye’s Climate Lab at Chabot Space & Science Center”.Video on YouTube, Bill Nye is the face of a new permanent exhibition at the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA.  According to Wikipedia, the lab features Nye as commander of the Clean Energy Space Station, and invites visitors on an urgent mission to thwart climate change. Beginning with a view of Planet Earth from space, visitors explore air, water, and land galleries to discover how climate change affects Earth’s connected systems, and how to use the Sun, wind, land, and water to generate clean energy.

This, my friends, is what the programming manager at the Fox morning news show forgot to check out.  And my guess is that someone is in hot water if they still work there.

But it all made for absolutely terrific entertainment.  And for that, I am grateful.

 

I’m really not sure any b… can cook. Gratitude Experiment: Day 42

 

I was given the “Any Bitch Can Cook” Cookbook as a gift.  It’s a great cookbook with lots of basic cooking info and good standby recipes that are easy to make from everyday ingredients.  It’s made for people like me who are a little intimidated by cooking and frankly a little mystified by the appeal of performing planned, time consuming cooking feats for consumption.

The book is one in a full line of “bitch” books…” Any Bitch Can Party,” “Any Bitch Can Lose It,” “Any Bitch Can Drink,” “Slow Simmering Bitch,” etc.  The word ‘Bitch’ in these books stands for ‘Babe In Total Control of Herself.’  The books are great for people like me who are always seeking to amaze people with what great meals I can prepare with the least effort possible.

I think my dad and stepmom secretly hope that someday something is going to click in my head and I am going to enjoy cooking and going to an extreme amount of work shopping for and preparing a meal. They give me wonderful baking dishes, pans, tools and recipes that make a world of difference and make everything taste better.

And my wonderful stepmom teaches me cooking tips every time I am around her.  I am truly grateful for this, but I’m not sure if I’m ever going to be able to naturally convert.  It’s like I’m missing the gene.

Don’t get me wrong, I like to prepare meals that my family enjoys. And I certainly love to go out for great food and can appreciate fine cuisine. But luckily I married a guy who is more than satisfied with having a night or two during the week when we do pizza or sandwiches, and the rest filled with standby casseroles, spaghetti and Costco cuisine.

He knew what he was getting into when he married me.  That I really wasn’t into the cooking scene and most likely wasn’t ever going to be with my whole heart.  And he knew that I was a far cry from being able to master the more gender stereotypical domestic pursuits.  And that I was probably the most highly functioning ADD type personality he’d ever met.  I think he wanted the challenge.

I’m happy to do the dishes and let someone else cook.  Someone who is much more particular about how it is done.  It seems a tad futile to put that much work into something that will be overwith in 30 minutes to an hour.  Clearly I don’t get it.  Again, I appreciate it in others, but I don’t get it.

Is this nature or nurture?  My mom was not a great cook.  She mastered standards like porkchops and rice a la chicken and rice Campbell’s soup and other such varieties that I remember eating in our harvest gold kitchen. But something about her beef stroganoff has stuck with me and the smell of that dish to this day does not bring back good memories.

So it could be nurture.  Or quite possibly it could have been nature for my mother and subsequently nature for me?  Just not in the DNA.  Something to think about.

At any rate, I am truly grateful that I have many great cooks in my life who love to cook wonderful meals for my family.  And also that my family loves my simplified standby variety of meals that I make while typing a blog, finishing a work project and working on a last minute painting idea.

And frankly, I’m grateful that we have food to put on the table.

 

If you aren’t registered to vote, quit reading my blog and register. Gratitude Experiment: Day 42

While more countries than ever around the world are fighting for the right to vote, the United States has one of the lowest voter turnouts of any comparable wealthy countries.

According to Pew Center Research, 51 million people are eligible to vote but are not registered.

Of those polled by CNN, 26% said they were too busy to get themselves on the voter rolls. Twelve percent said their vote wouldn’t count anyway, and 10% said they just didn’t want to get registered.

Even more sobering are estimates that only 75 percent of registered voters will actually cast a ballot this fall.

In a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll of people in the United States who are eligible to vote, eight in 10 say the government plays an important role in their lives. Yet these same people say that the odds are 50-50 that they will even vote.

The main reasons cited are that they are too busy, they just aren’t excited about either candidate, they think their vote doesn’t really matter, or my favorite – nothing ever gets done anyway.

However a look back at history not very long ago shows just how many have fought and sacrificed to establish the right for all citizens in our country to vote.  And it makes this lack of concern distressing, to say the least.

When the US was founded, only white men with property could vote. By 1869, the 15th Amendment guaranteed the right to vote to black men (but it wasn’t until 1965, after much suffering and violence, that literacy tests, as well as many other tactics to dissuade voters of certain races or colors, including violence, were banned).

And it wasn’t until 1920 – less than 100 years ago — when all women in the U.S. could vote, after 50 years of suffragists being beaten, jailed and treated like traitors for wanting the right to vote.

So when I hear that the top reasons given by unregistered voters and by registered voters not planning to vote is that they are too busy or they don’t think it matters, it gets me a little hot under the collar.

Today, on national register to vote day –  as voter registration deadlines loom –  I am grateful for my right to vote and the fact that I realize it does matter.

(For information on voter registration and where candidates stand on various issues, see votesmart.org. For your state’s voter registration deadline visit: http://www.usa.gov/Citizen/Topics/Voting.shtml.)

Better Luck Next Time Pinterest. Gratitude Experiment: Day 41

Okay, so I’m trying to figure out this Pinterest thing.  I’ve got an account and a few bulletin boards.  I don’t use it much at all, but I look around on it every now and then.

I did create a board for how I want my funeral to play out.  Can’t decide if that’s too weird.  I’ve got the perfect song to be played, and poem to be read and flowers for my attendee’s viewing pleasure.  It’s possibly a little darker than your average Pinterest board about decorating or cooking, but you’d be surprised how many “repins” I’ve gotten on that board.

And after a few months of minimal use I start to notice that, just as with most social networking these days, the site was clearly harvesting my user habits for a profit somehow.

So I wasn’t surprised the other day I got an email addressed to me by name from Pinterest. The subject line read “Hi, Pinterest has some great boards that would be of interest to you!” Cool, I think. My ADD personality doesn’t want to really meet my deadlines today, so I’ll open the email and check out these boards they picked out just for me.

First suggested board — “Tattoos.” Uh, nothing against them, but I’m much too fickle to be able to commit to any one tattoo image for a whole week, much less a lifetime.  And the thought of having one stretched over my eighty year old skin someday makes me throw up in my mouth a little. So I really don’t want to spend time looking at pictures of  tattoos people have gotten of their dogs, girlfriends and photography equipment. Who knew camera tattoos were so popular?

Next up –“Birds.”  If you’ve read my post that talked about birds, you know that I am pretty much terrified of them.  I’ll never forget being dive bombed by a family of cackling Blue Jays years ago.  Barely made it out with both eyes. So  looking at pictures of birds with sharp, grimy claws up close and personal wants to make me run for the hills. Even though learning how to make a bird house out of a cowboy boot would be pretty awesome procrastination material next time I’m avoiding a work project.

And lastly — “Fun Crafts with the Bible.”  Hmmm. Not sure how to put this, but I really don’t want to learn how to make crafts based on Bible characters.  Although next time I need to know how to carve Noah’s ark out of a watermelon, I’ll know where to look.  And the twelve disciples do appear to fit nicely into an egg carton.

Better luck next time, Pinterest. I can’t wait to see what you come up with for me next time.

Today I am grateful that online data mining doesn’t always work.  Because it’s pretty entertaining when it doesn’t.

For real. Gratitude Experiment: Day 40

 

Whew. I am wiped.  What a weekend.  Wonderful time with my dad, stepmom and niece in town. One of the best weekends I can remember in a while.  I am so grateful that they all battled the craziness of the airports to come for the weekend.  Truly thankful.

But I do feel almost guilty for how heavy my last post was.  There’s that subconscious Catholic guilt again. But I just had to get all that out there, and it helped.  Thanks for muddling through all this self-discovery with me.  It’s way cheaper than therapy.  So I owe you.

September 22 is always a weird day, not only because my sister died on that day, but also because it is my Mother’s birthday.  For real. Yes, I know.  That is messed up with a capital M. In a big way.  Don’t even get me started on that.

At any rate, my out-of- town company family left this afternoon and then a few hours later, my mom and stepdad came for dinner to celebrate my mother’s birthday (a day late but trust me, she’s not counting — sorry that was awful).  I could tell she thought the whole cake and presents thing was fun, but she really had no clue why we were all singing to her. She was very puzzled (Alzheimer’s has a tendency to do that). And when it was time to leave, she went to the laundry room.  In total, she said about five or six words tonight. But she faked it pretty well.  Glad she can still pull it off.

For years, my sister and I always co-hosted dinner for my mom on her birthday.  We would flip a coin as to who would host and then sort of whine and complain all the while because it was always a little bit of an awkward night for reasons hard to explain.  But none of those nights hold a candle to the out of body experiences I have like tonight with my mom.  It’s like I’m watching a movie of someone else’s life in partially slow motion, and with German subtitles that I don’t understand.

But anyway, back to the gratitude which has really affected everything in my life, for real.  I am grateful for my family that visited and the wonderful time we had.  And that dinner with my mom went so well,  and that she seemed genuinely happy.  Thanks for reading.