Top Ten Signs You’re Getting Older May 23, 2009

I recently woke up with an injury—completely sore shoulder and could barely turn my head!  This inspired me to compile a list of the top ten signs your getting older…Enjoy!

10.  You read that there’s a sale on ground beef at the local grocery store and you actually tell someone about it.

9.  You pray for the stomach flu, so that you can lose that last 5 pounds you can’t get rid of.

8.  You no longer need a magnifying mirror to see your pores.

7.  You start including physical ailments in your annual Christmas letter.

6.  You recognize the songs on Muzak while at the grocery store and actually sing along.

5.  You can relate to the Shoe Box Greeting Card character Maxine’s HOT FLASHES,  drooping body parts and general grumpiness.

4.  Your fallen body parts start developing theme songs like “Lord Lift us Up Where We belong” and “Drop it Like it’s Hot”

3.  You read the 10 day forecast online and actually get excited because weather is now very important to you.

2.  You ask your teen how its possible for Soulja boy to “Kiss me through the phone”.

1.  You wake up with an injury you didn’t have the night before.

Gonna have to face it—your addicted to technology! May 7, 2009

Since when have we lost all ability to control our actions?  Are we so weak that the mere glimpse of a computer screen renders us helpless to its charm?  Can we go even 1 hour without technology interrupting our thought processes?  What have you done today to move one more step toward technology addiction?

Here are some signs that you may have a problem:

[1]  You are at home.  You are upstairs and your spouse is downstairs.  You decide to text them instead of hollering over the banister when you need to tell them something.

[2]  You find out you are expecting a child.  You log onto Twitter to alert your “followers” before calling your family.

[3]  Your battery in your cell phone dies and you actually start crying b/c your charger is nowhere in sight.

[4]  You take the day off of work to attend a MLB game and update your status on FB at the top of every inning.

[5]  You suffer from delusions of grandeur when contemplating whether you can take on Ashton Kutcher on Twitter.

[6]  You can now text without even looking at the phone.

[7]  You have disowned or are temporarily ignoring family members who haven’t joined FB.

[8]  Google is your main source of information for EVERYTHING.

[9]  You justify the hours you spend on your computer as “work”, when really you are pimping your FB page.

[10]  You can’t remember the last real conversation you had, that did not  involve emoticons, status updates and tagged photos.

The problem is that everything we do now always comes back to the computer. We receive communication from friends, family, co-workers and our children’s teachers and coaches via email.  We join organizations, sign up for little league and donate to our church via the internet.  We don’t have time to go to the mall so we window shop online and order there too.

Technology will most likely play a key role in our daily lives from here on out, but it doesn’t have to rule us.  So if you find yourself being drawn into the abyss that is the internet—set a time limit, take a break and most importantly find someone you love and have a face-to-face good ol’ fashioned conversation, no keyboard necessary.

Here I grow AGAIN! February 24, 2009

A person reaches a certain age and things begin to move and change and not necessarily for the better.  If you haven’t experienced these changes yet, well—GOOD FOR YOU—but some of us are not so lucky.

One morning I was washing my face and moisturizing in preparation for the daily application of powder foundation which covers up the ever expanding collection of age spots, freckles and broken blood vessels that I seem to be collecting–just like I collected stickers back in the eighties.  You gotta love those days when puffy and pickle scented scratch ‘n sniff stickers were all you were concerned about.  So, where was I?  Ah, yes–washing my face…then I lean in to do the all important close up inspection of any stray eyebrows that have managed to grow back since my last examination.  And what to my wondering eyes should appear?  Well, it wasn’t St. Nick, more like St. Hairy and it wasn’t growing in a “normal” location.  I seriously had a hair in the middle of my forehead.  Now, granted it wasn’t black or even dark brown.  It was blonde, but nonetheless in the middle of my forehead.  Where do these rogue hairs come from and why must they grow on my body?  I’m sure there is a physiological reason why hair grows in places we don’t want it too and disappears from places that we prefer it to stay.  However, this does not make one feel better about it growing in the first place.  Like most situations in my life, I handle the stress [or at least attempt to] with humor.  Like when I breastfed 3 kids and my bossom decided to fall and not get back up.  The girls had a theme song – “Lord lift us up where we belong”.  I think rogue hairs deserve the same opportunity.  Therefore, I declare any hair growing in the wrong place at anytime deserves an altered version of Whitesnake’s “Here I go Again”!  Please read below and sing it loud, sing it proud and the next time you find a hair where it shouldn’t be, maybe you will laugh a little and possibly sing the theme song — “Here I Grow Again”!!!!

I dont know where Im growing

But, I sure know where Ive been
Hanging on to follicles
In the hairs of yesterday
An Ive made up my mind,
I aint wasting no more time
But, here I grow again
Here I grow again

Tho I keep searching for a place to grow,
I never seem to find what Im looking for
Oh lord, I pray
You give me strength to carry on,
cos I know what it means
To grow along the lonely hair of dreams

An here I grow again on my own
Goin down the only follicle Ive ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to grow alone
An Ive made up my mind
I aint wasting no more time

Im just another hair in need of rescue,
Waiting on tweezer’s sweet charity
An Im gonna hold on
For the rest of my days,
cos I know what it means
To grow along the lonely hair of dreams

An here I grow again on my own
Goin down the only follicle Ive ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to grow alone
An Ive made up my mind
I aint wasting no more time

But, here I grow again,
Here I grow again,
Here I grow again,
Here I grow…

It was the THUD heard round the world January 10, 2009

I’d like to think I’m pretty steady on my feet.  My feet have supplied me with great balance for 30+ years and I have come to rely on them.  They have, however, become wider and flatter since having kids, thus the custom orthotic inserts.  Add to that my complete fear of falling, fear of heights and anything more exciting then stepping off a curb and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.  Occasionally, I will be shopping in a mall and walk past a railing on the 2nd floor.  I suddenly see myself being thrown over the railing and falling to my death or at least severe injury.  Some of you may read that and think, Okay FREAK!  Well, I admittedly call myself a freak, but I’m a safety freak not a run-of-the-mill lock your doors and hide your valuables FREAK.  You may look at a situation and see fun, excitement or exhilaration.  I see impending danger and accidental dismemberment.  I’m not exactly sure what all contributed to my safety freakishness but I did suffer from extreme trauma as a child.  My dad took me on the JUDGE ROY SCREAM rollercoaster after I begged him not to make me.  I had snot and tears dripping from my face, I was practically hyperventilating and he still took me.  I never quite recoverd from that fearful experience and it took me 20 years before I would even consider riding another rollercoaster.  I have relaxed over the years and having 3 kids definitely helps because you can’t control everything all the time.  I do remind them of the simple pleasures of life, like wearing a helmet while riding your bike, looking both ways before crossing the street and the most important—don’t share hair brushes or hats or I will shave your hair off if you come home with lice!

Now we’ve come to the meat of the story where all the “safety first” tips in the world wouldn’t have saved me from my impending doom.  I was at my son’s basketball clinic where for almost 2 hours around 30 boys run wild and practice a variety of basketball skills.  By the way, they’re 7, so you can imagine the amount of energy bouncing around the room.  The facility is huge and they have an upstairs area for the parents to sit and watch their children and/or socialize with the other parents.  The seats are screwed into the ground and set up on about a 4 inch platform to make it easier to see over the railing.  On the railing in front of every other seat there are signs that say “Watch your step.  There is a small step behind you”  I looked up and down the row of seats and took notice of the vast quantity of signs asking us to watch our step.  As if we were the clumsiest set of people know to walk the face of the earth.  I laughed out loud and thought, wow they must think we are all just going to simultaneously fall off this tiny 4 inch step and break something.  As they say [and I happen to agree], everything happens for a reason.  So somewhere out there God was trying to tell me, “Hey! You! Read the sign! Pay attention!  It could happen to you!”  I stood up near the end of the training session, thinking I would grab a quick snack from the vending machine for my son and then we’d be on our way.  I reached into my purse and grabbed my wallet and turned without thinking of the 4 inch drop I would be encountering.  The next thing I knew I was doing a face plant on the ground with my legs splayed in opposite directions and my dignity laying there on the floor completely spent.  It was a hard fall, not a slip.  It was a complete collapsing of my limbs not a simple trip.  It was without a doubt, THE THUD HEARD ROUND THE WOLRD!  I stood up completely stunned and embarrassed and did the walk of shame all the way to the vending machine.  Let this be a lesson to all of you—READ THE SIGNS and FOLLOW THEM!

Vacuums Suck! November 30, 2008

I know.  Vacuums are supposed to suck.  Everyone I buy, does suck for a little while and then NOTHING!  The engine burns out, or it stops sucking [literally] or some other gross malfunction takes place.  The latest vacuum I have is a Eureka Industrial strength business vacuum.  It’s supposed to withstand the toughest jobs and last a long time.  Well, it keeps burning through the belts.  Have you smelled that smell before?  The belt gets stuck, but the vacuum is still on.  It’s trying to turn but can’t, so the belt gets extremely hot and before you know it your entire house smells like burnt rubber.  It’s not the most pleasant of smells.  No amount of burning candles or Lysol will rid you of the stench that is burnt rubber.  I don’t know what to do about my little issue.  It has seemed to rub off on other small appliances too, like hair dryers.  I will be going along, minding my own business and all of a sudden my hair dryer is smoking or smelling of burnt hair.  I would like to officially give up on small appliances all together, but I love toast.  I love the crunch, the smell and the versatility.  You can make frozen waffles and bagels too.  I must have a blender!  They are great in a pinch when you are starving and in a hurry and the fastest meal you can make is a protein shake.  The one small appliance that I could never live without is my CHI flat iron.  It is the best thing in the world [next to chocolate, of course].  I would be a frizz head without my flat iron and on occassion I have been known to touch up a collar or pair of slacks that had a slight wrinkle with my trustworthy flat iron.  I’m not quite sure what I will do about this vacuum situation, but in the meantime I will suck it up [so to speak] and change the belt and cross my fingers.

5 Second Rule November 2, 2008

As a mother of three, I feel like I live in my car. If you saw the inside, you would probably agree. My kids aren’t the tidiest creatures, which is evidenced by the state of my vehicle. I am always running them to basketball, soccer, football or swimming. Then there’s the doctors appointments [orthodontist, dentist, eye doctor, general physician, dermatologist], grocery store and other miscellaneous errands. Basically, I do live in my car. Luckily, it’s quite comfortable although the gas mileage could be better. I have been known to eat in my car on many occasions. But there is always the time when you are out rushing around from place to place and you forget to eat a snack or a meal before leaving the house. You are driving on auto-pilot from destination to destination all the while growing hungrier. You have exhausted your supply of cough drops and sugar free gum and you a wanting some real food. The left over water bottle, from your early morning visit to the gym, satisfies you temporarily but you must have REAL food soon, or else. Then your mind wonders at a red light, what if the kids left a few crumbs in their snack bag from earlier or maybe they dropped a french fry on the floor last night after soccer practice. When, during your moment of weakness you gave in to their pleas to eat fast food. You will immediately invoke the 5 second rule, even though it would have been hours since the food has hit the floor of your car. You hope against all hope that some morsel of food was left in the car before you start eying the guy in the car next to you whose munching on a serious burger. You must have food or you will DIE!!! Finally, the light turns green and you are rehearsing your speech that you will give the officer who pulls you over for speeding. You are explaining to him how your blood sugar drops drastically and if you don’t eat soon someone WILL get hurt. But, at last, you make it home from running your endless errands to find the Holy Grail–or what’s commonly referred to as PB&J.

What’s Black and White and Read All Over? October 30, 2008

In light of recent events [i.e. stock market crash] I have been trying to cut back everywhere I can. Really! I mean it! I haven’t bought a designer handbag in months. Seriously though, I am trying to be more mindful and maybe even spend less than what I have in my budget. In times like these, its important to save more and spend less. I pulled up my budget spreadsheet on my computer to see what could be cut or at least reduced.

Step 1: Call Local newspaper and cancel subscription. [It's free to look online and who wants to deal with those nasty post-newspaper-reading fingerprints anyway?] So, I did exactly that. I called up the newspaper and told them I wanted to cancel my subscription. Here’s how the phone call went…please keep in mind anything in italics was never actually said, only imagined in my head. I tend to have a running dialogue.

Her: Hello! Thank you for calling The Seattle Times, how can I help you.

Me: I’d like to cancel my subscription. We’re trying to cut back and all.

Her: Okay. Can I have your name?

Me: I never say it. I just spell it…

Her: Okay, thank you. I see that you have a daily subscription and you wanted to cancel?

Me: Yes, please.

Her: Can I ask, why?

Me: Well, you just did. Like I said…trying to cut back. Hello! The sky is falling–have you read YOUR paper lately?

Her: We could give you a special discounted rate for 13 weeks, if that would help.

Me: No thanks, just want to cancel and get my prorated bill so I can pay you all and cancel. We only read it on the weekends anyway. [What was I thinking? Don't encourage the poor girl!]

Her: If you would like, we could change your subscription to weekends only.

Me: No really, I just want to cancel my subscription and get my prorated bill amount, so I can pay you and get back to life.

Her: I would be happy to offer you a subscription with weekends only and free weekdays.

Me: I can’t believe you just said that! I am trying to be polite. I just want to cancel my SUBSCRIPTION!!!

Her: [sound--her chuckling and poking fun at me for being irritated]

Me: And don’t laugh at me. Just give me my prorated fee and I will mail you a check.

Her: Are you sure you don’t want to pay for it with your credit card on the phone?

Me: No thank you! [Like I would trust her with my credit card information, at this point. She can't even answer a simple question and follow one little piece of instruction. I wanted to jump through the phone and beat her with the newspaper I was canceling !!!]

Her: Okay. Your prorated amount is $5.91. Is there anything else I can do for you.

Me: No, thank you. [Yes, quit your job and stop annoying customers, like me]

Her: Thank you for calling the Seattle Times

Click

That was a lot of work to save $20 a month.