Last year, I was talked into getting a myspace of my own. At 38, I felt a little silly, but you would be shocked at how many people that ‘aren’t teens’ are on there! I love it, its like your own personal little slice of your life. Mine goes back and forth to showing my rebel rocker side, to showing my flowery spiritual side. I can’t ever get just one theme going….I guess that’s because, that is who I am, a split between two people, a constant battle between good and evil – haha – okay well maybe not quite, but…..I do enjoy irritating people with my ever-changing theme songs, from the Doors, to Contemporary Christian artists, to Top 40, to Cartoon themes, to Heavy Metal. I have a blast…. one of the things that drives me crazy, yet intrigues me as well, are all the quizzes. Its like the “slambook” of my youth…How many of you remember the slambooks? They were these handmade books with lined school paper stapled together, with a different question on each page “first kiss, favorite movie, color, etc”. You put your name on the first page, and then you answered the questions, and passed it around, until you had this book with 10-20 friends’ favorite things and most intimate details in it. It was great, until we started getting old enough to blackmail friends with it. “Lonnie likes you, she wrote it in my slambook.” Oh, we women are so cunning at 13….My myspace buddies (usually either my 16 year old stepdaughter OR my 23 year old niece) send out these questionnaires, with everything you could possibly ever imagine on it to ask. They’re pretty fun sometimes, other times they are way too juvenile, but at least you find out a little something about your friends and family. Anyways – get yourself a myspace! Put cute little Hello Kitties on your theme! Choose “Ice, Ice Baby” as your music! Then add me, myspace.com/girliemama
Taking care of business
Today I was supposed to work, but instead, my husband came home at 7:45 this am having stayed up almost all night on ambulance calls and fire alarms, and he was queasy on top of everything else. So, as he sleeps, I am trying to handle the business of the day. We have four issues currently, that I’m trying to handle in ONE morning. 1. We have trees hanging on our power lines; 2. We have a neighbor that has an open sewer pit in their front yard; 3. We have our ‘old’ phone line cable draping unattractively across the middle of our backyard, and need it removed, or instruction on how to do it correctly; and 4. I need to decide on a preschool arrangement for Gracie for fall.
I really don’t want Gracie going to 5-day 8-3 preschool yet. However, if I want to qualify for ‘free’ preschool, rather than $80/week preschool, that’s all I have to choose from. I don’t particularly want to put her into Head Start – I have heard nothing but bad things about it…so, I’m still looking. I think I may go ahead and put her into the full time, I guess she’ll be almost 5 and needs to get used to it – I just have a problem with the attendance requirement, that she cannot miss more than 10 days or she’s out of the program. That means no pulling her out to visit the grandparents, go on vacation, etc.
Advice?
But there never seems to be enough time to do the things you wanna do once you find them…
I have so many friends reading this now that I can’t possibly complain about anyone anymore….good grief. I am so overwhelmed at the amount of stuff I feel like I need to accomplish around my house. I must be wasting my time somewhere. I think my house would stay so much less cluttered if I just had less stuff, so I am starting the decluttering of my house, which of course has created a huge mess in my dining room. (the piles of things I don’t need, or need to fix, or need to give away, etc.) I realized today that I must have 30 books I’ve bought cheaply or been given that I have never read. I always read the ones I paid for right away, oddly enough. I just finished Sidney Poitier’s “A Measure of A Man”. It was excellent! The true measure of a man, he says, is how he treats his children. (I wonder what the true measure of a woman is?) I was disturbed by his spiritual beliefs. He contradicts himself on his own belief system several times. For instance, he once nearly drowned, and when faced with what he thought was his final moment of life, he felt God kept him calm, almost like he was being ushered into heaven, and he felt tremendous peace and tranquility. And then in the next chapter, he questions the existence of God at all. I have had so many “God” moments I have no question of His existence! Its like the Israelites – they actually SEE the parting of the Red Sea and STILL have doubt – isn’t that amazing?? But back to my time problem, I don’t see how women can work 40 hours, keep their house together, have dinner made, and not go insane. I have been reading more and more about the benefits of sleep – normally, I just stay up until 2 and get up at 6 in order to get it all done. But lack of sleep can actually cause you to gain weight, as a lack of sleep, as well as a lack of water, can cause your metabolism to slow down considerably.
I feel like if I could just get my house organized ONE TIME, the whole thing, I could stay that way. Really. I think I could. I am staring at my 3/4 organized family room from this computer chair. Wonder why it’s till not done? Hmmm….need more thought….wonder who’s on myspace right now?
We Are The World
The other day I bought my very first compact fluorescent light bulb. I’ve heard so much about them and how we all should switch and how great they are for the environment and blah blah blah – but I’m all for doing what we should to help so I bought a box. And I hate them. Absolutely cannot stand them for that matter. They don’t come on immediately, so you spend a second thinking “is that lamp plugged in?” before they turn on. And they are not as bright as regular light bulbs. My guest room lamp used to cast the perfect amount of light in the room so that I could see into the closet, but not now, even though the box states they are just as bright as a 60 watt bulb. And I learned that I cannot put them in a light fixture where the bulb can be seen, they are just so ugly, not aesthetically pleasing in the least. So, in my entire house, I can use them in 4 places. (and I have a big house). They also do not allow you to see the proper colors, so if you are using them in the laundry room (which I am), stains can be hidden or stains can appear that aren’t actually there.
Sorry Earth, and you too, Benjamin Franklin……
