Honest Scrap

The lovely Amuirin bestowed this award upon me some time ago. I don’t really know how long ago since this post will be written over time.  Here’s why:

“When you get the Honest Scrap award, you are meant to grace your readers with 10 honest things about yourself, and then pass on the award to other blog friends who write honestly and truly about themselves and events in their life.”

See, the problem is that I AM honest. All the time. So to come up with 10 things which I have not already posted here is quite the challenge. So I am going to have to make notes as I go about my days and think of things and come back here to update until I get to 10  – either that or I bore long time readers with crap they already know

1. As a child, my mother often called me crabby and equated me with Lucy from Peanuts. In my own mind, I’m much more like Charlie Brown – wishy washy. Which, I know, does not match my very opinionated self that I project! But it takes me a long time to get to those strong opinions really.
2. For instance,  I can love/hate being around people with an equal passion. It’s nothing personal. Certainly on my less social days people who already annoy me anyway will loom as larger pests.  Yet even people who I normally look forward to being around lose their glow. There is no trigger. It’s utterly random as to when these anti-social Moody Loner clouds will descend. But because of those days I do not view myself as a true “people” person. And since I am not a Moody Loner all the time I don’t view myself that way either. Wishy-washy!
3. I hate to be the one who has to choose where to eat or what to do for other people. Pick a place and I’ll go along, but I really rarely have strong opinions about it and I don’t want to be put on the spot. One could go into all sorts of deep reasons why -don’t want to disappoint people or be criticized for my choices maybe?- no, I happen to think it’s just that I am LAZY and cannot make a decision! Ya see? Wishy washy! (actually, there’s a lot of underlying laziness going on here)
4. I’m blessed/cursed with the ability to see both sides of just about ANY argument. It’s why I called myself pragmatic on my political site. The hard part then, is choosing a side. I can flip flop with the best of them and I freely admit it. But it’s also why I cannot abide by extremists. People who take a hard line stance with no respect for or desire to understand what drives the other side. If I can predict exactly how you will react to a particular event based on what I have found to be your pre-existing biases/brain washings? Buh bye.
5. I hate coconut.
6. I love potatoes. (thought I’d throw in a few absolutes there )
7. I have a very juvenile sense of humor. The idea of someone farting loud enough to startle and wake up a cat as was reported over twitter a few weeks ago  sends me into fits of giggles. Probably for the best since I have boys
8. In that vein, something we discussed in DC – I will involuntarily react to someone falling by laughing. Once my older son did a complete flip around a metal bar he had not seen outside a grocery store and my first reaction was a loud guffaw, then “oh god, are you ok?!” then more guffaws. My own kid! Yes, he was fine & laughing himself, but still…Given 7 & 8, shows like America’s Funniest Home videos were created for me!
9. I really don’t like fans of sports teams or politics or..anything..whose idea of being a fan is to trash the other team and make the other fans feel BAD. The fan who loves to “dig” at anyone else about results. The fan who gloats and trash talks. You can cheer without jeering, ya know?
10. I *honestly* cannot think of anything else without sort of cheating like I did with 5 & 6 so there. I clearly need to be more mysterious about myself so that when these topics pop up I can actually BE revealing something!!

As for passing it on, well, in order to elicit some actual blog posts from these fine ladies who have grown rather silent over this past year I shall give this award to ALL the August Moms on my blog roll. C’mon now – some of you need to dust off that keyboard and get posting!!

Day by day

Teammates hanging out watching another pop warner team play

Pretty cool when I think about how they have known each other since they were 5

The tortuous stairs that keep me in shape between workouts

That announcers booth up there is home base for the checkbook and my purse on Saturday game days. But then I have to run up and down those stairs the whole time chasing kids out of restricted areas, going on the field to pay the refs, just going to the bathroom is  a hike!

So what have I been up to besides running around that high school football stadium every Saturday? Well, I am counting down to the next August moms gathering. This year we will be in Washington DC and I am BEYOND giddy over it. I mean, a politically obsessed wacko like me in the heart of where it all unfolds? Heaven! On top of that a couple of the gals secured White House & Capitol tour tickets!! I really may not sleep while we are there. I know I will be grinning the whole time. Oh, and then they started a thread on the list to see if anyone who was going had read Dan Brown’s Lost Symbol and those who had said it would really enhance our visit to the city. So being the lemming I am, I ordered the book and started reading it Sunday night:

While his books are not necessarily great works of literature, they ARE fun and easy reads. I love his short chapters which makes it easy to sneak quick reads. I’m already anticipating paying attention to the details in the Capitol Rotunda referenced in the book I’m only 1/3 through it but I am sure I will finish it this weekend.

Meanwhile things are finally easing up at work. It always takes into late September to truly close out the prior year and there are a couple of mad scrambles in the month to get there. Those seem to be done now though which is a huge relief. I would like one area of life to go into cruise control for a bit!

Of course I still don’t have my ergonomic redo in my cubicle. I know it was ordered last week, but I’m still waiting. I’m sure they will show up while I am out of town, right? Murphy’s Law.

Speaking of Murphy’s Law – how’s this one? I went ahead and OK’d the roof repairs on my house 2 weeks ago. Didn’t hear anything and was about to check in when they called. They come tomorrow so I will work from home (and take pics if I can of course!). So what happened LAST night? Well, it rained of course!! I seriously laughed. Not much of course, and certainly not enough to trigger leaking but really – can you believe it?!

Oh and hey – so once the outside IS fixed, can someone tell me what I should do about this?

Pealing ceiling thanks to leak

Of course it is about as high up as any spot on my ceiling:

View of pealing ceiling from downstairs

So do I just lightly sand and re-paint? Well, not me since I’m a total wuss when it comes to heights like that. No, I could NOT sit on the bridge and reach up and do the task! I *would* fall on my ass.

Oh hey, how about some cat pics? You know, because I don’t share enough?

Chip guards the laundry chair & its contents

You all have one right? A laundry chair or sofa that holds your folded clothes and hamper with clothes to be folded somewhere in your family room so you can watch TV and fold? Sure you do. Just admit it.

Amber in her "I have no feet" pose

Chip will do this too but with his short hair, the effect is not the same.

‘Nite all!

My life is in a computer chip

This is my brain

How in the hell did we ever live without laptops and smart phones?

It’s one of those which came first questions. Did these items come about in reaction to our lives being so packed and thus the need for electronic organization, or did the electronic organization allow us to take on the many tasks that have packed it to the brim?

This weekend I downloaded more apps on my phone to help me get through each day. A To Do checklist (Toodledo) which allows me to enter an item and assign it a due date and thus also set up a reminder pop up. I have another app (Awesome Note) where I’ve kept track of things I need to know like the list of SportBoy’s classes and teachers for this year. Of course it comes with a calendar which syncs to my laptop so that they both have our whole schedule for work/school/football/baseball/board duties/workouts in one spot with handy reminders popping up in both places. It’s got a calculator and an alarm clock (love that the clock function allows me display times in multiple zones so that I know, for instance, what time it is in China where SweetPrince is yet again). It has a Grocery List app so that I can record what I need as I think of it and then just bring up the last when I get to the store. this iphone is so darn all encompassing in what it can do that I have actually not even turned on the laptop a couple of nights this week because it was just not needed.

Basically I am using it as my brain. Because my own brain is a flipping sieve! Stuff flies out faster than it goes in and even with the phone and laptop I forget to do things. Or tell someone something. Or ask so and so about this or that and…ummm…what was I thinking about again?

It’s awesome and scary all at once. I love it and I hate it. Do you think for a minute that as a single mom working full time outside the home I would have even considered volunteering on first the baseball and then the football league boards without a laptop at my disposal? or a smart phone that can get all my emails on the fly? No WAY!  I’ve honestly thought about what my life was like 10 years ago and there no possible way I could have juggled all that + keep up with getting SB to all of his sporting practices and events.

Not to mention – how would I ever have kept up with my obsession with all things Adam? Or been able to access such gorgeous photos:

This is my brain on Adam

I’m sure I am thinking of all this because my time as a volunteer is waning (thank every god in heaven!). I’ve been pondering what I will be doing 6 months from now for instance. One entire email account will be gone. A software program will be out of my life. Another checkbook and invoices and deposit files will be handed off.  I know I will initially catch up on the To Do list (that is on my phone of course!) of things I need to do around the house and yard which have been so neglected since December. I’ve already been squeezing in my workout classes (twice a week). Maybe add a third class? Maybe read a book? Maybe write more on both my blogs? Maybe do something to help my brain get back into shape so that it does not have to be on a phone? Some crosswords or other activities?

Maybe just be.

Dream a little dream of me

Do you dream every night?

How vivid?

Do you have nightmares?

How often?

Are you aware within the dream that it IS a dream and that you could wake up to stop it?

Are you sleeping in any particular position when you have the most vivid dreams/nightmares?

Have dreams helped to solve problems and/or bottled up thought processes in your life?

I ask because I had  about a two week time span when I had the most *vivid* dreams just within that last hour of of sleep – in every case it was the alarm that woke me up out of them. They were not nightmares so it wasn’t bothering me, but I was fascinated and determined to figure out *why* it was happening. These were very vivid – I chose that image above because one night I did dream about some truly ornate house with enormously high ceilings and rich tapestries on the walls. I was having a blast exploring this place.

Each dream’s theme/topic/setting/characters were different with just a couple repeat appearances by my kids and SportBoy’s football coach of all people! I figured out later that what was most likely the cause of his appearances was that he and I had a 3-4 day run of talking to each other at the same time each day about the knee injury so it made sense that he was on my mind as a readily available character in the dreams.

I do have a couple of recurring topics in my dreams – usually about trying desperately to “get” somewhere either in a car or on foot but with constant obstacles being put up or else a feeling of lack of control (particularly when it’s me driving a car). Of course, those are rather obvious and easy to dissect at the time But I had none of those in this run of adventures.

It was a real mystery to me and I would go to bed at night wondering which story my mind would conjure up to entertain me that night!

Then I realized…it’s been hot…the fan has been on…and I was turning over onto my back  to feel the full breeze and waking up in that position each morning.

Whenever I do (oh so rarely) have true nightmares, it is *always* when I sleep on my back, so I normally avoid that, even subconsciously. But, it was HOT!

So clearly the back sleeping triggered more vivid dream sequences, and since there really is nothing nagging at me in my life right now, they just happened to be more light hearted dreams of things like trees, and flowers, and birds, 

Adam – take me away.

One of the better quality videos of Adam singing Starlight on the American Idol tour. Because I need an infusion of that joy from him this week. Because the last two days have been…well..rather out of my control and yet feeling as if I am in the spin cycle in a washing machine ya know? One bright light was waking up this morning to a tweet from Adam announcing the release date of his album – Nov 24th. 83 days. Until then I will have to continue to haunt You Tube for concert footage on nights when I need to hear his voice.

Don’t worry please – none of this stuff is about me at all. And it’s all already worked out or will by tomorrow. It’s work and travel plans being messed with (stupid United Airlines changing their mileage reimbursement policies!) and drama on the football board (I swear I could write a book after just a two year stint!) and nearly every small planned thing I had this week getting kicked around. I don’t do well with too much of that. One thing, fine. But everything? Not so fine. This is one of those weeks when life shakes you around by the collar just to show you that you are really not quite as in control as you thought

So, sing to me Adam. Take me far away, if even for a few minutes please.

The Power of Suggestion

A friend on Facebook commented on how the mere mention of head lice makes her scratch her head. Which, of course, set off a whole string of us scratching our heads! Which then made me think of the Itchy and Scratchy show (for some reason just seeing them makes me giggle):

And now TELL ME you are NOT scratching your head???!!

Along those lines, on Friday I had an ergonomic assessment done here at work. Oddly, I never asked for one back when my elbow was in pain for over-use of the scrolling bar on the mouse – no, that one I self diagnosed and broke the scroll habit and did some stretches and the pain was gone and has not returned. No, I requested it because I am just kind of *aggravated* in general about the set up. I can tell it is just not quite right. The keyboard tray is too limited in it’s movement, I have an older chair and keyboard and I am always fiddling with them to get comfortable. I’m not in pain, but I just keep fidgeting with it.

Well, he was here for three minutes and asked me if I had a pain in my neck right there – and he points to the spot on his head on the right side where – HELLO! – I’ve been complaining about being my “pain spot” for over 7 years!!! Dude? How did you KNOW so fast? He said “because you are slouching to the right and stressing out your shoulder and neck on that side.” Whoa. He’s right of course. And while my more aggressive work out routines have *certainly* helped that pain spot a lot, it still is not totally gone. It does flare up – just less frequently and I honestly never associated it with my desk set up! So, of course, now that he’s told me what happens, I can’t get my mind off of it right? He said it starts with my tail bone which starts rolling and pulling me down which makes me then lean forward and to the right since that’s my dominant hand. Then yes, my keyboard is too low as are the sheets of paper I look at while work so that my whole upper body is being pulled down.

So what’s going on until I am able to push through the paperwork to get the stuff he’s recommending for me?

Well, I’m shoving a blanket in my lower back area to provide support. I’m feeling my tailbone constantly I am so self conscious about it! I’m thinking to myself  “SIT UP STRAIGHT!” like every 15 minutes:

Now – stop scratching your head! And sit up straight!

I know there’s something going on

In preparation to write a diary for Daily Kos (cue scary music), I need to drain my brain first.

Happy 4th of July!! Whatever you are doing, be safe, wear sunscreen, and have fun!

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SportsBoy has now been in Sweden for over two weeks. He was in a very small village outside of Gothenburg with his grandma and great grandma until yesterday which made it harder to talk to him, but he now he is in Stockholm with his grandpa and able to call. He’s having a wonderful time as usual. Weather has been very good for him – actually rather hot! Starting a daily workout routine to prepare for football practice which kicks in the day after he gets back. Can you believe I just said that? First day of practice is Aug 1 which is now less than one month away! How nuts is that?

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So what have I been doing? Well, working of course. Fiscal year end at work was June 30th so our year end craziness has begun and wont end until the auditors complete their work in early September. I’ve been really getting into working out! Either with the circuit training class which I go to twice a week or else doing my best to duplicate a lot of those exercises at home each night. Of course even with SB gone, there are still the boards I sit on to fill up my time. I’ve given my notice to the baseball group that I want out as of July 31. I mean – I need to get out from under these things! There’s been no break just because he is out of town. His messy bedroom? Still not touched! My over grown yard? Still a jungle! But I’ve had fun too – couple of days at the county fair (I think everyone has heard me rave about the heavenly taste of deep fried oreos!) a night out or two. Heck, I even read two books! Woo hoo!

Like many though, the news of the day has been dominant either online or as background noise on the tv. I wanted to post this final video of Michael Jackson that I guess everyone has seen at this point, but I want you to watch through to the end…and listen. Listen to the director say “hold for applause, hold for applause, and…fade to black.” And remember that is exactly what he did. It’s eerie:

more about “Michael Jackson’s Final Video“, posted with vodpod

and one more for you amusement and flash back to the past. Since I was off today I was home when the news was breaking about Sarah Palin resigning as governor of Alaska. And while the speech was not even done and many of my very snarky politically savvy friends were tweeting some truly hysterical comments, all I had in my mind was this song from 1982 by one of the ABBA women, Frida, during her solo career. Cheesy and so very typically 80s:

more about “FRIDA (ABBA) – ‘I Know There’s Someth…“, posted with vodpod

I think another shoe is going to drop with this one and no, it isn’t just touring the country to raise money for other GOP politicians or hosting a tv show or being a tv talking head or writing her book, or running for President. We’ll see in the coming days if my newly honed political instincts are right or not

Fitness weekend

SB snapped the picture too soon but the battery was running out so I’m sucking up and posting this icky one. Post 5k walk just now. Which seems pretty short after doing a few 3-days and doing a few 5 mile walks just for fun this year, but it was my first ‘event’ walk in a couple of years. Nice, level route mostly too which is rare around here! It was fun participating with a gals who all work out together. We still did our circuit training Sat morning, just eased off the leg work so that we were fresh for today. Which means we really hit the arms heavy – ow! No, that Aflac duck in my right hand is not all that heavy…just the early shutterbug and that my right shoulder kinda hurts! But, I successfully used 15lb hand weights yesterday! After just 5 classes and then upping the weights I use at home to 10lbs. Not bad considering I could barely lift the 12lb weights the first class.

And now I can relax…you know..clean the house, do laundry, groceries, help SB study for his science final. Sure. Relax.

Another one bites the dust

It’s an odd thing when someone frays your last nerve.

It takes a lot for that happen to me.

You see, I am an optimist by nature. Power Of Positive Thinking (POPT) and all that. Now, I am not unrealistically so. Not Pollyanna. It’s just that my way of dealing with life is to think of the glass as half full. I’m hopeful. I’ll think about the worst case scenario just to address it as a possibility and figure out how I would deal with it, but then I walk back to a position of optimism and focus on a positive solution to whatever the issue may be. As such, my first impression of most anyone is usually that I will like you. It’s a VERY rare time when I don’t like someone on sight. I’m also very forgiving. I’ve been accused of  ‘making excuses’ for people in the past. Sure, I see that, but I believe we should all be given chances ya know? It’s really truly a rare thing when one human being, in the average life, does anything truly unforgivable to another. Really. On the whole, you are not going to encounter pure evil. Also on the whole, people may do unkind things to each other, but again, rarely is it pre meditated. Most likely in the course of going about your day you will rub someone the wrong way or step on someone’s toes and should that be brought to your attention before you figure it out, you will feel remorse and perhaps make amends. That is just my overall, high majority experience with people. So, I am not black and white all or nothing, you’re with me or against me, ya know? I’ll find something to like about you when I first meet you, I’ll focus on those positives and I’ll forgive your transgressions for the most part, especially if you show a capacity for learning and growing. Oh, and an open mind will get you close to my heart pretty quickly.

Though I do get actually more riled up if you transgress against a friend of mine vs against me. I’ve also been called loyal to a fault

So there ya go. A recipe for the dog house. Repeated offenses against me with double point value if friends are hurt. An incapacity to learn and a mind closed like a steel trap. If I really think about it, I think I can count 4 people who made their way there in my life. That’s not bad really. But it really does take a LOT for me to write someone off.

And now there are five.

See ya!

How my brain works (or, not!)

When I am at the grocery store buying yogurt I inevitably grab varying flavors. I randomly line them up in the ‘fridge at home and then grab them one by one to take to work as a late morning snack. When I go to get the yogurt at work, I look at the flavor that happened to be chosen for the day and I am *invariably* disappointed if it is not peach and happy if it is. Which leads me to wonder – why don’t I just grab all peach when I am at the store?????!!!!!!!