Random stuff because I am bored at work

So, I have this new job.  I write.  I write blogs, emails, stuff.  I just write.


Some days I am bored.


I have been researching blogs and blogging and they say that you need to change your blog "up a bit and often."  You know, "catch em by surprise" thing.  So today because I am bored, I am putting together my Playboy Center Fold List of Turn on's and Turn off's.


Years ago my brother and I would find my dad's Playboys in the his closet stuffed in between sweaters and we would read them.  Todd would look at the pictures.  I read those stupid things those chicks wrote.  Because I will NEVER be a Playboy Centerfold, here is my list of Turn on's and Turn offs.


1.  Clean sheets.  LOVE THEM.  Especially when I have just been to the dentist to get the teeth cleaning done, I take a shower, shave my legs and crawl in.  Great feeling.


2.  Porches.  I love great porches.  If I ever win the lottery, I am going to travel all over the world and sit on great porches and take pictures and sip cocktails and write an amazing coffee table book about great porches.


3.  Snow.  I love snow.  Snowman, snow storms and  snow cream. I  love the smell of snow, love the sound of snow under my boots, love to watch snow and  eat snow balls.  I love snow.  And when it snows I always think about the the Dr. Seuss book about snowballs.


4.  Easter.  Easter is my favorite holiday.  I love Cadbury mini eggs with the shell on them.  I love bunnies.  I love Easter grass, Easter ham, egg salad and I LOVE to dye Easter eggs.


5.  Rainy Sunday mornings are the best things ever.  Enough said, roll over and go back to sleep.


6.  I love to see really old couples talking to one another.  They always seem to be at Peace and so kind to one another.  I hope Franklin and I are like that when we are really old, age spots and all.


7.  I love to hear all three of my kids laugh and sing to songs on the radio.  When the three of them belt out "Hey Soul Sister, ....." I melt.  


8.  I love Cake Plates.  Cake Plates of all colors and sizes.  I don't know why, I love them.  I also love to bake cakes.  I don't even really like cakes but I love to see homemade cakes on Cake plates.


9.  Sweatshirts with really soft insides are the best along with worn out nightgowns.  You take your bra off at the end of the day and put one of these on and it is the best you will feel all day.


10.  Old Pictures.  When somebody dies, count on me to raid the box of old pictures.  I look at them and think about what it was like without air conditioning or modern day plumbing and I get lost.  


My Turn off list...


1.  A finger-licker!  Gag me.  Cannot stand to see or hear someone licking fingers.  Seriously, it is the worst thing ever.  Doritos had a Super Bowl commercial last year where they licked fingers, I had a hard time buying Doritos after that because I could not get the image out of my head. 


2.  Snot sniffers.  Use a Kleenex.  They have Kleenex now with lotion in it.  Pick one up and use it.  We will all feel better.


3. Jersey Shore.  That is all I can say about that show.  I wonder how many petri dishes they could fill with all the germs from those kids?


4.  Vultures of Doom.  You know, "nothing ever goes my way, blah blah blah."  Quit whining and fix it.


5.  Stiff hair.  Sprayed and processed "Chrissy doll" hair.  Seriously, why do girls do still do this? Ugh.  If you hair doesn't move in the wind then you are a "Chrissy doll head".


6.  People who chew with their mouth open.  This is also one of my brother's pet peeves.  When we were kids at the dinner table, I would open my mouth all the time for him to see just so he would go crazy and get in trouble.  Pork and Sauerkraut did him in EVERY time.


7.  Bad dental hygiene.  


8.  Jack-o-lanterns on porches with Christmas lights.  Come on,  I takes more effort to put the lights up than it does to throw the pumpkin out.  That big old orange pumpkin just screams  "lazy" to me.  Throw it out.


9.  Gravy.  Gross.  Fat and flour.  I do not get it.  The WORST meal my mom ever made was Chicken and Gravy over waffles.  I decided on that day that if my kids didn't like what I made, I wouldn't make them eat it.  I HATE GRAVY.  


10. Fake flowers on graves.  My worst fear is that I will die and my kids will dump me  in a hole along with 800 other people under the blazing hot sun and put a little fake daffodil on my grave and it will dry rot under the sun and lose it's color and look like a dried up pipe cleaner.  I hate fake flowers on graves.  If I ever become President, that is one of the first things I will change.  If you have a cemetery, you can only have fresh flowers with lovely landscaping.


Okay . I am done.  Still have three hours left to go.

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Dumb mothers

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Dumb mothers: I started my day in usual fashion. Breakfast, lunches in book bags, kitchen clean up, animals fed and cared for, and after fifty other th...

Dumb mothers

I started my day in usual fashion.  Breakfast, lunches in book bags, kitchen clean up, animals fed and cared for, and after fifty other things, I left for work.


The morning drive was typical.
What happened next was not typical.


A newspaper ad about the task force was published in the paper.


I spent 32 years in the radio business telling others that nobody reads the paper, this is true.  Unless of course, your name is in the newspaper.


My phone and my email blew up today.  Blew up.


What was so "not typical" of my day was that mothers have all of the sudden come out of the woodwork defending themselves to me.  Or, they go the opposite way, "I am aware, I am so on top of my kids. I know what is going on."


Really?  Really?


Did you know that kids are sticking bottles of booze up their anuses and using alcohol like an enema to get drunk faster without mom's smelling the booze?  Didn't think you knew that.


Did you know that girls are taking tampons and soaking them in vodka and them inserting them for the same reasons?  Or did you know that half the fun at parties now is when you let a guy insert it for you?


I am 50 1/2 years old.  I have NEVER been so desperate for a buzz that I would use a booze enema.  Never.


Look, nobody needs to defend or explain a thing to me.  I only care about what goes on at my street address with MY family.  That is it.  I am not the perfect woman, parent, wife or friend.  I am just a middle aged chick trying to figure it all out as I go with a few laughs along the way.  I just started a task force so that parents who were scared to death could say,"okay, we are not alone. "


To those moms who think they know it all, the picture above is for you.  Kids are kids.  When they are out of your sight, they do crazy things.  I did things my mom still doesn't know about and I hope like hell she never does.  She just had a stroke reading this so I guess I am off the hook.  


Parents, open your eyes and look.  There are Tobacco Shops opening on every corner.  Yet, cigarette smoking is down.  Why are the stores opening up?


Demi Moore smokes Spice and convulses.  Spice is the same thing your kids are smoking that doesn't show up on drug tests.  Look what it did to her and she is a PARENT!


If I have learned one thing as a parent, never say "not my kid."  And, I have also learned, "I really don't know what my kid is doing when out of my sight, I just hope it is legal and respectful."

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Okay mom, if you are reading this, calm down. I a...

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: Okay mom, if you are reading this, calm down. I a...: Okay mom, if you are reading this, calm down. I am not with child and this is not my ultrasound photo. Relax. When I was 58 weeks pregna...

Okay mom, if you are reading this, calm down.  I am not with child and this is not my ultrasound photo.  Relax.

When I was 58 weeks pregnant with Walker, I waddled into my appointment and said, "take this baby out, today.  I don't care if a goat comes out, get it out of me."

My doctor looked at me and said, "be careful what you wish for.  Once they come out, the real work starts and they are much more safe inside than outside."

I have never forgotten that statement.

Tuesday night we had our second Town Hall Meeting.  It was so well attended.
 There was one mother there that said something I will never forget.  "Look at me, I used to be cute but this thing with my son has made me ugly."   I could so relate.  One time after visiting the "button", I commented to Franklin that he "didn't look himself."

Franklin replied, "have you looked at yourself lately?"  He wasn't being mean.

When you bring that baby home, getting a shower is an accomplishment and you don't care what you look like.  You are in love.  You rock your baby and sing and enjoy your baby second by second.

And then they grow up.

 From now on when I get invited to a Baby Shower, I am giving an egg timer as a gift.  Set the sucker daily for fifteen minutes and spend fifteen minutes per day with your child, from the beginning to the end.  Doesn't sound like much but fifteen uninterrupted minutes when they are 15, 16, 17 and 18 is HUGE. And so important.

This mother was, well, nicely put, a hot mess.  I realized that was me in October.  I remember my friend asking me at a school function, "are you okay?".  "No. I am not okay", was my answer.  I too was a hot mess and not in a good way.  She scheduled a night out with me and I couldn't even go.

It was at that moment on Tuesday night when she said, "i used to be cute" that I realized (duh) that this is a process.  I have told my son that one hundred times but it never hit me, really hit me, that motherhood is a process too.  Growing up is a process and so is motherhood.

You have to be brought to your knees to get stronger.  Your heart is a muscle too.  You have to work it out constantly and keep making it stronger and stronger and stronger...keep adding weight to it to get it stronger.  When you fall to your knees, you need to start working out and adding weight again to get you through the process.


She will get there.  I got there.  My friends who lost their children got there.  It is a process.

Sometimes I wish I could have a giant "do over" with my kids...one big Micheal J. Fox Back to the Future do over.
I would change a few things.  But there is no damn "do over", just in kickball.  Once those kids or goats come out, game on!

So just like that mom and her son, my family and I will learn the process and get through it.  It will be a blessing.  When I get to the old folk's home and my kids come for the obligatory monthly visit, we will have the best stories to tell the other guests.  For sure.

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: The University of Motherhood

it wasn't supposed to be this way but...: The University of Motherhood: I attended kindergarten through twelfth grade. I attended four years of college. Never did I learn as much as when I became a mother. ...

The University of Motherhood

I attended kindergarten through twelfth grade.  I attended four years of college.  Never did I learn as much as when I became a mother.
                                        
                                  This is what I have learned.


1.  If your kid gets a new black shirt, they will NEVER, EVER, spill anything on it.  If they get a new white shirt, they will spill ketchup on the first time they wear it.
2.  Some mornings, when I cannot hear them, my kids have a meeting.  It is the "let's say MOM as many times as we possible can today" meeting.  Those are the days you wish your name was "ass" so every time they said it, you could ground them.
3.  You can spend hours preparing a meal but the best one is always Mac and Cheese from the box.
4.  Trust your gut, it has been with you the longest.
5.  When you want your kids to hear you, they don't.  When you don't want them to hear you, they have bionic 
 6.  If you want to de-stress a stressful situation, just have someone pass gas or even mention it and they will refocus immediately.
7.  Kids don't keep track of anything you do for them.  They do however keep track of who emptied the dishwasher last, the garbage and who ate the last doughnut.  
8.  If you want your  child to pee to bed or puke in the middle of the night, change their sheets and wash all the bedding and they will do it.
9.  If you want to know how well your kid can find something, hide a bag of OREOS and see how long it takes to find them.
10.  Your kids will not want to talk to you until you get a phone call or take a shower or go to the bathroom.
11.  You can repeat and repeat and repeat states and capitals, house rules and anything important they need b to know and they struggle.  Tell a dirty joke or sing the diarrhea song one time in their presence and they will remember it verbatim.
12.  If you want to know how small your child's bladder is, take them on a car ride.
13.  They will always remember the time when some kid threw up in school.
14.  Your kids are always waaaaaaaaaaaay smarter than you think around Christmas time.`
15.  Kids will always learn the value of a dollar when it is their dollar.  
16.  "An ornery pup makes a good dog", that is what my great grandma always said.  The wildest little kids are usually the best adults.  (Man, I hope this comes true)
17. No matter how many times you have embarrassed yourself, the MOST embarrassed you will ever be is when your kids embarrass you.
18.  Teaching your kids to swim and reading to them are probably two of the best things you can do for them, right up there with teaching them to  write thank you notes.
19. If you lay on the grass and look up at the clouds with your kids they will always see bigger and better things than you.
20.  Nothing will melt your heart more than when a 18 year old boy, a nine year old boy or a seven year old girl, leave the house and then run back in and say, "just wanted to kiss you goodbye."


Have a great day.