10 Things I Know to be True About My (older) Self

1. I am a former champion multi-tasker – the primary word here being “former”. I still try to be the champ I once was, but I have to admit, Pregnancy Brain morphed into Sleep Deprived Brain, finally settling into Multiple Mom Brain. There is no cure for Multiple Mom Brain, therefore, I relinquish my champion title and humbly accept the status of “former”. Sigh.
2. I am a terrible housekeeper – I fully admit this. I have been a stacker, knick-knack collector, clutterbug my entire life. I can jump into Operation Organize lickity-split if we are expecting company, but don’t expect the house to be clean if you just drop by. Also, just know I won’t be cleaning until the day before you are expected to arrive (see #3). I was raised to make my bed, clean my room etc., so it’s not the nurture part that’s to blame. Who knows why I’m this way, but at this age, I don’t see it changing drastically - much to the dismay of my hersband.
3. I procrastinate- now this is an area where I still hold the Champion status! I excel at procrastination. Planning things is not the problem, I plan things well in advance. It’s the preparation I put off. This is another area where I turned out opposite from the way I was raised. I have to admit though, I always pull it off. If you came to my house for an “occasion” of some sort, you’d think I had been preparing for weeks!
4. I can be impatient with others – I have gotten better since becoming a parent, but I still have a way to go. If you know you are writing a check for your groceries Granny, get your checkbook out while your items are being scanned, please for the love of all that’s holy, get.your.checkbook.out. Also, if you use the drive thru at the bank, have your stuff ready. Checks signed. ATM card out. Drive thru fast food? No need to study the menu, we all know what is served with that side of grease, order already! Come on! The drive thru is for those of us in a hurry! Ok, maybe I haven’t gotten any better.
5. I am not a terrible driver…..but my driving skills could be improved – I have just recently come to this realization. I should have known before now. I’ve had my share of fender-benders (3 in my own driveway). A few speeding tickets over the years. A little brother who at 18 started refusing to ride with me. D says I use the brake too often and make her nauseated. Yes, I’ve definitely had some clues. So while everyone else took note; what finally made ME realize my poor driving skills? Yesterday while in town for only 2 hours, I was honked at 3 times. 3. So, I started thinking, what is the common denominater here? Oh, it’s lil o me in my big ol van. oopsies.
6. I am blunt and should use more tact sometimes when speaking to others – I’ve known this my whole life and actually improved quite a bit. Not enough though. It is the only thing I was docked on for my employee performance review this year. (only ½ point but still) If you say something asinine in front of me, you are probably going to be made aware of it. You’re welcome. I probably just saved you from getting your face smashed by someone else. I seem to lack a filter of some sort. A snarky thought pops into my head and I’ve “matured” enough to deliver that thought with a little more pleasantry than in my younger days. I’ve evolved from, “You are an idiot if you think that!” to “Wow. Well, that’s one way to look at it I suppose, if you’re not educated on the issue.” See, better, but still needs some tweaking.
7. I am not a morning person, nor a night owl, just a person apparently – my mother always described me as a “bear” upon waking. I don’t think I’m quite that bad now, but I’ll fully admit, you are putting your feelings in danger if you try to have a conversation with me before my first cup of coffee. Also not a night owl, in college I put myself to bed with a good book around 9pm (even on most weekends) and it was lights out by 10. I don’t do mornings & I don’t do nights. I do sleep.
8. I tend to overload my family with commitments/plans – I have all these great ideas, make all these plans and totally overload my spouse and the kids. Next weekend is jam packed and I’m already sure there will be tears and we will be late for at least one thing. The challenge is, doing the things we want to do, doing the things we feel obligated to do and doing the things we need to do. It all adds up to a lot. (maybe this ties into #1?)
9. I am getting better at admitting when I’m wrong – Oh boy, I was really bad about this in my younger years (under 30ish). I had a hard time admitting to myself when I was wrong, much less others. I have found in recent years though that when you admit a mistake, it’s a powerful thing to yourself and the person you are admitting it to; especially if it’s a child. The shock and admiration in my son’s eyes when I admitted to him that I delivered the wrong punishment was something I’ll never forget. He hadn’t realized that adults make mistakes too. Adults can be wrong. It is ok to not trust an adult when you see them doing or saying something you think is wrong. That’s the lesson my son learned from me being wrong and admitting it. Much more powerful than him seeing me be right all the time.
10. I am much less likely to pass judgment on others now – that was my New Year’s Resolution about 3 years ago. I’m much more aware that there are always many sides to a person’s story. Several friends have told me I should write a book about my life, it is sitcom worthy for certain. I figure if my life is this complicatedly beautiful, others have some serious shit going on in theirs too. I think I was so judgmental because if I took note of their screwed up ways, it made mine seem better. Like, whoa, at least I don’t ___________. So, you notice I said much LESS likely. That’s because I’m not perfect. I still judge sometimes. (yes, you giggly young moms from my son’s kindergarten class who didn’t realize until I mentioned it to you just before holiday break that your kid does in fact have math homework weekly…and has since school started months ago. Yes, I judged you and I still do. Here’s a thought: put down your cell phone, look in the backpack, check in with your kid and the teacher every so often. What the hell kind of parent are you anyway, doesn't realize your kindergartener is getting zeros for weeks?! Ya damn idiot.) I obviously need to work on this & #6 a bit more. Oh well, I’ve got time.

I linked up with my blogger friends this week where we all posted our Top 10 things we know to be true about (fill in the blank) lists. Check others out here.

The F Word & Others

Today’s writing prompt with my awesome group of blogging friends is, words that are off-limits in your house.

I can only remember 1 word being officially off limits in my household as a kid. It was the F word. Our family’s F word was not THE F word. I had never even heard THAT F word before (and wouldn’t until I was a teen).  Our F Word was “Fart”.  I have no idea why my mother banned that word, but we never dared speak it. Instead, we had to call it a “Froggie”. Again, no idea why. Made no sense to me as a kid and none to me now.  

I still don’t use the F word. We call it a toot in our house. Even typing it feels wrong. Thanks mom. Whenever I hear someone say fart, or a kid talk about a cute little froggie, I feel a quick rise in temp and heart rate.

So, as a kid, my list was short & weird. The current list of words off-limits for our household seems to grow weekly. A first grader brings home a lot of words. A spouse that works in a manufacturing plant brings home a lot more words.

For each word off-limits, we’ve discussed why it’s inappropriate and what alternative words we might use instead. (Name calling is off limits and there is no alternative word choice).

Our current list:
Shut-up = Please stop or be quiet
Loser = Falls under the no name calling rule
Retard/Retarded = Usually, the word silly or goofy fits here.
Stupid = Falls under the no name calling rule or use “not thinking”
Fat = Unhealthy
Hate = Dislike
Jerk = Not nice
Fart Head = (gasp!) Falls under the no name calling rule
Idiot = Uneducated
Jesus Christ! = Holy Cow! or Oh my!

Whenever a word from the list is used by any member of the family, we all call them on it. There is no jar of penalty pennies etc. In our house, a stern look and mild blast of guilt works just fine.

You may have noticed our official list doesn’t include cuss words, we haven’t had to deal with that yet. I’m sure it’s just around the corner though. Holy Cow, it will probably happen when some not nice, not thinking, uneducated, person doesn’t know when to be quiet around our kids. That type of person would probably froggie in front of them too! Oh my.

I’m hosting the link today where my blogger friends have written on the same topic. Please check out their thoughts on the off-limits words in their households. Maybe there are a few we should all add?

Photo Credit: Greg Johnson

Play Kitchen-To Go

I saw this on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect for Pop's & Nana's house. Here is the kitchen I pinned as inspiration.

A play kitchen that can be put neatly away when the grand kids aren't around. 

I bought a Rubbermaid Tote at Target for $7.99. 

Cooking Utensils, towel, oven mitts & baking pans at Dollar Tree for $1 each.

Black duct tape for $2.99 & used my scrapbook tools to cut the circles for the "stove" top. 

Play food courtesy of big brother's toy box.

30 minutes & $30 later...ta-da!!!

 

The girls are loving their new little kitchen! 

Happy Birthday to Me

 

Happy Birthday to Me! I have always loved my birthday or should I say my birth-date? I actually love the date. August 31^st. It is a unique date.

We had an assignment in 4^th grade to find someone famous who shared our birthday. I had to use Michael Jackson, whose birthday is actually on August 29^th, because nobody famous shared a birthday with me. Our only resource for looking up the famous person was a book, a single book, in our tiny elementary library. These days we have Google. Google shows a few famous people share my date, but still…just a few. Love the uniqueness of a birthday on the 31^st of August.

This year, I turned 37. It wasn’t painful at all.  31 was painful because I was officially IN my 30’s, 35 was painful because I had to hear from the OB-GYN all about “Advanced Maternal Age”, but 37…it ain’t no thang at all. 

I usually get nostalgic and even a little anxious on my birthday. Like I need to apply the brakes on this run away rig. This year it’s fine though and I think I owe credit to a fellow blogger.

Lisa, at My So Called Glamorous Life, wrote about the changing seasons of life this week. Something she said, has been rolling around in my head the past couple of days. “Everyone’s life goes through a change of seasons: the glorious Springtime of our youth, the bountiful harvest of Summer, beautiful transition of Fall and the peaceful stillness of Winter.”

I’ve reflected on her statement and am so thankful to be in the bountiful harvest of Summer.  At 37, I think I’ve still got a few years of Summer left and already I have such a bounty. My spouse, my children and I are happy & healthy in mind, body & spirit.

Indeed, it is a Happy Birthday to Me.

 

Photo credit:  Birthday Cake by Will Clayton

Mom, I reallllyyy wanna be a Butter Cub!

Time for another writing prompt from my awesome blogging group! This week we were to write about a challenge we are facing.

Pumpkin, our 1^st grader, came home from school Monday clutching a wrinkled, well-worn flyer from the local Boy Scout troop. They are recruiting. Pumpkin, who is not interested in organized sports or organized anything for that matter, is VERY interested in joining the boys pictured on this flyer. There are images of smiling boys shooting skeet, racing cars, camping & hiking. It is apparent from the looks of this paper that it has made many trips in & out of his pocket, folded & refolded, studied much. Please, he says, please will you sign this and say I can do it? I really want to be a Butter Cub! (no idea why he called it that, but it was cute)

So, here is the challenge: The Boy Scouts of America does not respect my family, heck, they don’t even recognize that we ARE a family. I see a lot of value in the skills & life lessons they teach, but when I look at this flyer and see words like “compassion, character development, leadership”, I think Hypocrites with a capital H. But, I also see my son’s hopeful eyes and innocent spirit. He is 6, he knows nothing about politics & prejudice. Sigh. Why oh why can’t he just be in to t-ball, or karate or the ump-teen other things we get recruiting flyers for?!?

D & I tell him, we will think about it. We will go to the parent meeting, talk with the Den Leader and think about it. I’m not one for confrontation or loud public displays of disagreement, so I thought it best to email the leader, to give her a head’s up on our situation prior to the meeting. Here is the email I sent:

Hi Angie –

My son is interested in joining the program. I will be attending the meeting with him tomorrow evening, but had a few questions first. I don’t want to put you on the spot in front of other parents or make you uncomfortable so thought it best to ask the questions via email.

We are a 2 Mom family. I understand that the Boy Scouts have recently changed their position and policy statements to be more inclusive of gay & lesbian members; however, not accepting of leaders/parent volunteers. Our son got very excited when he saw the flyer and wants to join. He is in 1st grade and doesn’t understand the politics/controversy our family unit might cause in scouting. So here are my questions:

1.       If he joins the program will we as a family be able to attend his scouting activities? I understand we wouldn’t be allowed to be trained volunteers (sadly), but attend the events (matchbox car races etc.)?

 

2.       Is there ever a time in the program when same-sex families or issues would be addressed? (I would think not, I would think it would be a non-issue, but just wanted to make sure there isn’t a time families like ours would be portrayed negatively)

We think the scouting program has wonderful things to offer.  We are not interested in causing controversy or stress for anyone. We really just want our son to be able to take part in the program, as long as it isn’t detrimental to his attitude & feelings about his family dynamic.

Sincerely,

Amber

(I did not receive a reply to the email. It’s been 3 days and I still haven’t)

Meeting day came, I picked Pumpkin up from school and he was vibrating with excitement, “is today the meeting? The cub meeting?” Yes, it’s today. D stayed home with the girls, so it was just me & Pumpkin. We went to the meeting. I was picturing parents & eager sons in chairs, leaders up front with a basic scouting overview and time for Q&A, maybe some cookies..…what we got was a school cafeteria wild with shouting, running children, tables of adults filling out forms, writing checks & leaving. No overview, no cookies, certainly no leadership. No chance to ask questions at all.

I wanted to leave. Pumpkin sensed this and quickly grabbed up an application. “Mom, do you need a pen?” he said, with this desperate look in his eyes. Sigh. I thought, Ok, I’ll do the paperwork, we can always back out later.

We waited in line to turn in the application & check. Here’s the scene: One frazzled looking lady & many, many children & parents all trying to talk to her at once, my son included.  Somehow, he got her attention. He handed her the app and said, “I have two baby sisters, will they be able to come to my meetings?” I quickly assured her the babies will not join us at meetings, we’d get a sitter.” She smiled, looked thankful and moved on to another parent. We were walking away, when Pumpkin pulled his hand from mine, marched up to the lady and said, “I wasn’t finished! What I want to know is, will my sisters and my parents be allowed to come to my meetings…and stuff?” I do not know what the look was on the lady’s face at this point, because my eyes were a bit blurry. I did hear her though, she said, “Of course! We love having parents at everything we do!”

Pumpkin was beaming. He rushed back to me, “Did you hear that Mom?” Oh yes, I heard it. I felt it. I’m still feeling it in all kinds of ways.  I’m not sure if he overheard D & me talking the night before, or if he was just concerned about going to future meetings alone? I do know the lady had not read my email at this point because her answer was not a loaded one. It was a quick, innocent, straight, “we welcome everyone” response. And that is not the scouting way.

On the ride home I told Pumpkin how proud & touched I was that he was concerned about our family being accepted & included. I asked him, what would you say, if the lady said no, your family cannot go to all the activities? In his 6 year old honesty he said, “I don’t know Mom, I really, really want to be a Butter Cub”. I laughed and corrected him..again, “It’s a Tiger Cub son.” We laughed together and I just dropped the subject because I could feel his anxiety over it.

I hate leaving a post with no resolution, but I still have no reply from the email. The lady said there would be an informational meeting scheduled in the next two-weeks. I’m anxiously awaiting her response & the meeting. I want this to work out for Pumpkin. I want this to work out for us. I want this to work out for the Boy Scouts of America. That’s my challenge though, if it doesn’t work out. If they won’t accept our family and welcome our involvement, how do I break this news to our son? How do I use this as a teaching lesson without hurting him?

I guess we can start a troop of Butter Cubs, I could teach cooking, scrapbooking, couponing? Seriously though, this is a current and ongoing challenge for our family. I have no answers yet, but I’ll keep ya’ll posted!

If you’d like to read about what challenges others in my group are writing about, check out this link.

UPDATE - She replied to my email, late last night:

I think I talked to you on the phone and covered this. I will get the application to the school. Our information/pack meeting is Sept. 9 at 6pm.

My reply:   We have not spoken on the phone. I was at the school Tuesday & filled out the application then. It must have been another 2 Mom family you spoke with.

Her reply:   You are still invited to our meeting on Sept. 9th.

I am not thrilled with her response & refusal to address any of the issues BUT I am thrilled to hear that maybe, just maybe there is another family like ours in the school system!!!! After Sep. 9th I may owe a BIG thank you to the Boy Scouts of America for connecting local LGBT families! heehee! :-)
 

Money & Evil

The thought yesterday in the book was:

The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil

Well, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say the root of ALL evil, but I get the point. Money is reportedly the #1 cause for divorce. It has also brought a lot of sorrow and regret to many lottery winners. It's astounding to see all that's befallen those newly minted millionaires. Just google "curse of the lottery" and see what I mean.

Money isn't a daily topic in our house, but we do have a budget spreadsheet that I update regularly. We also have credit card debt and right now our focus is to eliminate that permanently. We bought the Dave Ramsey system. Used our cash envelopes for about 6 months and we did make some headway. But the system overwhelmed me. The workbooks, the dvds, the cds, the electronic spreadsheets. So I started my own spreadsheet with pencil & paper, been doing that for about a year. Again, made a little headway, but still not where I feel we need to be.

So, I started looking into other ways to tackle this debt. There was an article about debt management apps in All You Magazine. I looked at each of the ones they reviewed and decided to give Ready for Zero a try. The website is easy to navigate and the program is really simple. The basic version is free and really it's all we need. No request to enter any form of payment, it's not a free trial, it's just a free program. They claim it only takes minutes to set up the account and enter your info, but for me it was more like 1 hour. Probably because you have to set up an online username/password for each of your credit cards with the CC company first. Then you link them to your Ready for Zero account.
It was worth every minute spent doing it in my opinion though.

After set up, you have ALL your debt in one place. At a glance you can see every payment due, interest rates, it even calculates the month/year of payoff for each debt. You can adjust a little sliding scale to show if you pay an extra X number of dollars per month toward your debt how it will effect your payoff date and the interest you will save.

This program isn't for people who are struggling to make monthly payments, it is not a debt consolidation program. It's truly a debt management tool and sort of along the lines of an adult sticker chart.  If you don't like sticker charts, you're probably a stodgy, old, responsible person who has no debt anyway!

We've been using the program now for about a month and so far I love it. I can really see the debt decreasing.  The app is great too, it's like a pocket version of the website. There are progress charts and little text alerts (if you have them on) to remind you of a payment due or even a tip to let you know if you make an extra payment this month, on a specific card, how much it will save you overall.

These are just my thoughts on the program. I did not get paid to review it, not even sure how I would if I wanted to! The thought in Thoughts for a Good Life triggered my brain to write about my experience with this program.

So my final thoughts on money...I don't believe it's the root of ALL evil, but it is the root of a lot of extra work and some extra stress in my house until we are debt free...which according to Ready for Zero will be June 2017!

Thoughts for a Good Life - 8/19/2013

This was the thought on 8/17 in Thoughts for a Good Life:

That which is bitter to endure may be sweet to remember.

I like this thought. It makes me consider that silver lining in the hard things, the crappy things. Of course there are still bitter times I’m sure will never be sweet to remember, but this quote has me thinking.  Here are a couple of bitter times I’ve now reconsidered:

Thought 1:  My senior year of high school our new coach loaded us on a bus, took us to a field and made us run. We had no conditioning, no warning…get off the bus and run. Run a mile he said, and do it in X number of minutes or you are off the team. WTF? This guy was crazy! It was August, nearly 100 degrees and I hated running & at that moment I hated him. The sweet part isn’t that the coach turned into mentor (18yrs later, still don’t like the guy). The sweet part is that I did it. I actually did it. I came in 2^nd to last, it hurt, it made no sense to me (still doesn’t) but I did it. So the sweet in it is that I finished and I look back and know I can do it, if I had to, I could run a solid mile.  

Thought 2:  My grandparents have a 120 acre farm. They grow & sell vegetables, going on 30+ years now the local farmer’s market. It’s a family business and we are all expected to help. We are paid in fresh veggies & now awesome stories to share. At the age of 8 however; these are not acceptable forms of payment! If you’ve never picked black-eyed peas, well, you aren’t missing much. They are harvested in July/August, the hottest part of the year and it gets damn hot here. We have a low-tech farm, you sit on an upside down bucket and pick, move the bucket down the row and keep on picking. On one miserable, humid day, I stood up in the middle of picking and declared, “I’m not picking another pea!”. My Memaw said, that’s fine Amber, go sit in the pick-up, but you won’t eat another pea all summer, not only that, you won’t eat another veggie off this farm all summer. Fine by me I said. I can still see her in the field, pointing her dirt-stained finger at me. Just daring me to keep walking. Unfortunately for me, I did.

I didn’t realize how much I really loved those veggies. That day was miserable, but my stance led to a miserable summer. We had a home-cooked supper nearly every night of my childhood. It was torture to sit and watch those bowls of fresh, buttered veggies passing by my plate. It also hurt me to know that I’d let my family down… disappointed them. My picking strike only happened once. It was bitter to endure, but pretty sweet to remember.  My pea picking strike has been retold many times in our family; I’ve served as a warning & lesson to others. I’m so thankful for that lesson though, it taught me to really appreciate the efforts of hard work and now I know exactly what to do when one of my kids decides to strike!

 

 

Scrapbook page  w/ pic of my mom at the Farmer's Market. I scrapped this page in 2002. I look at this page and think my life & my pages have gotten a lot more beautifully complicated.