Five for Friday

It is FRIDAY. And let us all thank God.

I am pretty much done with this week.

I am pretty much done with this month.

February has the fewest days of any month, but this month drags on like no other. I am recommending cutting a few more days from February. If any one knows where to send this month shortening request, let me know. It is just a proposal at this point. I can not find a point person for the Julian calendar. I was hoping it would be on Twitter so I could mean tweet it. So aside from February...here are my five things for Friday...

1. Rage Against the Machine. My garage door is a jerk. Technically it is the garage door opener. Mechanically it is sound, but the eye-beams keep going on the fritz whenever the mood strikes. The repair person has been out twice this week. Nothing needs to be replaced, in his professional opinion. It is just a total craps shoot if this door will go back down after it is up. I have learned how to override the eye-beam system. But it is annoying. Yes, this is a first world problem. I know people that have to park outside, on the street. I should be grateful. But I am still pretty darn annoyed.
2. The Polar Vortex.  I am done hearing about the polar vortex. Actually, polar vortexes, since there have been more than one this winter, and more in the forecast. If you have never felt -17 to -25 Fahrenheit wind chills over a several day period...count yourself very lucky. It is miserable. The dog is depressed because she can not go outside for more than 5 minutes at on time. The kids are sick of it. Everyone is just done with cold. I think I speak not for just myself, but the entire state of Michigan, and perhaps the whole Midwest.
3. Mom and Stylist Some how, I have no idea how or why, my daughter finds that I have a good eye for fashion. Not for day to day dressing, but for occasions like dances and parties. She actually consults me on what to wear, and how to wear it. She likes me to accessorize and put together the right hair & make-up. I have no training in fashion, other than I dress myself each day. Being the stylist for my daughter is a lot of fun. When I am in the shops and hear girls complaining to their mothers about clothing suggestions, I realize I am insanely lucky. Never once have I been told my suggestions are "lame" or "stupid". We have other areas where we disagree, it is not all sunshine and roses, but we somehow we bond over clothing. I will take it.
4. One to Watch Have you watched House of Cards?  It is a NetFlix series. It is addictive. I ignored NetFlix recommending this show to me for a long time. I am not sure why. I love politics. Washington DC is one of my favorite towns. This series really pumps up the political drama. The main character, played by Kevin Spacey, is truly Machiavellian. He is a detestable, manipulative, and horrid person. Yet I can not stop watching. 
5. One to Read My beloved gives me books each Christmas. He knows I love to read. He never asks me for suggestions for books, yet he always seems to find books I enjoy. This year he gave me Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline. It is a beautifully written and told in a parallel story style. It is a redemptive, and hopeful story. It is fiction, but based on events that truly happened. Check it out. It is a good read that will leave you wanting more. (That is always the sign of a good book, wanting more of the story)

That is what I have for this week, two gripes and three praises. Enjoy your weekend. Think warm thoughts.

I have spent the last three months trying to save a 12 year old laptop.

Yes, it was slow. It never was all that quick. I would really notice when I used my beloved's Mac. However, I am not a Mac person. I am not all, "Apple is the best ever". I do not let myself fall into that lemming way of computing. I also do not think, "Apple is the devil". I have an iPad. I find it very useful. I just like to be diverse in my technology use. I like a good PC. Who does not like something you can fix by shutting it off and restarting it? (Until that stops working too)

Yes, it quit letting me sign in to my blog. It did not stop me from writing, just from sharing.  To be honest, you did not want to hear the horrific thoughts I had during my "repair" phase. It got pretty dark.

Yes, I am not very tech savvy. However, I have learned many things about computers through trial and error...many many errors. I am fully competent in using flash drives to save, and back-up files from a dinosaur computer. Unlike past crashes, I am losing nothing. In fact I may have saved way too much. I suppose I can always lose the flash drives..they are small.

Yes, I hate change. That is pretty much it. I dislike doing things differently.

Yes, I have finally given up...only because Windows XP is no longer going to be supported, and there is not a chance in hell that that poor old laptop will survive a software update. She has been de-bugged, cleaned, rebooted, and refurbished. It is just time to let her go. It is the kindest thing to do. She has typed papers, essays, blog posts, Christmas letters, and countless other documents. I learned how to make a spreadsheet on that computer. I signed up for social media sites on her. I have checked countless e-mails on her. I learned how to search the web on that computer. Online shopping? She was the best. Coupon searches? She was a champ. And now it is time to move on. Mostly for my own sake.

I have invested too much time and caring in an inanimate object that really does not care back. It is like my own personal Her (the movie about a guy that falls in love with an operating system). Sometimes everything is personal, even when it is pretty clear that it is not.

Who has not bargained with a dead car battery?

Who has not cried over a broken coffee carafe?

Who has not felt a little off when they have left there phone at home for the day?

Who has not wept openly when finding a hole in your favorite piece of clothing?

Our things become a little bit of our comfort. We count on our things to be there, and do what they are suppose to do. And if you are a sentimental fool (and many of us are), you want those things to be with you forever. Even though they won't. They are things. Fortunately, I have a very tech savvy daughter that is helping me adjust to my "new normal" on a six year old laptop with Vista that has been sitting around since it was brushed aside for a shiny Mac a few years ago. My daughter really cares, and was starting to think I was never going to move on. At least she knows how dedicated I am. It probably terrifies her.

I am working my way up to Windows 8.1.

Very slowly.

Marching Band Rules

My very musically gifted daughter has joined her high school's marching band.  Okay, she pretty much joined it back in June, that is how long the band has been meeting and practicing.  They practice a lot.  A LOT.  Long practices.  Frequent practices.  Many, many, many practices.  They went away to camp, the whole lot of them, and practiced playing and marching and moving.  They are pretty good.  I say this with a completely untrained eye and ear.  I never marched.  I attempted to play musical instruments, with little success, even though I was stationary in a chair the entire time.  I am not musical.  I am creative, and gifted in other ways.  I can make up alternate lyrics to almost any song (the pitch of the signing is sketchy).  I can write simple poems.  I write this blog (although I am not sure if that qualifies as "being creative", but I write and people understand what I write.  The word on the street is, not everyone can write in a way people understand their message.).   Non-musical mom says this marching band is pretty good.  Mom who is rather sick of driving back and forth says, "They better be good for all the practicing they do.  For all the practicing, they should be marching down the streets of Pasadena on New Year's Day in the blessed Rose Bowl Parade".  Sick of driving mom is pretty grouchy, but she has a solid point.

Marching Band, from my rookie marching parent perspective, seems to have a set of rules.  Not necessarily written rules, but rules like prison.  Unwritten, sometimes unspoken rules, that you must figure out to move seamlessly among the other inmates marching parents.  I am not sure if a veteran marching parent will shiv you for messing up, or breaking a rule, but they may shun you or talk behind your back.  (I am a direct kind of girl.  I may prefer a shiv between the shoulder blades).  Anyway, here are the rules I have surmised thus far:

Marching Band Rules

1. The band will compete in competitions.  When you ask what exactly marching band competitions are,  you will be told, "Competitions are so much fun".  When you try to get beyond "the fun" aspects, you will be asked to drive several marchers to the competition, and help haul props out on the field for performances.  That sounds like work, I am not sure where any fun will be had . 
2. Practice begins fifteen minutes before the stated time. 
3. Practice ends ten to fifteen minutes later than the stated time. 
4. The drums are always playing.  Percussionist do not care, they never did.  I am curious to see what the walls must look like in a drummer's home.  God bless those parents.
5. The Marching Band will always be doing some type of fundraiser. I could go on a preach on how the Arts are underfunded, and it is a shame.  I could tell you how playing an instrument is connected with higher achievement in math.  I won't.  I will just try to sell you some festive holiday greenery, or flowers in the spring.
6. To be in band your student must purchase shirts indicating their class, their section, and the show they are performing this season in the band.  The student will hit up the parents for the money.
7. Band Parents are to wear shirts indicating they are part of the marching band.
8. Band Parents sit near the band at football games.
9. Your marcher will be tired all the time, but still want to attend the frequent, long practices
10. You will ALWAYS be able to see your marcher (and they will look the best) even though the goal is for the whole band to blend together as a single moving force.

I know this much to be true of marching band.  I alternately hate and love the marching band.  When viewing the family calendar and seeing how many days it takes up, or having to go on vacation without my daughter because she was at band camp during the summer, or seeing her blistered feet that she will continue to march upon...I hate it.  However, when I hear her talk about the new friendships she has made, and sit in the stands on a Friday night, under the lights and see her take the field playing and moving forward, backward, and side to side whilst playing her clarinet...well, then I really love the marching band.  She is learning to use her time wisely, work hard, and be a team player.  All of those things will serve her well academically and socially.  Sure, I still have to figure out all the marching band rules.  I will have to do fundraisers.  I will drive the wheels off my car.  But maybe, just maybe, someday I will say, Marching Band, RULES!!! 

(maybe) 

Paperwork

Caution: This post is a rant.  If you are here to be inspired or uplifted in anyway, click away now.  I am going  to rant and complain and generally rally against the forces that be.  No good will come of it, but I will feel lighter after laying down this burden upon my lovely readers.  Again, click away from this page if you are looking for happy, joyful, and uplifting.  She does not live here today. 



Okay...I think the Pollyanna Lolly-pop Guild has left the page.

(Rant on)

Paperwork.  I hate it.  The kind of paperwork I am referring to is the permission slips, camper liability, health forms (especially if they need a doctor's signature), registration for activity forms...all of them.  Forms.  I hate forms.  I HATE FORMS.  The information is repetitive, tedious, and annoying.  I hate copying the front and back of insurance card to attach to forms.  The immunization records that have to be copied and attached, OR even worse, transcribed onto a health form (this is the worst).  The older my kids get the more numerous the forms become, the more sheets of paper that get included.  It is torture.  I have never been water-boarded, but I think if given a choice between filling out forms and the water-board...I might just choose the water-board.  Seriously.

My daughter, who is lovely, sweet, and talented has generated a lot of paperwork for me this summer.  In fact, I am in the middle of filling out the third set of camp related forms this summer.  I stopped filling in forms to write this post.  The annoyance was festering.  I was about to become crabby with her, but decided to take it out on the keyboard instead.  The problem is, there is no real solution to this problem.  The camps, schools, and organizations NEED the information in case there is a problem.  I get it.  I certainly would not send my kid to a camp or activity with just a backpack and a hug good-bye.  I really want to be contacted if there is a problem.  I certainly want medical attention sought if they are sick or injured.  I just am sick of filling out the same information on slightly different forms for each camp or activity.  What I really want is universal forms.  I want all camps, schools, and activities to have ONE set of forms that satisfies all the groups.  Once a year I want to sit down and update the forms, save it to my computer, and then print out the same packet of forms for each organization.  Honestly, all camps ask the same questions.  A health form is rather standard.  Even the waivers for High Ropes Courses are rather standard.  No it will not include the school or camp logo letterhead, who cares?  I know what I am signing them up to attend.  I want and need UNIVERSAL FORMS!!!!  Do not tell me it can not be done.

It can be done.

It is possible.

It is my dream.

My beautiful, simple, dream.

A world with less paperwork.

(Rant off)

It IS the Small Stuff

I am sure you have heard the phrase, "Don't sweat the small stuff", occasionally followed up with, "...and it's all small stuff".  Well, whoever made up that pearl of wisdom can STFU...right now.  Yup.  I went there.

The problem with "not sweating the small stuff" means accepting some level of chaos and disorder.  Many people live blissfully in chaos and disorder.  It is their place, their filthy, messy, loud
Shangri-La. (If you are one of those people, God bless you. Mazel. That is great. I will not be over at 6pm for dinner.  Not that it would ready at 6pm anyway)  It is not my world.  I like order.  I will not apologize for enjoying an orderly existence.  The small stuff will be sweated over, maybe to the point it is dripping and in need of a shower.  Deadlines, due dates, and lists are my reason for being.  My question is, How does the small stuff get done if everyone is "not sweating it"?  In the past when I have decided to try out this slacker, don't sweat it, way of life the only thing I have found is the small stuff gets bigger.  The two loads of laundry I decided to not stay up and wash became four loads of laundry, and family members in need of pants.  "Don't sweat the small stuff...who needs pants?".  I am here to tell you, It matters.  The small stuff matters.  People need to eat, and society is not ready for clothing optional people to be mainstreamed (and we live in Michigan...not a great place for accidental nudists).

My point is...the small stuff matters and it needs to get done.

My rant is...the hippie bastards that say, "Don't sweat the small stuff...and its all small stuff" need to be flogged with an organic cotton sock filled with their own freshly churned butter.

Yes, all the things are small, but there are so many small things that need to be done all at once to make life livable for those of us that can not see beyond, or cope with, disorder and chaos.  Laundry, dinner, lunches, picking up from practices, dropping off at friends, school stuff, volunteer stuff, cleaning, writing, lesson planning, grocery shopping...the list goes on. All of those things need to be managed.  It requires planning and order for everything to go off without a hitch.  Even with all the planning, s*** happens, and then plan B has to happen, or plan C (I really sweat when it gets to plan C, because I seldom have plan D, so I am up a creek without a paddle if plan C fails).  Yes, it's all small stuff.  Nothing life threatening.  None the less, if you are a planner and do-er who likes the machine well oiled...the small stuff is what gets you.  I get that.

If you sweat the small stuff, that is okay.

If you like to plan, that is okay.

If you hate clutter and chaos, that is okay.

If you want to violently shake those laid back fools that never concern themselves with details, and seem to rejoice in chaos, and just let life happen to them, STOP...that is assault.  You will go to jail.

Take comfort in knowing, I will be sweating the small, medium, and large stuff.  You are in fine company.

Obsessed with Socks

My sister gave me a great pair of blue striped socks for my birthday.  You may be thinking, "Big deal. Socks."

Yes!  Big huge, super awesome deal.  These are the best socks ever.  I have waited outside the dryer for these socks because they are soft and warm, but not too warm.  They are wool, but not itchy.  These socks are perfect in boots, trainers, loafers...really every shoe I own except pumps.  Striped socks look exceptionally silly with pumps.  These socks make my feet smile.  After three weeks of waiting outside the dryer, and once double wearing the socks without washing (Yes, I did that. My daughter chastised me, and she was correct in doing so.  Message sent, message received, socks get washed after EVERY wearing), I finally went to the fancy outdoor store (REI) and found more pairs of these great socks.  Now I have four pair.  My favorite will always be the blue striped socks from my sister.  It is not easy finding socks when you have big feet.  So often the heel of the sock does not meet the heel of my actual foot causing an odd feeling, and causing the sock to slouch and bunch around the ankle.  Men's socks are larger, but larger all around and often bunch in shoes (very uncomfortable).  My sister knows the pain of finding good socks that do not cause annoyance.  We are both big footed ladies.  My daughter is following in our big footsteps and has learned to appreciate a fine fitting pair of socks.  There are tons of worse things than having big feet.  Stubby toes...now that it is a hideous thing.  I do not think I could wear open toed sandals if I had stubby toes.  When your feet are long, generally your toes are long, unless you had a run in with a lawn mower when you were wearing flip flops (In which case, I am sorry.  And I am sure your learned your lesson).

I am obsessed with socks.  It is okay.  Thus far I have been able to function as a semi-productive member of society.  Mostly, I am just grateful to have finally met a great pair of socks.  Thank you Betsy.  Very truly, my favorite birthday gift this year.  A gift that keeps giving warmth and joy.

Happy Wednesday.  Please stay warm and do not leave you kids or pets outside for extended periods of time.

First World Problems

Do you ever stop and think about the things you consider "problems" in your life?  Since I am an analytic type person, I do often classify my problems.  Or what I think are problems.  Not being able to find my mobile phone, is not really a problem.  The frothing machine being on the fritz at you local coffee haunt causing you not to get a latte, not really a problem.  Pants not fitting properly, frustrating, but not a real problem.  A crabby kid not wanting to go to school; annoying, yes, an actual problem???  Umm, NO.  Pretty much all of my problems are first world problems. Problems that exist living in a nation of abundance.  Yes, there are Americans that struggle with real issues of hunger, illness, lack of housing, and many more really serious issues.  However, most of us are sitting rather pretty, with plenty of everything and failing to fully regard, and be grateful for our abundance.  We as a population seem too focused on what we do not have instead of noticing how insanely blessed we all are.

This past summer my good friend and her family traveled to Tanzania.  While in Tanzania they did take a safari, as that is a major tourist draw in that nation.  However, prior to their safari, they spent time touring hospitals, schools, and learning about what life is like for Tanzanians.  The short version of what Tanzanian life is like, HARD.  My friend informed me that although daily life is hard, filled with real problems & struggles, the people are happy and generous.  My friend's children, both teens, learned that education is valued, and not provide by the government.  Families save, and sacrifice, and often have to send their children hours away to get a good education.  My daughter whines about how early the bus comes, but every night she gets to spend the night with her family.  Tanzanian students often have to take years off of school to work and help their families save money before they can continue.  Early bus rides, clearly a first world problem.  My friend said the most striking part of Tanzanian life is how much of it is centered around just getting water.  It is a daily concern, and large chore, and during the dry season an overwhelming problem if a well goes dry.  In comparison, we fill pools with water and splash in them.  We run through sprinklers.  We complain if our local governments put watering restrictions on our lawn and garden irrigation in the hot summer months.  Very first world problems.  I can not imagine having to carry water from a well through a village so I could cook or clean.  Face it, when the power goes out I turn very whiny and sissy.  I am such a first world problem diva.  

I am not advocating that we all give up our creature comforts.  This creature LOVES her comforts.  I am more reminding myself that in the very grand scheme of things, I have no problems.  If I get sick or if one of my loved ones gets sick we have access to medical care.  We have more than plenty food, in fact we need to be more mindful of what we waste.  I am writing this to remind myself to be grateful, and to look outside my pretty little first world life and see real need and real problems.  Please do not think I am going on a preach, well maybe I am a little bit, but the preach is focused at myself.  If it applies to you in any way, just know you are not alone.  We all have our first world problems, but when we put them in perspective, we just have some minor glitches in our rather awesome, over abundant lives.  No problems.