Tsk Tsk Oprah...Shame on YOU!

Ok, for the whole Oprah Winfrey/James Frey controversy......I couldn't help but make the "mad cat meow" yesterday when watching her go for the jugular. She totally lost sight of the fact that the millions of people who read this book have brains, enough to realize that not everything we read is necessarily 100% accurate. We take books and get what we can from them. This book helped thousands of people find hope. Where it should be shelved in the bookstore, under fiction or not, doesn't negate that. This was a good book. And a guy wrote this about being a druggie, which meant he was a druggie when all this stuff happened, so accuracy is a not a given.
Oprah's 180 degree about face didn't help her image at all. It made her look like a person who can't make up her mind, and who changes due to public opinion. She crucified Frey to take the heat off herself. Tsk Tsk Oprah. I got my money's worth buying the book before Oprah's recommendation. Besides, her opinion isn't the catalyst for my life. (I can't afford any of her favorite things, anyway!)
I still stand by my opinion that she started out a really nice person and now has become the Oprah Goddess of television and hasn't gotten way too big for her britches. I wanted to step in on her show yesterday and tell her to play nice. But instead, I've decided to just take her off my Tivo and find something else to record at 4PM every day.
Geez Oprah. Some of us actually don't CARE if you like the book or NOT.
The Amityville Horror came out as "a true story" when it was presented as a book. I read three pages and said, "No, not true. No idiot would see THAT and still stay another night in the house." Still, it was entertaining. Which, most of the time, is why I read.

Thank God and Greyhound She's Gone

That title is the name of an old country song for those youngun's who never heard it. But it fits here.
Yesterday, while searching for pictures to put in my scrapbooking, I found a large manila envelope. It was tucked in that drawer with scarves and other stuff I never wear. I had forgotten all about it. Inside, were a stash of old love letters, pictures of past boyfriends, and copies of some of my letters to them. I spent the next two hours looking through this stuff.
I discovered that I used to be a whiny, begging, clingy, spineless thing that let men treat her like doodie. I listened to myself in some of those letters and thought, like Dr. Phil says, "Man, O, Man, Girl! What were you thinkin'!"
It really helped me to see how far I've come. If someone treated me now, like some did then, they'd have been calling a plastic surgeon to figure out how to get the imprint of my foot out of their backside.
How much of this is because I've really come a long way, and how much is because I got a good guy who would never think of treating me bad, and I've just come to realize that I never had to put up with that. I think the real reason is, until I met this one, deep down I didn't think I deserved better. I spent the first six months of our relationship thinking this guy is too good to be true, and the next six months thinking, he is really that good and I sure don't deserve him. I also thought if he ever finds out about the real me, and some of the things I've done, he'll run for the hills. I fessed up. He didn't run. He's a keeper.
I know they say we should look forward and not back, but sometimes it helps to take a look over the shoulder and see how far back some things are, and how we changed directions.

Pass me the Crayons!!

I admit I'm always behind the loop. I can be talking to my kids and start my sentence with "Did you know that now someone has invented this thing that...." and they roll their eyes because they know I am talking about some gadget I've seen that the rest of the world has been using for years. But I just caught onto something else that I LOVE, that is an "old fad" by now--scrapbooking and cardmaking!
Let me tell you why I love this. It gives grown women an excuse to have multiple pairs of brightly colored kindergarten sized scissors, to have and use millions of stickers, rubber stamps, glue, and you get to color with colored pencils! It's like a re-run of elementary school art class and I love it. I found out that the lady who rides with me to dulcimer on Tuesdays is a distributor for "Stampin' Up", which I had never heard of. It's like a "tupperware lady" who sells rubber stamps and supplies. So I asked her, "What do people do with all these rubber stamps?" And she told me. And then Hobby Lobby put their rubber stamps on sale for half off, and I spent my gift certificates there, and at WalMart. Then today I moved my desk and removed all the "writers stuff" and put out "art stuff" and I made cards all morning. This is so cool!
I was so uninformed about scrapbooking. I heard women were making these pages to put their family pictures swathed in construction paper and I thought, I don't need that. My pictures are just fine in the shoebox. But now I know it's not about the pictures! It's just about getting to cut and color and do fun stuff.
My husband shakes his head. Yes, Honey, I was just into jewelry and bought all this jewelry stuff, and now I've switched. But I still like that too. And it's like his coin collecting and model war plane building, it's just fun. And we all need to be a kid sometimes!

Late Nights, Lost Books, Singing in the Rain

Long weekend. My middle son broke up with his girlfriend Friday after talking to me and hubby until 330 AM about it the night before. My daughter and son-in-law were thoughtful enough to come down on Friday night to offer moral support, which I think helped a lot.
I am exhausted and scattered. I am going through one of those times when everything is piled in my head flying around but I can't seem to figure out what to do minute to minute. This is either PMS, menopause or temporary insanity. ha.
I watched Brokeback Mountain. A----hum......(clearing throat) Ok, I don't want to offend anyone but since this is a forum for me to be completely honest, here goes. First the disclaimer--I know I don't fully understand the entire gay community from watching one movie. Having said that, based on that movie, it seems that men don't care about falling in love first, or even in like. They can hate each other and still want to do it. Often. Hit each other in the mouth with a fist and then turn around and do it again. And according to this movie, they can also be gay and still be able to function with a woman sexually. This movie confirmed my belief that any guy can be gay because it's just about having some place to stick it that they aren't suppose to. Maybe this somehow explains the terror most men I know feel when they are faced with any hint of homosexuality because they fear that when their thingie takes over and the ol' brain shuts down they might come to their senses and realize they put it somewhere they didn't plan on it being.
I lost my bookclub book, just found it, and am behind on my reading. I still haven't read chapter two but will catch up this week.
During the Christmas break, guests using the shower off the master bedroom asked why our water pressure was so low. I'm a person who becomes conditioned easily. I have to be freezing to notice I'm cold and need a sweater. I hadn't noticed the trickle of water until it was mentioned. Turned out the head was clogged and after a failedn effort to soak it in vinegar to unstop it, we went out and bought a new one, one of those big round ones with a billion holes that feels like rain. I LOVE IT. I feel totally spoiled. Doesn't take much for me.
We cancelled our cruise plans for April. Just decided we'd rather not go away for that long, but would rather take some shorter trips nearer to home. Where, we don't know yet.
We're going to take son tonight to see Munich. It got good reviews, hopefully better than Brokeback.

It's Your Birthday, Baby Girl

Tomorrow is your twenty-eighth birthday. I've been there for all of them, amazed each year at how much you've grown. Even when you stopped physically growing, you kept growing emotionally, socially, spiritually. I am so very proud of the woman you have become.
You work harder than anyone I've ever met. You also have more energy! When you told me you worked all day and then came home to go out running, I was amazed. You told me once when you were a little girl you were determined to never be fat, and you've stuck to that. You have balance, not just in eating but in all areas of your life.
I'm proud of your faith. You are stedfast in your spiritual life, never doubting, and you live what you believe. You give of your talents in playing the flute for the church orchestra.
You are good to your friends, and patient. You sit with them through infertility, divorce, death of a child, miscarriages, and you still write, call, and go to see them even when you may not feel like it.
You've stood behind your family and your husband's. Even when you haven't agreed with the decisions others have made, you still love them and stand by them as family.
You take time to enjoy your life. You plan things to look forward to. You thoroughly enjoy your travels, your impromptu ski trips, your hikes in the snaky trails.
You take time to laugh. You can look at the hard things and still manage to laugh about them. You patiently listen each birthday for your yearly birthday song, no matter how bad the singing may be.
You care about other's feelings. You have never in your life said anything to intentionally hurt anyone.
You take time to cry. I know it's hard for you to cry, but I've seen you pass the Kleenex during Steel Magnolias.
You are generous. I see you at Christmas buying bicycles for kids you don't know. You share what you have and give back.
You are an amazing woman, and I'm very proud to be your mama. Live long and happy, my baby girl. Happy Birthday!

Cowboys, Banjos and Stomach Flu

My husband had the day off today, and I thought it would be a good day to get out and do something together. I had spotted a few antique stores the other day out on a highway we'd not been down lately, and so we planned to clean up the house some and head out for a day of browsing.
Unfortunately, some stomach bug had other plans for me, and I got sick all at once when I was trying to get a shower. So most of the day I've either slept or sacked out in the recliner. I feel like a limp dishrag.
My son went to see Hostel. I can't believe he'd actually want to see that. It made me sick just to watch the preview. I'm glad I Walk the Line won the golden globe award. I liked that movie.
I want to see Brokeback Mountain but being in the bible belt, there's not much chance of it ever coming to North Alabama. I don't know why I want to see it. Maybe to understand homosexuality better. I never quite understood that. I know I am naive. When my first husband and I got invited to a cookout with some of our neighbors many, many years ago, we ended up going over with some other couples to visit these two guys who lived together. I had to use the restroom and saw Playgirl magazines with pictures of naked men. I told my husband about it, and he said, Yeah, they're gay. I said Nuh huh! He laughed because I was so naive about it.
I think I'm pretty open-minded about most things. I try not to judge other people. I think we each answer for the things we do based on our intentions. I've also taken a more realistic and less idealistic view of the world as I got older. But like I said, it probably won't ever come here, so I ordered the book!
I'm going to tomorrow to play with a dulcimer group. I told my husband at a jam the other day I want a banjimer, a dulcimer with a banjo face, that is played like a dulcimer and sounds like a banjo. A lady overheard me and said she had one for sale for $175, and my hubby said, "Ok, bring it to her when you see her on Tuesday, and I'll send you a check!" I asked him if I have to wait to play it until Christmas, and he laughed and asked when had I ever waited on anything!
I'm really excited about it. I hope it's as easy to play as everyone says it is.....

So You Think You Want to Be A Teacher?

When I was a little girl, except for a brief time when my grandfather was sick and I wanted to be a nurse, I wanted to be a teacher. My favorite game when I could get my sister or a friend to play, was playing school. I had a blackboard (yes they were black then) and I'd write stuff on it and stick magnetic letters across it and was just sure I was totally brilliant. Also standing up there while the other kids sat down and watched ME was such a rush!
Well I married young, no college, and settled down to raise a family. After twenty years, I found myself divorced and everyone kept asking what my dreams are, and teaching rose back to the surface. I went back to school, chose my major to show my ex I wasn't as ignorant as he thought (math) and after a lot of sacrifice from me and especially from my kids, I got that degree, with honors. Man, I was going to be a wonderful teacher. ha.
My then husband, talked me into using my teaching certificate to open a tutoring center, which I did, because good girls always do what they are told, and I had a lot of tutoring experience throughout my college years. I enjoyed owning my own business, but hated tutoring. I still had that dream of standing up there in front of a real class.
Well, finally I got the chance. A local high school needed a part time teacher, which I could do in the mornings and still run my tutoring center it's normal after school and evening hours, so I took it. Within one week, I was so disillusioned about teaching, I cried! First I had no classroom. I was told I'd have to teach from other teacher's classrooms during their "free periods" which meant I had to switch rooms each class and haul all my junk from room to room. But I think the first day was an omen of things to come. At the "new school year teachers' meeting" one of the "old regulars" listened to me talking and said, "I'll tell you something right now. If you go in there with that soft sweet little voice, they'll eat you alive. They're animals." That's my voice. So then I had to think talk deep, talk stern, which I couldn't do unless I was mad, and I wasn't mad. I was scared!
I quickly discovered new teachers get all the classes no one else will take. The other teachers would ask, "Who got whatshisname? Ohh....ha. ha...she did. Good luck." Yes I got them all. I found out my first day that I had students on probation, students who had taken Algebra IA twice already and still didn't give a crap, and I had some very angry, loud, mean students.
Of course, I thought I could be Michelle Pheiffer in Dangerous Minds. In a week I was determined those hoodlums would love me and I would change their lives forever. After a few days I realized that there are hoodlums in our adult world and it's because some teens just like being hoodlums. And I was their prime target.
I decided I could withstand it. I'd go in determined every day to teach them something, and end up spending my whole time trying to shut them up and sit them down and make them listen. I didn't get to teach. I did get to write on the board but no one cared what I wrote.
After a few weeks, I decided that it was time to pull my trump card. I picked out the ringleaders and called their MOTHERS. Now if a teacher called me to tell me my kid was terrorizing the classroom, well....just ask Plumbtuckered how long they would have lived. So I dialed. I started out saying how I thought her son had such potential. He was smart. He was funny. His only problem was his behavior. She said, "Well good luck. I can't do anything with him at home either." I was whipped.
I went to lunch that day and told one of the nicer teachers I didn't think I could finish out the year. I was tired. I was whipped. She said, Well good luck. They don't let anyone out of their contracts. A big cloud descended and I thought I surely was in hell.
To make a long story short, I did get out of my contract, although it wasn't easy. My precious doctor got me out on a temporary medical leave for depression or stress (can't remember what he wrote) , and then after I got a pulmonary embolism and ended up in the hospital, he extended it to permanent medical leave for the rest of the year. I was free.
In the movie, Shirley Valentine describes her "sweet little dream" and how they are always better when you dream them than when you live them. Now when I hear some young one think they want to teach, I think, "Oh you poor, poor girl...."
The short story I wrote in Letters to my Teacher was a tribute to my sixth grade teacher, who was an angel during a bad time in my childhood. I'm glad some people really do make it as teachers. However, we were easier to deal with back then...Of course!

Old Age and Girlfriends

Yesterday I got into the car with three other women to go to a club meeting. It was an hour ride there, and an hour ride home. I learned some things.
I don't know what to talk to other people about in person. Yes, I know I talk my head off on here, but it's different. On here, I don't see anyone's reactions until much later, plus I'm somewhat anonymous. They women gabbed away and although I said a couple of things, and actually got a laugh once, I pretty much spent most of my day wondering what they thought of me and why couldn't I think of anything to say???
I have a hard time judging anyone's age, but I would have classified all these women as "old women". When we arrived for the meeting, we had an announcement given that if we wanted to have lunch, we could stop by the senior center and get lunch for a dollar. One of the ladies in our group looked at all of us and said, Well we can do that next time if you want because we all qualify as senior citizens. So I looked at all of them and decided that's what I must look like, an old lady, and the scary part is I didnt even know it. So that got me thinking. Today I went out to visit a friend of mine who is three years younger, and she looks like an old woman now to me too, after I looked at her closely. That's a terrible realization folks. It's one thing to say you don't mind getting older and how you are going to age gracefully. It's another thing to have someone look at you and throw you in the same category as all the other "old ladies".
So I tried to think of all the reasons I'd like being older. One was the "senior discount". Then I started reading about senior discounts. My bank offers a free checking account for seniors, 50 and up. AARP will let you join if you are at least 50. But the majority say 60 and over, or even 65 and older. So here I am, stuck between "old" and "old and being rewarded for it" and having "hot flashes" and "periods" BOTH. Seems like that should be a one or the other proposition.
So I turned to my favorite menopausally inspired woman, the late Erma Bombeck, and found these quotes about girlfriends to cheer me up.
"A friend doesn't go on a diet because you are fat. "
"A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday."
" A friend will tell you she saw your old boyfriend-and he's a priest. -Erma Bombeck
Gotta love that Erma

Musings.....

The painters will be here tomorrow to paint our ceilings from where the roof leaked. They said they wanted to come at a time when I had things planned outside the home so they wouldn't get in our way. I have nothing planned, and after running through a laundry list in my head of places to go around here (that was a joke, there's not enough to make a list), I decided to just take some dvd's into the guest room, and sit in there while they paint the living room and the master bedroom. So I guess tomorrow will probably be a Bridges of Madison County day, since I like that movie and my husband doesn't have any interest in watching it with me. It's in my top five movies. I like Titanic, Bridges of Madison Cty, My Life Without Me, Falling in Love, and Stanley and Iris. I also really like Sleeping with the Enemy and A Home of Our Own.
Now that I have mentioned all those, I may change my mind and watch something else.
I found out there is a dulcimer club that meets in the daytime weekly, so I'm going to try to go to that Tuesday. I'm making an effort to be less of a hermit.
In our book club, I finished Chapter One, and am clamping at the bit to read Chapter Two. We're reading Tara Road, and so far it's a really good book. Since we're not suppose to start on Chapter Two until Jan 15th, I'm trying not to get ahead of anyone else.
I got an email from the Chicken Soup Magazine about my prize money check being on its way. I am really looking foward to some extra money to do some shopping with. I need some clothes for our trip in April. I have a closet stuffed, and I mean STUFFED with clothes, and I hate them all, and I only wear maybe ten things from my whole closet I think it's time to toss and restock.
Rags, our Maltepoo doggie, has a new bed, and he loves it and sleeps in it beside my chair. He will be two years old in April. We got him from a lady who had a new baby and couldn't keep him. He's a fur ball and cute as a button. Maltepoo are a mix of Maltese and Poodle. Our dog was the runt of the litter, a tiny little fella. He's only 4 1/2 lbs now.
Well a rerun of Sex and the City is on, and it sounds like a good one.....

I Hate Carpet - 200th POST

P.S. I know you are suppose to put the postscript AFTER what you write, but here it is anyway. After I wrote this, I realized it's my 200th blog post. And I wasted it talking about stupid carpet! So I started to delete it and start over, but then decided it actually is a pretty good picture of my life as it really is. So I left it. Plus, I'm pretty proud of myself for actually writing 200 of these things. Didn't write my pulitzer prize winning novel, but definitely did some blogging!


I'm sitting here basking in the quiet!
I bought a carpet cleaner awhile back, and cleaned the family room carpet last night. It is dry this morning and came out looking as good as the steam cleaner guys get it. I have decided carpet has to be up there on my list of "hate this stuff". There is no way to keep it clean. What we pour out of the catch tub looks like mud, every time, no matter how often we clean it. Years ago, my mom built a new house when she and my step-dad retired. She said she wasn't going to put carpet in it, but put wall to wall vinyl. Everyone thought she was nuts, but every time I clean this stupid carpet I think she was probably smarter than I realized. What I really want is hardwood or laminate throughout the house, with area rugs I can pick up and take to the cleaners. But since our home owners insurance screwed us on our claim by imposing a huge additional "wind" deductible we didn't know we had, our roof repairs will probably take over any new floors I might have my eye on. Enough about floors.
I finished Memoirs of a Geisha, so now I'm waiting on Tara Road to come from Amazon. I swear I think I keep Amazon in business. I begged my ex many years ago to let us invest in Amazon, when no one had heard of Amazon. But since he hadn't either, he thought that was a bad idea.....
My husband had bought me some hot rollers as part of my Christmas, but since I whacked off my hair, I have to go return those today. I also have a gift card from Hobby Lobby burning a hole in my pocket. So I might actually venture out of the house (shock!) today. Other than a little shopping, I'm planning to sit on my behind as much of the day as possible. No better way to bring in the new year. ha.