Let God Sort 'Em Out

I've been working as a secret shopper for awhile. At the end of the month, they have a lot of jobs that have not been completed by deadlines because no one signed up for them, and they call and offer more money to do them. The last few days of the month, you run your legs off, but you make more than if you worked the piddly jobs all month. It seems like they would figure out if they offered more money during the month, they would get the jobs done and not have this mad rush at the end, but oh well.
I have learned through doing these why no teenager wants to work fast food for very long. I also have a new appreciation for anyone who ends up making McDonalds a career as a manager. I think I'd rather put my head in an oven. One other thing I've learned is that many people don't care at all about others. They come in, eat, let their kid throw french fries all over the restaurant, spill their coke, drop their wrappers on the floor and then calmly walk out and leave it all behind. The dining room has to be cleaned every fifteen minutes so someone, making minimum wage probably, has to clean up their disaster zone. That makes me mad.
Then on the way to one of these jobs yesterday, I am behind this big expensive car (don't know one kind from another, sorry, but it was fancy) and this perfectly manicured blonde who probably never wanted for a nickel in her life, stops at the light in front of me. She then proceeds to dump the contents of her obviously overflowing ashtray out the car window onto the road. That makes me mad, too.
But then I hear of a young couple who goes once a month to a homeless shelter to dip out macaroni and cheese to the people there. And who adopt a child off the angel tree every year and buy them a bicycle. And I hear of a young man on the radio who spends three days 100 feet in the air on a crane lift in 35 degree weather, so he can broadcast and beg people to come down and donate bicycles for underpriviledged children and he gets over 350 people to buy one and bring it down. And I feel better.
You heard me mention David Schnaufer, the dulcimer player that was so nice and encouraging to me as a beginner, who mailed me a copy of his copyrighted music simply because I liked it. Who sat with me and taught me to play Amazing Grace even though he had a show to prepare for, because he knew I was his biggest fan. Well, he died last week at the age of 53, and the music here will never ben quite as sweet, but heaven is rocking. That makes me sad.
This week, I challenge everyone who reads this to do one nice thing each day for someone, even if it's a small thing. The world will be a brighter place because of it.

Help, I'm Melting!

Hot flashes are hell. But if they are not bad ENOUGH, try hot flashes on a day when you are doing laundry and running the hot dryer all day. Not hell enough? Ok, throw in 90 degrees in Alabama and the central air unit dying at the same time. Hell enough?

Yesterday was that kind of day. Of course, I'm loading laundry and cussing (hey, I'm home alone except for my dogs and they don't care) about how *%#@ hot it is. Then I looked at the clock and realized it was nearing time for my boys (husband and son) to get home and I have nothing cooked. I looked at the stove and the hot dryer and remembered how *$#@ hot it is and called my husband to get take out. Then I turned down the thermostat and sat down to wait on him to get home.

God, still hot. I turn on the ceiling fan and eat an ice cream cone. About the time he gets home, I take a closer look at that thermostat: Set temp 69. Actual temp 84? What the #@%*!!!

So by now I'm in a really bad mood. I tell my husband that the freaking air is not working and to fix it! NOW! Bless his heart. He goes outside and listens to the central unit. Yep, it's running, he says. Please look at that thermostat, I scream, because it says it's freaking 84 in here! By now, it said 86! Do something! I'm melting! I'm sure by now he's hoping it's true that witches melt.

But bless his heart. He decides maybe it's because he has been lax about changing the filter lately, and he trudges up the attic and gets one and changes it. We climb up on a ladder to feel the air coming from the vent. (We have nine foot ceilings). There is no freaking air coming from the vents. Shut it off! He screams. I'm not sure if he means the thermostat or me, but I hope it's the thermostat and flip it off.

Then he calls the repairman. Yes, they can come today. By now, it's 7 PM. Not much day left. At 7:30, I throw him the phone and say, Call them back and ask when!!!!
They can come at nine, if we will still be up then. Up? Who the f*** can sleep in this heat! Yes we will be UP! Get out here!

So the repairman does arrive, and he says it's frozen up. And he says he needs to run the heat for awhile to defrost it. So he turns on the heat. I'm meeeeelllllltttttiiiiinnnnggggg.




While we are busy melting, I ask if they have been busy lately. He says oh yes, we've been working sixteen hours a day. And he says, it's nice to make the kind of money that doctors and lawyers make, but the hours are killing him. Both me and hubby cast looks at each other. Neither of us missed the money remark, and both of us have those "oh shit" looks.

Well, an hour later, we are "patched up good enough until I can get the part in", my husband is eight hundred dollars poorer, and I am finally cooling off. Do you know what a woman looks like who's cooling off after melting? Not a pretty sight. But I think he was just glad I was going to shut up and go to sleep.

Kool-Aid Kool-Aid Tastes Great

If you like Kool-aid, mix one package of cherry and one package of grape, a cup of sugar and two quarts of water. It tastes like fruit punch instead of just Kool-aid. It's gooooood.

I know. I'm a Kool-aid connoisseur from way back. My dad didn't believe in buying soft drinks. He thought water was good enough. However, he had no aversion to those bright colored packs of artificial colored powder that you mixed with enough sugar to put you straight into diabetic coma- Yep, Kool-Aid. And I loved it.

Long after I was buying enough soft drinks to keep Coca-Cola stock rising, I still bought Kool-aid. Then my kids came along, and of course, how could I deny them that artificial dye high that only Kool-aid delivers. Sometimes (covering my eyes and asking forgiveness from the patron saint of Mothers) I actually gave the toddlers Kool-Aid in their bottles. (Gasp) And they loved it.

It was about the time that they hit school-age that Kool-Aid came out with those new flavors and suddenly Kool-aid was so Kool it even came in BLUE. And I had to have me some of that blue stuff. So we made Kool-aid and we iced it and we drank it until our tongues looked constantly the color of rainbows, and my kids had that joker moustache in bright red across their mouths. No, no milk moustaches at our house.

I learned a lot about Kool-aid through the years. I learned that this stuff you buy at the grocery called GOOP would take the stains out of clothes, and a puddle of Clorox and water left to sit would take the stains off formica counters.
But, even I, the greatest Kool-aid fan of all times, was a novice compared to my friend, Dawn.

She had a house full of kids, and she knew more about clipping coupons and pinching pennies than anyone I've ever met. One day at my house, while I made the kids sandwiches and she made the drinks, I caught her rinsing out the Kool-aid packs. Huh? She dumped the powder out and then filled the little pack with water several times to "get it all out." I thought geez, this woman is either a first class cheapskate or she really likes her Kool-aid. It turned out to be both, and I loved her for it.

That day sparked a great discussion of our Kool-aid eperiences growing up. It turns out her dad had gone to the same "hate cokes, allow Kool-aid" school that mine had. And she had learned even more than me. She started mixing the stuff. She came up with the ultimate Kool-aid mixture, recipe at the top of this entry.

So when my Arizona born husband talks about his Mountain Dew, I just sigh and wonder how he got to be so smart without the full Kool-aid upbringing.
Now if I could just get the Kool-aid man to burst through your computer screen about now and sing, that would really be Kool!

Everything Has a Gender

EVERYTHING HAS A GENDER

You may not know this, but many non-living things have a gender.

1) Ziploc Bags are male, because they hold everything in, yet you can see right through them.

2) Copiers are female, because once turned off; it takes a while to warm them up again. It's an effective reproductive device if the right buttons are pushed, but can wreak havoc if the wrong buttons are pushed.

3) A tire is male, because it goes bald and it's often over-inflated.

4) A hot air balloon is male, because, to get it to go anywhere, you have to light a fire under it, and of course, there's the hot air part.

5) Sponges are female, because they're soft, squeezable and retain water.

6) A web page is female, because it's always getting hit on.

7) A subway is male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

8) An hourglass is female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.

9) A hammer is male, because it hasn't changed much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.

10) A remote control is female. Ha! You thought it'd be male, didn't you? But consider this - it gives a man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying!

Uh, OK. Well Maybe. On Second Thought..NO WAY!

I was scheduled for surgery on my eye Friday. It seemed like everything that could complicate things has happened in the last few days. I've also had this nagging feeling that maybe I shouldn't do this. Add to that, the psychic telling me this would not work the first time but would have to be done over, followed by the doctor saying 25% of the time this has to be done over, I figure I'm probably in that percentage.
I kept trying to justify to myself having it done despite all these gut feelings to the contrary. But I finally just decided to call it off. Of course, I called my husband first to run all this by him. He assured me that he loves me, doesn't care if I have it or not, that I should make my own decision (gotta love that man). So I called today and said that I'm sorry but I've changed my mind.
Now, I feel a lot better. I've had a good afternoon. I guess we have to learn to trust those instincts, huh.

A Blog Entry About Hot, Torrid Sex

C'mon. Ya'll knew that was a lie before you started reading. ha.

I love blogging. It sounded like a great idea when I started this, and when I look at how long I've actually kept it up, I am very proud of myself. I'm also pleased that I have people who actually think my rambling thoughts are something worth reading. I looked back over some of my past posts today, sort of critiquing my own writing. I really wish my blog sounded like "Sex and the City meets the Desperate Housewives." I realized today, however, it sounds much closer to "What I Did on My Summer Vacation."

Unfortunately, that's a pretty fair assessment of my life, too. Not a lot of excitement or daring adventures. Just a lot of time trying to be a good girl and not get arrested or recklessly endangered.

As I near the part of life that is somewhere between menopause and death, I listen to others tell tales about their life adventures and I'm jealous. I wish I'd had the wild fling with the cruise ship attendent and lost my virginity on my senior cruise like my friend, Rachel did. And his name was Antonio, but she said it like the most exotic sounding name you've ever heard, as in..."Then he took off his shirt and I said...Ohhh AWN-TOE-KNEE-OHHHH."

No, my first time was fumbling in the back seat of a car and I think I didn't say anything but thought, "Oh, God, please get this over with fast and don't let my mother ever find out." Of course, my grandmother later asked why I left home wearing pantyhose and came home with them in my purse. I didn't answer, because I couldn't think of anything to say that my grandmother wouldn't instantly see through.

I wish I had gone on a trip with a bunch of girlfriends, and gotten drunk at a corner bistro in France while we laughed hysterically about all the men we'd known and their funny quirks. Instead, my funny stories were told over high chair trays at Burger King in Alabama while being interrupted by toddlers screaming and people giving us dirty looks, and our stories were mostly about leaving a red sock in with our husband's whites in the laundry.

But life goes on. And there comes a time that I realized that I am not going to pull any unexpected, wild, adventurous surprises on anyone that knows me. I've become terribly predictable and my family likes it that way. I begin a sentence and my husband finishes it. I don't do something I had been planning and my son says he knew I wouldn't do it when I mentioned it. And you know, even that gets to be ok with me. Because I am predictable. My routine is predictable. And there is a certain comfort in that.

But, for my dear blog readers, it sure doesn't make for such great reading. But hey, my daydreams are hot. Really!

Hey Cookie!

Like I didn't know I'd be chocolate chip. Geez!

You Are a Chocolate Chip Cookie

Traditional and conservative, most people find you comforting. You're friendly and easy to get to know. This makes you very popular - without even trying!

What Kind of Cookie Are You?

If Oprah can do it, Why Can't I?

I hate being fat. I hate it worse than anything, except giving up food. I saw this commercial today for Total cereal. It's the one where this teen daughter finds her mom's high school jeans, and says, "You mean YOU used to fit into THESE?" For one thing, that's when I would have strangled her. But no, this mom decides to show her. The daughter goes about her life, while wearing Mom's jeans while Mom spends days keeping an eye on her jeans and eating Total cereal. Then one morning, Mom says, "I want my jeans back" and down the stairs comes Mom, in the jeans, looking happy.
I read some posts about this on some other websites. You would be surprised at the 10 and 20-somethings that say, "Jeez, why would that old lady want to wear those jeans she wore at 20? She is OLD. She must be like 40! Yuck!"
I want to strangle them, too.
Then I got a letter from a friend who was telling me about her marriage, and she said her husband had gained weight and she could deal with a lot of things but not him getting FAT! God forbid.
So I decided that I could lose this weight with no problem. I mean, Oprah did it, right? All I need is a few things like Oprah had. For one, I need her money, so I won't have the stress in my life. I need her personal trainer, who is so into the idea of me promoting his books on my tv show that he worships me. (Who wouldn't want a guy watching them on the exercise machine while saying how wonderful you are? If I had her money, I could pay him to say anything.) Then I need her personal chef. He can scour all the cookbooks for light cooking and cook me only the most delicious meals, while I sit and spend my money. Then I need the money to make stores in Paris feel bad for not staying open for me while I shop for my new skinny bod.
See? Anyone can lose weight. All it takes is a few Oprah perks.

Mormons, Jews, Gays, and Step-Children

I recently went to classmates.com and did a search of people I knew from school. I found quite a few people on there. It seems no one my age is on myspace, even though my daughter has reconnected with many of her old friends that way. Anyway, I wrote some letters to several friends, and a few days ago, I got a letter from a girl named Donna who I knew all through middle school and high school. She sent me a long email and some pictures. She had long black hair when I knew her, and she still does. However, other than that, she looks nothing the same. If I passed her on the street, I would not know her. I had the same feeling when I went to my class reunion a couple of years ago. Those people looked so old. So I come home and look in the mirror, and I can't see that I look much different. Of course, realistically I realize I probably look as old to them as they do to me. But it's strange.

I wonder if it's like those girls who have anorexia, and they look like the crypt keeper but when they look in the mirror, they see a fat person. Or maybe God just makes me see something other than what is there, because He knew if I saw the truth, I'd have a heart attack.

Tonight we went to see The Night Listener with Robin Williams. He plays a gay guy, and there are brief moments in the movie that allude to the fact that he is gay and has a boyfriend, including one hug between the two men. There was this old guy a couple of rows up from us that just let everyone in the theatre verbally know that he was not pleased with those scenes. He would yell, "No, No, No. Don't do that. Ohhh God. Noooo." I guess it was painful for him.

I know that living in the "Bible Belt," I'm suppose to get offended by homosexuality. I just figure people should be free to live their own lives without others' judgements. Maybe that's too "new-fashioned" an idea around here. Anyway, it was a good movie if you like thrillers. Just enough building suspense to keep you wondering what was going to happen next.

I recently wrote an article called "Leaving the Mormon Church" for Associated Content. I was hesitant to submit it because of the possible backlash of the readers that would be offended. Well, it's been one of the top ten most read articles for AC in July. Evidently, people like controversy. I tried to write an article that wasn't a put down, just an honest opinion about the good things that got me involved and the things I found wrong that made me leave. It has gotten over twenty-five comments, some positive, and some negative. Even the negative ones are interesting to me. My husband feels I should stick to writing about controversial subjects. However, being a person who avoids conflict at all costs, I don't have many controversial topics running around in my mind, much less any that are interesting enough to write about.

I read a funny today about the Mel Gibson fiasco. Joy Beher, the comedian from the View, suggested that if Mr. Gibson wants to get back in the good graces of the Jewish people, he should stage a public circumcision. Now that is an interesting suggestion. My children have some Jewish heritage. Their paternal grandmother's maiden name was Rosenblum. She married a man who was of German heritage. So if they are conflicted at all in their lives, that has to be the cause of it.

We have to entertain my step-daughter and son-in-law on Sunday for dinner and two videos he thinks we need to watch. I hope they aren't long movies.
That's about all that has happened around here the last few days. Sometimes less is more.

Happy Useless Waste of Space

I have decided lately that I'm getting totally useless. I am gaining weight, sitting way too much on my behind all day, and several days this week have called my husband at the last minute to bring home something for dinner instead of cooking. And you know what? I like being totally useless! I like curling up in my recliner and reading all day, and not getting out of my nightgown if I don't want to. I like playing with the doggies, and going through old photo albums and mindlessly wandering the internet for hours on end. Of course, I don't imagine the rest of my family is enjoying my uselessness as much as I am. Maybe I'll snap out of this soon. I did buy the ingredients to make for dinner tonight. That's a start.

Actually I do have an excuse. With the eye surgery coming up, I know I won't be able to read for awhile, so I'm trying to get some things done I know I can't do later.
I wish I had a better excuse but that's the only one I have right now. But maybe it's ok to be useless at times. I sure am enjoying it.

We came home the other night and there were several police cars in the big intersection by the highway near our house, and they all had lights flashing. We figured there had been a wreck. Then we heard on the news that it was a toddler that ran into the road and got hit by a car, and they were trying to find the parents to notify them. So immediately we wondered why a toddler was out alone after dark, out alone after dark near the highway, and why the parents hadn't missed him. Well, the news stories have been very sketchy. All we know is that the child is in the hospital, and is doing ok. So if you have toddlers playing outside near the highway, keep an eye on them, ok?