Sunday Confession: Love

This is my first and I think the ACTUAL first edition of Sunday Confession from More than Cheese and Beer, a blog written by a fellow Midwesterner that I've come to know and love. She writes about recipes and natural health remedies and REAL stuff, so I'm pretty impressed.

She is starting a Sunday Confession series, the few rules are simple:

Click the link above, take the prompt, whatever it may be, and just run with it for about 10 minutes. No over-thinking, just see where it takes you. This has been my favorite blogging style lately, thanks to my schedule and sleep-deprived brain.

Today's prompt is: Love. I know, right? First thing I thought was: BARF. I thought long and hard how I could write about that and not want to punch myself in the balls. 

Confession: I thought for more than 10 minutes.

Confession: I'm kind of buzzed, so thinking is hard.

I was drunk (buzzed) raking today, so I'm all giddy on exercise, fresh air, some ACTUAL sunshine, and yes, beer. This could be hilarious, this could be my suicide note. All I can think of, besides "How do I love beer? Let me count the ways" is how 

from holycaw.alltop.com

CONFESSION: I love raking. There, I said it.

My husband thinks I'm a freak, but I've always liked it. It's one of those must-do chores that has a very clear end, immediate victory, and also counts as exercise, which means guilt-free drinking as a reward. It's all about balance in my health plan, America. 

My hands and arms are sore as I type, lack of muscle, but my girls and I made leaf piles and jumped in them, took a bazillion photos I upload to my shiny, new Instagram account, and got most of the front yard's leaves taken care of. 

I also started to use raking as a personal reflection time, thinking about what has changed since last Fall, what have I accomplished, what did I WANT to accomplish that I may or may not have done, etc. The last say 15 years, every year just gets better, so this reflection time has been pretty awesome. 

Before that, life sucked a big, fat hairy one and 10 minutes is not enough time to get into it, but now I am in charge of me, my happiness, and I have really been rocking that. 

One of my first dates with my husband he made me help him rake his backyard, in the original ComfyTown. He was laughing at how much I liked it, and I was throwing leaves around laughing, instead of just powering through until we were done. He reminds me of that every Fall, and that makes me happy too. 

We raked there for a few years, and now we have our new ComfyTown, our together, raising a family house, and even though it has a shit-ton of trees, which equals a shit-ton of leaves, I'm happy we're here, I still like raking and even though I never work out, I'm still able to do it for hours, and life just keeps getting better. 

Years from now, raking will be painful on our old bones, but as our expert life-crafting would have it, our girls will be old enough to do the raking at that point. Booyah. 

That's got to be 10 minutes and this probably makes no sense and is super lame, but hey, it's Sunday, this is me right now just letting it flow.

Some lovely leaf pictures as a reward for getting through that mumbo jumbo.

TToT: Movember and More

I am thankful to be part of the Ten Things of Thankful party for TWO weeks in a row, woo hoo! There are many things to be thankful for, and so many things that I am really trying to focus on the positives about. Sometimes you have to dig pretty friggin' deep for the thankful part.

1.    I am always thankful for Movember. Click here to see a whole post on that with shiny, happy, mayhaps a little freaky Mo-pictures.

2.My husband turned 40 this week! Even though 40 seems to be the birthday that decorations go from shiny, happy, sparkly to BLACK with tombstones and "RIP" we feel the same, (so far) upon turning 40. We are thankful to be happy and healthy, and it seems the older we get, the better life gets. We require less physical things to be happy, and we are content to be home with our little family.

3.  I’m thankful for the children I watch in my home. Even when they get dropped off at 4a.m. Their parents bring them here, my children & I get to play with them, and the money their parents provide covers some cost of our meals. Some days are tough, but it’s the most rewarding job I have ever had.

  4.Thankful for my husband’s job which is far, and takes him away from us for so many hours every day. It is the reason we live in a house, which I am thankful for, even if I have to clean it! 

 5. Thankful for our backyard, yardwork and all! We have tons of leaves, had a fun time jumping and playing with them, until my neighbor pulled out his loud leaf blower and we had to go inside. We needed a break anyway.

6.  Thankful his job allows us to both have a vehicle, even if one of the places I go is taking my son to his job. This takes us about an hour every day (M-F) just to drop him off. An hour on a good day, if we don't have to turn around, drive back the 20-30 minutes to pick him right back up. My girls do NOT like being strapped into their car seats for that long. I try to bring books/toys/snacks to keep them occupied. 

    If we didn't have a vehicle to drive him there, and he had to rely on public transportation, this job would not be possible. It would take him almost an hour and a half ONE WAY to get to this place by public busses.

7.   Jobs are not something to be taken for granted at this time where we live, so we are thankful that he has this job. Even if they sent him home early THREE days out of 5 this week.

 8. If he can stay there long enough, this job will reimburse him for school. Phenomenally thankful if we can make that happen! My son is a teenager, I really try to be thankful for anything right now at this stage of life. Some days are a real struggle, but he is healthy, and hopefully one day he will be happy again, and resemble my funny, creative son again. We will be so very thankful whenever that happens!

9.  I’m very thankful for audiobooks, which make these trips everyday so much more enjoyable! Listening to book 5 of Game of Thrones, my favorite thing of anything ever. I listen when I push my girls in their stroller, and at night when the sounds of husband snoring, and the kids sleep-fussing fill the air.

 10. I am one of the few people thankful for Daylight Savings Time, where we turn back the clocks an hour in the fall and then ahead in the spring. EVERYONE with children complains about the adjustment, but if you have children waiting for a bus in the morning, this allows them to wait in LIGHT instead of in the cold, damp dark. 

from 4molnars.blogspot.com

    Before we did this last week, driving home the sun would be DIRECTLY in front of us, without chance of a workable sunscreen, for 20-30 minutes. The baby cried and wailed, she won’t keep sunglasses on. I would try to block it with my hand, but I did need to watch the road and the traffic. Now it gets dark at 4:00, but no more sun in our eyeballs.

5 Minute Friday: Truth

I almost didn't do this week's 5 Minute Friday, which if you're not familiar with, click this link and link up! It's fast, 5 minutes, that's the rule, take 5 minutes and don't over-think, over-edit, just write. Love.

Today's subject is: Truth. 

The first thing I thought was:
"The truth is I'm dog tired." 

No one wants to read about that. I switched to my blog hop entry to #FF everyone who linked up their Twitter, but at the back of my mind was a little something. An itch, an idea, thoughts. Pesky, but sometimes THOSE can't be ignored. 

Those little sprouting weeds of thoughts you try to brush away, but like weeds they grow and GROW and GROW and BLOOM and sometimes just take over the once-beautiful garden of your brain.

Truth has meant different things to me in my life. There was the obvious truth, the truth I would say, the truth I would admit to myself, and THEN the actual truth. It took me years of counseling to figure out what my REAL thoughts were, to get down to them, and to allow myself to actually FEEL those feelings, and admit the TRUTH of my thoughts.

That's deeper than I can get into in 5 minutes, but a quick example that I was called out on, was from a good friend with whom I have had a tumultuous relationship. I do love how she calls me out on the "Truth" though. 

I used to say and think that I believed that I didn't care what other people thought about me. To some extend that's true, there is a great quote from Charles Barkley that I know have somewhere on my computer, I'll share it at the end, and it's really funny, but it's not entirely the TRUTH.

If I didn't care what people thought about me, why would I change my clothes before I left the house? Why wouldn't I just wear maternity mumus all day, every day? Why would I buy face powder? 

Why would I write a blog? Why would I go back to the misspelled words and correct them? *I* know what I meant.

I also read others' blogs and while I don't always agree 100% with people, I like to hear other peoples' opinions on things. Especially when we disagree. WHY do people feel that way? Do they explain? Do they have a good reason? Will they convince me? I am always willing to learn, and hear a different opinion, especially well written!

If I didn't care what other people thought, why wouldn't I just write letters to myself on my laptop? And oh, I do that, but evidently I do need other people feedback based on the over 50 posts in my not-yet-year-old blog that I actually hit the "Publish" button, to share with OTHER PEOPLE. Because I do care, I do need feedback, I do need opinions. I do need people. I do care.

Unless you're going to judge me on my extra weight, ugly comfortable shoes, or my very messy house. 

Those are my choices, while I may have tried to make excuses for those things in the past, those are choices I have made on my time management and I don't regret. Not for a minute! And THAT is the TRUTH. Time's up!

I do love me some brown mound of rebound!

WW Suddenly MOVEMBER

Me, Movember, 2012

 found at Grunge and Gadoo on Fartbook

from The CakedCrusader.blogspot.com

from businessinsider.com

Thank you, singlegalz.com

Incredibeard.com

Mr. Incredibeard

Incredibeard BEARD Pong

from Movember UK on Facebook

from nerdlikeyou.com

from ameixajaponesa.com.br2

from ameixajaponesa.com.br2

from doctormonicle.com

 from duneseatimes.com

from memecenter.com

Community Dis-Service

Have you ever seen the Little Free Library boxes? I saw one, it was like seeing a unicorn making a rainbow, and it was in walking distance from my house. I mean a distance I could walk, so not very far! 

I was so giddy about this, I actually tried to spread some community spirit around ComfyTown. I know! With my infamously not-exactly-neighborly neighbors. 

from birdwatchersgeneralstore.com

How did I fare? 
Did it work? 
Are my neighbors all besties, joining a book club?? 

See how it went. Details and pictorial are here at my friend Gina's place, Funny Life Stories. 
Click here:


http://www.funnylifestories.com/2013/11/04/community-disservice/

Ten Things Thank-tober

I am on a roll with 5 Minute Friday and the kids are mellow, probably from a Halloween hangover, and they are thankfully playing dress-up nicely for a minute, so I'm trying to do a post I really need to do right now. I have been meaning to link up to "10 Things Thankful" at Considerings blog for awhile now.

I really need to work on my Attitude of Gratitude. Life, schedule, blogging slump and the blah blah blah of life have kept me from linking up to this, and blogging much at all. I know all too well when you're down and rallying with the blah blah blah and it gives you a case of the blahs, that is when you need to stop and think about what you have to be thankful for. I know, this is when it's the hardest to do, but the payoff is worth it.

I'm told the same thing is true for exercise, expelling that energy is rumored to give you energy (sounds like witchcraft) or en-dolphins or something,

I have a weird sense of humor.
from psu.com

not sure what dolphins have to do with exercise but those rapey, fishy mammals seem to have TONS of energy, so I do want to try it. 

I have yet to discover how you start, let alone keep, on that uphill battle when you're exhausted. With exercise and blogging. I know I'll feel better after both, I need to make it happen. Tangent thought. Focusing back to the subject at hand. 

I am so very thankful for people with a strange sense of humor that make these crazy memes. When I make them, they are lame, so I usually google search for them and share.

I dunno, I think it's funny
found at dailymeme.tumblr.com

I need these people with the weird humor. I NEED THIS. Humor is my coping mechanism. It helps me, it calms me, it sounds weird but I am weird and I'm thankful other people are weird too. 

It's November First, notorious month of THANKS-GIVING. Through my years of counseling, (which I am thankful I no longer require,) I learned to take time to reflect during November, before or DURING the holiday stress/madness/depression that seems to grow like mold on no-preservative bread at this time of year. We need to try to focus on what we are truly thankful for in life. Since the stress of my schedule is already getting to me, I need this now.

Bonus, I have much to do so I should be brief. Thankful of that! Tomorrow my Diane-in-Law and I are having a party to celebrate the birthdays of our favorite men, my husband and my Father-in-Law. I'm so over the moon thankful for both of them, and for my Father-in-Law's girlfriend, Diane.  

I not only love and adore my in-laws, I also LIKE them. They are laid back, yet excited about our little girls. This is everything to me. Everyone needs a support system, and this time of life, while rewarding obviously, can also be challenging and incredibly lonely. My husband works far away, he's only home for about an hour each day before we have to put the kids to bed. Any adult conversation is at a minimum.

WE are of course thankful for our two little girls, and love to share their milestones and cute little things they say and do. On my side of the family, however, they are grandchildren #10 and 11, so my family is over 'The First Step' and 'The First Words' (and babysitting, and visiting and bonding with the children,) and everything else. 

That's a post in itself which no one wants to hear, and I don't want to write, but it used to make me very sad. Anyway, enough of that. Instead of thinking about that, I am focusing on the thankful things now. I need to focus on how THANKFUL I am to have my wonderful in-laws to enjoy all of this with. 

I am also thankful that my Diane-in-law is always helpful, not just with the children, she is also an amazing cook. Cook, chef? Do you only say 'chef' if they're a professional chef? Anyway. She is a culinary genius. They visit every other Saturday, words cannot even express how excited and thankful everyone is for their visit. We try to alternate and all share in the food preparation, she brings her amazing food, we try new recipes, which I am eternally thankful for! 

You'll be shocked (not) to hear I am not a great cook or hostess, quite terrible actually. My hostessing motto is "Help yourself." I also never seem to have the right amount of food, napkins, or have what people need/want. They always want the blue/pink/yellow sugar stuff for coffee, or they want yellow mustard and I only have brown mustard. You name it, I always get the wrong thing. We're always running out 10 times at the last minute. This used to stress me out, but my in-laws are so helpful and never make me feel bad about anything. 

I am thankful that my sister, Moe, still enjoys spending time with me and my girls. We went there yesterday for Halloween. Thankful for Halloween, I love it.
I love the costumes, the movies they play this time of year, the food (candy), pumpkin-flavored everything, the decorating of food and decorative gourds. We opted NOT to get pumpkins, too busy to do anything with the food and didn't want to waste it, so we colored Halloween hard boiled eggs.

I'm cheap. And weird. But festive.

I always used to love to spend Halloween with my sisters, alternating each year with one of them. Trick or Treating on their blocks, with their awesome neighbors. 
My son and I moved a lot, and never really 'clicked' with neighbors anywhere, like both of my sisters have. Their neighbors were/are always so nice to me and my family, that is such a nice feeling.

My princesses in their costumes

I am eternally thankful they shared that with me, and my sister still wants to do this with my girls. The girls would have been bored if we stayed home on Halloween. We would have only gone to a couple of houses with the rainy weather, and my husband getting home SO LATE every day, not many people would have seen their costumes. Or mine.

I was Amy Farah Fowler from The Big Bang Theory. If you don't watch the show, she is an extremely nerdy neurobiologist. My sisters neighbors have known me for decades, none of them knew I was wearing a costume!

Right? I am more pale than the nerdiest girl on television.

I'm wearing my actual clothes, and my old glasses. I just put a barrette in my bangs. The rest wouldn't stay straight with all the rain. It's scary how little I had to do for this costume. Not sure how thankful I am about that, but.... 

I love Autumn, thankful for this time of year when I can breathe easier, and the beautiful Fall sights, sounds, and smells. Instead of focusing on the sudden and upcoming months of bone-deep, House of Stark cold, I am thankful for my old, warm, comfy woolen sweaters. 

We have two seasons here: Lung-butter humidity and Winterfell cold. I am almost always cold to my soul, I need these warm sweaters. They're quite expensive new, and being the thrifty (cheap) shopper I am, I found some great, warm wooly sweaters at resale and Goodwill over the years. I am eternally thankful for all the great thrift venues where I live.

Some of them I have had longer than my son has been alive, and he's 18, so yes I am obviously totally on top of the latest fashion trends.  The key to keeping them this long is never to wash them. This makes my hairdresser sick to his stomach, but I always wear at least a shirt or 2 under them. They're warm, but they're itchy.

Once in awhile I get them dry-cleaned, but really not often. Sheep don't go to the dry cleaners, and they're fine. 

Anyway, I hope that's at least 10 things and I am also very thankful to have "met" the amazing Lizzi, and to have discovered the Ten Things Thankful.

5 Minute Friday: Grace

5 Minute Friday again, I enjoyed this so much last week I'm back again.

Link up here. The only rule, that I forgot to post last week, is you go to the person that linked up before you and encourage them in their writing. That's nice, isn't it? Encouragement. Love it. We all need it. We should offer it more often. IMHO.

Today's word is: Grace.

This is something I have struggled with my whole life. To me it means poised, elegant movement. I am the opposite of that for many reasons. I move too quickly, I have no balance, no muscle, I leap before I look, I wear awkward shoes, I was raised by a pack of very rude, clumsy wolves. 

These sound like excuses, and mayhaps they are. I tell myself I have accepted these things about myself, probably because it is a lot easier to say you 'accept things about yourself,' rather than challenge yourself to do better, to try harder. 

Paint it any color you like, but I also really like the way a woman I used to work with explained it: 
"You can be graceful of spirit, even if you're clumsy of foot."

That's some heavy, medieval-sounding jive, right? 

I know. She makes a great point though. She pointed out to me that I always try to help people, I try to be forgiving (if only because I've made oh-so-many mistakes myself,) and teach others about forgiveness. This is the grace of spirit. I absolutely beamed when she said that. It's amazing how sometimes a few words can stay with you forever. I always looked at myself like a big, clumsy oaf. This woman almost made me graceful with her explanation.

In my world, there will always be mistakes, you have humans you get human behavior. It's okay, their good usually outweighs their bad. Especially if they TRY.

Humans have always been mistake-makers. Since caveman days, when they used to club people, drag women by their hair (in cartoons anyway) and wear those tragic sleazy loin cloths. Come on guys, cover those 6-pack abs! We get it, you spend hours hunting buffalo, you're hot. Put some clothes on, pal, leave it to the imagination.

WHAT was I talking about, Willis? Oh yeah, Grace. So for me it means something different than it means for you. 

I will try to teach my girls to be graceful of spirit. Not just because I can't teach them to be poised young ladies, which I do TRY to do. I put them in pretty dresses, even though I'm a tomboy at heart. I want them to find their own way, not my way. (Hopefully their aunts will help with that!) 

More important to me, I strive to teach them to be graceful of spirit. To be helpful, to share, to give of themselves to this world, and to forgive other people in it. Those things mean grace to me.

What does it mean to you?