Spring Awareness

 

I've been out and about more than usual lately (Spring Break, Easter, etc.) and was struck with the inspiration to write another one of my lists.  Small tastes of Spring weather seem to bring out an extra dose of misguided experimentation in the fashion department.  I am far from being fashion conscious, and speak with no authority on such things as "trends" or "fads."  I do, however, sense a need for a certain level of "Spring Awareness" across the general population as the temperatures rise. 

What You Should NOT Be Wearing In Public:

1. Your clothes from last night.  Yeah...we can tell.

2. Bedroom slippers.  If I can't wear mine all day, then neither can you.

3.  Lingerie.  Seriously...I saw someone out in their lacy boy shorts and satin tank top.  (This will shock you... but I was at Wal-Mart.)

4. Your bathing suit...and nothing else...unless you are ON the beach or AT the pool.  Please.

5.  Sunglasses...indoors.  Unless you have a disability, this in inexcusable.  Don't.  Just don't.

6.  Short-shorts...with very few exceptions.  If you are under 18, you need a whippin.'  If you are over 25, then you are embarrassing yourself.  22 years old and jammin' at a pop concert?  Go for it.

7.  Open-toed shoes ...sans a post-winter pedicure.  I know you're excited because it's a random, warm day...but please - at least trim your toenails before bringing the flip-flops out of hibernation.

8.   The same outfit as your teen-aged child/grandchild.  If you are old enough to get a senior citizen's discount, then you are too old to shop in the Juniors department.

9.  Hair styling apparatus.  No, no, no - do not leave the salon's premises with your curlers or foils on your head.

10. Clothes that don't fit you.  I'm definitely guilty of trying to make a pre-baby piece of clothing work here or there, but let's not make it a habit.  If you cannot comfortably sit or bend over, then we can not comfortably be around you when you do it.

As a side note, I asked the hubs if he had anything to offer for this post.  His only helpful suggestion was to 'people watch' at Wal-Mart....which is kind of what started this anyway.  I also expressed my desire to be casually funny, without being snotty and sounding mean.  He said "Good luck with THAT."  Hmmm...

We've all committed at least one transgression. We get excited when that first 70 degree day hits, and just completely forget ourselves. Oh, the shame!

Are you a Spring Awareness offender and need to confess?  Did I leave anything pertinent off of the list?  Feel free to add offenses and/or confessions below! ;)

♥M

Please Read If You Happen to Work For The Devil

First, let's establish that I am writing this list for no reason whatsoever.  Well, except to warn people that you should not (I repeat - do NOT) say any of these things to your employer. 

So it’s kind of, sort of a totally random public service announcement…

Things that you can’t say to your boss or you will get SUPER fired:

1. "How was Mr./Mrs. Satan this morning, when you left home?"

2. "Did they have career counseling at your college or university?"

3. Frantically run into his/her office in the morning and shout, "I changed my mind! You didn't drink your coffee yet, did you?!"
4. "You probably don't get, 'Be yourself!' a lot, do you?"

5.

6. "Would it upset you to know that I have garlic cloves, a wooden stake, and a hand mirror behind my back?"

7. "How do you fit all of those snakes under your wig!?"

8. "Have you been drinking before work again?"

9. "I thought of you while I was unclogging my toilet the other day."

10.

11. "I'm not sure what's wrong with you, but I'm betting it's hard to pronounce."

12. "Everyone is good at something! I'm sorry you're 'thing' is making people miserable."

13. "I suppose if you just keep talking, eventually something intelligent will come out."

14. "Can I share a thought with you, or would you have any where to put it?"

15.

16. "I've noticed that your reality and mine seem to keep missing each other..."

17. "If  you haven't had the time, I can run to the drugstore for you and pick up refills of any meds that you may have recently stopped taking..."

18. "I hope you enjoyed your business trip!  The rest of us did!"

19. "I'm not sure why I seem to be learning more from your mistakes than you do..."

20.

♥M

Spring Party Planning Madness

 

The girls' birthday party is in 6 days, and I'm NOT my usual stressball of party planning....which leads me believe that I am overlooking something major.  Or, maybe I'm just getting better at going with the birthday party flow....

I am a notorious birthday party planning freaker-outer.  It all started with the oldest's first birthday.  She was the first and the only, so when Jace turned one, I had to have every detail just so.  I had a Fancy Nancy-themed party, complete with Jace's picture on a personalized birthday banner, every decoration/balloon/serving tray in the right place, and custom invitations from Etsy.  My sister-in-law made a cake that could have been for a wedding.  My brother-in-law practically broke out a level to hang the streamers.  My cousin took pictures, my husband took video, and I almost had a stroke making sure everything was perfect.

I really intended to turn things down a notch with the second birthday.  Except I was pregnant with daughter #2, and if you remember from A Second Love, I was going a little crazy trying to prove to myself that I could still give the same amount of attention to Jace as always.  Which resulted in an extreme Lalaloopsy-themed party...before they made Lalaloopsy themed party decorations.  I made my own invitations, scoured the internet for party favor ideas, and labored over the decorations.  I stressed over each of the 5 seperately-themed tables I set up.  Each one was based on a different doll with appropriate colors and themed items for that character.  Jace had the perfect party outfit, a huge cake, and of course, lots of pictures were taken.

By the third birthday, I was stretching myself a little thin.  I had to pull off the perfect Tinkerbell party for Jace, and then follow up with a one-of-a-kind Strawberry Shortcake themed first birthday for Daire a few weeks later.  They each had the right banners, balloons, tablecloths, themed party food and drinks, and of course - the personalized invitations from the cute little Etsy shop.  I had to do all of this while throwing a baby shower for one friend, a bachelorette party for another, and be the matron-of-honor in the wedding while sweating over my three-year-old being the flower girl at the same time.  I did it.  It almost killed me, but I did it. 

Maybe I have party-planning PTSD, but this year I am not allowing myself to reach any of my previous levels of hysteria.  For one thing, they don't give a rip about all of the decorations or the handmade, themed crap that I slave over. I knew this all along, but kept telling myself "one day they'll look back at the pictures and be so impressed." Yeah, right.  Get over yourself, lady.

For the sake of helping to reform any of my bretheren party-planner crazies out there - here are some of the things I have learned from my party-planning-zilla moments over the past few years:

1. If you work 45 hours a week and have two small children, it's Ok to not have time to hot glue stuff, teach yourself how to make cake pops, and whip up 3 tons of finger food for an event.

2. If you hate baking and kind of suck at it anyway, there are people out there who do such for a living and will gladly accept cash payment for taking over the burden of creating edible masterpieces that people will actually want to eat at your party.  If you're really worried about it, just throw it all on your own serving dishes and let people think you made it all.  *Warning: Your guests could potentially ask for the recipe or try to get you to bring said items to a future event.  Not that I've done that....I'm just saying, it could happen.

3. If you're a big fan of taking money out of your wallet and lighting it on fire, then please, by all means, spend tons of it on balloons and streamers.  You will only have to sit and pop $45 worth of helium balloons exactly 3 hours after filling them ONE TIME for that lesson to stick.  Also, the physical anguish of ripping down streamers that you spent hours putting up is almost unbearable.

4.  Children are not impressed with your organized activities.  Attempt to entertain them with well-thought out party games and they will yawn right before they run outside to play tag or roll around in the floor playing with balloons. 

5. No one cares if your party food fits the theme.  They just want to be fed.  Your tea cakes and fruit kabobs are cute, but order some pizza and everyone is happy.  They will also be grateful that you compensated them with an adequate food suply in exchange for having to spend their afternoon at a kid's birthday party as opposed to the 4 million other things they could do on a Saturday.

6. The birthday invitations and party favors ultimately end up in the same place: the trash can.  It causes me a lot less pain to imagine you throwing away the flyers I got printed at Staples, than the cute Etsy invite I had printed with the kids' names and pictures on them.  I gave up completely on stressing over favor bags.  I save money and you don't have to step on little plastic toys in your living room floor.  You're welcome!

7. Delegate.  I have had to relax greatly over the years as far as accepting help goes.  I used to be a "must do everything myself or it won't be done right" person.  Now I'm a "someone else offered to do it, THANK GOD I can take something off of my to-do list" person.  Someone offers to bring food?  Sure!  My mom offers to pick up the cakes?  Yes ma'am!  My sister wants to help decorate or a lady from church offers to do the centerpieces?  YES, YES, YES, and THANK YOU!

This year both girls wanted the same theme (Sofia the First).  Jackpot.  ONE party, ONE set of invitations to make, ONE day of freaking out about putting up decorations, and ONE load of party food to buy.  I felt guilty they weren't each getting their own party...for like 5 minutes, then I rented a bounce house and called the whole party planned.  Aaaaand DONE.

♥M

THE Meltdown

Before you read - If you haven't already, reading the following posts will help make a lot more sense out of this one :)

Love...With or Without the Memories

The Greatest Love Story of [All] Time

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Day to Remember

 

*THE Meltdown*

So I finally had the inevitable tear-fest about my grandparents.  I knew I would get around to having a good cry about everything eventually, and I could feel it coming for a few days before it hit.  I had been cleaning the house like a maniac all week, and while I was ever so vigorously scrubbing the shower the other night, I broke a tile loose.  (Whoops!)  From there, I just pretty much immediately turned into a hot mess.  I cried and cleaned for another hour before I just sat in the the kitchen and sobbed dramatically all over the "was-clean" kitchen table.  The hubs knows better than to get involved when I build myself up to one of these doosies, so he just kept to the safety of the living room.  I was wearing one of his sweatshirts though, so he did request that when I was done snotting all over it, to please put it in the laundry room and not hang it back up.

After I finished crying and blowing my nose (on his sweatshirt, of course, HA!) I decided I needed to drag other people into my meltdown.  (Good grief, M.)  I did this by texting my immediate family and a few close friends and telling them that in light of everything going on and how crazy things had been lately, I felt the need to let them know I loved them and that they were important to me.  I did this for three reasons: 1) Because we don't really tell people how we feel about them very often. 2) Because it terrifies me that one day I might not be ABLE to tell people that I love them because I won't remember who they are. And 3) Because I was in a highly emotional state and didn't really think the whole thing through.

I'm not saying it was a bad idea, just that it might not have been a totally good one.  For starters, I really freaked a few people the hell out.  Not everyone is as "Hey World! This is how I feel!" as I am.  I sensed that those people were more annoyed and/or made to feel awkward by my declaration than anything.  Still, everyone but one said, "I love you, too."

Almost half of them, however, were alarmed that something was wrong.  Like that I was dying or something...I'm not sure.  (Possibly, because I am rarely very serious...)  This told me that maybe I need to "push pause" for the people that are important to me more often - SHOW them they are important,  not just TELL them.  Then they won't think I have a fatal disease when I tell them. 

What stops me from calling it a bad idea, though, is that a few of the messages I got back were things like "I had a really bad day and needed that!"  This reminded me that it's important to BE that positive boost, that pep talk, or that much-needed hug when our loved ones need it.  It's not hard to be there for people if we just SLOW DOWN and notice when they need us.  If I hadn't sent that message, then I never would've known my friend was having a rough time at work, or that my brother was feeling that same way I am about things. 

What started out as me being crazy upset and needing to reassure MYSELF that others knew I loved them, turned into a lot of little lessons about how I can do better at BEING a loved one.  My "loved ones" might be important to me, but that doesn't really mean much if I don't ACT like it...calling them that in my head, through a text, or on Facebook is just NOT enough.

So here's to slowing down!  Here's to letting the world rush by and just waving as it passes! 

(Disclaimer: This will NOT be an overnight process for me.)

♥M

Emotionally Compartmentalizing

So I did some research on "emotional compartmentalization" tonight.  I was inspired by my extremely "off" day today, and being curious about how I might do a better job at this, I empowered myself through Google.  Some articles left me slightly confused about whether it's a good defense mechanism...or an alarming symptom of being a sociopath.  Yikes.

I think we all do it though.  When you're at work, you focus on who you are as an employee and what you need to accomplish during your time there that day - in that particular capacity.  When you leave your job, your focus shifts to whatever other role you are switching gears to.  For me it's usually straight to "mom mode."  When I am with my kids I am in their moment, and they are my focus.  (Kind of hard NOT to be, they're kind of demanding...)  There are so many other "gears" to switch between, though...so many other roles and responsibilities to keep lined up in a row.  Sometimes you forget which "gear" you're supposed to be in, or it's necessary to cross the wires and be in more than one at a time.  That's when my neatly arranged "compartments" get messy and require a lot of extra balancing.

This week, I've been extra foggy.  My grandmother is not doing well, and I'm not doing a very good job at figuring out how to fit that into my "acceptable emotions compartment."  Therefore, I am pretending like it's not happening.  I had a very candid conversation with her ICU nurse yesterday, and I appreciated all of her honesty when answering my extremely direct questions.  I'm just not yet ready to absorb her answers, however, so I will just tuck them away for examination at a later time.  Not today.  Probably not tomorrow. 

The problem with switching parts of your brain on and off is that the things you push back, with the intention of ignoring them, have a certain way of niggling their way up to the front anyway.  It might just show up in different ways than you'd think.  I've been extra spacey, extra forgetful, less engaged when having conversations...detached, I guess.

Which is what led me to believe that I needed some advice on doing a better job at "compartmentalizing."  Here's a summary of my "research."  I may have added some of my own advice, as well.  You know I can't help myself.

To Compartmentalize, Or Not To Compartmentalize?

1. It's ok to compartmentalize....as long as you're not like, schizo about it and have multiple families and/or identities (i.e. Bill Clinton, Batman...Ted Bundy).

2. Use compartmentalizing as a way of being in control of your psyche for the sake of productivity - NOT for the purpose of avoiding or separating from your feelings.  That latter one will turn you into one of those weirdos that starts screaming at the check-out girl for putting a can of corn in the same bag as your bananas.  No one wants that.

3. DO NOT multi-task.  (Whaaaaaaaat?!?!)  It only takes your focus away from whatever you are trying to immerse yourself in at that time, and it will NOT increase the number of tasks you check off of your to-do list - it will in fact, keep you from accomplishing as much in the long run.  I know...crazy, right?!

4. It's ok to tuck difficult, personal things away - IF YOU RETURN to them later and deal with them.  Again, let's not get all "rocking-in-the-corner-while-hugging-your-knees," Ok?

5. Do not waste valuable time obsessing over things that you have no control over.  If thinking about it isn't going to magically fix it, then DON'T.  Move on.  Go be distracted.  Unless credit card debt is one of the things you're trying not to think about, then I suggest retail-therapy.  You don't even have to buy anything.  Pretend you're shopping for a new recliner and read a book in the furniture store.  (Just be sure to switch chairs every 10 minutes or so, or they might get suspicious).

6. If you are compartmentalizing your life to the point that the thought of different areas merging frightens you, then you have gone too far.  If your co-workers and your family couldn't discuss you without feeling as if they were talking about two different people...then you have a problem.  Do you hide under tables, duck behind displays, or put a pair of sunglasses on if you are with people from one "part" of your life, and see people from another "part?"  Get some help, man.

7. Learn to say "NO."  If you are even bothering to compartmentalize your life, then you probably shouldn't be adding any extra commitments or taking on any additional huge responsibilities without cutting something else out.  Sometimes we are all narcissistic enough to think that we "have to" do something because if we don't, then it might not get done (i.e. might not get done OUR WAY).  The truth is, you aren't the only one out there with any particular skill set.  Sorry to break it to you, but there are probably people actually waiting for you to move over so they can have a turn. 

Now go, be merry, and compartmentalize away, my friends!  Just don't be a weirdo about it.

♥M

Quit complaining

I typically avoid calling people out for complaining because...well, because they might return the favor.  (THAT would just be annoying.)  Plus, I have a pretty high threshold for being bothered. And a person has definitely traveled a long way before they have actually make me mad.  (It's a terrible destination when you get there, though.  Ha!)  I credit this to being an "oldest child," spending years in an elementary classroom, and having a saint for a mom.

Let's be honest, however - at one point (or a hundred), we all find ourselves thinking, "If I have to hear one more person complain..."  Usually, this is when we are super-stressed, have an arm's length list of complaints of our own, and just don't have time to feel sorry for anyone else.  Shame on us, but...we're human.

Let me explain "complaining" though...
I'm not talking about a one-time declaration of your discomfort.  We all deserve that.  I'm talking about the detailed accounts of your miseries, that are so ridiculously NOT terrible, that I actually want to tell you to please stop talking.  I'm not talking about venting to your best friend either.  Everybody does that.  I'm talking about how you don't know my last name, but when I asked you how you were doing, you spent 40 minutes telling me about your sick cat, your Aunt's cousin who got arrested, and the paper cut you got this morning.  My breathing slowed, my eyes glazed over, my right eye started to twitch, and still...you...kept...talking.

Not sure if you have been (or routinely ARE) one of these people?  Please, take the following survey.  Please.

1.  When you have a cold, do you spend more time lamenting over your symptoms than someone going through chemo...and/or...Do you describe your mucus to people? 

2.  If someone asks you how work is going, do you immediately start citing all of the reasons that your job is so much worse/harder/more stressful than their job?

3.  If you ask about someones children, and learn that they are sick, do you then cut that person off to begin describing the last time YOUR kids were sick and how much YOU suffered as a result of their illnesses?

4.  When someone says "How are you?" do you respond "I'm well, and you?" OR do you begin listing each body part that has a pain, infection, scratch, and/or in-grown hair until they finally slink away quietly while you're glancing at an incoming text?

5.  Have you ever complained about how broke you are....in the same breath that you mentioned your kids' expensive private school, your husband's new luxury SUV, and/or the ski vacation you're planning for your "winter holiday?"

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, don't be surprised if you start noticing that people only wave and nod while greeting you from a distance...or that they are really into their cell phone, and can't make eye contact when passing by you. 

Become a reformed complainer today!  Your friends and family will thank you, and you're welcome!

♥M