Never Late

Let's talk about timing for just a minute.

You can always be early and wait, in fact, I prefer it.  But being late is a definite disadvantage.  Miss your cue and don't walk down the aisle at the exact right moment on your big day and folks start to wonder.  Arrive at the funeral late when you're the hearse driver and heads are gonna roll.  

Timing is apparently the lesson I'm supposed to be learning right now.  Timing.  And making big decisions without being crippled with fear.

For months I've been crying and missing my church, but I think I've finally found the place I fit in.  Timing.

Lately, Boots and I have had to make some ridiculously expensive, life-changing decisions.  One day last week I lost it and snapped over toenail clippings in the carpet, but after I thought about it a few hours my fit was ultimately based on fear.  Fear of failure.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear.

Sunday I was reminded of this song.

Last night I dreamed that the big decision we've made didn't go through as planned.  I've been reading this book and the "homework" for today was on decisions and the fears that often accompany them.  Timing.

Isn't it great that God is always on time?  He knows exactly what we need and exactly when we need it.

Our big decision is always on my mind (I tend to obsess over things), but I'm not crippled or paralyzed with fear.  Even if any of my worst fears about this decision happens, we'll just regroup and start again.  

Speaking of my worst fear, it happened today.  I have now been through (possibly am still in?) a child's stomach virus.  I'm living.  Surviving.  Catching up on my DVR.  I need a new worst fear now!

Timing!

Back to Christmas

"Did you have a good Christmas?"

That's a question I noticed people asked a lot in the two weeks after Christmas.  It was usually random, a little bit of small talk, but it got in my head and swirled around a bit.  What exactly makes a "good Christmas?"

Is it being with family?  A bunch of mine were sick so our Christmas was disjointed and delayed.  It seemed like everybody was sick.  Thankfully it was all temporary, nobody was really sick.

Some people might classify having a good Christmas by getting everything you wanted.  We could make this a lot easier on us all and just omit presents as far as I'm concerned.  I have a long want list and it is rather expensive.  It's the want list of a lifetime.  Christmas is more than getting stuff anyway, as we all know.

Could you qualify a good Christmas by the amount of activities or traditions that put you in the Christmas spirit?  I made a list last year before Christmas and added to it during the month of December of all the things that made me feel Christmasy.  I felt like it helped me focus on the things I really wanted/needed to do instead of try to do every thing.  On my list there are foody things like baking cookies and cinnamon rolls, drinking apple cider, hot chocolate, and eggnog; watching Elf and Christmas Vacation; seeing the choir sing and watching the children's program at church; giving to the Lottie Moon Christmas offering; and packing a shoebox in November for Operation Christmas Child.  This year a lot of things on my Christmas To Do list were unchecked.

People were sick, my first world wish list remains, and I wasn't able to do all the things that make me feel like Christmas so that sounds like I would be one who might answer "No," but I never considered the possibility of not having a good Christmas.  Life is good.  What would you consider to be a "good Christmas?"  If you didn't have a good Christmas, care to explain?

I'm a Bad Blogger

There's all this stuff you're supposed to do to be a "good" blogger and maximize readership.  Things like creating Pinterest buttons, hosting giveaways, sharing across ALL of the every. single. social media platforms that bear your name, hosting relevant ads and link up parties, make yourself a "brand," etc., etc. until you make yourself crazy with this mess you've literally created.  Like I said, bad blogger, I don't do all that.  Sometimes I share my posts on Facebook and Instagram if I think it's something particularly interesting, but not always.  That's about the most I can manage right now.

Blogging is dying they say.  I put the "end" in trendy because apparently blogging has been on its way out for a few years now and I'm just now finding out about it.  I'm ok with that, y'all be the guinea pigs while I wait and decide if it's worth it.

 

Comments are at all time lows they say.  I blame this on readers (the apps, not the people), have you ever tried to make a comment through a feed reader?  Nearly impossible!  Well, not impossible, but certainly aggravating due to the rigmarole you have to go through.  I'll admit, it's why I rarely comment on the blogs I read.  It's just too much trouble.

People are moving away from blogs in favor of quicker and shorter, ie Instagram.  Conversations are happening on Facebook instead of blog comment threads.

Maybe you found this post through Facebook or Instagram, maybe you've never made a comment.  It's ok, I know you're out there.  (I can see you; I have a page views counter!)  I say let them.  Let it die.  Some of us will still be here.  Maybe that's a bit polarizing, but think about why we're (bloggers) doing this (blogging) in the first place: to share with the interested.  So I'll keep posting and you keep reading.  If you want to.  :)

 

Have You Got Something to Say?

Summer is over.

That's all I'm hearing lately- the ads for back-to-school supplies and every thing every where my eyeballs look are screaming it at me.

It makes me sort of sad almost.  Didn't summer just start?  Didn't it just get hot and now we're thinking about fall jackets?  Are all the seasons merging together?

I'm feeling behind and I am dragging my feet and hanging on with all my might.  I've tried to enjoy the summer slowly and have taken a break from writing to... What have I been doing exactly?  Collecting ideas by living in the moment?

Why am I up in arms about the changing of the seasons?

These weather thoughts are clanging and banging around all the other things in my head and it's just making no sense to me right now.  Let me just bluhhhhh all over your screen for a minute...
 

I read two blog posts this week: (how to have (not really a) crisis, but slowly) and (FOMO: it’s a real thing) and both of them were like reading my own thoughts in someone else's words.  

Several times before (here and here, I'm seeing a pattern: this usually happens when I run out of stuff to write about) I've thought hard about my own narcissism and my blip on the radar that is the Internet.

Sometimes I feel like the Internet has ruined us all and in order for me to be the best wife and the best mother I can be by being fully present 100% of the time I should just go all hermit and completely unplugged like my Daddy- three channels, no cable tv, no Internet, cell phone for real emergencies only, and real life real-time relationships instead of the art-imitating-life relationships we try to grow through social media.  I'd probably be bored for about two days before I fell head-long into the "real" world that I think often about.

Then I think about how nomadically spread out and busy we all are, how we're all just trying to do the best we can (or are we? another time!), how we live and love through our screens these days because that's just the way it is now, and how the Internet has connected us all and made the world a beautiful place that we can share together.

I'm swinging from extremes.  I feel like if I have nothing to say then I should just sit down and shut up forever, amen.  This will probably (hopefully) pass soon.  If it doesn't then I don't know what I'll do.  Lack of inspiration and writer's block really bums me out.

Maybe I should just take a serious break and completely unplug for about a week and see how I feel on the other side.  Would silence invigorate and clarify or bolster me on?

Bursting

I'm feeling explosive today.  Not in the diarrhea kind of way or even really, really angry way.  Like I am exploding within myself like an emerging butterfly trying to get out.  Explosive in the do-something, create-something kind of way even though the only doing I've mostly been up to is rearranging my closets and I haven't had many creative thoughts to write lately unless you count this post.

Maybe it's because I'm all hopped up on cold coffee and milk and I'm feeling like I'm getting away with something because Mayhem is taking a nap and I'm not.  (I think I've had one nap in the past two weeks.  I must be getting more rest at night.)

Maybe it's because I had an excuse to go to the bookstore and I bought myself, I mean, Mayhem three new books.  

And I read them all while rocking him to sleep.

Maybe it's because I gave Mayhem a new haircut this morning and it's obviously gone to his head because he has been so feisty today!  

Frank says, "Be careful petting me, boy!"

Ya'll, I love this little boy.  And I do mean little boy because he is not a baby anymore.  Walking and climbing, playing and smiling, he is such a joy and delight to his daddy and me.  (He learned to drink out of a straw this week, tell me I'm not the only person who thinks that is the cutest thing EVER!)

Maybe it's because a friend sent me a Pin and I actually took a few minutes to do something to my hair this morning.  It didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, but I wore it to town anyway.

Miss!

Missed again!

Just take it the easy way!

I have no idea where this will lead or even what exactly the point of me sharing this is, but it's out there.    It's springtime and I'm feelin' good! 

Happy weekend!

Radioactive?

What if bugs were able to glow in the dark?  It would make it easier to kill the ones in your house, but it would be too bright to sleep when camping.  It's probably best they don't.

A Pencil With No Lead......

Yesterday on the way to church I was having a few thoughts about blogging so I spoke them into a note on my phone in case I forgot as I am wont to do.  But really, how could I forget crap like this?  I'm having one of those moments like I do about once a year.  You know, that moment when I seriously consider giving up blogging/writing for life because because!

Blogging is so narcissistic.  Who really is listening or cares about what I write that much?  I am so embarrassed when people tell me that they read what I write.  So why am I writing?  Why write if you don't want people to read it?  This is just stupid.  Shouldn't I have better things to do?  Is this how my life is going to be?  Documented on the Internet with poor photography?

The things I write about are really dumb and trivial, everyday blahdy blah blah crap.  I think I have some sort of blogging bipolar or something like that.  One day I'm all, "Subscribe to me!  Read my blather!"  and the next cringing, "Oh, gosh!  I can't believe you read that mess!"

Will futuristic scientists be studying the people of our time right now by combing Internet archives?  Geez, what a job!  Perhaps by then there will be legal stimulants stronger than coffee that are just as cheap and popular.

Where am I going with all this?  Nowhere, really.  I have no point.

Perhaps all this frippery is the introduction for when I write something actually worth reading.

The Almighty Survey

Have you ever given any thought to customer service and how it has turned us all into supreme buttholes?

I'm sure that when it started everyone was all, "This will be great!  We'll know what we need to do to improve and be the best possible versions of ourselves!"  And for a while it probably was like that.  People probably only wrote or called or asked to speak with the manager when something was really seriously wrong and needed fixing.

These days, the words "customer service" are a loaded gun.  People expect you to bend over backwards twice for them while they are being obnoxious rear ends.  And they dare you not to smile when you're putting up with their crap!

In the other direction, employees are catching it from the higher ups because of some nit picky complaint that shouldn't amount to a hill of beans because some idiot with a pen was feeling vengeful.  Companies rely on stupid surveys (here's looking at you J.D. Power) to gauge their employees worth while they are chasing that dollar.

We have gone overboard with this. 

As a person who formerly worked with the public (every job I've ever had), I have experienced the best and the worst of the way it works.  I've been on the receiving end of stupid surveys and their scores and the nice thank you notes that give you the strength to come back and work another day.

I believe in order to receive good customer service you need to first be a good customer.  I try to always be friendly and look the person in the eye because there's nothing worse than being made to feel like you've not human.  Unless something goes really terribly wrong, I feel like it went right.  I try to be appreciative and always thank the person helping me.

When I was in the hospital last month having my baby, I was determined to be the best patient EVER.  And I think I was.  (I was already afraid they'd kill me, no reason to add to it.)   I think they appreciated it too because everyone was sooooo incredibly nice to us.  After we got home we spent three weeks crafting the perfect thank you letters to send to their supervisors and every hospital survey I've received I've given highest marks with nice comments.

I haven't always been this way.

In my former life I was an idiot and every time my high school boyfriend and I would go out to eat somewhere that had comment cards, I would look for something, anything!, to complain about and fill them out in a fit of pure ecstasy.

Then I got my first job.  In fast food.  Yeah.  Payback.

My second job was retail.  Yeah.

Shortly after getting serious in the funeral business I came to my senses and realized the error of my former ways.  Since then, I've been in support of doing away with stupid surveys and trying to make up for other people's bad reviews with my good ones.

(Did I really just write an entire post on customer service?  I must have gotten too much sun on my walk today, yeesh!)

Anyway, don't be a turd unless you have too.

Child Care

I was listening to the radio after leaving church about an hour ago and a PSA came on about whether or not your child care provider is state licensed and inspected.

After checking out the website they gave, I learned that my #1 daycare pick is exempt because it is part of a religious institute. The same goes for my second and third choices. The fourth choice on my list is state licensed though.

Is this something that really matters and that I should be overly concerned about? Part of me is worried, but part of me thinks that even though they are exempt doesn't mean they are substandard and unworthy of my baby. Kinda like whether the guys at the farmers market can afford to be certified organic even though they may be in actuality. Is this something else the government has regulated and is trying to scare us with?

You can check it out for yourself at www.alabamachildcarefacts.org.

Let's discuss!

November

Yesterday was the Novemberest day so far this November.

I've always had a hate/no love relationship with November. It's just so......November. Cold and stark, really depressing. Even the name sucks. NO-vim-burrrrrrrrr.

Up until yesterday I felt very October this November, maybe because of the baby. October always surprises me how much I like it. I always expect it to be a mini-November but, every year it's my mini-September. Today feels October again.

Are you confused yet?

Anyways, I'm weird.

I'm in a very Christmasy mood this year. Maybe it's because of the baby?

13 Months + 1 Day = Us

Ain't it funny how you always realize things about yourself when you're driving down the road?  Just me?

This weekend, driving down the road, duh!, I got a glimpse of just how weird and mixed up inside I am.  For instance, if you tell me some random fact that I did not previously have stored in my brain I will take it as that's all she wrote, Amen!, and there'll be no telling me any different from then on.  Absorbent as a super sponge!

However, if you are to tell me some random fact that I might have had previously stored in my brain and or already heard conflicting evidence of the same fact, I will question you to no end on its validity and ask a million different questions, "Why?  Why?  Why?" over and over again until you either crumple on the floor in agony from brain-question-overload or I'm satisfied with your answer, whichever comes first.

The second part of this realization drives my husband nuts.  He's really very sweet and patient with me most of the time (he's the good one of the two of us), but when I start on the whys he gets kinda testy.  I've been trying to work on the whys (my mother says I've done that since I was a wee tot), but its really a hard habit to break.

Boots gets particularly aggravated when Realization #1 and Realization #2 collide.  I can tell he reeeeeally wants to wring my neck when I take other people's peoples' the words of others at face value and question him for every. little. detail.


They even tell you not to do that in all the marriage books I've read!  (I'm not the only one?)  "Don't question your husband!!!!!!"  There goes my marriage.  But seriously, we've got a great thing going on.  (if I could just learn to shut my mouth)

Flying

A few weeks ago,  Boots and I were riding in the car on the way home from his dentist appointment when a jet flew low over the highway, preparing to land at the airstrip.  I thought about myself, back in high school when I wanted to be a flight attendant.  Wouldn't that have been hilarious?

Words I Don't "Get"

Do you ever hear words spoken in very formal settings (like radio shows the whole country listens to) that make you scratch your head on the inside of your brain and think, "Is that correct?"  Just me?  Hmmp!

Words I Don't "Get":

1. Disconnect

I always thought this was a verb- Disconnect the electricity before I get electrocuted wouldja?!


Apparently its also a noun- We're experiencing a huge disconnect in communication!  


2. Journal 

Previously, I believed that "journal" was a noun, a noun that meant a bound notebook used for private writing.  These days folks are using it as a verb also.  What's up with all the nouns masquerading as verbage these days?  Is verbage a legit word?  Merriam-Webster says, "No, but verbiage is."  So its a word, but I can't spell.

I'll use it in a sentence.

I think its good for you to journal, it helps get your feelings out.


Add -ing and its a......what're -ing words?  It's been a long time since 8th grade grammar.  Moving on!

Journaling is a stress reliever.  (Spell check and Merriam-Webster say "journaling" is not a word.

When my mind gets cloudy and I get crazy, the best way for me to blow the smoke out is to write.  To get back to the "traditional" and write on a real piece of paper with a real pen, nothing on a tablet or banging it out on a keyboard.

I'm more neurotic than I'd care to admit and writing calms me down.  It helps me to think and formulate plans of attack.  When I get overwhelmed with worry I turn to my notebook that I only use to write to God.  When the great ideas and plans threaten to explode me I pull out my worn composition notebook that I planned my wedding in.

Writing is another one of my "magic places."

And God bless Dave Ramsey for making me feel like everything is going to be ok and I'm not in as leaky a boat as some folks.

The Magic Place

Is it just me, or does everyone have a magic place?

"The Magic Place" is self-defined.
Sometimes, when the songs are just right (I'm talking about the ones I know by heart and can sing half-way on key) my Magic Place is church.
I know you're supposed to sing like you're the greatest singer in the world on every song every time, but I just don't get that special feeling when it's a song I don't know or particularly love.

The Magic Place is also a feeling.
I feel relieved and uplifted.
I am carefree, worry free, and just free.

Sometimes, my Magic Place is at church when conditions are right, but I know I can always find it at Publix.
I don't know what it is about that store, but I feel myself transformed from this tired girl into a hopeful voyager when I'm walking down every aisle, looking at everything, completely at peace with my world.

I know this is probably the strangest post you've read all year, but I just had to share.

Thought for Food

If God only wants 10%, why do we have to give the waitress 20?

Obsessed

Today work was quiet.
Work was slow.
I had plenty of time but no book to read.
Too much time to think.
I browsed online until I had an epiphany, mistake, idea and decided to check out iPad.
After reading half the manual and checking out all the features and specs I have literally become obsessed with this little thing.

I want one so I can take my blogging on the go.
I have so many great ideas and thoughts that I lose because I can't get to a computer fast enough.
I've taken to writing them down on paper or making drafts in my text messages but remembering what you thought just isn't as great as running with it when you first think it.

I want one because I fear that any day now my computer is going to crash.
My laptop has so much junk on it that I can't even put one more picture on it.
Its literally full even though I have bought an external hard drive and transferred everything I care about to it.
I've tried to wipe my computer clean of everything by doing disk defragmentations but they don't help much.
I don't even have enough space to update my virus protection!

With iPad I could blog, upload pictures from my cameras to iPad then to my external hard drive, I could email, create documents, and read ebooks.
I have wanted a reader for a few years now but I never could decide between Kindle, Reader, and then Nook.
iPad has made the choice for me.

I want an iPad!
If I had an iPad I would name it "Escribir."

I really want an iPad.
Did I buy myself a graduation present?
What about Christmas-- did I buy myself a Christmas present last year?
I'm basically looking for any excuse to run out and buy one but I need to spend money on the house instead.
I'll just wait for my computer to kick the bucket.

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."


Cyril Connolly
(1903 - 1974)

Be The Title......

Your job is what defines you.
You are a garbageman, a teacher, the president.
That is what who you are.
That is it and nothing more unless you somehow manage to overcome it by being something even better.

You are the job.
Be the job.
The job is you and you are one.

Be the position.
Be the title.
Be the occupation.
Be the hazard.

You are what you have become.

I have figured it out.
Two presidents, millions of people, and several hundred other folks that are supposed to be experts have yet to realize this.
This is big.
Huge.
Stay with me now, you'll understand it too.

Facebook......is the cause of this recession.
If facebook had never been invented, millions of Americans wouldn't have spent so much time on their computers, using electricity, not working, not going out spending their money on other activities, burning up their computers, buying new, faster computers, investing lots and lots of money on fancy cellphones with Internet capabilities so they could always be on facebook.

This is a monumental discovery in my mind.
If we could just end facebook and other assorted social networking sites the country would improve tremendously.

Think about it.