Texting

Texting can be a double edged sword, and a complete annoyance to me.  It's great for quick info from family, and friends....but put a classified ad out into cyber space with a cell number and all the Koo Koo Birds come out to play!


Maybe I'm just getting old, but sometimes I find texting a royal pain in the ass.  Take last night, I have a car for sale and put an ad on a classified website page.  Some ding-a-ling calls the land line, I run upstairs to answer the ringing phone it's a message it said:  "Please hold for a text to land line voice message"   I hang up and hear my cell alert go off, text message.  The guy and I are texting back and forth, he's asking all sorts of questions about the car, and I'm typing on a teeny tiny keypad ( felt like a novel)    I though to myself :  Is texting just a Chicken Shit way to avoid speaking to someone?   Why are people so leery about calling and talking to an actual person?  The texting back and forth took 20 minutes, when in fact if the guy had the balls to just call his questions could have been answered in 2 minutes.

I view people who text instead of calling as  cowards!  Too chicken to call and talk to someone, maybe they have social anxiety or something I don't know really know but it's a head scratch-er

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Free Time

Every now and then, I get someone who will ask me "What do you do in your free time?"   I find this a strange, yet annoying question.

What is the motive behind it?  Are they asking because I'm single, and they're not?  or because they can't think of anything fun to do in their free time, so they're trying to gain ideas?  or they're just nosy?  I don't know because I've never really asked someone this stupid question before!   So for the record, here is what I do for fun as a single middle aged woman who works 40+ hours a week!

1- GYM TIME- that includes yoga, Zumba, fitness classes, swimming, and hot-tub/steam-room sitting
2-Tennis ( lessons, games, and workouts)
3- Shopping either by myself, or with a friend
4- Dinners out with friends/dates
5- Concerts, and musical entertainment shows
6- Movies
7- Hiking/walking/bike-riding
8- Reading
9- Meditating
10- Gourmet cooking/baking
11- Taking 2 online courses from Harvard!  (Yeah!)

I love going downtown and exploring new places, I love to curl up and read, in the summer I find a sunny or shady space usually on my lounge chair on my deck and read the afternoon away.  These are all things I like doing in my free time.  I have a pool so in the summertime I have pool parties, and swim for fitness and fun.

I have a large 2500 square foot condo, and as a single person that's a lot of cleaning and maintenance. I do most the work myself, I paint, decorate, make things for the house, refurbish old pieces of furniture, by sanding and painting them in my garage, sometimes I sell pieces for extra income.  I love spending free time puttering around the house making things nice and cozy.  I sew my own pillows, draperies, and other decorative things, I made my own cornice boxes, and installed them, I install all my own window treatments and anything else I need hung, assembled, or installed I do it myself.

I own 2 cars, I get them repaired, or change out the oil, if it's broken I fix it.  I have 2 cats that require a small amount of work, making sure they have food, water, tracking them down if they're lost outside, playing with them.  I have 2 kids, who are very independent but at least once or twice a week require attention from me, for rides, shopping trips, help with resume's bank accounts you name it.

My Condo takes up a lot of my time, just the cleaning, deck maintenance, and garage stuff gobbles up all my free time.  In other words, I'm a full time employee, and a full time homemaker/Mom/repair person.... oh .... and during the summer months I have a little pool maintenance gig on the side.  I wake early before the pool opens up for the day and clean it.  Decks, chairs, and vacuum it all,  check water samples, repair what is broken... you get the idea!

I do all this stuff myself, I don't delegate it out to others, or boss people around, I love the process, the learning part of it as well as the satisfaction of doing things myself, and not just paying someone to do work for me.

I'm always busy with something, so that's why I find this question so odd!  Another thing I do is mind my own business, so you'll never catch me asking someone   "Hey what do you do in your free time?"  Just to be nosy, or who knows what the motive is Seriously!  Sometimes depending on who's asking I think they are just phishing for information,  or they assume because I'm single I sit at home all day and night twiddling my thumbs or something!  Which if that's the motive, that annoys me even more, because single people are the busiest around! ....I wish if they want me to do something with them, just ASK!   I hate people who are vague and call you up to say "Hey what are you doing?" So you tell them, and they really called to see if you wanted to go somewhere with them.  Just ASK!  Because if you ask me what I"m doing, well, I'm ALWAYS doing something interesting, and if your invite is MORE interesting, then you may have a date!   But don't be vague about it, just ASK!

                           
                           One of many favorite hiking spots, up at Snowbird Ski Resort!  Love it up there!

The Universal Law of Attraction is working in my favor

I've been asking the universe to please make my son (18) be nicer to me, he's usually nasty, rude and completely self absorbed…… pretty typical behavior unfortunately!  

I've been thinking these thoughts for a week or so… envisioning peace and harmony… He blew my mind today. 

He wanted to borrow my car (his is in the shop) to take his GF out to lunch, then for a walk down Dimple Dell Trail…. I'm off in 2 hours and want my car when I'm off, so I tell him, yes, but please be back by 3:30 today.

They don’t show up till  4:30…. one hour late, now usually when stuff like this happens, I call him out on it, and he yells at me, and we get into it…and all hell breaks loose…I end up hating him, and wishing he'd move the hell out! ......instead... today, I though nice positive thoughts, practiced the secret…. and knew he'd be back soon with my car safe and sound!  Then instead of getting anxiety over it, racked with worry about what the ding-a-ling is doing with my beautiful car….. I relaxed and told myself….."it's a nice day, go outside and spray paint those ugly gold picture frames you bought at the thrift store weeks ago, and get that project checked of your to do list!" ...."Everything will be fine, your beautiful, luxurious, Camry will be back soon safe and sound!"

He comes in the house at 4:30 I just go about my business not saying anything to him…(the exact opposite of what I usually do… normally I'd storm downstairs all butt hurt by his blatant disregard for my time and property!!!)

He says to me in a calm polite voice…… "Hey Mom….. sorry about being an hour late, I was careful with the car, and I won't do it again"…   " We wanted to go to the library too but we didn't because I thought you'd be mad at us for doing that without asking you first"………….

I about dropped my jaw!  Who are you????  Wait….. it's the Secret working it's magic on my family!  Hee Hee Hee….   MIND BLOWING!    I then gave him permission to take it to the library….

I've been nagging him to do his laundry for weeks, and he's lazy, and has dirty clothes all over his room, and in baskets in my laundry room piling up everywhere driving me cray cray!!  So today as I took out my clothes from the dryer, I asked the universe to please get my son to do his dirty clothes today, and I believed he would with all my mind... I kid you not! ...This very moment as I'm typing this I hear him start a load of laundry!  WTF???  

WOW, I'm blown away!  

                        ASK, BELIEVE, RECEIVE!  

My house is messy and I don't give a flying "BLEEP"

Oh my!  It's been a crazy month.  Usually I'm very neat and tidy, but lately I'm running from morning till night, cleaning up a smidge here and a spot there, but no time for my usually Saturday off, all day Clean-a-Thon!

You see I've been working hard, and doing overtime like to the tune of 50 hours per week!  Then in my free time I'm either blogging, FaceBooking, Pinteresting stuff, Texting people...driving my son around (his car is broken down) and he needs rides everywhere. Coupon-ing, cooking, and laundry!

Hanging out with his new girlfriend while he's at work, Wheeler Farm, IKEA for new bedding Shopping, doing hair and feet stuff, reading, studying stuff, keeping up with the Kardashians, Honey BOO BOO, and of course the Andy Cohen and the Real housewives series!  Going to the gym, walking the neighborhood, chatting it up with neighbors I haven't seen all winter calling .... friends, family, helping my friend move to California, house sitting stuff like that.  Today was so sunny and warm I wasted even more time by putting a leash on my cat, and walking him around outside for a half hour or so so he can enjoy the out of doors too!

Needless to say, all this activity and my house is a mess!  YUCK! So I'm off tomorrow, and wanted to get up to the gym while I'm on a roll, baby's 18 doesn't have to work till 1:30 PM, and I have a few hours in the morning to work my house stuff, then my friend FB'd me wants to go out to lunch.... .guess the house will be messy one more day, as after lunch, is carpool, then mom's birthday dinner, and it's payday so I must pay bills, and run errands and so forth!

Being single can be exhausting, because nobody to delegate your work to.  I was hoping to call a furnace fix it guy, as Mr, heater is on the fritz again, I have a leak in my shower knobs, baby's car is in need of attention, and I'm just trying to keep my head above water!

  Guess a quick round the room pick up, and I'm off!
Still working tonight as I type this blog, it's my 8PM night
 I scratch my head and wonder how I do it all!
Don't come to my house till next weekend, as the forecast calls for messy, dirty, and cluttery all week long!

"Get married and have kids they said, it will be fun they said!"

Remember when your parents badgered you into finding a spouse and the second you were married, they badgered you about giving them their grand kids?  " It will be fun they said"  Yeah RIGHT!!!

25 years later I still get no peace!  Still working my tush off, getting nickle and dime-ed to death except it's more like $10's and 20's now!  I guess now that my baby is 18 I can see the  light at the end of the tunnel, and it's been a long tunnel indeed a quarter of a Century!

Of course now that it's here and done I can't change anything, but I have to wonder who says if you're born a female one MUST marry and have kids?  I'm sure if I was unable to have children I'd be sad sad sad... but then knowing me I tend to make the best of the situation and I'd probably do really cool stuff.

I have made mental notes of what would I do if I never had any kids:

1- Live in a trendy, hip loft in San Francisco and do art, and cool stuff all day

2- Travel, travel travel!

3- Get a PH.D...just take class after class after class and be super smart!

4-  Date and have boyfriends, but don't get tied down to just one, have a flock of them, one for formal occasions, one for causal stuff... you get the idea.

5   Start my own business, and get rich doing what I want, instead of what's good for the family and work whenever I want, instead of always taking the " early bird " shift!

I could go on and on..... but I choose to get married, have 2 kids, and work awfully hard doing it alone as after divorcing and 13 years of marriage, I knew I didn't want to do that again!

My advice to a young girl today would be, wait till your about 30 years old to marry and start a family, don't feel pressure by family or friends who are marrying in droves.  Happily ever after doesn't exist in marriage it's an illusion to get you to do it.  Marriage is very hard work, sacrifice, and compromise.  If your not good at all those things it may not be for you.  Women tend to do most of of the sacrificing in the marriage. Men seem to benefit more from it than women do.  It's hard to handle, and not for the weak either.  If you are headed down the alter..... well .....Best of Luck to ya!

  You're gonna need it!

The battle of working women vs stay at home women

I just finished reading a blog at Huffington Post about a woman who got annoyed when her working hubby asked her "what are you up to today?"   She was a stay at home mom, with school aged children, complaining and getting defensive about curious questions about what she did all day by her husband and others.  She said when hubby got home she was wearing the same pajamas, there were dishes in the sink, and it looked like nothing was done.  She said but they were new dishes, not the breakfast dishes he saw in the morning but dinner dishes.  She blogged as if she had a chip on her shoulder about being a stay at home mom.

  This happens a lot with stay at home moms.  I think most people prefer working, it's fun to get paid actual cash money for the job you do.  It's nice to work with people your age, to have a set schedule, and a set of tasks that need to be completed and praise for a job well done.   But.... if you choose to marry, have kids and stay at home with those kids, you should embrace it and do it with passion and creativity!  

I've done both, I used to work part-time 5AM to 10AM so I had all day with my rug rats.  I'd get up at 4:00 AM prepare for work get home and begin fixing lunch.  Then the hubby would go off to work after lunch, and I had all afternoon and evening to do the at home mom thing.  I'd take the kids to the park, swing on the swings, play out in the yard, we built a small garden to play around in, I made them a sandbox.  In the afternoon I'd get really tired, so I'd take a quick power nap while the kids watched cartoons or kiddo shows just on the couch with them but they were distracted by the tv for a minute so I'd try to catch a couple Zzz's.

I was ALWAYS exhausted!  Being the trooper that I am I'd power through my days, knowing that I'd catch up on sleep Saturday's and Sunday's.  The kids liked to sleep in and were usually just waking up when I'd walk in the door at 10AM! Ex hubby trained them well.  No matter what the day brought, I'd always get the house picked up by bedtime, kitchen cleaned, floors mopped and shined, and everything tidied up before I'd go to bed.  The only time I'd let the housework, laundry or yard-work slide.. is if I was sick on my death bead, then the VCR was playing Barney all day long, while I'd go in and out of a coma sleep only waking if a munchkin was poking me for food or something.

   My ex hubby was very little help around the house, I did 95% of it, even after going back to work full time with day care and all.  He'd change the occasional diaper, and mow the grass when I'd start nagging about how long it was getting, but that's about it.  He would entertain the kids, so I could do all the housework.  That's about all he was good for, which is why we're divorced.  I used to fantasize about a " hands on Dad" going to school functions with me, and picking up the house because he would want it clean as much as I did.  What would that be like?  Hell or just a guy who liked to work and made a good living so I could stay home full-time!  What would that be like? I'll probably never know!! I know for a fact in our almost 13 years of marriage that guy never once bathed a kid, or cleaned a toilet or bathtub!  He'd do the dishes when I nagged him to, and once he mopped the floor, and did such a piss poor job leaving streaks and a film on it I never asked him again, he must have used an entire bottle of pinesol or something!

I've always done it all, worked and took care of my house, I've been a single mom for over 25 years ( I say that because living with the ex was practically like being single)  It's a time consuming thing, and I've moved from exhausted to just tired.  There are days when stuff just doesn't get done, laundry piling up, rings around the bathtub, and stuff that needs to be fixed....  I'll get to it when I get too it!  I'm not going to stress out about it. There are just not enough hours in a day, and I do like to have a bit of R&R after work sometimes!  Nothing wrong with that.

So back to my point about the stay at home blogger, quit complaining, try doing it all with out a husband, and two rowdy boys!  I'd kill to have had the opportunity to be a FULL TIME stay at home mommy, I'd do all kinds of fun stuff with the kiddo's, but not my path in life .....it is what it is

Blaine's 25!

Today we celebrated my son's 25th birthday with a lunch and gifts.  We had to cut it short because he was going to a party his friends were throwing later this evening.

Wow 25 years, holy cow I'm getting old.  As I was driving up to meet him, I had 80's tunes playing LOUD in my Toyota Camry ( grandma car ) I call it.  I'm sure listening to Bon Jovi at full crank pissed off many of the old neighbors in my son's hood! Who cares! YOLO!
 Now-a-days, that genre is no longer considered classic rock, it's moved on down to "oldies".

I strongly believe your level of coolness is determined by what you listened to in High school. Me and my crew always had the dirty dozen blasting from our Sony walk mans.

1- Journey
2  Styx
3   Bon Jovi
4   Foreigner
5   Reo Speedwagon
6   Cheap Trick
7   Rick Springfield
8   Rod Steward
9   The Bee Gees
10  AC/DC

I know many a nerdy mom my age who's never heard of these groups, and yes they are nerds!  When you speak to them, it's all about cooking, cleaning and their kids!  What a bore!  They can't name any music what-so-ever they really dig.  Now, the cool mom's I know all have one thing in common... jamming out to head banging 80's glam bands, and all the so called "classic rock" tunes!

 I like to think of myself as a "cool" mom although my kids strongly disagree.  Anyway, cheers to another 25 years kiddo!  Yes you're stuck with a rocker mom whether you like it or not!

Me today,
still rocking it out like a bad
ass mom!