Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Gift giving wisdom?..............

Responsive reading -

Me- Hello.

Me- I am Amy.

Me- I am a recovering blog neglecter.

You - HeeeellllllllO AAAAAAAAAmmyyy

......................................................

There are some things I shouldn't talk about. Sometimes though situations end like this "....." instead of like this " . "

It's uncomfortable.

So this is what I shouldn't talk about, but I will so it can have a " . "

D posted this on his FB: "Christmas lesson #1: Never buy your wife something she says she doesn't want. Odds are she will not like it!"

This statement is true. Men should surely heed this Christmas lesson lest they get their feelings hurt a bit... or is it their pride. I guess it depends on the man. You know, whether he is in touch with his feminine side or not.

feelings = in touch

pride = not in touch

At Christmas, when you ask a woman what she wants for Christmas and she tells you point blank. That is the gift she would appreciate or her heart truly wants.

If she hem haws around and doesn't give you a direct answer... then she gets, what she gets. If she doesn't like her gift because she neglected to tell you a certain thing, it's her fault, not the males.

I have learned over the past 5 years particularly, that you must be direct with the male species. One must say exactly what they want or need. No matter how harsh it sounds to the female or other females. It has come to me that males need to have specific directions and spoken out loud. They need the female to say exactly what she wants or needs so they can do it.

I have learned that hoping that the male will understand what I mean without saying it so as not to be harsh or direct...DOES NOT work. This is not just with my husband, but with my son, my brother, salesmen, men on the phone.... all males in general that I deal with.

I have learned that generally they do not perceive this as rude. They see it as helpful (or maybe understandable) even if they are annoyed by the action required.

This Christmas I was asked what I wanted, point blank. I would normally hem haw around and then get whatever. Usually whatever is fine. But since I am being a tad more money conscious these days, I thought better to get something that would truly be used by me or others and would bring everyday pleasure.

Because even when I say, "Don't get me anything." I still get something.

So I stated a bird house or the new pink glitter TOMS. My alpha male, believes these to be not good gift ideas and buys the thing I repeatedly said I did not want.

When I opened the gift that I already knew what it was because he loves this particular gift himself (which is a fine gift for him)...I had an extremely unpleasant battle inside my body to control my emotions and make sure they came out grateful.

I did not do a good job.

I failed.

My face, eyes and lips spoke not gratitude in a very uncomfortable way. I know it was uncomfortable cause my mom chastised me later and D didn't talk to me for almost 2 days even though I apologized several times. I had it coming though so I just gave him some space to work it out. He loves me again now, which is always good.

I would like to blame it on some random hormonal madness, but truly I think it was just me, showing me. I get weary trying hard to be just the right person to all people. I unleashed my emotions on purpose. I didn't hold back the furrowed brow or fake smile or comments that should have been held for a private conversation.

I didn't spew venom or anything or get mad...I just didn't shoot fireworks out my butt on purpose. I didn't pretend to love the item or even like it....cause my insides didn't want this. I would have rather had the nothing than to have had to go through opening the thing I didn't want at all, faking gratitude, and then sending it back, which I have done already.

My mind was chain linking thoughts of, "Why ask if you don't want to know what I really want? Why waste money just to buy something? Why do I have to open it while everyone is looking at me? Don't take my picture."

Please understand I am not being rude or ugly when I write these words. I am just stating....that sometimes giving the gift is more fun to me than receiving one. Not in a cliche way either...I mean for real.
I learned this about myself this Christmas. For real, believe these words....

I don't like to receive gifts. It embarrasses me.

It makes me feel uneasy and anxious. The gift turns into a show of emotions that I may not be capable of living up to in truth.

I honestly feel like the true gifts people give me are shown to me in their actions...wrapped up in the sincerity of their eyes as it is done in love or wanting to please.

These are gifts that I feel the most thankful for and gratitude is freely and truthfully given. My heart has no boundaries for gifts given to me like this.

On my 40th b-day D gave me peace and quiet to read while he earnestly did the thing I didn't want to do...cook and clean up a delicious meal full of things that I adore. The thought he put into my b-day was a true gift. My sister gave me a day at the spa (which I haven't used yet). I loved this gift too, the reason being, she knows I never do things like this for myself. She gave it to me because she loves personal gift giving. She sent it to me in the mail, so I was able to open it in private. No one was staring at me waiting for my gratitude and fireworks. I was able to express my gratitude in words shared between only her and I. Both of those gifts meant a lot to me.

My mom cashed in her credit cards points to this year and got me a $50 Starbucks gift card out of them. I loved that too. After the present swapping was done and everyone was on their on later that morning, she gave it to me in private. I was grateful. When I hugged her it wasn't for show, I loved her and it was a gift she knew I would use.

Receiving gifts is hard for me and I generally do not prefer to receive gifts.

I would much rather pick a personal gift and give it randomly out of gratitude than to buy a gift....just to buy one. I hate that. Pondering what to get someone to the point it becomes a chore, sucks. It's not longer a gift of thought & love, but a thing to fulfill the obligation.

In this instance it is better to receive the nothing and watch the happiness of others......at least, to me anyway.

I ended up buying myself the pink glitter TOMS with Christmas money from my mom. D's mom and dad also gave me money. Later that that afternoon, after receiving the money, my car battery FINALLY put itself (and me) out of its miserable existence by dying permanently. The cost of the new battery was just a little over the amount of Christmas money that D's parents had given to me. I felt I no longer had to worry about spending the money on groceries, sports or extracurricular activities...misusing the money so to speak. I had used it on myself in a really useful way. I felt satisfied.

These words are one of my truths. I don't feel ashamed of them. I hope you will not find fault in me when my face is in your presence.

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

just squeezed as hard as I could..............

Looking back a bit...........

Early one morning after we had just gotten our tree up, before all the lights starting acting like morons....

CB jerks away from the tree as I walk into the living room, he looks guilty.

A- CB, what are you doing over there?

CB- Nothing

A- Are you sure? Cause your eyes tell me another story? I won't get mad just tell me. I promise I won't get on to you if you tell the truth. (we are now face to face- eye to eye)

CB- I broke something. (points to the tree)

A- Well where is it so I can see, cause I don't see anything Cole.

Cole heads off towards his room and I follow him. He gets underneath his train table and brings out a hand full of broken elongated glass Christmas ornament. I rush over...

A- Cole, baby, you can't have broken glass under your train table, give me that. You could have cut your hands.

Cole holds out his other hand which he has in fact cut, something like a long paper cut. I am astounded that he has cut himself and not told me and also that he hid the broken glass under the train table in his room.

A- CB, why did you hide this glass under your table? Why didn't you throw it into the garbage can, or tell me?

CB- I didn't want to get in trouble.

I am now under the train table myself picking up tiny pieces of broken ornament out of his carpet. I head back to the Christmas tree to look for more glass within the tree and on the floor around. I ask him how the ornament got broke, assuming he picked it off the tree and dropped it. um, no....he thought it "fit perfectly" into his baby grip, so he just squeezed it as hard as he could. It busted in his grip.

A- Cole! Gosh Son, that is madness. Look at your hand. Do not do that ever again.

CB- Well....I broke some more stuff too.

....heading back to his room and under the other side of his train table that I had paid no attention to before. I am like Oh Lord, what else God, what else?

Cole drags out a birage of broken crap toys(Happy Meal type toys and the likes) that he has taken apart and not been able to put back together.

He has always taken apart his stuff....and ours too. Like our air purifier...he totally took it apart when he had just turned three, filled it full of hot wheels and then put it back together. When I went to move it one day, I noticed it was heavy as all get out. I could hear stuff moving around inside but it wasn't in the area that you would change the filters, which perplexed me. He had filled a section that I didn't even know existed or even came apart.

I swear when he was little if I would 've given him a fork he'd have pried my baseboards off with it.

A- Wow CB. I can't fix this stuff, just throw it in the garbage.

CB- Are you mad Momma?

A- No cause I said I wouldn't get upset if you told the truth. Plus, now I get to throw some stuff that I hate to step on in the garbage (which I am happy about secretly). CB stop taking all this stuff apart, do you understand? Next time I find a pile of treasure hidden like this I will be upset.

Later that morning as all the other kids are getting motivated, CB is feeling good about himself telling the truth.
He starts to spill his honesty all over the breakfast table.

CB - Zachary, I am sorry I broke your Easter Egg. Maysie I am sorry I broke your swirl pen.

Maysie and Zac looking at each other - "What?!"

CB- I broke your stuff but Mom said it's okay today. I threw my pile of treasure in the garbage. I didn't get in trouble for breaking the glass cause I told the truth.

M & Z - What???! MOM!
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I am pumping gas at the shell station, the same gas station that my car battery quit working for no apparent reason and the one legged man wanted me to show him some love. They dang have TV's to watch while you pump gas. It's idiotic and yet entertaining at the same time. I mean for real, are we so in need of entertainment 24/7 that one has to watch freaking TV while pumping dang gas.

Television is everywhere. On it's mission to contaminate our minds and destroy what shred of decency our minds have left in some tiny corner. Let the brainwashing saturate us...even whilest thou pumpeth the freaking gas.

sidetracked...sorry.

Dig on this...this white dude hippie with dreds that have food and other unknown pieces of white crap in them, pulls up in his car with his girlfriend, a couple pumps down. He gets out, PUMPS THE GAS, THEN starts asking people around him, including me, if we have a dollar we can spare for him to get gas. I am like, you idiot, NO! No money hippie = no gas. you shouldn't have pumped till you could pay for it.

A- Dude...didn't you already pump yer gas??

Hippie -(distant far away look like he may be missing his time spent in rainbow & glitter Never, Never Land) uh, no.

A- Yer lying...

Hippie - (not affected by my calling him out, almost as if he has not heard me at all) - Do you have a dollar I could use to buy some gas.

A- No, all I have is my card. (Which is true, I may have had a quarter and dime stuck in my seats somewhere visiting with the stale, hard french fries)

The hippie continues on to ask some others, that also tell him "No." Hippie is in dilemma now and confers with his girlfriend in secrecy.

I finish pumping and rotting my brain with the gas station television and pull off. I have no idea how they paid for that gas or even if they did pay.

Those kinds of folks agitate my well being intensely in about 100 different ways. While one side argues I should have pity, feel for those in need, and help, help, help, give, give, give, do, do, do.......it's these exact folks that make me feel like this....



I think this is a sure sign I am getting older and less tolerant. The thing is I don't even feel guilty about it anymore either.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt ...........

Last Monday, not yesterday, Kacka Lacky, TN had our annual Christmas parade. I had agreed to walk with the girls in the parade because the gal who owns the clogging studio where they take lessons needed some adult chaperone's. It was cold, which was to be expected. The clogging studio got a super position in the parade sort of near the front of the line. The girls got lined up...the truck with Christmas clogging music screaming out the back of the truck bed, the "pro-cloggers" to clog all the way through the parade, the girls with the banner saying who we were, and then all the girls walking and throwing out candy...in that order.

It started to rain just as we were about get the show on the road.

.......that and the truck battery with the blaring music was dead.

Immediately the gal who owns the studio runs over to me and Ms. P and asks us if we have jumper cables. Which we don't cause she wrecked her vehicle hitting a deer and she had a rental car and I am just generally unprepared and in constant need of supervision when in the presence of any vehicles.

It has started to pour down rain now and we have lost our position. Our bags that have all the candy to throw out have gotten wet on the bottom and the bottoms literally start to fall out of the bags, spilling candy all over the streets where we stand in the pouring rain.....it's 40 degrees.

I had pathetically persuaded Ms. P into walking in the parade with me so I wouldn't have to walk all by myself not knowing anyone. um, yeah....I totally gave her permission to kick me square in the butt right in front of God and everybody.

The truck did get jumped off and despite losing our spot we ended up slap in the middle of the line in the parade. The SECC pro girls did clog all the way through the parade in the pouring rain. We did get sopping wet beyond all wetness in 40 degree weather. It was insane. In the end, it was a night I would surely remember as a sacrifice for my girls. Not only that, but even in the pouring rain Kacka Lacky town folks STAYED for the parade. I would have totally bailed if we had not been in the parade. But piles of folks lined the streets with their kids waiting to grab as much candy as possible. Our girls had a ball. I can actually say I had a pretty good time too.

D had the biggest umbrella known to man with Cole and Z waiting on us to come around. They got three full gallon sized ziploc bags of water-logged candy that night. Most of which hit the garbage the next morning for failure to dry in a manner that was eatable.

Ms. P's husband should have been in the parade he was waving us on bigger than the wavers in the parade. He was clearly excited and it made me happy to see his excitement. Her two boys, not quite as excited.


Meg and I agreed if we could get one of our kids to marry the other and have some children... some day...we could gab on about this night when we are older and grayer than we are now....cause it was surely epic.

We had to walk back to our cars at the end of the parade. Most of the mom's and a few teens could have passed for Alice Cooper.

It was till pouring down when we decided to just stop walking and call D to come pick us 6 drowned girls up under the shelter of the local car wash. He did.

My car smelled like wet vermin for like two days after that. I despise Febreeze cause it kills my sinuses, but it works so I used way too much of it.

We all got home, took hot baths, and put on warm fuzzy pajamas with slippers. It was an awesome way to end an unthinkable parade situation.


..........................
Quotes from parade night:

.....the Baptist church handing out cookies and hot chocolate earlier in the night before the parade.

D - CB, do you want some hot chocolate?

CB- No it's too hot, I don't like it too hot.

D- CB, do you want a chocolate chip cookie?

CB- No, I don't like chocolate chip cookies?

D- Well of course you don't. These are made with goodness and love by kind Christians, you probably want devils food cake.
____________

CB in the car on the way home...

CB- Yeah and then Zachary pushed me down in the street and my hat got grinched. (drenched)


____________


This is not our city parade, but gosh, it's funny....and worthy of parade catastrophe mention for sure. Listen to the folks distress when Rudolph meets his fate.



"You're tearing Rudolph!!!"....oh man...it's just ...a little funny.

This goes back to my previous blog about why do we do abnormal things at this time of year?

....like striding in pouring down rain in 40 degree weather to the equivalent of a Christmas version of Cotton-Eyed Joe....and pulling an extremely over-sized baby deer with a birth defect on an under thought out parade path that tortures town folks and little children into night terrors about it's death by gouging of an over zealous stop light.

...anyhoo, Happy Tuesday.



Sunday, December 5, 2010

um, stupid..........

The holidays are always full of stuff aren't they? It's that time of year when you do stuff that isn't yer everyday activity and then get frustrated and wonder why you do these activities at all....like put lights on yer slumbering bushes and stuff.

I totally had lights on my house before Thanksgiving to get ahead of the game this season. I didn't cut them on till Thanksgiving though.

The kids were playing flashlight hide and seek with neighborhood kids one night. The next day my lights were not working, the wiring was broken slap into two separate strands going from one bush to a Christmas tree shaped evergreen bush thingy. so I blamed it on the kids hiding behind my bushes and told them not to hide there anymore this season. I restrung the lights on the Christmas tree shaped evergreen, it actually looked better than before I thought.

Hide and go seek again....the lights aren't working again. I am like, really?? Some kids are gonna lose a body part for this. I get all CSI trying to figure out which child to convict and sentence. Then it dawns on me the second break is in the exact location of the first. An animal has chewed my lights in half. I do apologize to my children for interrogating them and then relay to D my situation.

Because he can fix everything, literally... he fixes the lights using some cool gadgets he has gotten at this convention in Florida. He does this immediately so I will leave him alone, so that he can watch football on his new 46" TV that everyone in my family practically worships. It's as if they never had TV. If I hear the words "high def" one more time, my eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.





So my lights are working. Here's a picture of CB with "his boyz" as he fondly called his over lit frozen pals.

Then for no apparent reason the lights in the middle of my pre-lit tree that I purchased trying to be "green," went out. May and I replaced about 25 bulbs, on dang quest I tell ya.


Then D replaced 25 more bulbs and checked his meter thing for fuse issues, nothing, the fuses were good. So I made the executive decision to unstrand the lights on the pre-lit tree and re-string them.

um, stupid.

The lights were wrapped onto my tree by an uneducated individual in some random pattern that made no sense to God or anyone in this world even remotely close to adequate. It took entirely too long to unstrand those lights and I am 100% convinced they need to offer college level courses on how to unstrand a pre-lit tree. I grew a beard and died twice while taking those lights off.

That job sucked and I have to use that awful word cause that's how awful that job was.

The lights were, no lie, stung by the longest strand of lights in the whole universe. Each bulb was almost 9" from the next bulb. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. I was thinking, for some folks trying to promote going freaking green...that's a total waste of product.


I had to take off two strands.


Now it looks okay though. I feel satisfied.

I went to upload these photos from my camera and found that at some point CB had taken some video of himself talking smack that is so crazy, I can't even put it on my blog. Not one video of himself talking smack, but 3! ....and this photograph.


Wednesday, December 1, 2010

going all the way around yer elbow........

I am in the bathroom....as usual.

I keep smelling what I think is pee. Because I have had a kid in potty training perpetually for 14 years it seems, I have learned to keep Clorox wipes in the bathroom.

I am ticked a bit and start looking for a shot of pee that was miss aimed at the toilet by a male in my house. I find it behind the toilet. I severely aggravated clean this mess up. I plan to tell them this better not happen again, but forget.

I remember when I smell what smells like pee again a few days later. I am about to grow horns while I am remembering this clean up just a couple days ago as I begin to search again. I find my little piddle present in the same spot. This time I do not forget. I march into the living room where every male in the house is and go on a tanget about...

**I am not the janitor in the house.

**I am not the one who can't hit the toilet.

**I won't clean this up again.

**Whoever does this next time will feel my wrath at full strength....including Cole.

D & Z adamantly blame Cole. Cole looks afraid, for real. I mean for him to be. Because cleaning up someone's pee cause they are too lazy to hit the target is detestable.

I began to go behind each male secretly after they leave the bathroom to catch them. I miss a few chances.
Then one night after Cole has left the bathroom I spy another mess. I go off on Cole like no man's business but I give him one more chance...cause he's 4 and he looks innocent in his eyes. I know in my heart he is Little Larry Lies a Lot, but something in his eyes convinces me chewing him up once side and down the other is good enough. I clean this particular mess up again and make him watch so he can do it himself next time. Cause I will not do this detestable thing ever again.

When I wake up the next morning.....it is there again.

Jenny! She has been sleeping in my closet at night. I know for sure no one was in that bathroom except me and her all night. SHE DID IT! It has been HER the whole time! So I grab Jenny out of my closet, show her this "piddle" behind my toilet, and ask her if she she did this horrible act. She tucks her tail between her legs, like she is guilty. I put her outside and say ugly doggy words to her let her know I mean business.

.....back into the bathroom to clean this up AGAIN!!

So D is getting ready for work now and is taking his morning bath like he does every morning. I am spouting off about Jenny this and Jenny that and Clorox wiping and fussing, washing my hands and huffing and puffing till I blow my own house down.

D relays to me I owe him, Z and CB an apology. Z hollers down from his upstairs bedroom, at 6:30 in the morning to "Amen" this.

I go get Jenny from outdoors. She scurries in with her tail between her legs and hides under my bed.

I go back into the bathroom and what do I see? A really small dribblet of what I would normally call pee behind my just scrubbed up toilet area?

D from the tub- Do you think the toilet is leaking?

I check around and notice some water under the baseboard. CRAP!

A- Yes that's it. Water is coming from somewhere. I see some wetness under the baseboards, let me dry this and see what happens.

Then I see nothing but dryness, it's perplexing. After much debate and checking we determine roughly it is coming from an elbow behind the toilet INSIDE the flippin wall.

Long story growing short quickly.

D and I have discussion throughout the day what needs to happen to repair the leak in the wall that evening when he gets home from work. We make a plan. He comes home and we begin to carry it out.

D is totally the most thorough man I know. He never overreacts and makes rash decisions. He always has his work plan well formulated on big jobs. They usually have very few glitches and he fixes them, then the whole world is furry bunnies and rainbows.

On this plan D left his body and did not come back. He opted to not check the toilet itself well before cutting the wall. I tried to get him back on track, but his mind had been made, he was sure it was in the wall and he cut the wall, despite my urging him in a panic to check the toilet well first.

When he got into the wall, through the insulation, the whole area was perfectly dry. The look on his face read, "Why did I do this? I just screwed up..."

I swear, I can't remember a time when I ever saw that look before.

A- You shoulda just paused a second and checked the toilet.....

D- Oh man, this sucks, I just created a pile of extra work.


We both shuffle into the bathroom and he starts going over the toilet. D quickly finds a little nut under the holding tank that needs to be tightened......and all is furry bunnies and rainbows. The toilet is fixed, just like that.

That is seriously going all the way around yer elbow just to get to yer butt hole.

The wall....just got finished last night.

I guess I can hand off my title as Susie Hardway now.