You Get What You Get...

There are little words of wisdom that come from all over the place that we incorporate into our lives to help us make sense of what we perceive to be our reality and what we try to teach our children. One of my favorites is from Dina. When her kids say, "Mom, I'm thirsty." She responds with, "Hi Thirsty, I'm Friday, come over Saturday and we'll have a Sundae." Perfect. In other words, don't tell me your problem. Instead, offer a solution that I can help you with such as, "Mom, may I have some juice?"

And then there are those wonderful words that come out of our mouths that make absolutely no sense whatsoever and we wonder where we ever heard such things and still it comes out as if saying such things will make any difference except maybe to prove how idiotic we can be. You know what I'm talking about. Junk like, "If you fall out of that tree and break your leg, don't come running to me."

Well, Colin came home today with a little saying I've not heard before but when he said it, I thought, "Brilliant."

"You get what you get, you don't throw a fit."

Run that by me again.... Excellent. Then he said, "That's what Miss Cathy says all the time." with a little smile. As if, he's heard it a number of times personally.

I love it! Gonna start using that one.

Can You Hear Me Now?

My Mama always said check the pockets before you wash but for whatever reason, this lesson has not sunk in. I always forget to check JD's pockets before the laundry. It has become almost funny in our marriage. Almost. Since my husband and I have been married I have washed his wallet at least three times. His SS card is now in a plastic bag, barely readable, shredded at all four corners. I don't know how many important tax receipts have been lost due to being washed and dried. I've melted chap-stick and gum. I've laundered a lot of money and I can always find a guitar pick in the dryer if JD needs one. And let's not forget the little maroon w/ white incident. It is exhausting for us both to say the least.

Well, yesterday, I didn't wash his phone, his Blackberry phone, but I did dry it in the dryer. It had been raining all day, we'd all been out in the rain, the coats were soaked as were Colin's shoes, and pants and socks etc. So I threw it all in the dryer so we could leave again. When I went to retrieve said items there was JD's phone in pieces....several pieces. The back had fallen off, the battery had fallen out, other little very important pieces had fallen out or off, not sure. I gathered the poor broken thing and carried it to JD and said, "I think I might have ruined your phone." We checked for anymore missing parts, there was one, and brought it to the phone store like carrying a kid to the emergency room with a hopeful look on our faces that pleaded, "Can you fix it?" Luckily, all the parts were there, they put it together again and it still works. Thank goodness! So, if you're looking to purchase a new phone, I can recommend the Blackberry. They're tough. Real tough, like a truck tough! And, needless to say, check your pockets.

I'm Thinkin'....

When we first moved into this house I hung Colin's mirror at his level. Now when I walk by I catch nothing but thigh but he sees his face. It's fun to watch him check himself out, look at his clothes, he really likes to look at himself in his underwear (guy thing?). Anyway, just now I told him it's time to get in the bath. So, there he is, looking at himself, really looking at himself. I said, "What are you doin'?" He says, without looking away from himself with a little grin, "I'm thinking, I'm cute." ....seriously!

At the Movies

Kristi rated a movie recently on her blog using the Cunningham rating system. I thought, what a great idea. I love the movies. I'll give anything a chance. At least twice a month sometimes more, I'll go to the movies while Colin is in school. Been there a lot lately as Oscars are around the corner. So, I thought I would add my review to any movie I see. You don't have to care but if you do, I thought I would explain the rating system.

A movie will fall into one of four categories.
1. Strong, Weak in NO Way - this is a rating for an outstanding film. Perfect in every way for its genre. This is not an easily given rating.
2. Strong, Weak in A Way - this is a good film but something was lacking. It just didn't quite do a perfect job but was still a great movie, and can be highly recommended.
3. Weak, Strong in A way - this a still an okay film but would usually be a rental. Hard to swallow the price you might have just paid at the movie for this film. Unfortunately, a LOT of films will fall into this category.
4. Weak, Strong in NO Way - this is a crap film. A complete waste of time. Everything done poorly. Leaves a bad taste in your mouth kind of film.

Now, understand that my idea of S/W in No way is obviously objective and you take it or leave it. But it's a good system. You'll find my reviews on the side with a simple rating. No commentary. However, if you want a commentary, I'll be glad to give you that through e-mail.

Go to the movie! And you can adopt the rating system if you want.

Lemons are in season

We have a little lemon tree in the back yard. I just picked that last of them this morning. The scent is outstanding and wonderful. The taste, sweeter than you can imagine. Yes, lemons are actually simi sweet when picked at just the right time. Perfect in a glass of water, a pint of Hefeweizen, or a centerpiece. LIfe is beautiful. In CA, life with lemons is sweeter. Wish I could bottle this up and send it your way but then it wouldn't be the same would it? Must visit I guess.

Sharing the wealth

Oh, so this is what an iPod does.....indeed.

Reduce Noise

WITH NOISE
WITHOUT NOISE

Welcome to iLife '08! My sweet husband got me a red iPod nano for Christmas. I was so happy. I was also expecting it. I had been coaching Colin for months. "Colin, what does Mommy want for Christmas?" "A red iPod." I asked this question in front of everyone we knew, in front of JD, JD's parents, JD's assistant. There was no way he could've missed it. Good job Husband!

So, I get so excited to load my new iPod and become part of the iPod bubble community. People respect the bubble. Have you noticed that? And, as one of my friends has taught me, to let people know they can enter your bubble, you take one ear pod out. Good to know the etiquette. Anyway, the current Mac OS wouldn't let me do anything with my iPod. So, oh darn, we had to upgrade to the Leopard version of Mac OS and while we were at it, let's go ahead and get iLife '08.

So, my new favorite thing other than having my iPod is learning all the cool stuff you can do with iPhoto. Calendars, cards, books and more. Organization tools and more efficiency techniques of which I'm all about. But my favorite part is the editing tools. There's a button you can use to adjust the "noise" of the picture. Did you know pictures made noise? Me either but oh, they do! And by the way, the older you get, the more noise you make in a photograph. So, while I've been organizing my pictures I've been reducing the noise I make. All of sudden, like magic, I feel better about myself. See example. I took ten years off of JD and I and made us a lot quieter than we actually are. Amazing. By the way, if the picture is still screaming at you, be nice. I don't want to hear any of your noise about my noise.

So this, "reduce noise" idea got me thinking a little about myself, my words, my life. I started to wonder how much noise I make. I'm not talking about sounds or conversation or constructive words of advice, or love, but just unnecessary, loud, worthless, "old" noise. I wonder if God wishes for a "reduce noise" button on my life. I wonder if the older I get the more noise I make. I wonder if he just would like me to listen. Sort of like getting in the iPod bubble. A place you listen. A place you tune out the outside noise so you can focus on what you really want to hear. I wonder if there's such a thing as a GodPod bubble. A place you listen. A place you reduce noise. A place others can enter if you keep one ear open to the world and one tuned into your GodPod.

Start Your Day with a Sprinkle of Love ....OR ELSE!

The LOVE Tin
LOVE Tin Back
LOVE Tin Ingredients
One day at MOPS...I know, don't even start with me, that's another entry....This speaker was selling her stuff and in that stuff was an Ostrich feather duster ("Only use ostrich. The rest are a rip off. Must be ostrich or it won't work right"), a "You Are Special" plate and an empty tin full of LOVE. Intrigued by all three ideas, she got me on the feather duster, which I use a lot, and the tin of LOVE. I thought that was a great idea. Sprinkle it on your food, your guitars, your shoes, yourselves. I made my own "You Are Special" plate. Again, another story.

So, I introduced the LOVE tin into my family and more so to my son. We sprinkled all kinds of things at first and I displayed in prominently on top of the fridge so I would see it and remember to sprinkle love. Well it's as corny as it sounds and the-down-to-earth-tell-it-like-it-is-no-crap-here-Celeste forgot all about the LOVE. Then just a few days ago, Tuesday, Colin was on his way out the door back to school for the first time after Christmas break. He stops mid-threshold and says, "Mom, we need some LOVE today." pause from Mommy....OH! finally it hit me what he was talking about. I said, "Buddy, that's a great idea. I think you're right. We need some LOVE today." So we went back to the kitchen he sprinkled me, I sprinkled him, he sprinkled me again (it's okay, you can laugh. I need all the LOVE I can get and my son knows this, apparently) and we went about our day. It was a great day. So great, I thought to myself, we should move the can to the front door table so we could do this everyday. Needless to say, as you will soon read, I did not move the LOVE but instead forgot to sprinkle for the next two days. As a result, Thursday bit me in the ass.

All of you know I've been slowly getting through the junk in my garage. We finally admitted to ourselves that if we're ever going to use the space we're going to have to have more space - rented, expensive, storage space. We moved all the baby stuff over, and a few other items, leaving just enough room for the Christmas stuff when it was all organized, gone through and packed. Thursday Colin was at school and the garage was on the agenda. So, here I am, by myself, in my own little world getting the garage done. Got ALL the Christmas organized and labeled in clear or red containers. It's perfect. Just need to move it to storage. Also went through a lot of other junk, sorting and throwing out etc. I think one more day out there and it will be done.

Side story pertinent to this in a minute: One day....many many many days ago, Colin knocked over JD's FULL glass of milk on the table. It spilled all over the floor, the food and two of the maroon chair cushions. I threw the wet cushions out in the garage along with everything else no longer loved at the moment. But, while I'm moving stuff around on Thursday, I decided to put the cushions in the washer so they wouldn't get stepped on any longer and I'd get to them later.

Back to story. Worked all day out in the garage. Was dirty but satisfied with my progress. It was time to get Colin. But before I was going to get him, I was going to drop by the UPS store and mail my sister a big box of clothes that Colin had outgrown. BIG box. Knew this would probably cost more that the clothes were worth but oh well, in the name of love and hand-me-downs I'd received I was going to pay it forward. Plus, it got the stuff out of my garage. So, this is the chain of events that happened:

Time to get Colin. Anytime I pick up Colin I have to have a snack because he refuses to eat his hot lunch at school and he's starving. So, make a snack for Colin of apple juice and animal cookies. Throw snack and juice in my purse so I can put my purse on the box and carry it out to the car parked across the street because I'd been cleaning the garage. Don't lock the door because JD broke my key off in the door the night before. If we're robbed, oh well, less stuff. Get to the car, put the box in the back, put my purse in the passenger seat, begin toward the UPS store to mail the box. Realize my mother now lives in a new house, don't know the address, call mom to get exact address. Haven't talked to my mother in several days, begin conversation that takes me from my house to the UPS store and I sit in the parking lot and finish a conversation. Say bye to Mom, realize that I'm just going to be needing my wallet instead of the whole purse because it takes both hands to carry the box plus I have another box from Christmas that I'm sending back. Reach into purse, pull out cookies, pull out the juice cup....EMPTY juice cup....What the crap? Oh NO!!!! Juice is in my purse, my new purse, my Chicago purse, 10 oz of juice is flowing freely in my purse and I ran out of Kleenex three days ago and haven't restocked....what now?! What....what....no used kleenex, no In and Out napkins, nothing to soak up liquid except Colin's clean sweat jacket. I pull the stuff out of my purse, dripping with juice, I put them in the floorboard, grab the CLEAN jacket and shove it into my purse and start soaking up the juice. Now this fancy purse has not one compartment but three and all three are inches deep in juice. Did I mention that the purse is suede? Yeah, so is my wallet. It was a very cool purse with matching wallet. Anyway, slowly the jacket becomes soaked. Now that the juice fiasco is under control I go into UPS. I'm supposed to get Colin at 3:30...it's not going to happen unless this little trip into UPS is quick. NOPE....NOT TODAY! Today we are training a new employee that just started oh, I'd say, five minutes ago. Took a long time, but I was so deflated over the purse as I stood there holding my wet wallet I didn't care. Finish UPS, get to the church to pick up Colin. First thing he says to me after, "Hi, Mom." is "Hey, did you bring me some juice?" Seriously? Yeah. I tell him I did, but it spilled and it spilled in my purse, and I'm sorry and I've got water and cookies. He didn't care. He just wanted juice. Luckily, Pat, said, "I've got juice. Want some?" Yes please.

So we get home, Colin has had juice and cookies and is feeling all right with the world, had a good day at school, etc. I decide that when we get home, I'm going to have to clean up the mess I've made. That momentum along with what I had done already that day bleeds over and I decide to de-crap the car front to back. It has stuff in there from summer, fall, and Christmas. I think I'll get it all cleaned out so I can get it washed and we can haul the Christmas stuff to storage. So, I'm in the middle of this, making trips into the house, on the last little leg of cleaning the juice off the seat (the juice soaked through the suede onto the leather seat) and I hear Colin.

"Mom, can you come here?"
"Just a minute son, trying to clean out the car."
1/2 a minute passes
"Mom!"
"Colin!"
"But Mom, can you come here please....NOW?"
"What's going on Colin?"
"I pooped."
"Coliiiiinnnn! Why didn't you call me?"
"I did."
pause
"I guess you did. Sorry buddy."
"I peed too."
"Great. Let's get a bath okay."
"Okay, but I don't want to wash my hair."
"Okay. Whatever."

So, I get my kid in the bath, then I gather the dark laundry along with the pants that he just peed in and the underwear he just pooped and peed in, the apple juice jacket and throw it all in the washer and start it.

About 40 minutes later I go out to the washer to move the clothes to the dryer. Remember the side story? Oh NO!!!! Anything that was white (inside of the jacket, lining to a couple of pants, pocket linings on jeans, the one pair of underwear) is PINK! I separate those that are scarred for life and put them back into the washer hoping the color hasn't set in. Do you need to ask? Yes, the color set in. I told JD about it. He was calm. Extremely calm considering one pair of his Luckey Jeans were now reduced to "around the house" pants.

That night, after a big glass of wine, I decide to go to bed. The day had been undone. And as I turned on the kitchen night-light that sits on the refrigerator, there sat the tin of LOVE with a "remember me?" look on it's face.

Moral of the story: Sprinkle your day with LOVE. NEVER mix maroon with white in the laundry. And, when you kid calls, run!

And to answer your question. No, I didn't sprinkle today with LOVE and yes the tin is still on top of the refrigerator. Some people never learn.