Tuesday, October 12, 2010
We moved to Poland...
Our family moved to Poland over a year ago and since that time I haven't found the wherewithal to blog. In the meantime, while I await the return of my creativity, I'm leaving some of the old posts here. I've taken the liberty (as one is want to do) of deleting the ones I founds to be half-baked and left the ones that are slightly more done, emphasis on slightly. :)
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Rehashing the Coffee-Maturity Connection
At the moment, I am sitting at the Marketplace (presumably to sell soap) and I find myself spending too much time being judgmental. This condition is likely brought on by the uppity feeling I get drinking my over-priced coffee in a casual see-how-cool-I-am manner.
In the midst of all this narcissistic self-talk, I noted an older woman standing nearby wearing a baby Bjorn sling. I watched as she turned to the side and her happy little dog came into view. Yikes! Judgmental me thought, "Cracked up Lady!" But the other part of me thought... At least she is happy!
Think about it... What is the difference between growing older and being happy and growing older and being dejected, sad and unhealthy? Is it a small dog in a baby sling? Is it not caring that those of us hovering around age 40 in a fit of must-have-expensive-coffee think it is nuts to carry around a dog like a baby? Wait... Do I want another baby?!
oh! oh! oh! Someone just bought a black sparkle cowboy hat! (See previous post titled Where's the Tourist?)
NO! I don't want another baby but I think I would do a better job this time around. I'm definitely older and calmer and more mature. Then again, maybe that's just an assumption.
As for the woman with the dog in a baby sling... She is happy and apparently does not care what the rest of us think. While I don't want to be the type to carry my dog around or push it around in a stroller, I do want to be happy. I want to be happy and I want to have a dog.
Furthermore, I definitely want to feel free of the judgment of others. I don't want to care what others think. I want to be happy and content with who I am without feeling the need to change. I think, however, the first step to this personal nirvana must be that I have to not be judgmental. If I want to be truly happy, I must let others do the same... That will be a sign of true maturity.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Procrastination Formula
Here's what I've come up with...
P = (1 + d) - x
- P = procrastination factor Omalley
- d = the number of days of procrastination
- x = often zero but is determined by the push factor of problem-related individuals
Here's a couple scenarios:
- Omalley receives an email stating that she needs to take something to the Cub Scout Pack meeting that evening. She puts it off, kind of remembers it, thinks she'll set it out, and then forgets it completely as she is yelling at son to put on socks with his shoes. Thus, if d=1/2 for the half-a-day she procrastinated, and x = 1 for the email her friend sent reminding her, the equation looks like this: P = (1 + 1/2) - 1 = 1/2. Not too offensive but still a negative result.
- Omalley needs to make sales calls and drum up wholesale business for her soaps. She procrastinates months (d=a gazillion). Then she gets smart and asks a good friend to work on commission to be the cold-call person to set up sales appointments (x=18 for the number of days the friend has been enlisted to make calls). The equation looks like: P = (1 + a gazillion) - 18. For the sake of the math, we'll round d to 100 for the number of days Omalley put off making calls or finding someone else to do it. P = (1 + 100) -18 = 83. Yikes!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
The Grass Menagerie
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Shopping Carts and Other Southwest Florida Madness
Saturday, November 29, 2008
For all who wanted to see those birds...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
What My Nespresso Machine Says About Me
Monday, November 24, 2008
Fighting Obfuscation
Thursday, November 20, 2008
A Case for Kansas
I’m from
Most everyone is familiar with the old adage “
I have to say that anyone repeating this erroneous cliché has obviously never been to
Recently, a horrible crime occurred in
Puh-leaseeeee… Can I speak for the entire eastern half of
And, if I may continue my rant,
As a matter of overkill, I’ll end my argument by saying that disjointing
While I’m on a roll, I might as well stand up for a few other states as well.
Have you ever noticed that whenever a movie needs a naïve, country-bumpkin, they most often grew up corn-fed in
I visibly recoil when I see those stereotypical portrayals of
I miss
I now live in
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
My Mother was a Travel Agent for Guilt Trips
Monday, November 17, 2008
This Family Must be Crazy
We have always driven a lot. For us, much family means much travel. Imbued with a sense of guilty necessity about seeing family, we have always traveled a lot. Considering that we’ve always been in the youngest generation of our family, it makes sense. The grandkids go to the grandparents, etc.; but I like to whine about it anyway.
The kids are great in the car. Starbucks is a lifeline. McDonalds is hell in a paper bag. Give us a good Harry Potter book on CD and we are one happy family with visions of sugar plums and snow flakes and the cell phone ringing mindlessly… “When are you going to get here?!”
(Love you all! See you in December!)
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Suburban Sprawl Conundrum
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Defining a False Sense of Maturity
Recently, I wanted to write a book which I called,
Approaching 40: A Girl’s Woman’s Guide to Impending Maturity (aka How to Define Maturity at your Advanced Age)
This book never came to fruition but I did come up with some chapter ideas that I think, if nothing else, define my state of mind (for better or for worse).
- Coffee – Drinking coffee gives me a false sense of maturity.
- Husbands – Taking your maturity level down a few notches.
- Mothers-In-Law – Subtract two points from your maturity score if you have a mother-in-law (four if she lives in the same town and six if she’s just down the road).
- Children - Having children is no excuse for inflating one’s maturity level.
- Inevitability – Suddenly realizing you are just like your mother is very humbling, indeed.
- Legacy – Skewed-maturity is inescapably passed from one generation to the next.
- Inevitability Redux – The things your kids will call each other up and say, “You’ll never guess what mom did again…”
- Money – Gotta have it, will fight about it, and we will never quite have as much as we want.
- At Home Moms – Staying home is no excuse for abusing the coffee-maturity connection.
- Working Moms – A working mother’s maturity conflicts.
- Keeping House – To work or not to work: True maturity is realizing that, no matter what, you still have to do it all… It’s all an illusion, just like your maturity.
- Music – Listening to classical music in mixed company will give you the illusion of maturity. Listening to obscure 80’s music around aging Gen-Xers will give you class.
- Television – Make sure you Tivo regularly records Weeds and Grey’s Anatomy so you’ll look cool even if you aren’t.
- Spirituality – Your level of spirituality will depend on to whom you are speaking.
- Teenagers – Your kids will grow up despite every effort to thwart it.
- Body – It droops… get over it.
- Achieving Maturity – The hunt for this illusive game is endless. However, turning 40 gives one the delusion of maturity.
- What next? Realizing, at least ten years before the fact, that the children will leave the house and you will be faced with filling in the blank.
- Caring – It really sucks.
- What I unlearned from my Mother – We will always be unlearning what our mothers taught us.