conversations with millenials

I have 2 kids.
Son, 19 
Daughter, 17

Both my kids have grown up in a Christian, fairly conservative home.
Things that have been important to me as a parent:
kindness
compassion
ability to think for yourself

I don't allow parroting of opinions.  You need to be able to back up what you say with facts and reason.  this is not always a fun environment for a kid, I admit; but I find it so terribly important to raise adults who can think for themselves.

Example:
My son had a bunch of friends over prior to our last Presidential election.  One of his friends made a comment about how he was voting for Bernie Sanders.  So.. I asked why.

Friend:  I think he'll make a really good President.

Me:  Why do you think he'll be a good President?

Friend:  Because he's the only one who really cares.

Me:  I don't know much about Bernie.  What does he do that makes you think he cares?  (honestly, this was totally conversational, not interrogating)

Friend:  I don't know.  I just think he does.  

Me:  I'd love to hear more.

Friend:  [stares blankly.  leaves room]

Me: [commenting to my son] He didn't grow up in this house, did he?

Son:  nope.


Before that friend left, I challenged him to do a little reading on why Bernie was so great and that I'd love to hear about why he likes Bernie next time he comes over.

A girl can try.

noisy

I'm at work, doing something repetitive.  This offers the opportunity to listen to a book on tape (Audible is my friend).  I talk to the characters.  I don't always realize I'm doing it.  I'm kind of in the zone of work and book.  
I comment on the story or a plot twist...
"Oh my!"
"No!?"
I laugh.
Sometimes people ask me if I'm talking to them.  Um, no, I'm actually talking to my book.

I listen to books when I'm out and about too.  I talk to the people (in my book) while in public.  (I now wonder if people just give me a wide berth or if they assume I'm on the phone since that's a thing now.)

I realize... I am noisy.

I laugh loud and often.  My laugh is rather instantly recognizable as my own.  In fact, I've been recognized by people having just heard my laugh bursting forth (while perusing humorous greeting cards, alone, in a store, just for the sake of enjoying them).  

I talk loud.  Lord only knows what I'll be like when I start losing my hearing.

Wait, what?
Oh, 12:30.

Sorry, that's an ongoing joke I have with my Mom (69) who is losing her hearing, and my daughter (15).

I have a friend who I describe to others as "making me look quiet or introverted."  What I find so fun about this description is that she describes me the same way.  (I wonder who's right?)

I find that I often whisper what I'm writing.  I catch myself doing this all the time.  Is that normal?

One thing I do that I know everyone does is talk to other people while driving.  I'll admit, I'm not always saying the nicest things, but sometimes I say... "Oh go ahead, you're probably having a bad day and I hope my letting you get over at the last possible minute helps you get to where you're going on time."  But... that's probably not the most common comment I make.

I talk to the TV.  I comment on what's going on, or that person should look behind them, or really, did they just say that?

My husband doesn't really like to sit near me in the movies.  I sincerely don't even realize I'm doing it.  I make comments while in the theater.  Honestly, I would probably drive myself crazy if I were more aware of it.  I do try to be quiet.  Maybe that's why I started whispering to myself when I write or type.  A way to use up more of the words I have stored for daily use inside my brain.  

Once, another friend and I ended up at the same IHOP for breakfast with our kids.
They heard me laugh

Kids:  "Oh Miss B is here!"
Mom:  "Oh, wow, is my laugh that loud?!"
Kids:  "No Mom, you're louder!"

Then my kids had the exact same conversation with me... but in that conversation, I was louder.  I guess that goes to slight embarrassment factor.  Though my daughter claims she is now inoculated against being embarrassed by me.  (I could totally get my son though!) 

So... this is me saying... yes.  I'm noisy.
I talk to myself.
I talk to the radio.
I talk to the TV.
I talk to my audio books.
I LOVE talking to people (I don't mind listening either...)
I talk when I'm writing.
I talk in my sleep.

But I'm OK with it.

(possibly because I am not on the receiving end of most of it... but, possibly because I'm just mostly OK with me.) ♥

gift giving

has anybody else noticed the trend towards gift cards and cash giving vs. an actual purchased something?

I certainly have.  I find myself looking for clever ways to wrap gift cards so that they feel more like opening something special.  I'm also not saying I'm going to change that.

I noticed it myself when talking (OK, emailing because who talks anymore) with family about Christmas and the kids "list" so that we might buy presents for the nieces and nephews.  Mind you, we always work to spend just the same amount and make everything fair.  None of this is bad.
Even the youngest kid, who's 11, wants gift cards.  I found myself missing purchasing an actual, thoughtfully purchased gift.  

Am I alone?  Does anybody else miss buying actual gifts?
I do and I don't.

I started buying gift cards when my daughter was in grade school and every weekend would find us at a birthday party for a school friend.  I personally didn't know these kids well enough to really pick something out and my daughter didn't always have a good idea on what to buy.  If we had something specific, we'd get that, but I was often stressing about it.  I would stop by my local Target (be sure to say that properly... Tar ghay.  Thank you.) and one of the ladies in the food court asked me if I was stressing out about another gift.  

Yes, yes I am!  I want it to be special.

Stop stressing about it.  Buy a gift card and be happy.

I thought about that.  Did I actually have 'permission' to buy a gift card for kids I didn't really know?  That's actually... wait... pretty cool.

So started by desire to then WRAP them special.  Because I couldn't just let it go at "giftcard...check.  card...check" and be done.

Ways I've wrapped gift cards:

• My favorite idea for a while (before every 2 year old had a smart phone) was with a disposable camera and a little $1 photo book for them to put the pictures from their party in + gift card.  
• I wrapped them in balloons.
• I wrapped one in a paper mache balloon/egg that didn't try completely but I was so set on the idea of this awesome wrapping idea that I still brought it to the party.  Lord I wish I had a picture of the sad floppy somewhat moist "egg" with a gift card in it.  I bet that family still laugh about the crazy lady and her son with the unknown floppy ball thing they put the gift card in. 
•  I tried to bury one in a home made dinosaur egg.  (note tried, though I have successfully hidden plastic dinosaurs in home made dino eggs that took FOR FREAKING EVER to dry.  That's the party where my mother in law took the pictures and somehow managed to get my VERY LARGE LEOPARD* CLAD BUTT IN EVERY PICTURE!  
• I wrapped them in helium balloons.
• I taped them to bricks and wrapped that.

But where was I?  Oh yes... gifts vs. gift cards

I wonder if part of it is just practicality.  What if I buy something and they don't like it?
What if I buy something and they don't like it and never return it.  Then I just wasted their money and they didn't get anything.  It's almost like a negative gift.

Am I the only person going through this?
Is this really only for a small segment of the people in my life and I should be OK with it because I am able to buy actual gifts for other people?

Hmmm.
.


*leopard clad because all the parties we had for our kids were dress up parties.  I think kids should dress up all the time.  On this particular occasion I was a kitty cat.  My butt was in the pics because I brought a hammer so the kids could "excavate" their own dinosaurs from the now permanently dried concrete home made dino eggs.  I was bending over to make sure each kid had fun pounding away and didn't hurt themselves doing it.


 

things that make me smile

Looking to purchase a set of clippers for my dog, so of course I went on Amazon and read reviews and questions.  Always nice when other people do the work for you.

This question made me laugh:
So the gel lubricant for these clippers. Can I buy it somewhere. My dog ate the bottle before I could use it. 

Gotta love our puppies. 

sad chickens?

I sent a friend at work this...
me:

friend:  has feathers

me: how does one know the chicken is unhappy?

friend:    he looks sad

me:  ha ha ha

friend:  cluuuuuck....sniff... cluuuuuck

I love my friends!!!

"overheard" office humor

T:  haha yes well
T:  I think you should make me a meal plan with recipes
T:  hahaha

E:  haha

T: you laugh
T:  but I'm serious

E:  I think you confuse our friendship with indentured servitude

Michael Malloy

Some people just don't cooperate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Malloy

You're welcome.

high maintenance

A group of people in my office regularly take turns doing a Starbucks run.

 

I want peach ring tea

If they don’t have that I want a very berry hibiscus refresher

If they don’t have that I want an orange spice iced coffee sweetened with a whisper of cinnamon

And if they don’t have that I want a dark roast with no room for cream

 

The name on her cup...

 difficult

Word of the Week

Because the world is too serious (and because I work in corporate America and I don't necessarily fit in here) I try to add a splash of color and fun to our offices and now I'm sharing that with you.

Feel free to print and share.

bra rant

warning... any men reading this will want to skip this week.

OMG!  There is a spider right next to me!!!!!
OK, now it is outside.  Disaster averted.  Whew.  I didn't even scream!  I'm so proud of myself.


I have been blessed/cursed with a formidable breast size.  I don't know why the makers of such things are so convinced that the only thing I want to wear is black, white, or nude colored bra's.

I go to stores like Lane Bryant and shop their bra's which, I will admit, I've had better success with than other places.  Do you know what bra's I own?  White, nude (I think they try to dress up the color by calling it "sugar"), black.

I recent found the most comfortable bra ever and for someone with a large chest this is on par with a miracle.  Most of the time by lunch I have to start talking myself out of whipping my bra off because it's just not socially acceptable.  They become so uncomfortable (bras that is).  I don't always even make it home before the sigh of relief known by every woman in America escapes from me the moment that bra is off! 

Then I found these Cushion Comfort Bra's and I am barely aware of wearing them!  Some genius added padding all around the under wire so they are way more comfortable and I don't hurt at the end of the day.  This is now the only bra I will wear.  They seem to offer colors, but they don't offer many and they sell out so quickly it's obvious they need to have more inventory on them.  The distributors probably make 5 in my size and they sell out before I even know they are there.  Plus, since they only offer a few in my size, they are never on sale which means I'm stuck paying a boat load of money for all my bras.  I'm a bargain shopper, this irks me.

At the end of the day, I suppose it doesn't "matter" what color bra I'm wearing.  Nobody but me really knows it's there.  But still! 

So my other rant is concerning my daughter.  WHY IS EVERY BRA OUT THERE A PUSH UP BRA?  I mean really?!!  Have we become such a ridiculous culture that even C or D cups are push up now?  and I don't mean lined or support I mean like "hey girls we can increase you by 2 cup sizes with this little baby, come on over and let's crank that chest up to porn star status in a jiffy."  (Do porn stars wear bras?  I guess for a minute they do.  hmmm, you know what I mean.) 

My daughter just wants a pretty bra that doesn't add to what she already has.  Support, coverage, something pretty.  Not a huge list of things needed for an undergarment.  Perhaps the makers of these bras are all overachievers and they can't stop adding features until there is nothing else they can really add.  Maybe the creators of bras actually need a support group to work on their self esteem so they can stop adding more and more and more.  Because sometimes, less is enough.

Sigh...
Maybe I should become a bra designer and then I will realize that the capitalism behind everything makes pleasing everyone a fiscal impossibility.

Any suggestions?
What is your bra rant?

My life, am I actually going to say more isn't more?  I don't think that's ever come out of my mouth before.  Not seriously anyway.

I'm officially cool

Because I now know:
how to spell shawty (vs. shorty which is the decidedly less cool spelling)
and what it actually means (term of endearment for your "bro" or your necessarily hot/sexy girlfriend.)

you're welcome.

where's the webcam? are you watching me??

The conversation on the attached link is disturbingly familiar to my daily attempts to focus on real work.

Except I don't usually have conversations with weasels.  Possibly because I don't own one (live or stuffed).  I do have a little stuffed moose creatively names "Moosey" by my kids and I.  He has been with us for many many years and gets lost for long periods of time and then we find him again and everybody cheers.  We love a good reunion.

If left to my own devices, I will often "come to" and see that I have 25 or more different windows open and have no idea what time it is.  Of course, I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. :)

Last night I was home with only my son, who was busy playing video games on Xbox Live and making up super annoying voices for some of the characters in the game.  My cats were hiding upstairs because it was so bad.  I sat down with my computer and "poof" 2 hours were gone.  I didn't even turn on the TV which I normally do.  I just went into the Interwebs Land!

http://thebloggess.com/2013/05/me-and-the-internet/


things I cannot unknow:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism  I feel ill.  Seriously... pause and think before clicking, this is about ways to torture people.  (from the Weasel's list of unusual ways to die)
I need to find pictures of bunnies with pancakes on their head now.

Oh no... you can die from this???
1410: Martin of Aragon died from a combination of indigestion and uncontrollable laughing.^[23]
Quick, I think I need a doctor!


Going back and reading the comments I'm realizing I am so not alone!!  Half the things people posted I also thought!  Love it!!




 

Signs of wisdom..... if you look deep enough

From an email...
Thanks K

I love stuff like this.  Especially when there is no threat of some level of impending personal doom if I don't share it with 10 people.  (For the record, I automatically delete those.)

why we need friends

At work, I am a square peg.  I don't quite fit in.  I'm too loud, too fun, too -- everything.  I ultimately think that these qualities have a good impact on the work place.
 
Sometimes I feel a bit "picked on" because my foibles stand out a bit more than those of the next 10 people.
 
today, I was pulled aside and told to clean my desk "before somebody says something."
Um, but you just said something...
 
So I complained to my friend K.
 
Me:   They told me to clean my desk AGAIN!
K:      again?

Me:   And I look down the aisles at some of the desks here and think REALLY?  I need to clean my desk?!   Why is the standard different for me?  Like I used to get picked on for things I wore and now there's that one girl and she dresses so unprofessional.  Does anybody say anything to her?

K:     That I don't know.

Me:   Oh no, K! I've become one of THEM!!!

K: 



 

Me: 

 

 

 

 

They've gotten under my skin and I'm becoming...

ack...

corporate!

 

K:    Come on... don't be a douche canoe*

(insert very loud 1 note laughter as I catch myself from being "inappropriate" at work)

 

Me:  did you hear that?

OMG...

I totally LOL'd

 

K:  thought so

 

B:  now I'm crying!

oh man!

I applaud your perfection!

 

K:  I try, sometimes I'm on.

 

Me:  OK, all that stress -- gone!

 

K:  YAY!

K:   wait til the day they come to you and say you don't look busy enough because there's nothing on your desk

 

 

*you're welcome!



 

 

handicapped bathrooms

So, am I the only one who wonders about the layout of these stalls?  It's like the designers have to have all these things checked off on their list but they don't think about how best to make it work.

I understand the larger stall, I understand the bar and the higher seat.
But seriously?  If I, as a mostly able bodied person, struggle to reach toilet paper that is basically hanging on the ground, how on earth is a handicapped person supposed to be able to easily reach that?  Shouldn't it be higher?  In fact, why are so many of the toilet paper dispensers so low?  I'm not even tall and I find them too low in general. 

Is it because they have to have that bar in there?  But then who decided that the toilet paper had to be super low?  If they are sitting on the higher seat, wouldn't it be easier to reach?

Just wondering.

teenage romance

I have a beautiful and (mostly) sweet 13 year old girl. 

This has caused me no small angst as a parent as I want to protect her from all the crud out there in the world.  However, the path I have chosen as a parent has been to prepare her for all the crud out there and (hopefully) empower her to be her own person, to stand up for herself, to hold others to a standard of behavior when they are around her.  (I say the path I have chosen because my husband is still very much in the protect her mode.)

The 13 year old boys however kind of freak me out.

I don't know --scratch that, I do know.

BOYS WERE NOT LIKE THIS WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER!!  Boys had nowhere near this kind of confidence or game.  Do they have YouTube video's that teach them how to woo a girl?  I mean, some of the stuff they come up with would work on me.  What is up with this?  

We had one boy over the summer who was upset because we wouldn't allow her to date.  (reasonable, right?!)  He tried to get our daughter to sneak behind our back and then when that didn't work he said he would wait for her.  A 12 year old boy is going to WAIT until they are 18 or maybe 16 and I'm thinking WHAT?

This other boy build up this girl he liked and kept telling my daughter about her until she realized it was her!  Smooth!  Very well done.  

Watch out girls.  That's all I'm saying!  Be careful who you give your heart to.

strange conversations

conversation with friend:

Do you know what I was thinking about last night?

No.
Or should I say not yet.

Things that smell like the color they are. 
For example:
  My mom gave us a body wash from Bath and Body Works called "Country Chic."   It was purple.  And I was like, yes, this smells purple. 
Then I thought about the people who do that for a living.

See country chic, I would have thought it should be blue because I associate country with light blue.  I would expect it to smell blue and possibly make me sneeze.

Oh we would be good at that job. 
  Except I wouldn't want to be a professional smeller, all that stuff gives me a headache.

Then she sends me a picture of the bottle (because the visual is obviously important here and you can't smell on IM.)

And I feel duty bound to explain that this is, in fact, blue; not purple.

But apparently it's more puple in person.  She's bringing it in tomorrow to show me.

 

word of the week

I create a word of the week fun page for work and thought I would share them with you.  I post them in the copy room and kitchen so people have something fun to look at while waiting for something.

cajole       (kuh-JOHL ), verb

1. a: To persuade with flattery or gentle urging:  coax

1. b: To obtain from someone by gentle persuasion

2:  To deceive with soothing words or false promises

Example: 

· Brianna was able to cajole some money from her father before
leaving for the movies.

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.  Stephen Wright

You can observe a lot by just watching.  Yogi Berra

 

appliances and marriage

This is a two-fer.
I hit my home appliance topic (see here and here) and my living together topic.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/columnist/2012/10/16/craig-wilson-dishwasher/1619899/

By the way, I tried not rinsing and my dishwasher returned concrete food particles that glistened on my dishwasher.  I think there should be a caviat that your dishwasher needs to be purchased with the last decade for this to be true.  I don't just rinse, I clean my dishes and use the dishwasher as a sanitising process because I don't like having my hands in hot water (not to mention I don't like drying the now clean dishes).  My dishwasher is an original appliance that I think the Caroline Ingals used.  I've had to replace the basket where the silverware goes and I have to purchase special crystal powder to go in each cycle to keep the hard water from destroying the inside of the washer (which had a yucky film on it) and my dishes.  However, I'm the only one that remembers to use it so I'm always checking the dishwasher and often rewashing things.  Sheesh.  This all makes me sound like one of those cool wives/mom's I always admire who run this great household and everything is clean and dinner is on the table if not at the same time, on a nightly basis.  sigh... One day I might attain such a position in life.  But since I'm guessing that will require me putting cooking and cleaning much higher on my To Do list that is ever has been... I won't be holding my breath.

computer virus edition: $1m vacuum?

Go to www.Google.com
Type in "million dollar vacuum"
Choose a link.
Laugh with me.

Or to save time... click here.

I was going to say... man, that thing better be made of GOLD... but, well, it is.