Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog...(and a messenger, too)

Kids talk alot...
Man oh man.

As I type, I'm hearing the ramblings of 10 about her newest business adventure:  Duct Tape wallets and accessories.  It's gonna be ALL THE RAGE in the Intermediate Building.  Just you wait and see.

Days like this make me wonder how my mother in law survived having 10 kids without suffering permanent hearing loss, brain damage or a drinking problem.
:)

That being said, I sure am glad that 10 and 6 are happy and healthy.  Though sometimes I may truly be in clear and present danger of seeping blood from my large ears (thanks for those, by the way, Grandma), I'm happy to have the noise, as it's so much better than the silence that is the alternative.

It's important to note, though, that even those (like my sweet Ty) who are not here with us anymore can sometimes speak to us as well.  Though it may not be quite as loud, it can be JUST as...ummmm....noticable (noticable sounds so much nicer than obnoxiously loud, right?)
 as the hustle and bustle of a busy household.  IF, that is, we listen for it.

In honor of that, I'd like to share with you Chapter 30 from Sit Down, Shut Up and Let Go.
It details one of my favorite ‘nudges’ from God, and my sweet Ty.

To this day, when I least expect it, this song will creep into my head. I always know it is him, just stopping by to say ‘Hello.’



CHAPTER 30
JESUS’ PHONE NUMBER
After getting some sleep, we got up and tried to figure out what to do with ourselves. It did not take long to realize that Ty was still there, even if I could not see him. I guess the first thing he did for us came that afternoon. I had been upset because of something as silly as a song I had stuck in my head. The verse, ‘Jeremiah was a Bullfrog’ ran over and over in my mind. “How could I be thinking of a stupid song at a time like this?” Disgusted with myself, I finally said something to Travis. He looked at me and laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of that song, too.” How could that be? It was odd enough that a song I never hear, and really don’t even like was playing like a broken record in my mind. Now Travis was doing it, too? I blew it off and tried to keep busy.
That evening, Travis’s parents came over to check on us. They didn’t stay long, but as they left, his mother said something that nearly brought me to my knees. With one foot in the car, she looked over the roof of the car and said “You know Jesus’ phone number, don’t you?” We looked at her like she was crazy, and asked “What do you mean?” She replied, “Well, I’ve always heard that Jesus’ phone number is Jeremiah 33:3. Look it up, you’ll understand.” I nearly died. Did she just say Jeremiah? We told her what we had been experiencing all day, and she proceeded to tell us what Jeremiah 33:3 was. It then made sense.

JEREMIAH 33:3
CALL TO ME AND I WILL ANSWER YOU;
I WILL TELL YOU THINGS GREAT BEYOND REACH OF YOUR KNOWLEDGE.

Once again, I felt peace. I knew Ty was there with us. I knew that this was not coincidence. I believed it then, and I believe to this day…that was the first of many times that Ty would send us a message.

The Kids are Back in School. Where's the Fun?

What possesses our children to do the things they do?  Do you ever wonder this?
Things like peeing on the lid but leaving it there for mom, or not taking your dirty laundry into the laundry room like your told.  These are the questions that riddle me some days.  How does a kid sit AT the table, but wind up with half of their food UNDER the table?  It defies logic! Or chores.....oh, there's a good one.  Why can you not do your chores until you are specifically instructed, under no uncertain terms, that you are nearing the threshold of absolute fury from the maternal unit? 
Sigh.....
I wish somewhere there were answers to these questions. 

As I type, I'm a sweaty mess.  My face is so shiny I'm certain that it could be used as a mirror...or perhaps to fry eggs.  I'm exhausted, my back is sore and I have a headache.

Why?  Good question!

Silly me decided to make good on a threat/promise I made to 10 (my 10 year old daughter) as the beginning of school was approaching.  One night as I attempted to tuck her in, climbing over piles of clean laundry, I told her how disgusting her room was. I advised her to clean it, or else I would clean it when she went back to school and she may not like the result.

The next day.....she cleaned.  Sort of.  Actually, she just piled everything up all the way around her room until it appeared that she had no baseboards.  Then she sort of shoved some stuff under her bed, and between the bed and the wall, and then kicked a few things into the closet.

So, today, I had a near death experience as I attempted to resolve this problem once and for all!

I figure, no wait...I HOPE that I am not the only one who experiences this.  I have a few super anal OCD friends who are going to cringe as they read the following depiction of my day, but this has to be shared.  We, as moms of young hoarders, need to lean on one another as we attempt to navigate this tretcherous journey.

There has certainly been NO NAPPING for all the poor little dust bunnies and old stuffed animals in the closet.  They have not had any peace and darkness in quite some time, because the doors simply would not close because of the avalanche that she called 'order.'  :)
As I delved into the depths of this scary kingdom, I found some pretty alarming things.
I thought it was bad enough when I found a sandwich bag of easter candy.  Wow, that was HOW many months ago?
Yep, thought that was shameful until I found the bag of CHRISTMAS candy behind that!  OMG.  Seriously?
Bags of crumpled papers?  Check!
Old socks and underwear that don't fit anymore thrown in the floor?  Check!
FOUR Build a Bear boxes?  Check!
THREE little paper cars from Cheeburger Cheeburger?  Check!
Last year's school notebooks, random assignments and a coloring book with no uncolored pages?  CHECK, CHECK, CHECK!
Next I dove into the miscellaneous items all over the floor that formed their own sort of 'carpet.'  I found used tissues behind the bed.  I found a sandwich bag with wadded up tissue paper in it.  I found a small shopping bag with tiny pebbles in it.  I found a bowl with acorns in it.  I unearthed enough small beads to make necklaces for her entire class. 

At this point, I had muttered to myself more than once, "My daughter is DISGUSTING!"  I was nearing the point of mental breakdown, and just could not rationalize HOW this had happened.  I found empty bags, tiny scraps of fabric, tiny scraps of paper...tiny scraps of fabric stuck to tiny scraps of tiny paper.  I found shopping bags with nothing but a receipt in them, folded up tidily in her closet.  Why?  Why, I beg of you?  Why do we keep the box something came in, and then shove it under the bed?  What purpose could this possibly serve? And the tiny scraps of fabric.  Not even large enough for a tiny mouse outfit...WHY?  WHYYYYYYYY??????

I wanted to just run away from home.  I carried two full trashbags of trash, a large box of trash, three small boxes of trash....one and a half trash bags full of barbies, a trash bag full of baby dolls and stuffed animals (some naked, some ragged, some I'm not even sure where they came from...perhaps they are multiplying in there, I'm not sure)

After approximately one hundred trips up and down the steps and a good cardio workout, I pulled out the ole vacuum cleaner.  I allowed myself to drift far, far away inside of my mind as I vacuumed.  Suddenly I was surrounded by the sound of winning slot machines.  I could just hear the change crash into that basin, CHING,CHING, CHING, CHING, CHIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!  Suddenly, though, my Calgon moment was over.  I realized that those sounds were not the sound of (in the words of Charlie Sheen) 'Winning'...Rather it was the sound of my vacuum begging for mercy as it tried to grind tiny beads, random pieces of yarn and a few quarters into a fine powder.  I tilted the beast to one side and watched as it puked out a wad of carpet fuzz and several rejected pieces of shrapnel. 

When I was finally done, I looked around and marveled at my accomplishment.  I filled one full extra large super duper rolling trash receptacle...but I was done!

I finished with just enough time to eat a small snack, wipe some of the greasy sheen from my face and go to school and pickup my cute little hoarder.  I told her nothing about my day as we got home.  I let it be a surprise.  I heard the gasp from downstairs when she entered her room to remove the germ infested school clothes she was wearing. 

My high was quickly hampered by the buzz-kill that flowed from 6's mouth.  This would be my son, 6, the artist formerly known as 5.  He just had a birthday.  Stick with me here, would ya? 
I heard 6 pouting from the bathroom upstairs. and was flabbergasted.  It's a common-known fact in our house that 10's room is, at any given time, very similar to that of a war-zone.  6...well his isn't usually too terrible.  I mean, I can always make out the fact that he has carpet, and most of the time his drawers close on his dresser.  Oh, and the closet doors are always able to shut. 

He promptly reported from the bathroom, tears in his eyes, "Mom likes you better than me!  She cleaned your room and not mine!"

Seriously?  I had just come back from the jaws of death, felt the claws of Satan's grip on the back of my neck....and he thinks it was out of FAVORITISM? 

OMG.  I was quick to correct him, explaining that I nearly met my maker cleaning 10's room, and simply had no time left in the day to move on to his.

What does this mean, you ask?  It means that tomorrow...Yep, you guessed it.  I'm cleaning HIS room! 

Sigh.  I thought everyone said when you got all your kids into school, you had so much time for other things like shopping, pedicures and soaking in the tub all day.  Clearly I am doing something wrong?  Do these people have maids or something?  Are their kids really robots? 

THIS IS WHAT I WAS PROMISED:





THIS IS WHAT I RECEIVED:





Now, I'm gonna sit in front of the television until I see one of those commercials with an attorney with a patch on his eye promising to help me because I have been wronged.  :)

BRAVE: Following the Wisps

So.

Over the weekend, I’ve been thinking about how funny life can be.  It’s ironic, isn’t it, that sometimes it takes a little wake up call to really smack you upside the head and make you really stop and think.  Each of us has undoubtedly had enough crap happen in our lives that we should just be able to be HAPPY and THANKFUL without the repeated need for said wakeup call….

But we aren’t! 

Ugh.  No matter what your story is, somehow we all are guilty of occasionally getting stuck in the blah blah blah of life, and totally lose sight of what’s truly important.  Then….

WHACK! 

Wake up call, Party of 1.  Your table is now available.

I told you last week about the death of a classmate of  my husband’s, and how it really made me think about life, death and just enjoying my days rather than worrying about things I cannot change anyway.  This epiphany (one I have had numerous times before, but always fall back into the same ole slump) carried into my weekend.  A weekend that was filled with laughter, friends and family as we celebrated my birthday, my son’s birthday, and silently remembered where we were 11 years ago on August 10^th as we were thrown into a whirlwind when our son died unexpectedly.

So, here I am on Monday, feeling revived emotionally after having a great weekend….and I wanted to share a little something with you. 

How many of you watched the new Disney Pixar film Brave with your kids this summer?  Great, right? 

Independent, stubborn Merida, a fiery red-headed princess, battles her parents through the whole movie for her independence and the right to choose her own suitor.

Perhaps my favorite part, though, was not so much the ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ approach Merida took at defending her own rights.  While that is very important, and a good lesson for young girls; it wasn’t the part that touched me the most.  What I immediately noticed in the movie, and what many others probably didn’t even bat an eye at…were the wisps.

Huh?  No, I didn’t just have a cat walk across my keyboard and type jibberish!  If you recall, in the beginning of the movie, a young Merida was practicing with a new bow and arrow and had to run off into the forest to retrieve an arrow.  There, she encountered a small glowing orb that led her further into the forest.  She followed this orb, referred to as a wisp, and it essentially led her to safety as her father was attacked by a bear.  When she tells her mother about the wisps, she learns that folklore says that the wisps are meant to lead you to your destiny.

Throughout the movie, she comes to rely on the wisps , faithfully following them when they appear. 

Watch a clip of the movie here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M71lI-0NB8

This really resonated with me.  It occurred to me that if it were this easy in real life to follow our destiny, to see the path chosen for us, we would ALL be so much more likely to arrive at our proper destination!  Wouldn’t we?

I mean, if God gave us little blue orbs when we were in need, and all we had to do was follow them through the forest….seriously, that would be AWESOME!

Like Merida, we all have our own struggles.  We have times when all of the lights go out, and we are left alone in the dark.  We cry, because we are so scared, hurt and alone.  We feel so abandoned, so wrought with pain, and it feels impossible to ever find a way out of that darkness.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a painful divorce, the death of a spouse, child or parent, a battle with cancer or the loss of a job…we all have been there, or will find ourselves there at some point.  How cool would it be for God to just toss us a few wisps to lead us out?  Like Hansel and Gretel and the bread crumbs?

Well….

What if He is doing just that, but we don’t see it?  Sending little blue orbs is a little TOOOOO easy, and we all know He wants us to earn it.  But, what if He was speaking directly to your heart, but you were too caught up in your own plan to hear His?  What if He were offering you little signs, little nudges, little sparks inside of your soul to encourage you to get up and follow Him…and the only catch was that you had to be observant enough to catch on, and courageous enough to follow Him?

You see, that’s the thing.  Sometimes His route is different than the one we had planned.  So when we run into a brick wall following our own path and doing our own thang, we get pissed, right?  We can’t find a solution, we can’t seem to get over the hurdle, and we are too stubborn to turn around and start over.  So we pout.  We cuss.  We scream, we cry, and we get downright ugly.  The whole time, He is there, and undoubtedly laughing at the hissy fit that we throw because we  absolutely refuse to admit defeat. 

All the while, He is standing there holding the map with the big giant X on it that marks the correct spot.  He has the plan, He knows how we can get there, and He has the best route all mapped out.  We have to earn it, though.   We have to be patient enough to wait for Him to offer the solution, and then brave enough to actually follow Him despite the fact that His route doesn’t match the one that was in our head. 

He DOES, indeed give us wisps…they just aren’t little blue lights that light the way.  Instead, they are gentle nudges that many people blame on coincidence.  Those little things that happen in life, the ones that make you say, “Holy Cow!  I can’t believe the irony in that!”  Yep. What if it wasn’t irony at all?  What if it was YOUR wisp? 

If you could get out your decoder ring, put on your thinking cap and stop for a minute and reassess everything you thought was coincidence and happened by chance….perhaps you could find the X that marked the spot in your own life before God had to whack you upside the skull with yet another wake up call!

Believe me, I know it isn’t easy.  Sometimes He coaxes you out of your comfort zone.  Sometimes He makes you ride with the windows down, hair blowing in your face and getting caught in your lipgloss and He turns up the radio so loud that you can’t stand it.  He creates a diversion so that you don’t get all caught up in the fact that He is driving so erratically that your seatbelt is no consolation, because you certainly do NOT feel safe.  Suddenly, WHAM, He slams on the brakes.  You look around, realizing you are totally NOT where you expected to be.  Nothing looks familiar, this was not the picture you painted in your head, and you are thinking this guy is nuts because surely He has you confused with someone down the street and this is all just a honest mixup.   Electing to NEVER get out of the car, you stay there, buckled up and door locked.  “Uh, uuuuuh.  No way, I’m not getting out.’  You declare.  Refusing to take no for an answer, He calmly gets out and walks around to your side of the car.  He opens your door, and puts out His loving hand.  The look in His eyes is enough to make you melt, and you suddenly feel more at ease. The human part of you wants to think this is stupid, and you are grasping at straws.  It is completely irrational to trust someone you don’t technically know, and surely you must have had a momentary lack in judgment for thinking any of this made sense.  The spiritual part of you, though, knows deep within your heart that this is EXACTLY what you should be doing, but you have to be brave enough to pull the trigger. 

DAMN!  Which one do you listen to? 

If you can just be courageous enough to put your hand in His, and allow Him to lead you….if you can just take off that safety belt that you think is protecting you, and trust that He only has your best intentions in mind….AAAAAND He did NOT confuse you with the person down the street with a similar last name….

You will undoubtedly wind up RIGHT where you needed to be.  Even if it isn’t where you THOUGHT you needed to be!

This, my friends, is the whole point.  He’s not just gonna hand you a golden pass for a free ride to happiness and glory.  You have to work for it!  Like everything else, if you don’t earn it, you don’t fully appreciate it. 

So, if you haven’t seen it yet, go watch Brave.  Let your mind wander enough to consider that maybe we ALL get wisps when we need them most…we just have to LEARN to see them, because ours are a little more discreet than Merida’s.  Then, when you find yourself in the car with that crazy guy driving, and you are scared to death…

Take a deep breath, and TRUST THE JOURNEY.  He’s got this…if you’ll just let Him drive!

Life's Too Short...Live It Up!

You know all that crap you keep saying you’re going to do, but don’t?

Yeah, I mean like the important stuff.  Not cleaning out the closets, or making a donation box, or recycling.  I know we ALL have that stuff. 

I’m talking about the stuff that actually matters.  Like taking your kids on a date.  Or finally finding time to do something for yourself, because you always do everything for everyone else. 

Or how about the things like actually chasing that dream you have, the one you don’t really tell people about because you are afraid they will laugh at you?  Yep, you have one, don’t you?  Why do we do that?  What in the heck are we waiting for?

We all get so caught up in the stuff we don’t like:  work, school, car payments, mortgages…we get all balled up in that wad of yarn that we can’t even find the end to it anymore.  So we give up, stay there, and everyday becomes Groundhog Day!  Before we know it, 3 years have passed, and we are still stuck in grandma’s box of knitting stuff, saying that someday we are going to make a sweater!

TODAY IS THE DAY PEOPLE!  MAKE THE DAMN SWEATER!

Ugh.  I’m not just preaching to YOU, here.  I’m talking to  myself, too.  I actually do that a lot, much to the dismay of onlookers.  Thankfully, the voices in my head are loud enough to distract me from looking at my surroundings and seeing the looks on their faces as I carry on my conversations.  J

Last  night I couldn’t sleep.  I have had this happen in the past, and I would lay there and eventually have an overwhelming feeling that I should get up.  Upon doing so, I would always turn on the television to find that some show was on that seemed to mysteriously have some underlying tone that answered a question I had been having, or revealed just what I had been needing to hear.  Coincidence I’m sure, right?  Certainly not a God thing…couldn’t be!  J

So, last night, I was figuring this was one of THOSE things again.  I still have yet to figure out why God thinks a sleep-deprived me is a benefit to anyone!  I already live on coffee, and I’m still teetering on the edge of what some call sanity and others call grounds for being committed.  Nonetheless, I decided to go ahead and get up.  I stumbled downstairs and rather than turn on the idiot box, I picked up my phone.   I have no idea, truthfully, what I thought I would learn from Facebook at 4 am, but I’ll just blame it on fatigue and move on.

Within minutes I learned that a classmate and high school friend of my husband’s had died.  35 years old.  All of this (and my lack of sleep) got me thinking about how short life truly is.  If I died tomorrow, what regrets would I have?  What would I be pissed at myself about for not doing? 

I can tell you one thing.  I am pretty happy about some changes I have made in my life in the past year or so.  I have much less to be mad at myself about in the event that God decides He needs a nutbag in Heaven!

Have you?

We all go through this mental game when something happens like this.  We tell ourselves we will live life to the fullest.  We try our best to live like that Tim McGraw song, “Live Like You Were Dyin.”

For a while…

Inevitably, we all go back to taking things for granted, selling ourselves short and putting off happiness until tomorrow.

We have to stop.  If you died tomorrow, what would you be mad at yourself for?

WHY WAIT?  Why take a chance?

Personally, I have found myself surrounded by friends again.  Real friends.  Some old, some new… They have my back.  They tell me the truth, not just what I want to hear.  They tell me I have broccoli in my teeth.  They laugh at me when I look stupid.  And when I need them, they are there. 

That wasn’t the case a couple of years ago.  Like many people thrust into grown up-hood, suddenly we find ourselves surrounded by acquaintances and coworkers, but no real, true friends.  Gone are the days of high school when we were flooded with BFF’s and passing notes.   Stop waiting for good friends to find you!  Go find them yourself.  And if you can’t find them, make new ones.   What good is life if, at the end of the day, you’re staring at your spouse saying, “Oh, goody.  It’s you again.  My one and only friend.”  Everyone needs a confidant.  Everyone needs someone to make them laugh. 

I finally stopped worrying so much about what other people thought of me, too.  I mean, why was I trying so hard to hold back my inner dork just to fit in?  I’m goofy.  I’m funny.  I’m silly.  I make funny faces when I tell a story, I talk with my hands, and that’s just the way it is.  I am honest, I am trustworthy, and I am loyal, too.  If you like that, cool.  If not, that’s okay.  But whether you are a family member, or a so-called friend, or my mailman….I’m not going to hold back my inner me anymore.  This is who I am.  Take it or leave it.  That’s up to you.

Finally, I got off my butt and finished the thing that was always gnawing at me.  For 10 years, I had a deep-seeded guilt.  I was so plagued by it that it would creep up on me at night, and tap me on the shoulder.  We all have that.   That ‘thing’ we are going to do, or say, or be….that thing that we put off.  We’re waiting for more money to make it happen.  Or someone to support us while we do it.  Or someone to give us just the boost we need to make us feel like we CAN do it.  Or, we’re waiting until we can no longer ignore it.  Mine was a book.  What’s yours?

Figure out why you are waiting.  Be honest with yourself, and stop putting it in the back drawer of that file cabinet in your mind.  Pull it out of the folder, look at it, and blow the dust off of that sucker.  Then stick it on the refrigerator in your mind where you can see it.  AND MAKE IT HAPPEN.

Because, seriously, life really IS short.  Look at how big your kids are already.  Or how long you’ve been out of high school.  Or how old your parents are getting….

Doesn’t seem like it’s been THAT long, does it?  But it has.  If something happens to you tomorrow…what are you gonna be mad at yourself about? 

Now get up and MARK THAT OFF THE LIST!

J

You can have another cup of coffee first, though.  Let’s not be ridiculous about this!

How The Gap Ruined My Life

Well, it’s official.  I’m old. 

It’s not that I didn’t know it was coming, or feel it staring at the back of my head as I ran full speed away from it….but somehow, I’m still shocked that it’s caught up to me.  I guess, up until now, I somehow thought all of that zumba would pay off and increase my endurance enough that it would buy me a grace period or something.

Sadly, though,  I’ve found myself turning into my mother.  It doesn’t appear to be going away anytime soon, either.

I can remember watching her when she was about the age I am now.  I thought she was as old as dirt, DIRT people!  The only difference between she and I is that when SHE was my age, she had a baby (there goes that gag reflex again, I gotta get that thing checked out!). 

I can remember listening to her as she rambled incessantly about things that didn’t seem to apply to MY life at all, and I thought surely she had become completely senile. 

I can also distinctly remember her going to her 20^th class reunion, and thinking death must be imminent.  How the Hell can ANYONE live 20 years past graduation age?  I mean, GAWD, that’s 38! 

Now, here I am, staring at the big ole 36 that’s about to crash into my windshield like a tire that flew off of a semi up ahead.  You can see that sucker comin, but you can’t seem to hit the median fast enough to avoid it.

CRAP! 

It all started innocently enough.  10 and I were at Target, walking past the girl’s department, and something caught my eye.  I stopped in my tracks, because 10 said something that made my jaw drop to the floor, and I didn’t want to step on and lose a tooth.  That’s all I need to make me feel young is dentures, too!

We saw these shorts that can only be referred to as absolutely damn ridiculous…and 10 says, “Ohhhhhh, mooooooom….those are SOOOOOOOO totally cuuuuuuuute!”  First of all, she was totally valley girl as she spouted this non-sense out her cute little freckly face.  (She has no idea what valley girl means, by the way, which makes it even more fun to tell her that’s what she is!)

THIS is what we saw:

YES, that’s right, the modern version of Umbro shorts over biker shorts.  Can you say, 1989?  OMG, I wore so many pairs of these hideous things through Jr High school….

WHAT were we thinking?  Neon colored slick athletic shorts over the top of black biker shorts that made the corduroy swish sound when you walked.  Was there a purpose to this?  Were we exercising?  Were we getting physical, Olivia Newton John?

I’m pretty sure the only thing we actually accomplished with this style was getting seam-shaped grooves notched into our lower extremities from the skin-tight nature of those ridiculous biker shorts. 

So, I buried these feelings about our Target adventure deep, deep down inside.  I figured if I just hid them, they would go away.  Inside of my heart, though, I could feel the ‘mom-ness’ brewing.  It was bubbling under the lid like my mom’s old pressure cooker, and I knew eventually that sucker was gonna blow. 

I’ve got 8 days of 35 left, and I’m clinging to them like I cling to the last few pieces of chocolate when I have PMS.  Someone could lose an appendage if they make an unauthorized movement, people.

As if it weren’t bad enough already that at 35, I could no longer be ‘early thirties.’  What kind of crap is that, anyway?  MID thirties.  MID…..what is that, anyway?  It only goes with bad things. 

MID life crisis (can you say Camaro and a comb-over?)

MIDriff-baring shirts (I could cause blindness if I tried this after 3 kids) 

MIDterm….(okay, maybe that one wouldn’t be SO bad now.)

Who signed me up for this?  This is CRAP!

Here I am, clinging to my mid-ness, before I change categories again and start the slide toward 40.  I’ve got a few more days of mid before I tumble to mid-to-late….something that makes me want to choke someone.  I started this day with a cup of coffee on the porch swing, and then it happened.  I opened my email.  What was inside was nothing short of absolutely inappropriate. 

I scrolled right past the stuff that was clearly junk:

MOLE REMOVAL (nope.  No hairy witch moles yet.  Maybe next year)

SUBSTANCE ABUSE COUNSELING ( not yet….not yet.  But these birthdays could have me there soon)

CHRISTIAN MINGLE (hmmm….one pain in the butt is enough.  I don’t need ANOTHER man!)

SENIORPEOPLEMEET.COM?  Are you JOKING me with this?  OMG

And then, there it was.  The one that pushed me all the way to the nursing home. 

Gap:  The new ankle zip legging jean

Surely I read that wrong.  Of course, I clicked on this one.  What I saw inside made my butt pucker. 

FINE PRINT:

The following photos are not for the faint of heart.  They are not for those who are teetering on the edge of their youth, those who are subject to depression, or those who are on cardiac medications.  If you take an MAOI Inhibitor, consult with a physician before continuing.

Note the rolling.  These do not appear to cut off circulation to the feet, or leave 1 inch deep dents in the ankles..but they are still rolled.  Wow

But then, there it was.  When I thought it couldn’t get any worse…it did.  The HORROR!!!!!!

An entire page of jeans with ANKLE ZIPPERS! 

Leg warmers were bad enough.  Then I saw a pair of stretch pants with stirrups at the foot at the mall and had heart palpitations.  The off-the-shoulder shirts have been creeping there way back, and Lamaze breathing seemed to get me through that.  Neon colored high top tennies….okay, I’m alright with that. 

But this?  THIS is a crime against humanity.  This is like when the boot cut jean emerged and my mom called them bell bottoms.  This is making my coffee curdle. 

Yep.  It’s happened.  I’ve reached that pivotal moment in life where the ridiculous nonsense you wore as a teenager comes BACK in style.  That point where you find yourself telling your child that you wish you had just kept all of your old clothes because she could just wear them NOW and be cool.  Here I am, world.  Here I am.  I am officially the mom who has watched her youth come full circle and bite her right in the butt! 

Oh joyous day, and just in time for my birthday. 

Someone shoot me.  For my birthday, I’ve turned into my flippin mother.  What’s next?  Menopause?

I’m gonna go write my eulogy…just in case.  And now I’m scared of my email.  Awesome.  Irrational fears.  Doesn’t that come right before dementia?

WIN A FREE BOOK!! (or possibly be scarred for life)

So, we've all seen the cute little e cards that are all over Pinterest and Facebook, right?  They all have a clever quote on them, along with a picture of a woman sitting at a table, or two kids whispering to each other, or a man in a suit....

They make us laugh, and often say exactly what we are thinking but could never say out loud.  So, what do we do?  We copy them and forward them to people, or pin them.  Somehow, THAT is different than saying the actual quote with our own mouths, right?

Well, I just went online to try to find such a cute little e card as the photo accompaniment for this blog post.  Apparently, I should have been more specific when I googled what I was looking for. 

'Looking for new friends' under 'images' on google brings up, um, well, some interesting images indeed.  WOWZA!  If you think I'm kidding, go do it.  I dare you! 

Here are just a sampling of what came up:

this girl is clearly looking for a friend to keep her out of trouble, right?

Then there's this guyirly person.....HeShe is looking for someone to put the lotion in the basket.


And, finally, these two.  I'm confident they are only looking for someone to play Monopoly with.

Wow. 

Anywhoooo, I was simply going to share with you a LIMITED TIME offer to get your grubby hands on a FREE copy of my new release, 'Sit Down, Shut Up and Let Go!'

If you aren't already familiar with it...SHAME ON YOU!  No, seriously, you can go to sitdownshutupletgo.com to get the lowdown. 

Then, you can see how marvelous it is, and you will absolutely want to get a copy!  Then, this girl can hook you up!

Simply go to the Official Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sit-Down-Shut-Up-and-Let-GoA-Guide-to-Losing-Control/320554454696863

Like the page, and find my post from today, Thursday, August 2.  Game rules are detailed there.  Whoever refers the most friends WINS A FREE COPY!  That's an $18 value, people!  Game ends Sunday night at midnight, so don't wait!

Stop dilly-dallying and go check it out NOW!  Okay, I'll give you 5 minutes to google 'Looking for new friends' first.  But then, seriously, go check it out! 

Good luck!