runnin’ down a dream

This post was written on what I think was a Friday, but I know it was the 3rd day in the month of February in the year of 2012.

I have issues (say it isn’t SO).

Yup, have ‘em and always have.

I have also always been able to learn how to do something by reading everything I can on the subject and then DOING it. Sometimes doing it over and over until I get good at it.

I did it when I wanted to learn to do nails (I actually got so pissed that I went to cosmetology school to get good at that) and I did it when I wanted to learn how to design websites (I learn something new about that and practice every day).

I can safely and shamelessly say that I pretty much rock at doing both.

I AM going to learn how to take nice photos. I DO NOT want to make a living at it, I just want to take nice pix of my kids and my dogs and pumpkins or whatever the hell strikes my fancy.

Watch me go, més Bébés

basket case

This post was written on what I think was a Saturday, but I know it was the 21st day in the month of January in the year of 2012.

I just told BigD that if I could learn how to mix chemicals that can change the color and shape of a person’s hair I should be able to learn how to take good pictures. I would think that learning how to use a new program would also fall into that category.

Apparently those concepts don’t apply to old brains.

But I am going to byGod keep trying.

I’ve recently downloaded a trial version of Lightroom, as I understand that it’s the bees knees for photographers.

[ ... ]

It makes my head hurt.

I don’t want to take pictures professionally. I don’t want to make money off my photography. I want to take nice photos for myself and my kids.

I guess this is one of those posts where I refer to my word of the year and say that I believe in myself and that I know I can do this.

Wait! There’s more! →

as is

This post was written on what I think was a Wednesday, but I know it was the 18th day in the month of January in the year of 2012.

The majority of the blogs I read for fun are written by women at least ten years younger than I am. Shit, since I am now a venerated fifty years old (I honestly get nauseous ever time I type/say that) I would hazard a guess that most of them are actually TWENTY years younger than me. There just aren’t a LOT of bloggers out there my age that write about subjects that I am remotely interested in.

If you are and you do, I stand corrected.

One of the biggest things that I have a hard time wrapping my head around the mothers who treat their children as though they’re fragile little organisms that must be protected from everything from the common cold bug to the “f” word to … well, just about everything.

Kids are resilient little buggers and I state that from first hand knowledge. I had some pretty unpleasant things said to and about me as a child and had some downright evil shit DONE to me. I’m talking the kind of shit the people spend time in jail for, the kind of shit that gets their asses beat in the prison showers.

But I digress.

In spite of the shit that I endured as a child I managed to grow up and become not only a productive member of society (well, I WAS productive, I’ve slacked off just recently ); I have managed to maintain a pretty strong and secure marriage for 25 years and BigD and I have managed to raise two kids to functioning, pretty well adjusted adults.

What’s more, despite having plenty of googlies from my past to blame them on, I don’t have much on the way of drinking, drugging, gambling, eating or spending problems.

Honestly, I am the most normal crazy person I know (she said, patting herself on the back). If I could figure out how I managed to get out of that mess with the majority of my wits intact, I’d copyright – or trademark or whatever – the concept and make a bazillion bucks. I don’t KNOW why I’m not a crazy person.

I DO know however why my kids are as awesome as they are. I and their father didn’t try to shield them from everything that came down the pike, whether it was a cold bug or a swear word. When they were born we took responsibility for having them and gave up some of our freedoms, but not ALL of them.

We didn’t instill them with a false sense of privilege or entitlement and made sure that they learned respect and responsibility.

We didn’t buy them everything they wanted. We taught them that sometimes life wasn’t fair and that the good guy didn’t always win. We taught them that winning wasn’t everything.

They got yelled at and we spanked them up until they were too big to spank. They got their fingers smacked when they touched something they should have and they got their asses paddled for more serious infractions. But they were never spanked in anger and they never walked away from a punishment, whether it was a spanking or a grounding, without the reassurance that we loved them more than anything in the world.

I think my generation started this whole “protecting” their kids bullshit and it has morphed out of control to the point where our children and grandchildren have have no care or concern for anyone but themselves and their wants.

Feh …

hesitating

This post was written on what I think was a Tuesday, but I know it was the 17th day in the month of January in the year of 2012.

No, I haven’t forgotten about the blog and fallen off the face of the earth again – I’ve been BUSY.

Okay, maybe not so busy, maybe distracted is a better word.

No?

Okay, how about lazy? Why don’t we just call me lazy and call a fish a fish.

There, got that out of the way.

So … what HAVE been doing.

Well, I’ve been pretty crafty.

I finished my rain boots:

Rain Boots

I didn’t make these for looks, just so you know. I am not the kind of woman that dresses in the latest “coolness” just to go to the mall.

These might better be called mud boots or lake boots because as you know, the back yard turns into “Little Lake Mud” in the spring and I really do get a lot of use out of them. I imagine those pretty bows will be shot to shit by the time Spring is over. But I’ll be able to enjoy their prettiness until then.

OH! Speaking of malls, though I’d rather not in order to keep my blood pressure at a manageable level. Last year for Christmas, BigD got me a “Love’s Embrace” ring from Kay Jewelers to match the necklace I’d gotten the year before.

In August the big, center diamond fell out. I took the ring in to have it repaired.

In November, one of the smaller diamonds fell out. I took it in to have it repaired.

In December another smaller diamond fell out. I took it in to have it repaired.

Last week I went to pick it up and after being treated like I had leprosy by the salesman, I realized that:

I was really pissed off.
I was never going to purchase another piece of jewelry from Kay Jewelers
Somebody at corporate needed to know what was going one

When I got home I fired off a a fairly reasonable email to Kay Jewelers, explaining the situation. As of this afternoon, it’s been resolved as they’re going to replace the ring, but I’m still pissed off and I’m will NEVER purchase another piece of jewelry from them.

While the two managers I spoke to repeated “I’m sorry for your experience” over and over and over, I didn’t feel a lot of sincerity. Especially considering that every time they apologized it was followed by an excuse:

“Sometimes a prong will catch on a piece of material, loosening, then causing the stone to fall out.”

“This ring is made of sterling silver, which doesn’t really hold stones well.”

“I see that the ring had to be re-sized by two sizes, it should have been special order to start with.”

Wow, really? You’re really blaming the person who purchased the ring for shoddy original workmanship and/or failure to point the above out BEFORE the ring was purchased?

Gah …

There is little I dislike more than smarmy, condescending apologies.

Well THERE! Now that I’ve got that out, I feel so much better.

I’ve also been fooling with the camera a bit more:

: Windchime

: Leaf

: Me

: Bella

: Rain Boots

Obviously I am better with animals and inanimate objects than I am with people – especially myself. It seems as though I am thoroughly un-photogenic. Of course, that’s nothing new to me, I think there might be maybe a dozen photos of me taken over the past 30 years that I actually like, so … I don’t know that it’s my photography skills.

Okay, I am off …

trying to make me

This post was written on what I think was a Thursday, but I know it was the 5th day in the month of January in the year of 2012.

Gah … this whole first week of January is just a royal pain in my ass. I get so tired of being asked about what resolutions I’ve made. Like it’s something I HAVE to do and woe to me if I don’t make some choices that are meant to change my life for the better.

Feh …

Winter is no time to be making ANY kind of life-changing decisions. It is the MIDDLE of what is obviously the nastiest part of the year and people are disgusted with everything about themselves and their lives. They can’t stand their own reflection in a mirror, much less the sight of their spouses lolling in front of the television watching EVERY-FUCKING-BOWL-GAME that’s being played. If they have at-home kids, they want to just stuff ‘em in a closet and don a set of sound-muffling earphones. The screen their phone calls because they don’t want to talk – to anybody. Their bodies are the color and consistency of potatoes. Oh, not firm, fresh potatoes, but sloppy white mashed potatoes. All people want to do this time of year is crawl under the warm covers of their beds with a heating pad and a book.

Just me?

Whatever.

Still a bad time.

We are setting ourselves up to fail and my theory is backed up by the experts (don’t believe me? Do a Google for new years resolution failure) and most of us do it before the second week of January.

Sorry to harsh your New Year’s mellow.