“I’ll take my advice from Jack.
You take yours from Oprah.”

The tweet I shared with @BlogAtHomeMom.

See, I caught a tweet supposedly from Oprah about how she was so busy extracting ticks from her dog..? I mean.. does anyone believe she is tick-harvesting (or tweeting for that matter or both at the same time? Um no.)

Okay I’m going to out myself. I don’t love Oprah. Wow.. how nice that feels. It’s true and now that I’ve said it… I feel so light and airy… (did someone faht?)

And while I’m at it can I rant that I really detest that she takes fabulous books and ‘Oprah-fies’ them?? Barbara Kingsolver, I mean seriously my all time favorite author, from like EONS before she vomited out her book club rating. Oh Pa-lease.

Okay you’re saying wait, what’s the problem with the whole Oprah-licking of my books? Isn’t it great? She finds books and then the whole world gets to read them… and maybe they wouldn’t have read them otherwise? —Yeah great.

Except for the sheep mentality problem.

You heard me right. What ever happened to talking to a friend about a recent book they stayed up all night reading? —Or oh my gosh… GOING to the library and BROWSING {…okay okay… so I Browse via my online library search tool too..whatevs..you know what I mean!} What shall I wear today? I’ll just go ask Oprah, she’ll tell me. What shall I have for breakfast today.. HOORAY! Oprah knows the perfect thing. Good thing she got paid to tell me about it! And thinking. On my own? Heck no. That’s what Oprah’s there for..she thinks FOR me!

Oh and shall we start in about Dr. Phil? No I didn’t think so.

At this point in my twitter conversation.. a few others jumped in with “Martha probably doesn’t even iron those D*mn sheets herself!” {Not a direct quote, but close.}

And I worried it’s possible they all think I’m like a complete pop culture-a-phobe. And while I beg my hubby on a weekly basis to release me from the vow “thou shalt always watch watever sitcom the spouse is in love with because there is only one couch in this house” I would be overjoyed and blessed to never have to watch another reality show… {whoops new rant there…}

I feel the need to share with my peeps the fact that I’ve seen all 1400 seasons of 24 with Jack Bauer.

Favorite Quote of this season: “Not TODAY.” ~~I find I need to say it about 3 times a day in fact..

So my bloggy friends:

OPRAH Vs JACK: Who’s YOUR Guru?(online surveys)

photo credits:Aubele AND Alan Light

I often see bloggers who write about feeling guilty for not posting.

I don’t feel that kind of guilt.

I have neglected my personal blog for a few weeks. But I have been on a big internet ride lately. Twitter has sucked me in.
MommyGossip-GNO has taken off …..and wow?

A great idea about 2 weeks ago… Became a full fledged fundraiser this week. $1400 was raised for FeedingAmerica.org. More than 10 people donated auction items and door prizes, and over 50 people donated cash. I was still getting requests to donate items DURING the twitter #GNO event on Tuesday night! I have truly met some amazing, caring, giving people.

So instead of guilt I give you forgiveness.

Have you read this book?
The author describes a current day husband and wife who are struggling with their relationship. He uses the story of Abigail and Nabal from 1 Samuel in the Bible, to help explain why forgiveness is important for YOU the reader.

Okay. Now to explain.

A few posts down (I intend to remove the post so look now) I wrote about a current financial frustration we are dealing with. And my internet pals came out of the woodwork to wish me better luck and some even have been doing a search themselves to help with the problem! (see I told you, amazing people.)

Not that I didn’t want some sympathy and help even. It’s just that, after writing and then answering some questions from folks about our situation. I began to feel really sick about it all.

See.

My husband has a terrific job. He makes plenty of money to cover our very normal lifestyle. Both of us have college degrees and I am confident should we go under a certain point financially I will simply go out and get a job and the problem will literally be solved. My children are healthy (yes I’m knocking on wood). My husband loves me very much, he tells me every day. I have a gigantic extended family who I am also confident would help us out in any way they could.

An aside: While we lived in NYC I often walked around homeless people, I sometimes gave change sometimes not. I often thought, what if that were me? But I could never really imagine it, because I knew if I were ever so down and out I could always call 2 sets of parents, 9 siblings, and over 60 cousins. Talk about a safety net.

Back to my point.

There is an unbelievable amount of people out there who are so much worse off than we are. Yes I have gripes and complaints and even fears. But I am safe. And warm. And well fed. And well loved. And this Thanksgiving, I am grateful for my home.

The worst of it– is when asked point blank. “Are you guys going to be okay?” I realized I had really screwed up. My biggest fear with the whole can’t sell our house?
What if we won’t be able to fully fund our 401K next year? Isn’t that awful?

Please forgive me.

We just found out our little town here sponsors an ‘adopt a family’ at Christmas time. I am so on board. Are you?

This one’s a rant.

Please scroll down for a happy posting.
~~~~~~~~~~

We had renters for the house. They fell through. Two weeks ago.

We had renters for the house. Yesterday. Today they fell through. Hubby was just about to purchase a flight to head back there to sign papers and do a walk thru. Grateful he didn’t at least.

We just got notice that our home owner’s insurance was CANCELLED. What? Can they do that? Oh…From 2 months ago? How? Why?

And now. It will cost ASTRONOMICAL to get it reinstated. Great. Thanks. On top of large mortgage for home we are NOT living in.

The home we are currently renting is great. And that’s nice. But. Bankruptcy is looming.

Okay. I can go out and get a job first. Thanks for reminding me. Counting blessings, I am.

And now. I’m going to go eat THIS. Hubby was out of town yesterday and I asked begged him to please bring home something yummy. ANYthing I didn’t have to make myself. I know. All those yummy recipes…but, when you are depressed you need THIS.

Are YOU playing along for PSF?

Because Oh My Gosh. Life is crazy right now and maybe a list will keep me sane…

1. My foot hurts, not too bad, just enough. (Thanks ya’ll for caring!) But believe me I’m grateful I have feet!
2. Our sprinkler system blew up over the weekend. How grateful I am that we have water at all, right? I live in a mountain desert, it can be priceless sometimes..
3. My computer also blew up over the weekend. And *maybe* we didn’t lose the photos…still hoping… And now I am grateful for backup hard-drives. (I intend to use it ALL THE TIME now!)
4. I have to pack. The WHOLE house, in about 3 weeks. And yes, I’m grateful for our stuff. What’s left of it after a rockin’ garage sale.
5. I just got about 20 new orders for bags to make (most for Holiday gifts)! I’m totally grateful to my mother who taught me to sew.
6. We don’t have a place to live…yet, in Oregon. We move in less than 4 weeks. Um…um…help me here? How do I find a happy thought on this one? Wait, I’ve got it. I’m grateful for my church. There is a willing and helpful network waiting for me there, and they are already working on finding us a home! Thanks Mel.
7. We fly out to look for a place to live in less than two weeks. I am grateful for parents who are willing to watch our kids, even though they would rather we didn’t move…
8. And of course last, sometimes least but usually most, I’m grateful for my family. Seth who loves me despite late night cursing at IE6 (oh how I love firefox), and 3 kids all smart, all mine, all the time!
   

I feel much better.

See below for the next Dog Days installment…

I’ve tried. I really, honestly have.
But you suck. (And I quote Moosh: YOU Suh-huh-uck).

You take off Valentine’s Day. And I pay you for it.
You take off Halloween. And I pay you for it.
You take off every school Holiday, add a couple additional days off for good measure, and sure, why not? I pay for those days too.

Oh, and my mostest favorite? You host a WEDDING SHOWER during SassyQueen’s ballet class. However inappropriate, (SQ didn’t even know the showeree) and I paid for that too! And that wonderful required(!) nylon square-cut baseball jacket? The one we received 6 months LATE? The one that hangs to SassyQueen’s shins? (And just could not be any uglier?) The one I requested my money back for? I paid for that (well in advance no less). I’d like to mention the cost of ugly jacket…but it brings me to tears to try to type it. There was also that extra competition, the one she was not required (who forces 7yrolds to compete I’d like to know) to participate in, the one you told us about 5 days in advance and she couldn’t attend since we were out of town with family (aren’t we so evil?). And I’m soooo excited, I just realized you charged me $35 extra last month to NOT participate.

I mean how great is it to pay and pay and pay for all these ‘extras’? Surely it will add up right? I mean we are preparing SassyQueen for a lifetime of taking it in the rear-end, right? Because as everyone knows, dancing is such a great life-long activity. At least till she’s 21? If her knees, ankles and toe knuckles don’t become prematurely arthritic.

Dropping the sarcasm. The recital is in a week. Note: that’s the first week in June? And we’ve just been notified that we WILL pay all of June’s tuition or forfeit the recital. As if anyone is still in town after school gets out, as if there will be real classes after the recital, what’s left to learn?

I’ve talked with 3 other dance studios in the south end of the Salt Lake Valley. And they all agree this is ludicrous.

So my final words to South Mountain Dance Academy (please send them hate mail).

We say good-bye to you.
And so help me, if you charge my credit card one more time… I will sue you.

Sincerely,
Mom who pays a lot, and is sick of it.

Wanna know the best part? SassyQueen doesn’t. love. dancing. It’s my fifthgrader who loves it. SQ loves gymnastics, but wanted to ‘try’ dance this year.

Or has anyone else noticed the disturbing BoobPlant fashion? Sometimes I think I am stuck in extreme mommy-make-over suburbia. What is it with mom’s who have lost all sense of self, and actually think, my boobs=the real me? I hear women talking not if, but when they get their boobplants. I see women with ridiculous sized orbs, teeny-tiny waists, and no hips? Usually they are showing 3/4 of their cleavage so I can only assume they are new, and they are getting their money’s worth by showing them off. (The rest of us who’ve owned ours for 35 years, just don’t feel like everyone else cares to see ‘em!)

And I can talk, having no boobs left after a total of 3 years worth of breastfeeding . But I’m not considering going under the knife, (possible side-effect DEATH) to increase my mammary glands? What exactly is the point? My husband considers me very sexy (he said so just this morning, and I have no reason suspect his motives). Now don’t get me wrong I confess I own a couple-a push ups, but sheesh, not really in the same ball park, eh?

If I had time to figure out how to get a poll on here, I’d ask. Would you or would you not? Are boobplants in your future? I won’t even address the financial in all of this.

Partly the reason I bring this up is because while I would never consider increasing my breast size, the hypocrite in me would consider getting braces or professionally whitening my teeth. Money of course is an issue there too, so maybe when we win the lottery I’ll be walking around with bright shiny new teeth, and boobs hanging down to my knees.

When was the last time you went a whole week without spending ANY money. I’m not talking about 4 hundred years ago when you were dirt poor in college and living off the mold on your roommate’s cheese. I’m talking about RECENTLY. Can you even go one day? Now– automatic-bills don’t count. The kind that creep out of my account and slither into the utility’s bank, on random days without me noticing, not those. I’m talking about internet purchases, you didn’t’ even get out of your chair for those. And how about those ‘quick’ trips to the grocery store for lettuce (it was taco night, can’t go without lettuce now can I? Oh, and sour cream, and ever more soda, and what holiday is coming next…I better stock up on jujuhearts/starburstjellybeans/cinnamonsantas because they don’t sell those year round you know?). And don’t get me started on “I only need one little birthday gift for a kid birthday party so I’ll run into Target quick”, yeah right. $100 later, here I come with 18 bags. I mean WHY do they sell groceries in Target for heaven’s sake?

I honestly celebrate when I make it through ONE STINKIN’ day when I don’t pull out the plastic for ANYTHING. And a week? I guess I can dream, eh?

Today was going to be my spending free day. But then I remembered that I owed my brother-in-law money for shipping some items to me. I got onto paypal, and a few type keys later. $12 spent today, and I didn’t leave my house, I didn’t even get dressed! Maybe tomorrow? Oh, it’s Saturday? Probably not.

I have stayed away from Target all week. But I slipped up and ran into Wal-Mart to return some shoes. Ended up buying some supplies for making more bags and purses. Also I’ve bought a few groceries, but so far have kept it to a minimum. We’re eating a lot of rice and beans this month.

UPDATE:

If you are a glutton, there’s more. A whole week of MEME bashing in fact.

Here, Here, Here and Here.

(Now back to the original post)

Meme as DEFINED by Carissa

I was working on a post about MEMEs when I got ‘tagged’. The post about MEMEs, went something like this:

What the heck is a MEME? What does it stand for? Is it an acronym?

I looked it up. It stands for: Multimedia & Electronic Music Experiments?

Uh…I guess that was the wrong acronym. I tried again.

Multiple EM for Motif Elicitation?

Nope. Wrong again. WHAT IS A MEME?!

The word ‘meme’ is French and means…nothing as far as I can tell. It’s sort of like the word mere in the English language. Go ahead, try to define mere. As in; I merely have a headache from memetics (a real word).

So what is it? Finally after paying respect to the UN-knowledge dumpsite– Wikipedia.org. I found this:

A meme (pronounced /miːm or mɛm/) consists of any unit of cultural information, such as a practice or idea, that gets transmitted verbally or by repeated action from one mind to another. Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity. Memes propagate themselves and can move through a “culture” in a manner similar to the behavior of a virus.

Oooh. Thank you very much. Clear as mud. But that last part about it being like a virus…that makes sense. Sheep sense, following the crowd kind of sense.

Not this ewe.

I stopped participating in chain letters around the age of 10. And I’m sorry but I just cannot be bothered to open those random email forwards folks send on. You know the ones: ‘Iraqi soldier is being deprived of his daily Starbucks’, or ‘this child has been missing for 6 years’, or my absolute favorite ‘THERE’S GOING TO BE A MARS SIGHTING’—but the Mars thing was 4 years ago and the email didn’t have a date so everyone keeps forwarding it as if it’s coming THIS year, the others are completely debunked by snopes.com as pure hoaxes. (I’ll confess however I have been known to open a few forwards when they promise to be funny, but for the most part—who has time? WAAAAY too busy blogging, myself).

Enough of the rant. Here’s what I figure. I’ll answer this one and (hopefully) only MEME tag, and then refer any future ones back to this post. (PS. If you want to know something about me…I’m willing, just ask!)

It begins….

TAGGED Rules:

A. Post The Rules.
I already failed. I refuse to post the rules or tag anyone else. Such a Rebel.

1. What were you doing 10 years ago? Having sex. Sorry, what do you want? We didn’t have kids yet. And everyone knows sex ends with the firstborn. No one knows how child numbers 2 and 3 get here…

2. 5 Things on my To-Do List Today— Is this items actually on my list, or items that might reasonably wind up finished in the course of the day? Because in my world those are two VERY different things. On my list: 40 minutes on the treadmill—on my reality list: back to bed for 40 minutes of treading sleep. (After I get the kids out the door and glue 3yrold to nickjr.com). On my list: reconcile the bank account—on my reality list: write this fabulous post of course! I think you get the picture…

3. What snacks I enjoy… For reals on this one. After several weeks of my new un-diet diet, I honestly love a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese with a handful of Wheatables. For a kick I throw in some dried fruit—how’s that for excitin’? (of course all the jellybeans are gone so I couldn’t eat those anyway). Oh all right, red licorice if we’re being totally honest. But only Red Vines, I can’t even type that other brand.

4. What would I do if I were to suddenly become a Billionaire? Well, duh. Same as every other obscene celebrity. I’d do the Britney Spears thing, wouldn’t you? I’d start with cutting all my hair off, it’s such a nuisance anyway.

5. 3 Bad Habits.. Blogging, blogging, blogging.

6. 5 Places I’ve lived.. That’s boring, let’s talk about where I’d like to live. Japan. England. Costa Rica. Russia. Florence. I mean come ooon. Let’s dream a little.

7. 5 Jobs I’ve had.. Oooh, this is juicy. Let’s see…there was my sixteen-year-old summer job at Taco Time. (Don’t make fun, I still roll a mean soft taco, I’ll make one for you sometime) Then the next year I moved up a slot and got a waitressing job at a local greasy spoon. In college I once cleaned office buildings in the evenings (that sucked—completely ruined the little social life I had). And the last job before the motherhood thing took over? Molecular Biologist. You think I’m making that up don’t you? It’s true. I studied Xenopus laevis Oocytes (frog eggs), and Ustilago maydus (corn fungus). See why I switched jobs? I exchanged all that glamour for meconium and croup experiments. Wouldn’t you?

8. 5 Things People don’t Know About Me.. I love Dr. House. I want to marry him. (But I do not want to marry Stuart Little’s dad, ew.) I hate reality shows—Especially AMERICAN IDOL. I am knitting an afghan. How many is that? This is hard. Crap. How about this? I have 9 siblings. Yup, Mormon Family. Hey, that’s five, now you know that I am LDS. No not LSD, quit getting so excited.

And don’t tell me you can see it there in the front of the drawer. No.

Because that tape. The one clearly marked Mom’s is GONE. I mean you only want tape

Oh no. I have three.

What’s that? No one says Pot-Lickin’? When the dog was naughty my Grandfather would yell and say, “you little POT-LICKER”! And sometimes that’s exactly the right phrase to describe my sweet kids.

Happy Birthday to me.