Picture Perfect II

I am doing data entry at work today until my eyes are blurring. This is what I do on my lunch break so I can kick it through the rest of the afternoon. These are pictures I take that make me laugh. I hope they do the same for you.

This is what happens every morning at my house. The dog pulls my towel off the rack with his teeth and then lays his little dog body all over it. Who needs a towel warmer???

Priorities

I constantly have a lens missing from my sunglasses. Why? I have no clue.

So we are doing a historic restoration of a home in town and we repaired all the holes in the original 1904 facade. Evidently the pigeons who were hanging out in there are pissed. They have chosen to protest by SHITTING NONSTOP on the outside of the building.

And running into windows. I am guessing this is the pigeon mafia equivalent of a horse head on your pillow.

Winning

When I run these races, I have a friend who always tells me to give her my race shirt. Really? The last race I bought her a visor since there was no way in hell I was giving her my shirt. I still haven't given it to her. That's what friends are for.

I am a grown, educated, professional woman who laughed for a good five minutes straight at this box in the store. Yes it is a chocolate laxative called "smooth move".
Winning.

AERODYNAMIC

Remember that time I pulled the jet ski behind my minivan? I suddenly feel so much better after seeing the Lincoln Town Car pulling a trailer full of trash.

Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams.

"And then I had to go all Marie Antoinette up on her ass in the parking lot!"

Young and the Restless

Last week I took Monday off from work to rest and recuperate from working all weekend. Actually I was very tired and cranky so my office staff suggested I go home. I spent the day rolling in and out of sleep and had a major revelation – Daytime Television is CRAP.

It was nothing but people yelling and screaming at each other and trying to see who can act the trashiest. When I was a child at home we watched real television with some artistic flair – Young and the Restless.

If you are not familiar with the show, let me explain its importance to our family as a child. When school was not in session my mother would wake us up with the warning that we had to get up and “hit it”. “Hit it” meant we had to clean the house before 11:00 when the Young and the Restless came on the tube. You better be wrapping it up by the time the wheel was spun for the final Showcase Showdown.

I have vivid memories of my mother getting on the couch with me watch the Abbotts create make up at Jabot Cosmetics. Poor Ashley Abbott was always working in that damn lab brewing up some kind of perfume, but never really seeming to make any headway. It was all blue and I bet it smelled horrible.

I will never forget seeing Katherine Chancellor walking around in a BURKAH for about a year for no apparent reason. And then her son married some chunky little half skank named Nina who snarled at everyone. No one could ever forget Victor and Nikki. They evidently had super hero kids or something because when I finished third grade they were small preschool children. When I started fourth grade, those fools were adults! Amazing!

When I would watch Young and the Restless with my grandmother and aunts in Florida at the garage beauty shop, they would stay completely silent all through the show and then debate like scholars during the commercial break. After the “alleged incident” and the beauty parlor got shut down, we watched Young and the Restless on my grandparents sun porch…with all the same people. My grandfather would say he didn’t like it that all those women coming into his porch around his recliner and watching what he referred to as, “that ole mess”. If there was a heated discussion about Jill Abbott or if Victoria was really Victor’s baby he would argue vehemently that Victor was getting the wool pulled over his eyes and that Jill was just using that poor old boy for his money. Pretty good argument for someone who doesn’t watch that ole mess.

When I had my first child I stayed at home and soon began settling into a routine. I turned on the tube to Young and the Restless after being away from it for many years. Low and behold it was the same shit! The only thing that was different was that Nikki was acting like this fancy matriarch of the family. I think she has forgotten that Victor dragged her straight off the pole.

I have never watched the Young and the Restless again. Sad but true. I spend my time working, raising my children, talking to my husband, and watching a historically based miniseries on PBS that has everyone in these strange love triangles with all of them fighting over money and stabbing each other in the back. Daughton Abbey. I love it. Hell I even have the app on my phone.

Thank you for reading my post, and I hope you feel a little bit better about yourself.

How I Roll

This is how I rolled into work this morning. Let me clarify – how I rolled into my first meeting of the day. Deodorant on your black shirt is okay to many people if it is a one time thing, but not when you add it to all my other wardrobe malfunctions. I have a history….

Underwear – Last week I felt a breeze when I hopped out of the car at the gas station because my dress was tucked in my panties. At least they were pretty panties. Once I was in Wal Mart in my grey sweater dress with black tights when I got so hot I thought I was going to pass out. I went into the bathroom to remove the tights and felt soooo much better. Better until I realized that the people staring at me could see my bright green large cotton underwear through the sweater dress. I just thought my fine short little ass still had it!

Once in high school I was visiting a church with a friend one Sunday morning. The elastic in my panties apparently gave up the fight and my underwear fell down right before we walked into the sanctuary. Being the quick thinker that I am, I kicked them off and stuck them behind the potted plants in the corner and just casually walked off. I’m a big fan of band aid solutions. I forgot to go back and get my panties after church. I went to a boarding school where everyone had to have their names in every piece of clothing….

Shoes – I love high heels. They do not love me. I have twisted my ankles, broken heels, and had my stilettos stuck in cracks all over the country. Once after completing my first half marathon I was in my office at the Girl Scout office when one of the older girls said she could teach me how to do the electric slide. I was all for it and jumped up in my high heeled boots and started my lesson. I took a misstep into a large shipping box behind me and ended up having to go to the doctor. That was after I apologized profusely to the girl for knocking her into the wall during my fall.

I either go big or go home. It is high heels or nothing. I have started taking flying lessons. I know, it is the last damn thing I need to be doing, but I want to learn. My flight instructor shall remain nameless, but due to the fact that I still call important instruments “thingy” and give him a ton of shit to put up with, let’s just refer to him as Job. Before I started one of my last lessons the conversation went a little like this:

Me: “Can I fly in high heels?”

Job:”No mam.”

Me: “Well I am coming straight from work. Are you sure?”

Job: “Yes I am sure.”

Me: “Can I just fly barefoot?”

Job: “NO YOU CANNOT FLY BAREFOOT!”

Me: “Geez you sure are cranky. I drive barefoot all the time. It’s no big deal.”

Job: he just puts his head down and closes his eyes.

Clothing in general – I have walked around town with holes in my pants, shirts unbuttoned, and sweaters on backwards. Hell I’ve even worn a dress backwards all damn day long. I have run in not so supportive bras, not so flattering pants, and shorts that rode up in bad places. I have a closet full of shit that doesn’t look good on me. I really don’t care.

The next time you see me walking with my dress in my panties, a half a roll of toilet paper dragging behind my shoe, and my sweater inside out, just say a little prayer. I didn’t name this blog a Diary of a Busy Mess just for shits and giggles.

thank you for reading my post. I hope you feel a little better about yourself.

Different

Last year my kids were all in the car with me after school. The middle child made the comment that someone at school called him different. Before I could turn on my ever present happy mom face and make it all better, his younger sister told him it was okay since people have called her different at school. His older sister said almost the exact same thing except that she added one of her teachers said I was different to another teacher. She said the teachers were saying it in a good way.

Being different is good. Quiet is good. Mean is not.

My oldest child has come home crying due to bullies in her school, and asks me why people are mean. Why they laugh when she reads out loud in class or why kids make fun of her friends. I tell her to stand up for herself and her buddies. No one else really matters. I tell her kids are mean because they are lonely and they hurt on the inside. They are only jealous of her and are perhaps ignorant of how wonderful she is on the inside.

The problem is I don't listen to my own advice. The problem is there are adult bullies. They talk about what you wear to work, what dish you bring to a church pot luck, or put ugly letters in your mailbox. (the mailbox letter is my personal favorite since they were too scared to sign it) They might even say you write a blog about your friend in order to get attention for yourself and that you were part of the problem.(another favorite)

I often wonder if the pool has replaced the playground as a Mecca for bullying. If the t-ball stands are the new school cafeteria. People know when you are talking about them. Just because you put your hand over your mouth while you whisper to your friend next to you, some adult woman across the pool feels like she is two inches tall.

We all do it to some extent. Talking about someone else's problems let's you take your mind off your own. I've had plenty of problems where I wanted to bury my head in the sand. Others just attempt to fill a day with gossip and hateful actions. Neither solves the problem at hand, and people end up getting hurt by both.

I guess my mother never really gossiped or talked bad about other people. I'm sure she did sometimes, but we were never allowed to say hateful things about other people. Our children listen to everything we say and they see everything we do. Hate is taught at home. So is
love. I've been known to get up and leave a table if people are bad mouthing someone else. I learned that from my mother.

I hope I am passing that on to my children. Even though it seems like everyone else is doing it and it seems like fun, you do not have to join them. Being different is good.

Everything I needed to know about life I learned from Training

While running, Biking, and swimming I have plenty of time to think and learn. Here are a few of my epiphanies…

1. I am still afraid of the dark. Once I found myself running Nix Creek after the sun had gone down. I had planned on being home by that time, but for some reason I was still a few miles from the house. While I was running I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. I distinctly remember being in my grandparents house one night as a child and trying to make it from my bedroom to the bathroom in the hall in the pitch blackness of that house. I really had to pee but I was terrified. If someone on Nix Creek had said BOO I would have pissed all over my fancy running skirt and screamed like a little girl…

2. There is nothing you and the big man upstairs cannot take care of during a 7 hour bike ride and run. Those monks have the right idea. I have told people before that I ask God many questions while on long runs and rides. Sometimes I get an answer at mile 4. Sometimes I get an answer at mile 40, and sometimes I do not get an answer. When I do not get an answer, it means I didn’t need one, or that I wasn’t ready for the answer anyway.

3. Hotels have the best bathrooms. Seriously. They always have toilet paper and are clean. If you have ever traveled with small children and were worried they would catch Meningitis from a gas station restroom, remember this tip. And yes I will smooth rollup in there all stinky and sweaty and use the facilities, but I still think it is trashy to use the hotel pool if you are not staying there.

4. If something bothers you just a little bit in the beginning, it will drive you insane in the end. A sock bunched up the wrong way will slightly irritate you at mile 5. At mile 25 it will feel like torture. I know I have certain “traits” and “habits” that hubs used to think were cute and endearing when I was 20…..

5. When I run races I find people to beat. If I am running a 5K I find someone after the first mile and try to pass them by the next mile. I am like a lion. Not because I am king or anything, but because I pick out the old and sick…. I know my limits. I will not outrun the 22 year old that is built like a brick shit house. The 70 year old with a slight limp – I have a chance.

6.I train a lot. I exercise a lot. I put a ton of time and energy into this hobby of mine. When I actually run a race or do a triathlon, I rank somewhere close to the bottom of my age group. I could care less. I will never be the fastest. I will never compete in Boston or Kona. I will never run a large corporation, or make six figures a year. There will always be someone smarter, prettier, faster, and stronger. I compete with myself. I beat down my demons one step at a time, and push myself beyond what I thought was an obstacle in the past. "The highest form of competition is self-competition, and I was proving to be the cruelest of opponents, ruthlessly demanding more of myself, relentlessly doing battle with the road, with my own body, with my mind.

Pain was my weapon of choice." Dean Karnazes

7. Always pee before you leave the house.

8. I am making a generalization here and please don’t take it out of context. People in nice cars get pissed you are on their road and they have to wait sometimes to go around you. The less fortunate cheer you on. I have been flipped off by a person in a Lexus because I was in the road running, and no other reason. An Oldsmobile with the trunk tied down and black smoke rolling out the back once slowed down and gave me plenty of room. The lady on the passenger side hung out the window and screamed, “Get it Girl! I am PROUD OF YOU BABY!” I drive a nice car and so do most of the people I know. Once someone asked me if I was crazy for running in the “bad” part of town. The people in the “bad” part of town are my biggest supporters. They yell out and ask what mile I am on when I run by them. At one house there is a group that sits in chairs in the yard and say things like, “you got a good pace this morning” or “you need to pump it up a little, you dragging!” Never judge a book by its cover. In fact, there is no reason to judge people at all. Jesus has that under control. There is no reason for you to micromanage his job.

9. Speaking of Jesus, I have Come to Jesus Meetings on extremely long runs and rides. A Come to Jesus Meeting occurs when you have reached your physical and emotional limit, and you still have more miles to go. Every disappointment in your life creeps back up and your body is trying to tell you to quit. You have to tell yourself to keep going no matter what, and your mind has to be stronger than your body. Every person reaches highs and lows throughout life. When I run a half marathon I know when I have reached mile six because my body relaxes and the miles pass easier. Mile 11 is horrible. When I did 70 miles last week the highs and lows were the same, and the frequency of the lows came much faster in the end – along with the highs. A friend once sent me a quote one night when she knew I had a long run the next morning. “When you have reached your limit, dig down and ask yourself if you can give a little more. The answer is usually yes.” I had to repeat to myself over and over that I could give a little more. That quote doesn’t just work in running. It has served me well in more than just the relationship I have with the road. I learned that with every high, there will come a low. With every low, there will eventually be a high. I thrive in dragging myself from the low to the high.

10. Never look at your race picture. I do thrive in dragging myself from the low to the high, but I damn sure do not want a picture of it. Feel like you have an extra 10 pounds on you? Try having a picture taken of you with that 10 pounds flapping in the breeze and then put in on the internet. EVERYONE can see it. Even the limping grandma….

Thank you for reading my post. I hope this makes you feel a little bit better about yourself.

REK

This weekend I went to the Robert Earl Keen concert in Linden, TX. Did I love it? Yes. Did I dance my little butt off? Yes. In the beginning of the night I had a blonde sitting in my lap and she danced and sang. Then she got a little tired and started complaining. She finally moaned and complained until she just passed out. No it wasn’t Lacy, it was my youngest child.

We took all of the kids to the concert mainly because they know all of the words to his songs. That and we didn’t have a babysitter. We had a wonderful time and he sounded just like he did years ago when I first heard him. It was a festival in downtown Texarkana when I sat for hours and laughed at his songs and commentary. The next time I heard he was coming into town I was fired up about seeing him in concert again for many different reasons.

One was that my second child was about to be 9 months old. I had weaned him, lost all my baby weight, and my hair had grown out again after I cut it shorter when he was born. On a side note, I got knocked up again 2 months later. Got to watch it when you bring sexy back. I was also so fired up because everyone in the family had just recovered from a stomach virus. It is never good to help a houseful of little and big people vomit all over your house, especially when one of them is three and cannot make it to the bathroom. I remember her throwing up all in my bed, hair, and on the wall one night.

I was ready to party! We were at a club in town which later burned down. We were all sitting around and I finally got a beer. The opening act was on stage and I took one nice long drink of that cold, cold beer. I made the comment that I was the only person in the family who had not been throwing up the past week. I decided to walk back to the bathroom before REK started to play.

I do not know what the onset of Cholera feels like, but I was damn sure my body was riddled with it by the time I made it into the bathroom. I am certainly not above throwing up in a bar bathroom. I have been known to do it before under completely different circumstances, but this was miserable. I was in a cold sweat and could not get up and away from that nasty assed toilet. I finally told someone to tell my husband I needed to go home – now.

He called his father to come get me. He stood out front with me until his father arrived (in his robe and house shoes). I was barfing by the front door like I was at a damn pledge party when I heard “that Buckin’ Song” being played onstage. To top it all off I was a preschool teacher at the local private school at the time. I don’t know what was worse. People who I knew assuming Miss Melanie was drunk off her ass before the concert even started and was throwing up outside a bar, or that NO ONE raised an eyebrow over it.

It was all worth it when I saw all my kids this weekend perk up when they heard Shery Was A Waitress at the Only Joint in Town.

Thanks for reading my post, and I hope you feel a little better about yourself.

Retirement

I, like most people, had two sets of grandparents. On my father’s side I had Papaw Yancey (Charlie) and Gertrude. I only knew Gertrude as my grandmother because they were married around the same time I was born. My Father’s mother died when he was nine from breast cancer, and she left behind 4 other children as well. Ladies, check yo self.

When I am extremely stressed at work I think about Papaw Yancey. At his funeral, the written program pretty much summed him up in two sentences. “Charlie was a barber and a Baptist. In his retirement he liked to fish, camp, and visit.”

Oh hell yeah! I cannot wait to be retired so I can fish, camp, and visit. I am good at all three of those things! I might even change it up sometimes and visit, camp, and then fish! SHIT that will be fun.

I have a list of many things I would like to do when I retire. Like no longer having to kiss ass like I do here at work. That would be a nice change of pace. Just wear knee highs with my dresses. Let my facial hair grow with wild abandon. And bitch at every restaurant, store, and event I go to about some tiny problem I have.

I want to sit on the furniture at museums even though there are signs everywhere. Maybe eat dinner at 4:30, with my senior citizen discount. I know it sounds like I have this all planned out, but that is because I do.

Lacy and I plan to have an RV together with a young and handsome driver. Since both of our 401K’s are in the crapper, we might have to rethink that. I want to be sitting in my kitchen reading the paper and notice there is a free blood pressure check somewhere in town and know that will make my day. Lacy and I (because we will be living together regardless) will run and jump in my 4629 foot long Cadillac and high tail it to Caroline’s house. We will lay on the horn in her driveway and scream, “Get Your Shit and Come On!” until she finally drags her ass out of there wearing that damn visor. Still.

I will say whatever I think. I will have an ever present lit cigarette dangling from my lips, because if I make it to age 70 I am picking that habit right back up again. I will sleep in church. I will go through menopause and get really, really big and just not care. I might even start drinking whiskey again, but in small doses. Small doses means I will ask for” just a touch” over and over again until my glass is full.

Who am I kidding? I will hopefully still be running. I cannot wait to have grandchildren, and I would like a Mercedes – not a Cadillac. I am sure I will not be sitting on the furniture in any museums as I will still be working in mine. I am sure Lacy and I will take a few trips in our RV, but we will let Caroline drive. I will be a sweet loving grandmother who volunteers and writes blogs about her life.

But I am dead serious about the smoking.