My User Name

If you look at my profile, you'll see that my "name" is gsd4de.

My husband has never liked that moniker. He thinks I'm trying to be clever. But if pressed, he can't come up with anything better so he keeps quiet. He isn't a fan of custom license plates either unless they are really brilliant, so I take his ribbing with a bucket of salt...

gsd4de stands for 'German Shepherd Dogs "for" De'. For 16 years my husband and I have had German Shepherds. That is, until our last gsd Gracie died this past summer. I had always planned on starting a kennel and raising beautiful, intelligent, friendly, healthy german shepherds. So maybe that screen name makes a little more sense to everyone.

And maybe you are all agreeing with my husband that it isn't clever enough. :)

Now that we no longer have german shepherds (which still feels really strange after so many years with them), my name makes even less sense now than it did before. But what do you do? I have had that name for so long now that everything is tied to it. I have TWO e-mail addresses with that listed. I am registered on a bunch of websites with that as my user name. To change it now seems like it would be similar to suddenly changing your home phone number or cell phone number and having to contact a million people to let them know.

Luckily for me I'm not feeling clever enough to come up with a snappy new name. We have two stinky toy poodles (so we aren't a completely dog-less family--although that is debateable if you don't really consider a poodle a dog...), but I don't want to be connected in anyway to poodles. They are my daughter's dogs. I don't claim them.

We also have a cat. She is stinky too, and I'm allergic to her so obviously that isn't even my first choice on the 2nd page.

I pretend we don't own three mice that are leftovers from my daughter's science fair project. So I won't go there.

Some people use things about themselves like Gr8Mom, ScrappingMachine, AustenLvr, etc. But since mine would read more like YouWantMeToCleanWhat?, GoAwayI'mReading, or It'sNotThePantsThatMakeMeLookFat...I don't see me coming up with anything short enough to describe myself in an internet friendly username.

So for now I'm stuck with gsd4de. Maybe I can make it stand for something else, but since I have to explain it as it is anyway that probably won't make much difference. Although it would be fun to randomly change the meaning.

Got Sons (&) Daughters 'for' Deserving Empathy

Gee, Someone Does "40" (4d) Easily

Get Some Donuts 'for' Delectible Expansion

Or not. German Shepherd Dogs 4 De works okay. Maybe it isn't all that clever, and you won't see it on any license plate...and it no longer makes sense since we don't actually have a real dog anymore. But it's me.

Writing Convention

I attended day one of my first writer's convention today. Day two is tomorrow. (Nice and orderly...) I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I'm pretty sure that even if tomorrow is horrible, I will have liked it well enough to already be looking forward to next year's convention.

It was fun for a few reasons (the least of which being letting my husband be the one home with the kids, so when Dom flushed his underwear down the toilet, my hubby was the lucky guy who got to fix that particular ick).

First, it was nice meeting people who like to write. Published or not, there are some awfully friendly folk at this convention.

Second, the workshops I attended were really well done and I learned something from all of them. One thing I learned is that there is no way I will win (or even place) in the 'First Chapters Writing Contest'. Which is actually a good thing. The minute they talked about POV I cringed and realized that I had inadvertantly done just that--switched point of view in the middle of a page. So regardless of anything else in my story, just that glaring error that shows my novice-ness (is that a word??) is enough to bump me back down the list. This year. Next year I'll go into it with a little more savvy. I might not win next year either, but I'm already looking forward to making it a close contest between me and the third place guy or gal. :)

[And just an addition--I was right in my contest assessment--I didn't win. But I got some great critiques that will do nothing but help me write (re-write) my book and I'm looking forward to getting at it tomorrow. And I DID win a lovely gift basket from Jewel Adams...so that was a huge bonus. She is great.]

Third, it was good to just think about writing for a couple of days. To learn about aspects of writing...research, self-publishing, self-promotion...the list goes on and on. So much learned in such a little time. And none of the discussions centered around the merits of who would win in an arm wrestle--Spongebob or Patrick.

[Speaking of Patrick--and I apologize for flinging myself completely off topic, but my 4 year old daughter asked me if there is a Saint Spongebob day since there is a St. Patrick's Day. Took me a minute to figure out what in the heck she was talking about "St. Spongebob???" but she cracked me up. The stink.]

So, what are some things I learned from the convention that I will implement immediately? I will tell people I am a writer. I will write more often in my blog and will read other blogs of authors and people "in the know", so that I improve and tighten up my own writing. I will choose to make time to write.

I will also try to think a bit before popping off when people ask me if I write. For example, when a lady sits next to me at a writing convention and asks "Are you a writer?" and I say "I pretend to be one." I will think first and NOT say that on the off chance said lady is an editor. [Yes, this happened, but luckily she didn't hold it against me and we ended up having a nice conversation and she gave me her card and requested that I send her something when I'm ready]. And I also won't tell a friend of mine when she finds out I was at a writer's convention and asks "Do you write?" and I say "Yes" (because I learned from the other example), and she says "Is it secret?" and I again pop off with the "No, it's sacred". Goodness, who in the world will take me halfway seriously if my smart mouth takes off before my brain tells it to keep shut?

So there you go. I am a writer.

And you thought I was just a rambler. :)

You Know You're Old When...

Okay, I know we've all realized that I am not getting any younger. And since I turned 40 a couple of months ago I've done my best to ignore that number. But seriously...there are things that happen naturally in the world that just slam home the fact that I am getting old(er). (parenthases added for my well-being and psyche)

For example:

Baggers, cashiers, Dominoes pizza delivery guys, and refrigerator repair men all calling me "Ma'am". Ouch. I know it is cliche` of me, but ma'am? It sounds old. I know I'm too old to be called "Miss", and "Lady" is just goofy. In all honesty I would rather be called "Hey You" than "Ma'am".

Another big example is when I realized that my doctor and my dentist are younger than I am. I took Kady to her physical for track and the doctor asked her if she thought her parents were old. Kady laughed and very politically correctly said "No", and my age then came up...the doctor said he was sure I was older than him and I said, "Unfortunately, I am positive I am older than you." I told him my age and he shrugged and admitted he is just 36.
Doctors are supposed to be old men. Now my daughter thinks they are old men, but I am four years older than they are.

(The good news there is that he thought I was younger than his 36, so I guess I will take that as a good thing--I'm still not happy about all of these realizations about my age lately, but I'll take the slight compliment wherever I can get it).

Another thing is that this past week my Uncle John passed away unexpectedly. Someone asked me if he was old and I said "No, he's only about...." and then I stopped talking. In my mind he was about 40. Then I realized that it is ME who is 40 now and he was closer to 70. He will always seem 40 to me. And if my Uncle is 40, I can't possibly be that old. Right?

(On a side note totally off subject, but needed at this juncture: Uncle John was a genuinely nice guy to me and my siblings. And although we didn't see much of him after he retired and moved out of this valley I will always remember him for his Chuck-A-Rama lunches that always ended with the biggest dessert of strawberry shortcake I have ever seen...We will all miss him and my sincere condolences go out to his wife and children and to my mom and Aunt).

So to sum up, I really don't mind being 40. What I mind is being reminded that I am 40. If I could avoid that part and continue on with my ignorant bliss of thinking I am younger than I am, I would be a happy gal.

And then maybe I wouldn't have the sudden urge to deck the next guy who smiles brightly and says to me, "Have a nice day, Ma'am".

The 29th of February

Since today is the 29th of February--it is a leap year, doncha know?--I thought to myself that I should take advantage of the extra day and write a blog today. I won't have opportunity to write a blog on the 29th of February for four more years. (Which is probably good news to anyone who actually reads my posts, now that I think about it....)

Today is Brandon H's "10th" birthday. I went to high school with Brandon. I thought having a birthday on the 29th would be really neat. He could have a birthday on the 28th of Feb. AND the 1st of March and still be right. And look...instead of turning 40 like everyone else in our graduating class (Go Wildcats), he gets to turn 10. There are serious bonuses to having an odd birthday like today.

Getting married on this date wouldn't be quite as smart, since most men I know would figure they only have to celebrate their anniversary once every four years. Of course, that could be detrimental too because they would be lax in remembering the date and would probably forget the anniversary completely thinking that it wasn't a leap year that year.

I'm probably not being fair to the men out there, but this is what I do.

The jury on dying on this date is still out. I mean, seriously...dying in general isn't something you really look forward to, so what does the date matter? It just ingrains in all those still living who might have cared about you, which date you died. Easier to remember in that sense. But as most of you are aware, my side of the family remembers weird things like death dates. We don't need an easier time of it to remember. (For example, I still remember that my pet bird that Cindy killed--thanks for that, by the way Cindy--died on Feb. 2nd 26 years ago. Why do I remember that? Because I got it for my 14th birthday and it died on Groundhog's Day...if it had been Feb. 3 I wouldn't remember the date. And no, I have no idea why I'm letting this psychosis out in the open. We're insane. What can I say?)

February 29th would be a good day for:
First kisses
A day without the children whining
Chocolate
Playing with puppies--and giving them back to their owners
and
Winning the lottery

Who am I kidding? We don't need the 29th of February for those things. I'd like those things on any given day...well, except that first one. I don't think my husband would like be going out looking for a first kiss from someone else...

So I suppose the 29th is good for balancing out the calendar and helping some people put off their true age if lucky enough to be born on this day.

And apparently it is also good for letting me practice rambling skills. And it is a skill, like anything else.

Happy last day of February.

(edited to fix the date of death of my bird--which should show that I'm not as fixated on the death dates as my family, but in reality just shows my blatant lack of simple math skills--thanks for pointing that out Cindy...now I can hold a grudge about that over you--and I'll remember the date)

What to Write?

I don't write new blog posts very often. I like to write them, don't get me wrong...but I suppose I keep waiting for something fascinating to happen to write about. Something fun or silly. Not the mundane that usually occurs at my house and in my life.

So why am I writing now?

I have no idea.

It isn't to share the story of how I drove all the way downtown yesterday to pay the stupid fine on my stupid ticket (see the previous blog entry on not pushing your luck for that story), only to find that the precinct there doesn't have my ticket. It was written up out of their jurisdiction so it will either be in the town I live in, or the one right next to it since the ticket was given exactly on the border of the two towns. Exactly on it...the street divides the boundaries so one side of the road is one town, the other side is the other town. So I called the bordering town's offices and they don't have the ticket either. And by the time they called me back, my town's offices were closed. So I get to track it down today somehow. But honestly...if they have lost my ticket, that should make it just dissolve and go away right? (wishful thinking...but still....)

But I digress...I really didn't write today to share that story.

Nor did I write today to give a glowing report on the dollar movies--it only cost $4.50 to take my entire family to the movies last night. That is a count of 9 people. Monday's are .50 days at the dollar shows. Huge bargain.

And I didn't write to say that the movie 'Enchanted' is, well, enchanting. (It is a really cute show though...definitely one that we will buy when it comes out on DVD)

And I certainly didn't write to share my observation on how I can GAIN weight and then people will mention how thin I am starting to look--I've decided that it must be a reverse psychology thing. That, or they are frightened by my increase in weight and instead of telling the truth--"Holy Toledo! Your butt is getting H-U-G-E!"--they panic and say the exact opposite.

Oh, and I didn't decide to write about how my 15 year-old daughter was in seminary and her teacher told the class that people shouldn't kiss unless they want to marry that person. So she went up to his desk later and told him that her parents have told her that they don't want her to marry the only person she ever kisses--and the teacher responded loudly enough to her questioning that now all of her classmates think Doug and are are pretty darn cool. Even though we didn't really mean it the way she made it sound.

Speaking of that subject though, I must throw in that I loved Aimee's friend's $1000 idea (see the comments in my Valentine's post for the explaination). I mentioned it to my 15 year-old and she wanted to know if I could do the same thing but pay her if she makes it to 16 without kissing a boy. I laughed and laughed and told her no way, no how. That she will owe ME $1000 if she kisses a boy before she is 16. :) But that isn't what I wanted to write about either.

Hmmm.

Let me think....

Nope. I really have nothing of interest to write about today, but really wanted to say something. Maybe something will come to me later. Or not.

I might not write often, but no one can say that my rambling skills have in anyway diminished.

Happy Valentine's Day

Ah, me. Love.

It comes in all forms and sizes. Depths and emotions. Valentine's throws red hearts and chocolate candies to the consumers. Hallmark and the FTD florists hope to make a killing.

It changes. It grows. It diminishes. All depending on the person in love, the person who is the recipient of the love, or the reason's for the love.

When I was seven I 'loved' Adam Cartwright. Oldest son on Bonanza. Enough so, that I actually got Purnell Roberts' (the actor who portrayed him) record. Did you know he was a singer? Most people know him as Trapper John, M.D., but I loved him as the young, dark haired cowboy. A hero in my young eyes. My sister liked Little Joe, but not me. I liked the dark brooding type over the cute flash Michael Landon played. (By the way, Purnell's rendition of the Christmas hymn, 'Do You Hear What I Hear' was decent, but I don't remember liking any of his other songs...)

When I was in high school I had a secret crush on a guy who was a year older than me. Another dark, good-looking, quiet type. I don't think I ever spoke two words to him, but I remember looking forward to catching a glimpse of him in the halls at the school. He wasn't a soccer player, he wasn't in band...there just wasn't any common ground there for me to even attempt a 'hello', so I figured it was hopeless and he would probably not notice me anyway, so I just oogled and chalked it up to teen infatuation.

But that put me in the mood for being in love. So I made the mistake of dating J. Bowers. I didn't ever really like the guy. He liked beef ravioli from a can, wore too much Elsha cologne and was pretty much a dullard in my book...but he filled a brief curiosity that soon wore thin and I kindly broke up with him. Hoping beyond hope that not all boys were like him.

I dated Mike C. after that, which was pretty much doomed for failure from the beginning. First and foremostly because the man had blonde hair. I realized with him, that even with his superiority complex and his lame excuses for being another jerk (although in different ways than Bowers), I couldn't get over the blonde thing. So in order to break up with him, I turned myself into the biggest airhead I could because I knew that being brainless would send him running the other direction since his joy in life was reading the Trib, and throwing big words into small sentences.
(The clincher for him, by the way, was when he poured out his heart to me about how rotten his life was--I could hear violins in the background--and he got frustrated with me (I guess I wasn't being sympathetic enough or saying the right comforting phrases), and asked "Doesn't ANYTHING bother you??" and I said, "Yes, peanut M&M's without the peanut." (Seriously...you buy the yellow bag of candy because it has peanuts in it, if I wanted a solid chocolate M&M, I would have grabbed the brown bag...sheesh). Sometimes at night I think I can still hear the screetching of tires as he ran away from me as fast as he could....)


After these few experiences with love, infatuation, irritation, learning about boys who wish they were men...I gained new perspectives, decided most guys had jerk tendencies, and realized I was really good at having guys think it was THEIR idea to break up. Which makes it all nice and tidy. It became a skill, like anything else.

With all that, I remember that when dating my now-husband and then leaving on a mission..I found out he was seeing someone else and I wasn't hurt so much as shocked that he would think anyone was as cool as me. So apparently none of the previous relationships I had did any lingering damage to my ego. I came home from said mission and became friends again with now-husband and eventually he regained his senses and realized there WASN'T anyone as cool as me, so he married me. Isn't he the lucky one? ;)

So now, as a married woman who has teenaged daughters, I start to wonder what craziness they will have to endure before they finally get to that stage of finding the person they love enough to think eternity is a good idea.

I've warned them that most guys their age are, well, jerks. And guaranteed them that at some point in their life a boy (or three) will make them cry. But my oldest daughter still has romantic notions and I know wishes that she could have her very own 'valentine' this year. No one specific--so she says--but the idea is starting to look interesting to her.

Makes me a bit nervous. I'm not looking forward to my daughter's first heartbreak. I'm looking less forward to her first real boyfriend and all the worries that come along with that.

But no one can dodge Cupid's arrows for long. I just wish Cupid would wait until my kids are twenty-five before aiming their direction.

Don't Push Your Luck

As some of you may or may not know...my suburban's license plates expired in February.

Of '07.

Yes, it is now '08, so I am a year past due. The longest I've ever gone without licensing my car.

Too late to knock on wood...

Driving the kids home from school on Thursday I started thinking to myself, "Self, you should take the car to get the State safety and Emmissions test done and just register this car so you can stop panicking every time you see a patrol car." (You should see some of the detours I've taken when a police car has pulled behind me...)
Not two minutes after that nice talking-to I gave myself, I heard a "whoop-whoop" behind me, and sure enough...an unmarked patrol car was happily pulling me over.
JD freaked. He thought I was going to go to jail.
So I got a ticket for the expired license.

I took the kids home and told Doug about it and he said, "I'll just take it right now and get it licensed for you."

(The nice man...what a guy :) )

So off he goes.

And 20 minutes later calls me because he just got pulled over and handed his own lovely ticket for an expired license.

We go an entire year with no problem. And then get two tickets in one day. Brilliant.

The good news is that I am now the proud owner of a blue '09 sticker on my plates...so I am current on the license. For at least another year.