'What if's' in April

Have you ever looked back on your life and wondered what it would be like now if you had married someone else? Seen the life of one of your old boyfriends and pictured yourself in that situation instead of the one you are in now?

No?

Must just be me.

My husband and I went through bins and bins of scrapbook stuff (took 5 bins down to 2 with all the crap I ended up throwing away and wondering what in the heck I was thinking when I saved it in the first place...), but we saw old photos of ex's....some of his old girlfriends, some of my old boyfriends. And I wondered.

I think I would have driven a lesser man completely insane by now.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Doug is the only guy that could have put up with my idiosyncrasies for this long without killing me--or divorcing me, or at least kicking me in the shin really, really hard.

I hear about what some of my ex-boyfriends lives are like now and think they really got off easy when I made them break up with me. ;) The wives they have now are exactly right for them.

I hear about some of Doug's ex-girlfriends and wonder if he would have been happier with someone with more emotion, better conversation, and a bigger set of...um...mammories.

To his credit, he hasn't complained. (Not even about that last item... ;) )

I'd like to think I have him snowed into thinking I was his absolute best choice. I mean seriously... After reading my previous post about all my talents who wouldn't want to be married to me? The pie I make alone would be enough to convince a man to take a chance on marrying me.

Doug and I both dated a lot of people before we got married. So it isn't like we were scraping the bottom of the dating barrel and decided that we'd better just get married because nothing better was coming along....just to clarify.

We had options.

We ended up preferring each other over everyone else.

Nothing wrong with that.

But I still wonder how it could have turned out differently.

If I hadn't worked for a year after high school before going to college I wouldn't have met him.

If he hadn't had a freak baseball accident in the 8th grade that hurt his vision in one eye, he might have joined the Air Force (he wanted to be a pilot) and I wouldn't have met him.

If I hadn't held up my bargain with Doug's cousin Jason about bringing Portuguese socks back for him from my mission--thus having Doug find out I'd returned home after I dropped them off at his uncle's house--we might not have crossed paths again.

Heck, if the girl he started dating seriously while I was on my mission had chosen to stay home and get married instead of going on a mission herself...he might have married before I got home and reminded him that I was his best option. :)

If, if, if. Lots of ifs in this world. But they all worked out exactly the right way to make it possible for Doug and I to meet and fall in love and get married.

I guess in this rambling I just wanted to vocalize on the 'what-if's'. And in doing this I realized that whether he is thrilled about it or not, I'm glad I married Doug and that he has put up with me for this many years.

Some days I'm sure I exasperate the heck out of him.

Turn about is fair play, after all... (did I 'say' that out loud?)

But that's the fun. Keeps him on his toes :)

This is an old photo of Doug and me in the summer of 1989. We dated until I left on my mission in October of that year.

This is Doug and me on our wedding day. I thought about posting a photo from our photo album instead of this snapshot, but the photo album photos are too detailed--made me realize that I have a huge head. Just like the kid on 'So I Married an Axe Murderer'...

"Look at the size of that boy's heed... I'm not kidding, it's like an orange on a toothpick...Well, that's a huge noggin. That's a virtual planetoid. ...Has it's own weather system....I'm not kidding, that boy's head is like Sputnik; spherical but quite pointy at parts! Now that was offside, wasn't it? He'll be crying himself to sleep tonight, on his huge pillow. "

But again, I ramble myself into a nice digress....

All I'm saying is that even when looking through old scrapbook photos and pondering lightly on the 'what if's' while listening to Little Texas sing 'What Might Have Been', (which is why I added a playlist today so that you can all get the "mood"..) I'm glad things turned out the way they did in my life and that my husband is my husband and my ex's are my ex's...

And I'm pretty sure everyone involved feels the same way. :)

Positive Talents

I have decided that I would like to dedicate just one blog entry on things I think I do well. I keep writing blogs about my bad habits and keep admitting to things that normal people would try to keep to themselves...like my previous post on how great I am at procrastinating.

I don't count procrastination as a talent. Although I do procrastinate better than probably 95% of the population, I was thinking more along the lines of talking about things I am good at that are a positive thing.

This could be a very short blog. Maybe I'll add pictures to make it more interesting....

[5 minutes later...I'm still trying to come up with something....]

Okay, I guess I should put down my stand-by "Artist" talent. I don't work on that as much as I should, so the quality isn't what I think it could be...but I do like to draw.

This is a drawing I did of Max a few years ago..a dog that belonged to a friend of a friend...long story...

Right now my big daily art project is to draw in Sharpie a picture on my kids' paper lunch sacks. I'm not sure if they are enjoying the artwork, but it does give them a unique lunch sack. I've drawn two different things each morning since school started in September. I got tired of coming up with new scenes, so at the moment I'm going through the alphabet and drawing animals that begin with the letter of the day.

Let me just tell you that if I were to ever discover a new species of animal I would probably name it something that begins with the letter 'X', and rhymes with 'orange'. X because really the only decent animal out there is the Xoloitzcuintli--or Mexican Hairless Dog. And the orange rhyme is just because nothing rhymes with orange.

This is the Xolo...not very attractive is he?:

[Another 5 minutes later...Why are lists of my negative qualities so much easier to come up with?]

Okay. I'm a fairly decent athlete. I'm better when I'm not carrying an extra 20 pounds, but I enjoy sports. I like it that I can still (20 pounds too heavy and more grey hair than I want to admit) take a soccer ball and school young punks. I can still have a man goal keeper run out at me thinking I'm an easy pick, casually slide the ball around his hulking form, and leave him on the ground while I put the ball neatly in the back of the net at an outdoor co-ed soccer game.

I can bake a mean pie. (which doesn't help the shedding of those extra 20 pounds, but brings happiness to everyone enjoying said pie)

I like to write. Not sure how great I am at it, but I enjoy it so I'll count that as something I can do.

I sing really well to the car radio. Not so much on my own, but imitating other singers is fun for me. Probably has to do with my sadistic liking of mocking people...which I probably shouldn't have mentioned in a blog I'm trying to keep to positive things I do well....

[Another 5 minutes later....this is getting depressing....]

I'll stop now before I hurt myself.

The photos made it look like a longer post anyway, so that's something.

So now you can all say that yes, I have positive talents. Everyone does. And to stay with a bit of a trend here, I found this quote that made me feel a little better:

Talent counts thirty percent; appearance counts seventy. - Chinese proverb

So I'll take that and go about my life with 30% talent, and will appear to have more. :)

Works for me.

I've put it off long enough--another blog on procrastination

I believe I have mentioned before that I have an innate ability to procrastinate. I have procrastinated things for as long as I can remember.

Countless last minute hours were spent finishing homework assignments that I knew about for a month, but started and finished the night before it was due.

I STILL haven't taken Christmas neighbor gifts around. For Christmas 2007.

My house needs a good thorough cleaning, but is kindly waiting for me to stop putting it off and just get to it.

And right behind me as I type this blog, I have 5 really big Rubbermaid bins FULL of "scrapbook" stuff that I have just thrown in the bins over the years to 'someday' get to and put in some sort of order showing that I actually care about my family and the mementos we have kept. I can't procrastinate this one much longer. The bins were kept tucked neatly "out of sight, out of mind" in our storage room, but when my husband decided to clean out the room he also forced my hand on the scrapping crap.

And trust me, most of it IS crap.

I am fairly certain that if/when I do finally go through these bins that I will take the number 5 down to just 2 bins.

Because I also put off deciding what is really worth keeping, so have been known on way too many occasions to just open a bin and throw in things to decide about later.

Old school work my kids have done over the years. Art work, fine. But I'm talking spelling tests and math homework. I didn't even want to DO math or spelling as a kid, why would my own kids want to keep old paperwork? For posterity? "Hey look, back in the day I could add." Ah, the memories....

I'm really not looking forward to going through the bins. But I know it has to be done. So I will do like I always do and put it off to the last possible minute.

In the dictionary the definition of procrastinate is this:


pro-cras-ti-nate

–verb (used without object)
1. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.

–verb (used with object)
2. to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

I admit to having looked that definition up before I started this blog entry. It is another case of me knowing half the definition. #2 was the way I thought of the word. It is exactly what I do. Put everything off till another day or time.

The first definition made me actually pause and think. "To procrastinate until an opportunity is lost."

If I were the type of person who looked back a lot on things I've done or decisions I have made, I would probably be able to come up with a pretty long list of opportunities I have lost because of my procrastination.

Luckily (or unluckily) for me, my memory is not that wonderful--especially on things that might dishearten me. I have a fairly selective memory I think. I don't hold grudges--well, except for that one chick in band in high school who borrowed $20 from me on our band trip to Edmonton Canada to buy a cashmere sweater that looked fabulous on her and then she would run the other way when she saw me and never repaid me or the other people she borrowed $20 from to have enough money for the sweater...that still bugs me even 24 years later. Not that she didn't pay me back, but that she hid from me and wouldn't just tell me she couldn't pay it...but I digress--

I don't remember reasons for arguments, which can be good and bad. Good because I'm not walking around mad all the time (and holding a grudge), bad because if the argument is with my husband he has been known to take my forgetting of the reasons for our disagreement to mean I am pretending it never happened. I remember the part where we were disagreeing, but rarely remember the why of it all.

Which I guess makes a good case for my husband because if I don't remember why we were arguing, how am I going to not do or say whatever it was that started it in the first place? But it also makes a good case for him because if whatever it was that we fought about was HIS fault, I'm not going to nag and whine him to death about it all.

Seems like a win-win for him, doesn't it? :)

I do need to work on not procrastinating. I do see things that I am missing because of this particular skill I have.

Simple things like being late for most things because I just flat out put off getting ready to go. Putting off writing so that I miss the deadline for the 'First Chapter' contest at a writer's convention this year.

Complex things like not becoming friends with new neighbors because I put off meeting them until it becomes downright awkward. Not going to see new nieces or nephews when they are born because I put it off so long that they are home from the hospital--and sometimes crawling--before I get my backside in gear and go see them.

Things that when I am old and have nothing better to do except finally let my brain look backwards into things I have or haven't done with my life, I will regret. Or I will do my best to talk myself out of the regret--even though I will have earned every twinge of guilt or remorse.

Arthur Miller said: Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets.

So I will do my best to stop procrastinating. Then maybe I will have the right regrets.

Easier said than done when you have made procrastination an art form like I have.

I will probably just ease myself into it...be closer to on time to things. Meet my neighbors within at least the first 6 months of them moving into the neighborhood. See my new nieces and nephews before they speak in complete sentences...

I guess to start I should wrap up this rambling blog that is really only helping me ignore the Rubbermaid bins behind me...

Here is a quote I found that I like..and when you read it you'll see why...and then you will have zero faith in me that I will ever stop procrastinating. :)

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow. ~Mark Twain

Happy Pi(e) Day!

In case anyone wants another reason to have pie...(does anyone need a reason??)

Today is 3.14

Pi Day

I'm not good at math, so Pi means pretty much just another number to me.

But I'm good at pies :) So if there is a day that combines something I'm horrible at and something that tastes pretty darn good, then I'm all for it.

So whether you like a nice fruit pie, a cream pie...a Kahlua cream cheese pie from Marie Callendars--seriously tasty--...Or even a chicken pot pie, take advantage of an excuse like today's date to indulge.

But do it my way and leave the math part out of it--no counting calories, no adding up the weight gain that will come with having that extra piece of your favorite kind of pie....

Happy Pi Day everyone :)

March Ramble

Just a bit of rambling thought today. Shocker, I know.

I was driving down the freeway the other day and a car passed me that had those vinyl letters in the back window that said "Die Trying".

They were young punks in that car, so they probably thought it was a fairly tough statement and didn't mean for it to cause undue thinking on any one's part--especially a kooky lady in a crapper suburban like me.

But I did think about it for awhile. Probably longer than I usually think about things, and I'm sure I'll get over it sooner rather than later....but still. I actually pondered a bit. (Write that down, because it will probably be awhile before I ponder again..)

My first thought (after the one about punk kids and their driving habits..,), was that the phrase 'die trying' is actually what everyone should hope for.

In the religion I belong to, we believe that everyone should strive toward perfection. Christ gave us the perfect example and we should emulate that and do good deeds, love thy neighbor, etc.

But also in my religion--especially in the women--I think that they have taken that perfection route a bit too literally. There are all sorts of statistics on the number of women in my State who are on anti-depressants. And I have felt for awhile that a lot of that is due, in part to the drilling in of the perfection statements.

The key is that we are to strive for that. It never, ever says we will actually become perfect. No one can. It is just part of being human that makes it so. We cannot become perfect in this life. We can, however, try to become better people. Better wives, husbands, friends, brothers...We can help others, we can volunteer, we can set good examples and try our darnedest to not be judgemental of other people and the choices they make. And we can be easier on ourselves and those around us.

No one is perfect. It isn't going to happen in this lifetime. All we can do is try to become better tomorrow than we are today and not be hard on ourselves when we slide backwards a bit because of our human nature.

All we can do is try. Try to just be good to yourself and those around you. Try to give up bad habits and replace them with good ones. Try to learn more. Try to be an example of a decent human being when the rest of the world is going to crap. Try to be more involved. Try to be more forgiving. Try to love yourself and not stress so much about being perfect.

Try every day until we die.

Hence, the 'Die Trying'. That's what we should all be doing. We should die trying to be better people. To make the world--at least our little part of it--a happier place to be. Die trying to make other people's lives a little nicer.

A great thought that sort of goes along with this whole jumble of ramble is from Marvin J. Ashton, an apostle from my church. He said:

“Be one who nurtures and builds. Be one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them”.

I know it isn't a huge epiphany of sorts. It is just a reminder that even if we die tomorrow, we won't be dying perfect...but we will hopefully die trying to be a better person than we are right now.

And like my favorite part of that quote..."Leave people better than you found them."

If we do that, we won't just die trying.

I think we will have died succeeding.

Valentine's Reflections

In case you missed it, Valentine's Day was a couple of days ago.

Hallmark's favorite holiday after Christmas.

Did you know that one billion valentine's day cards are sent worldwide each year? It's true. I looked it up and learned something. One b i l l i o n. (Go ahead and say that drawn out with a pinky held at the corner of your mouth. It's more fun that way when you bring in a little Dr. Evil to the mix)

I was not one who joined in the masses of Valentine's card mailings. Or givings. Or even post-it note leaving.

It isn't that my husband and I didn't participate in some semblance of Valentine's celebration...we went to dinner at a friends house with some other couples and had a lovely meal, great conversation, and watched a really bad movie. So that was something.

I learned early on in my marriage that Valentine's isn't my husband's favorite holiday.

I remember buying a card (apparently Hallmark sold one billion and one that year), and a shirt for my husband of 5 months and presenting the gift to him that evening when he got off work. Our first Valentine's as a married couple...no kids yet to kill off brain cells...you know the drill.

I have pulled way back on my Valentine's giving since that year. He tried really hard, but couldn't actually bring himself to like the shirt I bought for him. He did keep the card though, so over the years I have given the occasional card, but left the clothes buying to him.

It all reminds me of the advice I have heard given to newlywed couples: Start the way you mean to go.

If you don't want to have to add Valentine's as a holiday to remember, don't start off with the extravagant gifts.

I can check that box off. Tried it the other way, didn't work. What we have now works fine. It is what we expect. It isn't a romantic holiday, but it is a good excuse to pretend to make really yummy sugar cookies to give to neighbors, but eat them all yourself...:)

Starting the way you mean to go is like when you make your husband a lunch to take to work. If you start packing a lunch for him, he is going to expect it. Makes sense. So unless you are going to keep doing it willingly, don't start making his lunch unless you are in it for the long haul.

Or like when you are first married and you and your husband are watching TV together and he says "I'm really thirsty", so you jump up and get him a nice beverage. Maybe even add crushed ice...and a straw if you are feeling really loving.

Fifteen (or seventeen) years later when he says "I'm really thirsty" and you pop off with the "Great. While you're up..." That doesn't go over quite as well when he has you trained to help him out of his parched predicament.

(I find it hilarious...my husband? Not so much. But we are getting to a good middle ground now, which is nice).

The one thing I never started was ironing. I hate to iron. Hate. But when I do iron I figure it shows that I care, right? (I'll just keep telling myself that...)

Starting as you mean to go is harder than it sounds. When you are newly married, you are still in the 'honeymoon' stage where you are trying harder to please so that your spouse doesn't start praying that they are just in the middle of a bad dream and are begging to wake up and find themselves single again.

The stage where your "quirks" are still endearing and not yet annoying.

So making lunch everyday with a cute little note slipped inside is more likely to occur in the first year of marriage.

By the fifth year, the note--if there still is one--will usually have fewer little heart doodles and more lists of 'To-do's for when you get home from work.

By the 23rd year you are probably making your own lunch and wondering how you got to that point.

Don't take it personally.

Life changes. Stuff happens. You get more comfortable with each other and don't feel the constant need to remind your spouse that you love them.

Which is probably the very best reason we have to celebrate Valentine's Day.

After a year of living and getting through all the ups and downs that life throws at you, it is nice to have a holiday that reminds you to tell your significant other how much they mean to you.

Because even if you are certain that they already know--I mean, after all...I DID iron those shirts for you...that one time...a few months ago....it is nice to have your partner acknowledge that you are an important part of their life. Someone you care for. Appreciate. Can't imagine life without.

You know. Love.

So if you forgot to mention to your better half on Valentine's Day that you are grateful for their presence in your life. Maybe we should change that.

You can never be told too often that someone is happy you are in their life and that you make living life more fun and entertaining than it would be otherwise.

Even if you go through life with a slightly wrinkled shirt and you pack your own lunch.

Happy belated Valentine's Day.

"English is your mother tongue, and stuff."

Human vocabulary is fascinating. We have dictionaries with thousands and thousands of words--with pronunciations, forms, and a lot of the time the words have multiple definitions.

If you pick a random word of which you are fairly certain you know the correct meaning and look it up in the dictionary, there is a decent chance that it will be a little different than you thought. You might have the basics down on that word, but sometimes there is more than one way to use that particular word that catches you completely unaware.

For example, since I was feeling a bit melancholy today, I looked it up. One of the noun definitions for melancholy is 'black bile'.

Whatever the heck that is. I couldn't even really figure out how you would use the word melancholy to talk about black bile.

So you see, you don't always use some words in all the ways they could be used.

With my attention now caught for a moment, I saw that one of the synonyms for melancholy was 'funk'. So just for fun I entered f-u-n-k into the search and pulled up this definition:

Funk [fuhngk]

–noun
1.cowering fear; state of great fright or terror.
2.a dejected mood: He's been in a funk ever since she walked out on him.

–verb (used with object)
3.to be afraid of.
4.to frighten.
5.to shrink from; try to shirk.–verb (used without object)
6.to shrink or quail in fear.

I am probably showing my ignorance of the English language here, but honestly I always thought that only #2 was the definition of funk. When I think of being afraid or fear, the word funk never comes to my mind.

Of course, part of that could be due to the addition of the letter 'Y' to funk for a completely different word. Because, c'mon. How can you be afraid if you are funky? :)

I admit that I am not a wordsmith. Keeping it simple works for me. I don't have to think too hard, and anyone I am talking with doesn't have to pretend to understand what I am talking about.

I will admit that in the past I have pulled the 'dumb blond' maneuver to get out of a relationship with an overachieving wordsmith type. I was a senior in high school and dating a guy who was fond of coming over and reading the paper. He found me a bit naive and childish when instead of watching him read the paper (there was no paint around for me to watch dry...), I chose to go outside in the snow and play catch with a stray dog that happened by. Silly me.

Once I realized that his intelligence was his point of pride, it was really quite simple for me to figure out how to make him think it was HIS idea to break up with me.

I played dumb. And I played it well.

This is the guy who I might have mentioned before, as the one who poured out his life's drama to me and then got angry with me when I didn't have any similar stories of pain and anguish to share.

He popped off with a "Doesn't ANYTHING bother you???"

And my smart aleck (read "dumb", but I meant every word..which I guess is kind of sad...) response was "Yes. I hate it when you eat a peanut M&M and there is no peanut in it."

And the last nail in the coffin could be heard echoing throughout the room.

I saw him a couple of years later and he rattled off a complete sentence with more large words than a Thesaurus, then smiled a cocky smile and waited for my response to that one.

I honestly had no idea what he had said. Not one. I'm not sure it was even English. So I did the only thing I could do in that situation.

I looked at him blankly, shrugged, said "Nice talking with you" , and walked away.

To this day, the man still believes I am dumb as a post. Maybe so. But his life is still miserable and I still only really get bummed about peanut M&M's without a peanut. I can handle the dumb as a post title if my other option is so depressing.

This has been my pensive ramble for today. I hope someone learned a little something here--mainly for my resolution for 2009--and I hope that you think about looking up some words and learning something on your own too.

And if anyone can explain that 'black bile' thing to me that would be great.

Melancholy? Black bile? I just don't get it....