find the funny

I've been accused of a lot of things, some of them are true. I won't say how many. That's not the point. Of the things I've been accused of, being too silly, or not taking things seriously enough is probably the most common. But here's the thing - I'd rather be able to find the funny in a situation than only see the negative.

So, your vehicle died and you have to walk to work - bright side: You're now "green" and helping the environment. So, your British based Petrolium company has an oil spill that is causing catastrophic damage to the gulf coast - bright side: They say there's no such thing as bad publicity! So, you were beat as a child - bright side: you know how to take a punch. You get the point.

Everybody has a backstory, and everybody has scars from the past, or fresh wounds from the present, but hey, chicks dig scars, right? Do guys dig scars? I'm going to tell myself they do. I have a lot of scars on my knees, and I've never had a guy say, "You know I like you a lot, but those scars on your knees are a deal breaker".

I'm not saying I never pout or get angry about the things that go wrong, but I also tell myself that I'm one of those women who "looks sexy when I'm angry" so, it all works out.

Bottom line, I like to find the funny. There's lots of ups and downs in life, but if you'll just throw your hands in the air and scream on the downs, you'll find it's a lot like a thriller roller coaster.

So, It's been a while...

So, it's been a while since I've posted a blog. And, I could lie and say it's because I've been too busy, or that nothing has inspired me so much as to write about it. However, the truth is that I apparently filled up my short term memory bank with important facts like - flushable wipes can double as moist towelettes for your face, but they are salty, so don't lick them - and because my brain gets full of such pertinent and vital informaiton, I forgot my gmail username and password. I finally went through the steps it takes to recover them, so now I can delight you all with my meanderings of the mind. I know, you're all giddy with anticipation of what I will say, so you can go and repeat it to all your friends and relatives and make me rich and famous. Is that not why we all do these blogs? Hoping someone will discover our hidden talent for manuscription, and they will have connections to someone who is looking for the next "it" thing and, it just so happens that the "it" they're looking for is me and my blog ramblings? Oh, is that just me? Ok.
So, for today, I just wanted to say a little about the brains of a mom. Mothers, as a species, don't get the privelege of using our brains the same as the rest of the population. (I suspect this is true of mothers who have jobs outside the home as well as the stay-at-home mom, but I believe it applies moreso to the SAHM than others.) Here's what I mean. In any given minute of any random day, I do not have 100% of my thought patterns entirely to myself. I have to share my brains ALL THE TIME. If, for example, I wanted to sit down and type something witty on my blog, and my children are home with me, here's how the division of my brain power is distributed on a good day: 70% gets used for what I'm actually trying to do - type on my blog. 10% gets used to sort noise - who's screaming, why are they screaming, is it a happy scream or a mad scream or a I-poked-myself-in-the-eye-with-a-pencil emergency scream. This also includes filtering quiet time - why is it so quiet and what are they getting into? 15% gets used to interperet requests that come in the midst of the noise filtering, and sort what is a valid request versus a rediculous request. Valid request: "Mom, can I go potty?" Rediculous request: "Mom, can I jump off the roof with my pillowcase for a parachute?" And the last 5% gets used to make the conscious effort to breathe deeply, speak clearly and calmly and not freak out on my kids for the constant interruptions.
So, maybe it's silly that I forgot my username and password, but considering that I'm only using 70% of my available brain power to accomplish what I really want to do, I think it's forgivable.

There’s a Lowe’s commercial that, if you’re not listening to the words, and if your mind is so one-tracked that you can’t think outside your tiny box for a moment makes NO sense at all. The commercial shows different views of the Lowe’s logo with a makeshift letter T attached to the end of it. This happens throughout the commercial at least six times. For example, the Lowe’s logo from the department store is shown and then someone is holding a push broom upside-down at the end to make the letter T. I watched this and my train of thought was this:
“Lowe’s - T. I don’t get it. What the heck is Lowe’s - T. Are they giving away T-shirts? Nobody’s wearing a Lowe’s T-shirt. Lowe’s - T. Is this like the ING commercial where you just have to know what Lowe’s - T is? What a crappy commercial. Whoever thought this up should get fired because that makes NO sense at all.”
I did this twice - as in, I watched the commercial twice, and had the same exact thought process twice. Finally on the THIRD time around, it clicked. OHHHHHHH. They’re saying they have the LOW-EST prices! They are using the T to make the word LOWEST! AHHHHHH. I get it now.

I noticed my husband avoiding using his finger yesterday when he came home from work. He was clutching a shirt, but his pointer finger was straight - which caused me to ask, “What happened to your finger?”
“My finger?” he asked.
“Yes, what happened to your finger?” I asked again, this time holding up my pointer finger.
“What?” He asked again.
“Your finger - what happened to your finger? Did you hurt your finger?”
He stared at me, looking as if I had completely lost my mind. What could I possibly be talking about now? Clearly I was on Crack and needed to be institutionalized.
“You aren’t using your finger.” I said, wiggling my pointer finger around. “You are holding your finger out like you’re trying not to use it. Did you hurt it?”
He looked at his straight finger. “Oooohhhh. I cut a big gash out of it today.”

I laughed at him. “Yes, the finger that you cut a big gash out of earlier, that you are holding weird and trying not to use. THAT’s the finger I’m talking about. Not the other nine fingers that you didn’t hurt today.”

I love when this happens to him because it happens to me all the time! Blain refers to this phenomenon with me as my “google button is stuck”. It’s that deer-in-the-headlights look I get when I can NOT figure out what the heck he is talking about, no matter how relevant and obvious the subject at hand.
I can’t think of a good “for instance” for myself because my short term memory downloads most of that stuff into the recycle bin of my brain about every 9 minutes, - which is probably why my google button gets stuck so often.

My husband loves, and yet at the same time is irritated by my "ability" to see the funny side of almost anything. As I have said before I am immature, and sometimes I can't help myself from saying things that I think are funny, even though the timing might be off.
If my brothers or dad are reading this, you might wanna stop now or risk bearing the mental scars of the following information.
I've had 3 kids, and as most "real" women know, with each child born, the "bosoms" hang a little lower. I lamented this to my husband who reassured me that it could be fixed with some plastic surgery. I was glad to hear this, but expressed my concern over the cost/lack of quality surgeons in Alaska. Also, I had heard that sometimes when extensive repair is done - which my paranoia leads me to believe is my case - a "follow up" surgery is needed. My husband said that we would spare no expense if it would make me feel better about myself, and said that maybe one option would be to have one done and a while later the other one done.

Did that hit you the way it hit me? I LAUGHED and LAUGHED and LAUGHED, for like 3 minutes, all the while my husband getting more and more annoyed with me. Apparently he meant one surgery and then later the next, if necessary, not - get one boob fixed and then later, the other one.

As a parent, the things that come out of my mouth never cease to amaze me.
The following statements are things I have actually said at one time:

“Don’t use your cookie to wipe your snotty nose!”
“We only use TOILET paper to wipe our butts, NOT REGULAR PAPER!”
“We DON’T LICK the bottoms of OUR shoes OR your sisters shoes!”
“Please oh PLEASE let that be mud on your hand!”
“No, you can’t ride the dog like a horse.”
“You can’t have ice cream till you eat all your hot dog.” - Because the hot dog is clearly so nutritious!
“What did she eat? WHAT DID SHE EAT? Is that SUPER GLUE?!?!?”
“Just pee in your pull-up.” - In my defense it was 3:00 a.m.
“I don’t care if she peed in the tub - urine is sterile.” -Right?

I know, it’s weird, and a little horrifying.

Too Much Information

Today I breech a delicate and somewhat uncomfortable topic. I only do so because I realize that my own children are becoming more aware of what’s going on around them, and they are not afraid to repeat whatever they hear, and have not developed a filter on what you should and should not say. My oldest is getting a bit better, but will still occasionally blurt out something like, “Hey, there’s the fat lady who’s supposed to help us!” And, my two toddlers will repeat ANYTHING.

Knowing this about them, I have put the kibosh on almost all television - Especially anything after 5:00 p.m.. It’s just not safe. Here’s what I am most afraid of:

WAY too frequently I am assaulted with commercials promoting “male enhancement”. I can’t even imagine how many shades of red I would turn if my daughter blurted out something about (as one commercial puts it) “that certain part of the male anatomy”.
Maybe it is my wholesome upbringing, and I am just being a prude. Or maybe I am just incredibly immature and need to grow up. In fact, that’s not even a maybe. I am immature. I still giggle whenever my husband says things like, “I don’t do that, but what I do do, is ______“ Pretty much it doesn’t matter what he says from there on, because I’ve been too distracted by the “doodoo”. I also giggle when people say “duty” but don’t enunciate the “T” so it sounds like “doody” I know. It’s bad.

But still, even so, I say, Enough!
When the ads come on, I get embarrassed. I feel I ought to avert my eyes, but then again, if I avert my eyes, I feel like I might as well shout to the room,
“Hey, everyone! This makes me uncomfortable!”. But guess what - IT DOES make me uncomfortable. I don’t wanna know about it. I definitely don’t want to know that you use it, and I don’t wanna have your catchy little whistling tune in my head for the rest of the day, so that I CAN’T forget about it even if I want to! And I really, REALLY don’t want anyone else to hear me whistling it! - You know the one I’m talking about.

I related this to my husband and he retorted with:
“Well, you started it”. I was dumbfounded. WHAT? He said that men have for years had to suffer with the unpleasant “tampax” and “always - with wings” bombardery. He doesn’t like the enhancement commercials any more than we love the tampax commercials, and isn’t defending them, but he was making a point. Men don’t wanna watch the “lady stuff” crap any more than you wanna watch the enhancement ads. They all know it happens, but they definitely don’t want any details, and they don’t want some “fresh as a Daisy” feminine hygiene jingle running through their heads.

Hmmm. Touche. (I’d have accent aigu’d that e if I had one on my computer.)

He is right. Ladies, we don’t really need the ads, do we? We all know which aisle to find that stuff in the grocery store. We know it exists, and we pretty much can’t (even if we want to ) forget that we need it. Even if we forget to put it on the grocery list, lets face it at some point we’re going to make a special trip JUST for that if necessary!

And, men, if you need… whatever it is that you need, you, I’m sure, could track it down. My grandma can “work the internet” and if she can find a way to forward me all the cartoons and inspirational sayings that she does, SURELY, you could find…. That stuff, if you really tried. Heck, who knows, pretty soon it will probably be right next to the tampax in the grocery store.

So, here’s my solution. Let’s call a truce. We’ll go back to being mysterious, and you can just - ya know, whatever - I just don’t wanna know about it.

Fair nuff.

I’m just sayin’. <(Just for you B.B.)