Manly Men

It is no secret among my family and friends that I am a huge football fan!!! I can't wait for the season to get here. I am the type of person that has to watch the pre-game, post-game, interviews and commentary throughout the week. I enjoy going to games and watching them on tv. I will watch by myself or with friends (just so long as you do not interrupt my game). Hehe (no seriously)

This past Monday my team, The One and Only Pittsburgh Steelers, were playing against a good Denver Broncos team (this year). We had friends and family over to join us in the celebration of Monday Night Football! I made sure that we had dinner prepared in time for us to be able to eat and then sit in front of the tv to watch not only the game, but pre-game as well.

Kick off comes and goes and my friend Sophie and I (dressed in my jersey, team hat, and terrible towel) are in the living room cheering on the Steelers! A few minutes goes by and suddenly we both notice that our husbands are still in the kitchen talking, while the women are in the living room watching and cheering on the sport of football. It must have donned on them as well, because a few minutes after our realization, they came strolling into the living room ready to reclaim their rightful place as "men."

Patience... Ugh

The definition of patience (according to Webster) is the quality, state, or fact of being patient; the ability to be patient.

Since that definition didn't really clear things up for me, I had to take it a step further and practice patience (which I know nothing about at this point) and look up the word patient.

The definition of patient (again, according to Webster) is demonstrating uncomplaining endurance under distress.

WOW and then WOW again!!! Uncomplaining endurance under distress?

Uncomplaining: to NOT express grief, pain, uneasiness, or discontent.

Distress: to cause suffering of mind or body; pain or suffering; severe physical or mental strain

So I am to understand that exercising patience means that I will not complain when I am suffering either physically or mentally due to grief, pain or discontent?

You ever hear the old saying, "Be careful what you ask for. You just might get it." I don't ever remember asking for patience, yet I am finding myself having to "practice" it on a daily basis. And I use the word practice on purpose! I assure you that I am no where near being an expert at patience and so I will have to continue practicing for quite a while.

One Week Later...

For whatever reason, unbeknownst to me, my family seems to think that they need to wear a different set of clothes EVERYDAY and that dirty ones should be washed. Dishes that were clean before they used them have to be cleaned AGAIN. Dust seems to never stop gathering on my furniture, and the cat doesn't follow the rules: NO SHEDDING FUR and CLEAN YOUR OWN LITTER. The floor doesn't vacuum itself, although I have asked it to numerous times. Soap scum still builds up in my bathroom and simply walking in there and saying "be clean" doesn't seem to make it disappear. Halloween candy keeps jumping into my mouth even after I put up the No Trespassing sign. My children (including my husband child) seem to think that asking for 3 meals a day is a reasonable request, leading again, to the dirty dishes problem. Home schooling my kids means I actually have to participate daily in their learning process and I can't slack off one bit. And gosh darn it, simply thinking about exercising doesn't have quite the same results as actually doing the exercises!

What am I learning about myself? That I have a "unique" situation that no other person on earth has ever had to deal with before, and I need a reality tv show to come in and make my life better!

Run child Run!

You ever have one of those days where if you don't get a few personal minutes of freedom (for me it would be running 5 miles or doing something to where I sweat) you feel like your chest is going to burst open, your arms are going to start flailing about and heads are going to roll? And that's the G-rated version!

Well that is me today! As of Friday last week I became a stay-at-home mom until we move (in a couple of months). And did i mention that I also took up home-schooling my children this year? Bless my dear children's hearts, they just don't know what they have gotten themselves into!!!

I am by nature naturally stubborn, red-headed, Irish, outgoing, stubborn, adventurous, constantly moving, stubborn, OCD, competitive and stubborn. I don't like to sit all day and I certainly do not like to have to repeat myself. (Go ahead and laugh at that one.)

I am going to be learning a lot about myself over the next few months and I fear my children are as well! Oh dear...

Opportunity Knocking

Weekend projects are fun! You have your list in front of you, full of the things you have wanted to get done for a few weeks (be honest... years and years) and you have finally found (set aside) the time to get them done. Nothing feels better than check marking those boxes as complete. It gives you great pleasure to sit back and look at your masterpiece (at least for your sake I hope it is) and say, "I did it!!! And it wasn't that bad. It wasn't the teeth yanking, hair pulling, mind boggling project I thought it was going to be."

Well my husband and I had that adventure this last weekend. We woke early in the morning (early in my house is 9 am on a Saturday) and set out for the day ahead. I went after a few needed items to complete some of the work and my wonderful friend Sophie accompanied me. (She loves a good project day just as much as I do.)

We are getting our home ready to put on the market and so we have to get a few things done to it. My husband got up and headed out the door, after I left, to begin his part of the adventure.

When Sophie and I returned to the fun station (my home) she left to go get some lunch and return with 2 little helpers; aka her 2 oldest children. My children were of course thrilled at this! Not only were their friends there with them, but they were sharing the workload. This makes for happy parents (since the whining is then held to a minimum).

My husband was busy trimming bushes that were as tall of the Empire State Building. (It was either trim them, or start charging a fee to view the city from the top of them. Although earning extra income would be exciting we figured it would all be lost in insurance and personnel so we decided it was best to go with trimming them.)

I began power-washing our front porch. If you have never power-washed anything, let me just say, WOW! This is an amazing experience! I had to control my urge to power-wash the entire house. I had to focus on the list and get those things accomplished first. (But the power-washer will return, hehe.)

Sophie took a closet door off it's hinges and took it to the backyard to begin the transformation. We are painting it white to match the trim ( we should be getting a medal of honor for this or something because we are getting rid of the orange tinted stain that it had been for many years). My husband brought her our brand-new (bought 2 years prior to sand and paint the doors then) electric sander. He then proceeded to the front of the house where I was still blasting away at the dirt invading my front porch and sidewalk and made this statement... "You women are always taking the mens' pride moments." I did not understand what he meant so I asked him to elaborate for me.

He then began a long and pitiful story of how I had taken both of our vehicles over the 100,000 mile mark and that he didn't get to watch the dial role over on either one of them and so on. He ended by pouting about how Sophie was getting to use his sander before he was. She was breaking it in and he had not had the opportunity to do so! She, a woman, had stripped him of this vital right as a man, just as I had done with the vehicles and other such things.

Now let me remind you... said electric sander had been purchased 2 years prior to this day and 104 weekends had passed when there had been opportunity to advance himself in the "man kingdom" and break in this tool. But is was, of course, the fault of the one who had "heard opportunity knocking" and had answered the call.

Women vs Men

I hesitate on the title of this post, but only for a moment. This is not about women being better then men, or more insightful then men, or even more logical (my husband will laugh out loud at that one) then men. It is simply about the communication women share amongst one another that men can not follow. It bears note that men have their own version of this; it's called grunting. (I know you're all picturing Tim Allen.)

Women simply do not have to complete our sentences when we are having a conversation. There are many versions of this (as there are dialects in the english language).

Example One... My sister and I can be talking about our kids and I will be sharing my abundance of wisdom in child rearing with her and she will complete all of my sentences for me... out loud... with enthusiasm... to my dear husbands dismay. (Not that he doesn't enjoy her company, it's just that she speaks very loudly.) I will of course let her do this as it makes the conversation proceed much quicker. Quicker in the sense that we have more opportunity to repeat ourselves as we women love to do! Repetition, it's good for... (annoying men) memorization, getting your point across, (annoying men) applying what you've learned .

Example Two... My dear friend Sophie and I will be sitting at the dinner table with our blessed husbands sharing what has been going on in our lives. I will be telling a story, or making a point about something, and will simply not complete my sentence/thought. (Picture 2 woman continuing on with their meal and 2 men holding their next bite in their hand, wide-eyed, mouth agape waiting for the climatic conclusion.) At this my husband will break the silence with a question, "Could you please finish what you were saying?" I will simply look at him as if he just asked me what color the sky was (duh) and say, "Sophie knows what I meant/was saying." That is because we women tend to repeat ourselves, so we can just recall a previous conversation similar to this one and complete the thought. Therefore, we can finish each others' sentences! Brilliant of us! (My husband and Sophie's husband don't think so.)

Example Three... If you are a woman reading this, you have already thought of your own. If you are a man, my apologies...

Random Blurting

Have you ever been in a room or a car enjoying some peace and quiet and then had someone blurt out the randomest (yes that's a word or at least for me it is) of words or comments? If you answer yes to this question, then you have most likely been in a room with me. Along with my D & D condition, I also tend to randomly blurt stuff. What does that look like you might ask? Well let me take you on a journey into my mind (buckle up cause there is no telling where this will lead).

Picture four young adults driving in a car heading for a weekend outing. The sky was clear blue, the air outside as thick as marshmallow cream and hotter than microwaved steamed veggies. But the air inside the vehicle was a pleasant 63 degrees and conversation had just come to a lull. Each passenger was in there own deep thoughts (or shallow, whatever the case may be) about the weekend ahead of them. The quiet settled in and the the outside landscape had become the entertainment of the individual mind.

We were headed south through the great state of Texas, and had just entered some heavy traffic. Out my passenger window I saw a blue truck with a load of randomly thrown bricks in the bed of said truck. Now my mind immediately went to my backyard project where I had laid bricks for a fire pit, and before I knew it my mouth spoke the word "Bricks!" Yes, just that single, excited, all by itself little word spoken into the silent void of the car. This, of course, broke the silence and caused laughter to belt out of the other 3 weekenders who were wanting to know where and why this random word flew out of my mouth. Of course no explanation offered by me would suffice to explain why I felt that word needed to be blurted out for all to hear. But it has since led to many moments of reflection and laughter.

It is not my only moment of random blurting but I believe you have an idea of what I am trying to convey. What am I trying to convey? Good question...?