Juggling Life

One/Water

                      Weekly Word Challenge: One, Water

         One boy in the water--then and now

Food Products that Herald the Decline of Western Civilization . . .

1. Smucker's Uncrustables

 

'Cause making a pb & j is soooo time-consuming. And then if you factor in cutting off the crust . . .

2. Kraft Easy Mac Cups

Honestly, I thought regular boxed Kraft Macaroni-n-Cheese was pretty darn easy. Then they came up with Easy Mac. What could be easier than that? Apparently having to get your own bowl out of the cupboard was just too damn hard.

3. Cereal Straws

 

I know I'm constantly on the lookout for a an easier, more effective sugar delivery system for my kids. Thanks for this one.

4. Batter Blaster

Again . . . pouring Bisquick and water into a bowl and stirring--who on earth has the time or skills needed for that?

I'm sure there are more; what's your favorite?

True Confessions: I Have A Laundry System

Mrs. G's mother  (as mothers are wont to do) was giving her a bit of a hard time during a recent visit. Apparently, one of Mrs. G's shortcomings is the lack of a laundry system. Now those of us that know and love Mrs. G are convinced she doesn't have any shortcomings, but Mrs. G's mom is not convinced.

Back to the laundry system. In reading the comments, along with the widespread support of Mrs. G and the outrage of daughters everywhere at the judgementalism of mothers everywhere, there was mockery of those who have a laundry system.

At the risk of exposing myself to ridicule in the bloggerhood, I'm going to admit to having a laundry system, share it, and give my rationale.

First, the system. I don't have a laundry room--I have a washer and dryer in the garage with some shelves above them. I also have a couple of rods for hanging clothes (one for air drying, one for clean clothes). I also have a couple of hampers and a laundry basket.

Each morning I grab the clothes from the hampers in each of the four bedrooms on my way out to the garage to feed the dogs. It's just a minute to sort them into their appropriate hampers since I do it every day. If I have a full load, I start one. I usually do 2 to 3 loads every other day; I'm done with laundry by 8:30 a.m. on weekdays.

I never put anything in the dryer unless I'm going to be able to deal with folding it as soon as it's done. Closet space is not an issue in my house, so I hang up all t-shirts and all pants (except for jeans). The clean shirts hang above the washer/dryer and the air dry and need-to-be-ironed clothes hang on a separate rod. Shorts, underwear, socks, p.j.'s, etc. get folded and put into a laundry basket. Towels and that sort of thing get put away immediately most of the time.

I leave all the clothes in the garage during the week and once a week I put everything in piles on the pool table (although a dining room table would work as well). Each family member knows that putting their things away once I sort it is a priority. If they don't put it away in a timely manner, my head explodes (a la katydidnot).

Why do I have a system? Because I'm basically lazy. A system allows me to complete work with a minimum of time and effort expended. Everyone always has clean clothes and it just doesn't seem like that much work. I never (unless I go out of town) have to face Mt. Laundry. Doing laundry efficiently and quickly allows me to spend time on things I'd rather be doing--like blogging about my laundry system!

There's No M-A-N In Multi-Task

Fact: Women are better multi-taskers than men.

She: Whew, I put on my makeup, ate breakfast, did laundry, loaded the dishwasher, fed the dogs and made phone calls.

He: I stirred my coffee.

Oh yeah, it's totally like that!

From The Archives: December 29, 2007

Divorce . . . 70's style

I am making preparations to fly to Washington state for a final visit with my sister, who has cancer. She has at most a month or two left. It would be sad no matter what, but particularly so for a 41 year old mother. To say our relationship is complicated would be understating the situation by a lot. My oldest daughter, B, is actually my sister's child that my husband and I raised (a story for another day). B, my stepsister, T, and I are going together to see my sister, as we did this summer. My sister's situation has me reflecting upon my childhood, and in particular how my sisters and I were split apart.

My stepsister, T, and I were close as children, and we are very close today. But, there is a period of about 25 years (yes, we're old!) when we had very little contact. How did that happen? I'm going to have to say it was divorce . . . 70's style. My mom and stepdad and  T's mom and stepdad divorced at the same time, when we (T, her sister D, my sister, L, and myself) were in our early teens. Apparently it didn't occur to the adults involved that they were not just divorcing, they were causing the divorce of four girls who had spent their childhoods together. Four girls who giggled under the covers way past lights out, shared the hatch of a Datsun 240z on car trips (no seatbelts!), camped together, wore matching Halloween costumes, fought over doing the dishes, had snowball fights and sledded at our grandparents/ stepgrandparents cabin, waterskiied at the Colorado river, and were just generally SISTERS. Once the parents separated, we girls were never even offered the opportunity to see each other.

I don't know if it's by chance or luck, but our circle of friends has not been touched by divorce (yet?) Most of our friends, and our kid's friend's parents, are around the 20 years married mark. So I don't know firsthand how families are handling divorce these days. But I would expect that today's parents are a lot more enlightened about considering the psyches of their children. I certainly hope so. Divorce is never painless, but I'm sure it works out better if the adults involved consider all the ramifications it will have on the children involved, even if the children are not related by blood. Looking back, I'm not sure why all of us girls just blindly accepted our situation. Again, I'm going to blame it on the 70's--you did what your parents said and you didn't ask a lot of questions. I'm sure my children would be voicing their opinions clearly loudly! And thank goodness for that.

Losing someone close to you really causes you to reflect on, and analyze, your life. I'm generally not given to a whole lot of introspection, but if feels good to have gotten these thoughts on paper blogosphere.

In Which I Flashback To When I Had Time To Flashback

 

I used to be "just a SAHM." And I was busy--driving, volunteering, cooking, laundry, you all know the drill. Plus, I had a part-time (very part-time, about 5-8 hours a week) job.

Then I went back to school full-time (and continued to do the above).

The I started Field Practicum where I student-teach one day a week (and continued to do the above).

Then I started a blog (and continued to do the above).

Then it was finals and term-paper crunch time (and I'm not sure I can continue to do the above).

So something may have to give--today it's the blog. Tomorrow, who knows?

Uncle Sam Wants Who?

Big Red will be turning 18 in a couple of weeks, so he received this in the mail:

 

Okay, his card isn't quite that large, but you get the picture.

Selective Service Registration

WHO MUST REGISTER
Almost all male U.S. citizens, and male aliens living in the U.S., who are 18 through 25, are required to register with Selective Service. It's important to know that even though he is registered, a man will not automatically be inducted into the military. In a crisis requiring a draft, men would be called in sequence determined by random lottery number and year of birth. Then, they would be examined for mental, physical and moral fitness by the military before being deferred or exempted from military service or inducted into the Armed Forces.

Guess what Grown-up Girl did not get for her 18th birthday? You guessed it--no mandatory Selective Service Registration for her.

Without going into what I think about SSR as a matter of policy, or the odds that we'll ever have a draft again, or my views on war in general, I have to note that only males are required to register. And that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to me.

I am a feminist. I happen to be a feminist who has spent my adult life fulfilling a very traditional role, that of stay-at-home-mom and homemaker, but I am a feminist. And as such, I believe that women are capable of doing any job a man can do and deserve every opportunity men have.

If a woman deserves the same rights and opportunities as a man, does it not follow that she should have the same responsibilities? I believe it does. I can't think of a single reason that my son should be expected and possibly ordered to serve his country, but my daughter should not.

I have discussed this with mothers "in real life." What I find is that mothers of only girls are appalled at the idea. Mothers of only boys have never really considered the idea. And mothers who have both boys and girls may be surprised by the idea, but they concede that it does make sense that equal rights should also entail equal responsibilities.

Personally, the idea of any of my children going to war terrifies me. It would be worse if they went because of a draft rather than having entered the military voluntarily. I just can't imagine thinking that it would be acceptable that only our sons bear this burden.

After all, we've come a long way, baby--and sometimes, along with the upside, there's a downside.

Five/Wind

My first thought when I saw the Weekly Word Challenge words for this week, was "????" Then I had a really great idea involving a large fan and four of my daughter's closest long-haired friends, but that idea didn't have much chance of being executed.

So, this is what I came up with. Five people on vacation with Windblown hair.

 

 

 

All of these pictures were taken in our favorite place in the world (well, all the world we've been to so far), Mammoth Lakes, California. There's something about returning every year to a place where you've always had fun and everyone can spend two weeks doing the things they love. For us that means biking, hiking, kayaking, fishing and playing cards before breakfast with the best friends and family in the world.

Three Cheers for SB!

I actually had a different post for today, but I'm going to interrupt my regularly scheduled blogcast to brag about my youngest daughter.

My daughter is a natural athlete. For many years she played softball, but she got tired of that. She wanted to do cheerleading. I convinced her to play volleyball. She did, but she still wanted to do cheerleading. I tried to convince her to play water polo. She saved enough money to cheer for Pop Warner by babysitting (a not small sum of money, btw). We let her cheer.

She liked it and decided she wanted to try out for cheer in high school. She started gymnastics in hopes of getting her round-off/back handspring.

Last week was try-outs. They try out in April for next fall. There were 80 girls competing for 36 spots. The week before try-outs she was at the gym almost daily--she's had the round-off/back handspring for a while, but doing it on the tumble track is a lot different from doing it on the floor.

The day of tumble try-outs almost all the girls chickened out. She was only one of 3 freshmen that tumbled--and she nailed her move. I was so proud of her for doing it. She's only had about 4 months of gymnastics (although she's had about 2 years of doing all the moves on our neighbor's trampoline), so it was a real leap of faith.

The actual "try-out" day was Friday, with the list posted on Sunday morning. I told her how great it was that she did her best, she was a winner in my book for doing the tumbling when most people let fear stop them; luckily, if she didn't make it, there were other sports she could play. Not making a team can sometimes help you grow. All true.

Sunday morning came, with butterflies in both our stomachs. You all know how it is when your child really wants something; you'd really like it for them to be happy (especially when they've worked so hard).

She made it. Yay! If you've done the math you realize about half the girls that tried out did not make it. Some of these girls are her friends. She feels badly for them.

A group of the girls that did make it went out yesterday and made t-shirts to wear to school today--I made it! shirts. SB is not participating. She made the point to these other girls that this is going to just shove it in the faces of the girls (their friends?) that they did not make it. That perhaps the moment of celebration is not worth the pain it will cause.

She did not prevail, but she did make her opinion known. I think it's cool she made the squad. I think it's way cooler that she stood up for her friends.

Cool Book Meme

Deb at San Diego Momma tagged me with a very cool meme; a meme that speaks directly to my book-lovin' soul. Like Deb did, I'm going to give you some background on me and books first. 'Cause I am all about the back story!

I can't remember a time when I didn't love books. My first memories are of the Little Golden Books you could buy at the grocery store. My mom may have been a single mother on welfare who bought our clothes at the Goodwill, but she always seemed to be able to swing a book purchase.

When I was in elementary school I was a latchkey kid. The library was on the way home from school--I was allowed to be at home or at the library until my mom got home from work. I was usually at the library. I wasn't very good about writing my book reports in a timely manner--I was too busy reading books.

My mom used to punish my sister and I both by taking our books away. I used to hide books under the bathroom sink on housecleaning day so I could take extended breaks. Some of the best times I can remember as a family (mom, stepdad, sister, me) were when we all curled up on the (burnt orange) sectional in front of a roaring fire, absorbed in our own books. My stepsisters still tease me about my habit of reading in the car at night. I'd read by the light of the streetlights. It had a rhythm to it--bright, dim, lose the light completely for a second, bright, dim, lose the the light completely . . . Now I wonder why nobody gave me a flashlight!

When my mom died several years ago I didn't realize how depressed I was. She died on May 1 and after the initial flurry of activity I dove into my books. It wasn't until the kids went back to school after Labor Day that I realized that a 300-400 page a day book habit might actually be a sign of something deeper.

Like the rest of you I don't read as many books now that I blog. Combine that with the reading I do for school and my pleasure book reading is down to about 2-3 novels a month. But, I am never, ever without a book.

And now for the meme . . .

1. List three books you’ve always meant to read, but haven’t gotten around to reading.

2. Share the two books that changed your life.

3. Recommend the one book you’ve been talking about since the very first day you’ve read it.

1) Three books I've meant to read:

Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi: I just cannot get into it. It seems like it would be right up my alley, but no. I don't think I'm alone here--I believe my entire book group abandoned it.

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez: I have tried valiantly. I believe I've made it about 1/3 of the way through the book. It should be a book I like, but again, no. I keep it around just so I can feel guilty every time I look at it.

Things Fill Apart by Chinua Achebe: I was so bored. I'm sure it is life-altering, but I'd have to be able to get through it first. Again, total guilt.

2) Two books that changed my life:

The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck: I believe I first read this when I was 13. Why did this book change my life? It opened my eyes to the rest of the world in a very real way. It is so well-written and absorbing that it was a totally transformative experience.

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff (and it's all small stuff) by Richard Carlson: I am so totally not a self-help book person. I don't even know what moved me to read this book. I do know that the following changed my life. The author says to ask yourself "Would I rather be right or would I rather be happy?" What a novel concept. Of course I would rather be right. And while I was being right I'd be happy to bludgeon anyone in the vicinity with my rightness. So I started practicing letting other people be right (even when they really weren't), and I became a much happier person.

3) The book I've been talking about since the very first day I read it:

The Time-Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger: This book just captivated me. I don't normally like anything that smacks of science-fiction, but this book intrigued me from the first page. I recommend it to everyone I talk books with. This falls into the category of a you either love it or you hate it book. You should definitely try it.

As always, If I tag you and you don't feel like playing my feelings won't be hurt. Because he's a brand-new find (and a friend of Bossy's) and I know he loves books, I'm tagging The Jason Show. Because a woman with as many books as she has in her house (and who displays them so artfully) will have some great responses, I'm tagging katydidnot. I'd love to hear some ideas from the other side of the pond, so my final tag is The Reluctant Blogger.