Daily Mess

Happy New Year!  I love New Years, it makes me feel like anything is possible.  It encourages me to make resolutions and to try and make them happen.  Now, this is where most people disagree.  Many people don’t make resolutions, saying that they will fail anyways, so why bother.  My attitude is the opposite being that even if I do fail, it is ok, I gave it a good shot, and I’m going to keep trying until I manage to get it right.

Things that are worthwhile in life are like new skills.  Sometimes you need to practice a bit before you get the hang of it, and sometimes, it takes a lot more effort.  Take smoking, I made it a New Years resolution 2 years ago, and I am no longer a smoker.  Sure, I get the occasional craving once in a while, but it is manageable and it taught me that I can accomplish anything if I put my mind to it, and to not give up.

I am the worlds worst gamer.  You would think that excellent typing skills would be an asset to playing video games.  This may be true for some, but not for me.  I am terrible at them and have never really been able to play them with the kids.  Well, Christmas brought Guitar Hero into the house and it was sad to see me try and play it.  The first song it must have taken me 80 tries to get through it, but I eventually did.  I proved to myself, that if you stick with a new skill and practice, you will get better, and I hope my youngest daughter grasped that concept watching my dedication.

So this year, I made several resolutions, and I put them in a spot where I will see them daily.  I am hoping that even though I may not accomplish everything on my list, at least I am giving them a try and one day, I know I will tackle every single one of them.  This year might be just practice or I may reach a goal or two, either way I am going to be happy about giving it a try.

So here is a toast to New Years resolutions.  They are an opportunity to believe in yourself and the magic of your mind.  Whatever you want, it is within your grasp, you just have to believe it, work towards it and sometimes practice it a bit before you get it.  Life is sweet, and 2008 is going to rock!

Ok, so I have been told recently that I don’t play nice.  This was not a revelation, I have known this for years, I left my patience back in 1980 when I got too damn tired of being a punching bag to care much what anyone thought of me.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am one of the nicest “not so nice” people you will ever meet, if you follow my rules of conduct.  First rule is don’t bug me, second rule is  don’t jerk me around and the third rule is do what you are supposed to do.

Most people don’t follow my three rules, so yes, I can get testy.  Let me give you an example.  My husband and I were in Costco, and we made a purchase that did not fit in our car so we decided, ok, since the people we are buying this for have a car half the size of ours, this gift is not going to work, we will just get the smaller size.  The people were taking this item across country, so we had no choice.  So we are standing in the RETURN line (this should let everyone around us know that are intention was to RETURN the item) and out from nowhere comes they guy that checks your cart on the way out.  He asked if we had not just purchased the item.  My husband said yes we did.  I said, it will not fit in our car, so we are returning it.  Apparently, I didn’t say it so nicely and my husband let me know, at which point, I thought it best to just keep my mouth shut.

So the receipt checker tells us, why don’t you pick it up tomorrow?  My husband politely answered it was a Christmas gift for someone else.  I think the guy thought we should go rent or borrow a truck, but anyways he left, and we continued to stand in the RETURN line.  He comes up again and says, “you can have it delivered you know” at which point my husband tells him, no, that won’t work out, the people have a very small car, if we can’t fit it in our car, then even if it was delivered, they would not be able to fit it in theirs to go across country.  The guy left.  He then came back moments later and said “We have costco’s in a lot of places, maybe you could buy it online and they could deliver it to them where they are”  at which point, my husband politely said no, it is a Christmas present, and the couple were not even at their destination yet so it wouldn’t work out.

I stood by confused, part of me wanted to lash out and say “YOU IDIOT, can’t you tell yet we do NOT want this TV” and part of me was amused that he kept coming back because my husband isn’t exactly known for having much patience either and I was hoping my husband would just snap and tell him to get lost.

No luck, my husband remained patient and I kept my mouth shut.  I was proud.  Looking back, the guy was just trying to help, I understand that.  The thing is, he was not obeying my rules, namely number 3 which states “do what you are supposed to do”.  In my mind, he was a receipt checker, he was not the return department, he was not customer service, so he should have stayed on the other side of the room and do what he is supposed to do, check receipts, not convince us to keep something that clearly was not going to work out.

I think the issue in that particular case was my “thing” about privacy.  I don’t think I should explain my actions to anyone not directly involved in the issue at hand.  I did not feel that I should tell the receipt checker “ok, this is how it goes and tell this stranger this long and drawn out story about why we are buying it and why we are returning it for the same thing, just a smaller size.

Oddly enough, when we did reach the Returns counter, the women said “Oh, you just got this, so the box hasn’t even been open, ok, great” and that was it.   She followed my rules, she was polite, did her job, and didn’t bother me and she was a pleasure to deal with.

Having said all that, and this being the season of love and joy and all of that stuff, I have decided to try and bite my tongue more often and be nice.  This is going to kill me.  I figure though, best to do it now, because if I don’t try now, I will end up having to make it my New Years resolution and that would mean working at it all year long, I would be insane by then.  It is best I do it now, and then just say “well, I tried, but the entire world is idiots and I just can’t help opening my mouth and telling them”  I will at least get credit for trying.

I am a firm believer in getting what you pay for.  I also believe that companies should stand by their products.  It is pretty easy, and it goes like this.  I work like a dog to provide the necessities in life and try to get a few of the finer things in life.  In return, the products I purchase should work, and if they don’t, the company should bend over backwards to make sure the consumer is happy.  That builds brand loyalty.

Well, last year for Christmas my husband and I decided to buy ourselves a joint gift.  So we purchased a Samsung flat screen LCD TV for the office.  Having it on in the background sometimes helps pass the very long hours we spend working our butts off so that we can buy things like the TV.  Well, we are (or should I say were) very loyal to Samsung.  We liked their products, have a few of their TV’s and a few of their monitors.  Well, as luck would have it, a couple of weeks ago the screen went black.  The sound on the TV works great, but I am one of those people who believe TV’s should also have a picture to go with that sound.

So I call up Samsung to tell them that my poor TV is broken.  What I expected was someone to say “don’t you worry about anything, we will send a service man to your home within 3 days to fix it, or even “We have a Samsung repair depot only 5 miles from your home, can you drop it off there and we will have it fixed?  What would have rocked, is if they would have said, we will send you a new one to replace the old one.  I don’t think I was being unreasonable to expect service like that, but alas that is not what I got.

I was informed, much to my dismay that if you look at the fine print in their manual you will see that what Samsung does is send you a “refurbished” TV that may, or may not be the same model and or size you have to replace your non-working TV.  Your used TV will then have a warranty of 90 days after which, if it breaks down, you are going to have to pay for repairs yourself or go buy yourself a new TV.

If this was not bad enough, they told me that I had to give them my credit card number, because I had 30 days after which receiving my used TV to get my non-working one back to them, or they would charge my credit card the price of a brand spanking new TV.  Oh, but wait, there is more.  It is going to take them approx. 30 days to get the TV to me, and it might be longer, because it all depends on what, if any used TV’s they have in the warehouse, and if they don’t have anything for you, then you are just going to have to wait until such time as they do.

I was not impressed.  First of all, I don’t like the idea of “refurbished”.  You see, the TV I have, I know everything about.  I know exactly when I bought it, approx how many hours it has been used and how well it was taken care of.  Yes, I am one of those people that go out and buy the $20 special cleaner and the $10 special rag to clean the TV with.  I want my own TV fixed, that way, if the exact same thing happens again, I can say “this is a continual problem”, but with a refurbished, you know nothing about the history of it.  For all I know it was played 24 hours a day in a day care where 35 screaming, vomiting, poop dropping 3 year olds used it as a lunch table.   Without knowing what was wrong with it before, how will I know if/when it breaks down again whether it is a new problem or an old problem?

To top things off, my disgruntled husband goes to work and expresses his displeasure about the TV to a coworker and his coworker tells him that he too had a problem with a brand new Samsung TV and he too had to get a refurbished one.  He is now having a problem with his refurbished one and Samsung is not too keen about doing anything about it.

Now, there isn’t too much I can do about the situation.  They have me in the corner and they know it.  The only thing I can do is tell others, and inform people BEFORE they buy a Samsung about their policy.  I figure if I can stop even 10 people from buying a Samsung, then I have done my duty as a consumer.  So I need 9 more people to convince not to buy one because when I was in Best Buy the other day, there were three men on the verge of buying a Samsung TV and I walked right up to them and said “before you buy this TV I think you should be aware of their policy”  The men listened intently to my story and decided that maybe buying another brand of TV would be a better idea.

Their entire policy stinks from forcing refurbished TV’s on the consumer to taking 30 plus days to get it to you.  Instructions on returning my broken TV are supposed to come with my refurbished one, and if they expect me to pay shipping, then I am just going to have to up my crusade against them!

I don’t like being cold. Especially that cold that seems to go directly down to the bone and make you want to just curl up under a pile of blankets in from of the fireplace. Well, the thing is, I have work to do, I don’t have time to curl up in front of the fireplace, and besides that, the damn thing isn’t working to begin with (it is on my To Get Done List.

So besides complaining to my husband and fending off Chi’s who keep trying to crawl up my legs to suck the last bit of warmth I have in my body for themselves I am stuck here. When they first started talking about Global Warming I thought “great, I will be able to swim all year long and finally get to grow palm trees. I happen to love Palm trees.

I don’t think I have to tell you that I am not seeing any Palm trees outside my window. I guess I should be thankful for the freezing rain yesterday, it washed away the snow so I didn’t have to shovel it. Which all comes back to Global Warming, I have a feeling this is all going to happen 500 years from now when I am long dead and buried, mostly likely dying from frostbite or pneumonia. I feel like I should be asking someone for a refund.

Yes, I do care about the planet to an extent. I think we will all be long dead before we destroy this planet, it is much stronger than I think we believe. Or a comet will come down and crash into us and destroy all life. Ok, so it might heat up for 1/2 a second then before my flesh falls off my skin but that is not what I am hoping for.

It doesn’t have to turn into a tropical island here. High 60’s in the dead of winter and the abilityh to grow Palm trees and not have my feet feel like frozen blocks of ice will do nicely. Mother Nature, come on, give me a break, send a little heat over this way will ya?

When your child is born you gaze into it’s closed eyes, and marvel at how completely ugly this thing is. Oh sure, you tell all the folks he/she is beautiful, but deep down inside you are praying that this thing gets cuter as it gets older because if it stays looking this ugly, it will be at home with you forever.

For the first few months of its life you thank god daily that he has brought this most remarkable creature into your life, and at the same time wonder why on earth you decided to have kids in the first place. No one, and I mean no one likes shitty diapers, and they always shit right after you dress them up or right before you are about to sit down to the first meal you have managed to make this week because the other nights the kid would not shut up because it has colic. You develop a love/hate relationship with the child that continues…well…it continues forever.

Now most of you probably reading this say this is not true, you love your child, you adore it, yeah sure you do, but lets be realistic. Unless you are one of the few rich folks where money never matters this kid, and the ones that follow will suck you dry for ever penny you ever manage to make forever. They will disappoint you, make you age well before your time, add worry lines to your face thereby destroying any notion you ever had of being one of those hot MILF’s they are aways talking about. They drive you completely insane.

Truth be told, I would not have it any other way. My daughter will make me so angry with her one day, and gather me up in her arms and reassure me that everything is going to be ok another. As the years go by, the roles reverse and instead of you comforting your children when they fall, the comfort you. No one in your entire life will ever know you like your child does. They will see you at your worst, they will see you at your best and they will love you, with all of your faults, no matter what mistakes you have made…they just keep loving you, and they will love you until you take your last breathe.

My mother was not a saint, she was far from it. Her faults far surpassed her grace when it came to me, but I was smart enough to understand that even her faults could teach me. They could teach me a different way of doing things, they could teach me forgiveness, and they could teach me unconditional love. So when my mom found out she was dying she told me she was afraid, and she did not want to be alone when she died and so I made her a promise at that moment, that no matter what, when her time came I would be there holding her hand.

I gave up a lot to fulfill my promise, I stayed by her side, I moved into the hospital and my nights were spent with a chair pulled up next to her bed, my head resting on her bed and my hand holding hers tightly. I can’t explain how, but when her time came I woke up, and I just knew it was time to say goodbye… So I held one hand tightly and with the other I rubbed her arm and I told her I loved her, and I told her she didn’t need to be afraid, that I was there, and that it was ok to let go. My mom let go of life within moments and I sat there, afraid to let go of her hand, knowing it was her time, terrified she had not passed and afraid if I let go to call someone I would not be holding her hand when she left this world. So I sat with her for a few and then started calling out for my brother and he finally came in and I told him I thought she passed, but I wouldn’t let go until the nurse said she was gone, and even then I held on a little while longer.

Kids will drive you insane throughout your life, they are blood sucking leaches and will torment you every chance they get, and I am so thankful that I have four of them. They have taught me more than any book ever could, and each day I have them in my life is another day that I can learn to be a better person.

I find it so sad to see parents who shuffle off their kids, so eager to get them out of the way, so afraid the children will cramp their lifestyles. It is us old, run down parents who truly understand the gift they are. Yes, we are poor and yes we are tired but we earned every wrinkle and if you look at the wrinkles you will see they are laugh lines and the ones that look like they were made from tears, are usually tears of joy.

I have not been too happy with the male species lately, I have found them to be bullish, hurtful and on the humanity scale they are rating about a 1 with me right now. Men suck. They have so many self esteem issues it is scary. From calling people “son” so others will think they are older and wiser (when in fact, they are just old) to calling females fat (even though they can do with dropping a good 30 plus pounds themselves).

I have never understood this need for putting others in their place, for belittling them, for trying to inflict emotional pain on them just for their own amusement. It seems they think it is cool to hurt or embarrass someone. It is like they really believe that in doing so, it puts them up one notch on the “cool scale” and makes their male member grow by an inch or two.

Well, I got news for y’all, it lessons you, it makes you childish, it makes you unworthy as a human being in general and I pray that one day, karma is going to walk up to you, and bite your @#$#@$@ face off, chew it up a bit and then toss it on the ground. 99% of men such and the problem with us women, is half of us haven’t figured it out yet. Given the chance they will screw you, fuck you around, fuck around on you, and take everything you have, just because they can.

So to the guy, a complete stranger who walked up to a girl he has never met before and called her fat (when she is not fat) and made her cry, ruined her night, and made her feel like she was worth nothing…..a big FU goes out to you. I hope you one day, Karma pays your back ten fold.

I have a made service that comes usually twice per week. Most people think that you should do it yourself, or be rich to have a made service. I have one for several reasons but the biggest reason is I believe everyone should spend the majority of their working time what they do best.

I can clean a house very well, when I am in the mood and when I don’t get distracted. You know what I mean, you go to wash the dishes so you open the cupboard to grab the dish soap, but instead start to straighten the cupboard out, then find that silver polish you have been looking for forever. So next thing you know you are looking for that silver medallion you wanted to polish that was in the bedroom jewelery box. So you open the box and you see all of these little treasures that bring back memories and a bunch of things you totally forgot you had so you spend some time looking through things. Then you call your daughter to tell her this story about a ring in the jewelery box and the next thing you know 3 hours have passed, you have spent all day “cleaning” and the end result is you haven’t done anything.

Now the maid service, they are good at what they do, they have learned what works best cleaning what surface and they know they have a specific amount of time to get everything done. So they come in and in 2 hours my house is gleaming from top to bottom and even in those sneaky little corners some of us would not rather think about. I can therefore concentrate on what I do best and everyone is happy. I provide work to people that need a job and they make my home clean, relieve a hell of a lot of guilt and I am falling in love with my home all over again. Half the time I feel like I am staying at a first class hotel. All I need is room service and I will be all set.

Since I have a particular fondness for bathrooms, particularly those at resorts and hotels I happen to love how they keep my own bathroom gleaming just like the resorts do and make you feel down right pampered. If you are into bathrooms like I am, I think you might enjoy checking out this site Bathrooms Of The World
It is a cross between a travel site and a place for people curious about what hotel bathrooms look like that can go and even share their own pictures.

Ok, so now I think is the point where I get to the point of my post. I guess the piece of wisdom I am trying to pass along is to do the things you love and do the things you are good at, and spend less time doing the things you dislike or just suck at doing. Mind you, I believe that people should do at least some things they detest, it is good practice and it is “good for the soul” as mom used to say, but for things like housework and such, if you hate it, hire someone. It will make you feel special, it will free up more of your day to do the things you love and it will take away the guilt about not being that perfect housewife away.

So here is to spending more time exploring things you love and less time doing things you find annoying, never ending and just plain awful!

When i was little Christmas was easy.  The “big gift” was an easy bake oven for me or a crappy recorder for my brothers.  There were a few small gifts and we thought we had all died and gone to heaven.  My, how things have changed.  Yeah, yeah, I know our standard of living has come up a lot since the “good old days” but when the kids hand you Christmas lists that have no less than a grand worth or “must have’s” on it, things are getting out of hand.  If you have several kids, Christmas can be a huge expense and a real strain on family finances.

Part of the problem is I am all about Christmas, all about spoiling the kids, somehow thinking the bigger the Christmas, the more they will know they are loved.  Of course this makes no sense at all, but put me in a store with all the latest gadgets and I lose my mind.  I rationalize things, I lamely attempt to talk myself out of things, but there is no stopping me.  I am a mad woman on a mission and that is to make each Christmas the stuff dreams are made of.

Does it work?  Is more better?  I can’t answer that question, all I know is that when we were financially strapped one year,  we happened to laugh more and enjoy the holidays more than we ever did.  Was that the lack of gifts, or was that just circumstance I will never know, and I don’t plan on finding out.  I would rather die with my kids knowing that sometimes I went overboard, that I took every opportunity to show them I loved them.

So bring on the Christmas madness, I will be right in there, knocking over the old ladies to get the last of one of my kids “must have’s” and I won’t even cry when the credit card bills come in.  Ok, I may sniffle just a bit, but you can’t take your money with you, and something my mother used to say will ring in my ears forever.

“I would rather spend the money on my children now, when I can see the smile on their faces, than make them wait until I am dead to enjoy it”

There are certain lessons you learn as a kid that seem to end up being hard coded into our psyche and become part of us whether we like it or not. I was taught that the way to get ahead, the way to get the things you want in life, the way to be happy was to work hard. The harder you work, the richer, the happier, the more blessed in life you will be. In my 20’s I lived by this like it was the golden rule. I always had at least one job, most of the time two, ran a house, took care of my young babies, gardened, painted and basically worked 18 hours a day.

When things didn’t go right, as was the case most of the time, I worked harder, and kept telling myself that all I had to do was keep working, work a few more hours a week, a few more hours a day and things would turn around. In my 30’s I called bullshit, but by then I didn’t know any other way to live. If hard work wasn’t the answer, what in the hell was? I was stumped, so all I could do, is to keep working. If I worked harder than everyone else, worked longer than anyone else, eventually it would change. I just needed a little more patience.

Now in my 40’s, I continue to work about 18 hours a day, 7 days a week and know that nothing is going to change, and I was sold up the river. Instead of telling me to work harder, my parents should have taught me to work smarter, and then STOP working and actually enjoy life. My entire life I have felt like I was swimming in a river against the current, battling the high waves, and the storms, and forcing myself ahead, but never making any progress. I continue to battle the current and wouldn’t you know it, but passing me by, going with the current are all of these people, relaxing on floating pool chairs, laughing while they enjoy a cocktail with a stupid umbrella in it. Sometimes I wish that I could just let go, to allow myself to float down stream with them, to laugh and let the current take me where it will, but with my luck, it will be right over a 1,000 foot waterfall to my death so I keep swimming.

I might have been sold down the river, but I won’t let it happen to my children. I tell them to do the things they want to NOW. To travel, to laugh, to have fun, to stop struggling, and just go with the flow. Don’t fight the current, just enjoy the ride down the river of life, because life is too short for regrets and spending your entire life working and never taking the time to figure out what you are working for certainly isn’t the answer.

So today I make a toast to all of those people floating effortlessly down that river having a blast, keep going, never look back and enjoy your life!