The Young Obsession

Nobody really wants to get old.
Sure, we can be grateful when we live to be 80.
But, no one wants to start forgetting things and where opening a jar of spaghetti sauce becomes an exercise in futility.

But, to the lucky, we age.
It is inevitable.

There is the saying that youth is wasted on the young.
When you're young, you have the energy to do things, but not the time.
When you get old, you have the time, but not the energy.



What I have always hated was the "years young" phrase.
People are young and they are two years old,twenty years old, whatever.
But, at some magical age, they become years young.
Seventy years young. Ugh!

For awhile that phrase was used everywhere.
Thankfully, not so much now.

However, it has been replaced by the decade thing.
Sixty is the new fifty, fifty is the new forty, and forty is the new thirty.
Thirty is not the new twenty cause you are still in your youth.
Or maybe it is.
People like to be young.



But, that just sounds corny too.

I am 44 and that it how it is.
My niece tells me I don't look as old as I am.
And I am not even wearing make-up to hide fine lines.

Honeyman is two years older than I am and he feels old to him.
I don't feel old.
Even when I hurt or when I forget something..

Mentally, I still feel young.



And to people older than me, I am young.
My mother-in-law calls me kid.

That's just how it goes.

Cause Wages

Wages are a big source of contention in the good old US of A.

Raise the minimum wage.
Don't raise it.
Don't have a minimum wage.
Make a maximum wage.
Congress should make minimum wage.

It goes on and on and on.

Here's the thing:
People saying that raising the minimum wage is a bad idea because everything else will go up is so wrong.
Why, you may ask.
The federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour was implemented in 2009. Have prices not gone up since then?
It really doesn't matter. Prices are going to go up anyway.

Congress is never going to make minimum wage.
Why would they vote themselves a huge pay cut?

Same about the maximum wage.
True that no person is worth millions of dollars in salary and benefits to go to meetings.
But, the corporate world says differently.
And who sleeps with the corporate world?
The government.

The argument for not having a minimum wage is that people should bargain for what they want and wages will actually go up.
In theory, that sounds great.
In practice, there will always be someone to take less money because they need the job.

Should people get paid their worth?
Yes.
Sadly, that is not how the world works.

Once a Vegetarian

Oh, yes.
That was me.
Back in the day.

I decided to become full on vegetarian.
Actually, at first it was total vegan.

But, do you know how hard it was to find something to eat in a restaurant?
And with my work schedule, I had to eat out.

So, I let that go and just went vegetarian.

I even got my mother to start buying plain spaghetti sauce and not put meat in it.
No small feat.

After a couple years, I started wanting chicken.
I thought long and hard and ended up at Hardees ordering a chicken sandwich.

That was the end of my experiment.

But, even many years later, I could be happy with very little meat.

I've made some great veggie patties and some awesome mushroom and cheese burgers.

I don't think I could ever do vegan again.

Cause I loves the cheese.

Soy cheese is not all it's cracked up to be.

I Am Trying

Trying is my word for the day.
Because try as I might, I can't think of any other word to write about.

I am trying to be optimistic about the future.
Sometimes it works.
Sometimes it doesn't.

I am trying to get my resume written.
It is kinda hard when I can't remember employment dates.

I am trying to get my garden planted.
So far, the potatoes are in the ground.

I am trying to keep my house dusted.
But, it's a hundred year-old house in the country and two days after you dust, stuff is dusty again.

I am trying to think of more things to write.
But, I can't.

Have a good night.

The Offspring

I had a different post in mind for today.
Originally, I planned to right about offended.
But, a lot of things happened today and I can't even think of what I even wanted to say.

I am feeling sad and confused, I guess you could say.
Today was a day of some unwelcome, but not unexpected news.

At this point, I am not going to share.
In the future, I am sure I will.

In the meantime, I will share with you some music from The Offspring.
They are not everyone's cup of tea.
However, I love them.

My Miracle

Life can be pretty crappy sometimes and something comes along to put everything into perspective.

About a year ago, my nephew got his miracle. He was speeding down a gravel road and lost control, Major rollover and the top of the car was smashed like you wouldn't believe.
He and his friend walked away.
I don't know how.

Three years ago, my father-in-law had heart bypass surgery.
At first, everything seemed great.
After that one by one things went wrong and he was on life support. The doctors even suggested to my mother-in-law that they take him off.
Honeyman went and talked her off the ledge and persuaded her to come home for a few days.
He also told my father-in-law that if he was going to fight, he needed to start. I am sure he probably heard him.
Slowly, he did get better.
He is still alive.
Missing toes and breathing hard, but here.
That was his miracle, but he really doesn't remember it.

My miracle came about 12 years ago. It was more my daughter's, but I am still counting it as mine.
I know that I have mentioned that my daughter almost died before and that is what this is about.
It was an extremely hot August day. I should have been working out in the garden, but it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit so I stayed in.
That turned out to be the best decision I could have made.
I was upstairs on the computer. Kiddo complained of a headache so she was laying on the couch.
Suddenly, I hear her throw up and I called down to see if she was OK.
Nothing.
I start to head down and all of a sudden a horrible scream.
I came down and she couldn't talk.
I took her in the bathroom to bathe her.
While in the tub, her eyes rolled back in her head, she threw up again and went limp.
I thought she was going into a coma when her eyes rolled back in her head.
I called my in-laws.
They came out and told me instead of taking us to the hospital to call 911.
I hadn't thought of that.
The town near me has a great volunteer EMS crew and so many showed up.
They ended up life flighting her to Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines.
It turned out that she was having non-stop seizures. They had to give her paralyzing medication to stop them or she would have seized to death.
Since, they did not know what was going on and Honeyman was there when the life flight landed he was taken to see her.
He said she looked dead. He thought she was.
At a children's hospital, they work back from worst case scenario to best because a child is more susceptible to things.
So, in the ICU, she got her stomach pumped and had ct scan, mri, eeg, etc,etc.
No cause was found so she was diagnosed with epilepsy. Epilepsy is two or more seizures of unknown origin.
She had one more seizure in the hospital before we left. It was not as severe because she was on medication.
All together, she was in the hospital for four days.
I am so blessed that she made it. I will always be grateful.
She was on Dilantin for 2-1/2 years and outgrew epilepsy. Children can do that.

That time will stay with me forever.
So, when something big happens and a kid dies and I hear parents talk about hugging their kids a little tighter it bugs me.
Cause it doesn't stick.
A few weeks down the road and it's business as usual.

It shouldn't be that way. You never know what is going to happen.

I Got Your Lotion

You got your hand cream, your body cream.
You got your sexy cream, aka motion lotion.
You have handy and body lotion or just hand lotion.
You've got your skin protective lotion and your healing lotion.

It's all about the lotion.

Hi, High, and H.I.

H.I.



High



Hi


Have a great Saturday!

Friends or Merely Friendly

So many degrees and types of friendship out there.
Where to start.

You have the facebook friends that you really don't know, but you may have something in common.

You have your BFF(Best Friends Forever) or BFFs.

You have your friends that you kinda sorta know and hang out with on occasion, but you don't talk about the important stuff.

You have friends with benefits. And we're not talking insurance, though the after-effects can leave you feeling pretty good.

Some people have frenemies. You like each other, but not really. It's complicated.

There are the people married to their best friend and people that have best friends outside marriage.

Some people's best friends are their pets.

Friendship is just all over the psychological map.
Some people need a lot and some people don't.

And to all my blogging friends: This is where I leave you for I have no point to make.

That Epic Emu War

It was a big war.
I don't know why it never made the history books.

 A unit of former WWI Australian soldiers going up against twenty-thousand angry emus.

All the people wanted to do was farm, all the emus wanted was to eat and drink.

The evil emus were tearing up property so the army was called in complete with machine guns.

The troops were no match for the stealth emus and they had to admit defeat within a month.


Yes, this did happen in 1932 in Western Australia.

Bock Bock Cluck Cluck

Here are my hens coming up to the door to say hi.

 

The tan ones are Buff Orpingtons, the white with a little black ones are a Leghorn mix, and the red one is a Rhode Island Red.

This is the run of their coop. This was last summer before they scratched up all the grass.

These are the newest additions. Five Buff Orpingtons and five White Leghorns are in there. They are getting big enough to divide up into separate totes. They are about two weeks old now and already have wing and tail feathers.

We have all girls. Unless one of the babies was sexed wrong, we won't be having a rooster.

Girl chicks are called pullets and boy chicks are called cockerels.

Chickens are pretty easy to take care of. They do get to free range part of the day and they love it.

They make noise when laying eggs. It's the egg laying song.

It will be 16-24 weeks before the pullets start laying.

I also have baby ducks.

One might say they were a parting gift for buying all the chicks.

We think the yellow ones are Pekin and the brown/yellow are Rouen. They came from the assorted bin so that is what we are guessing for now.

They were given to my husband because they were getting picked on and they were not doing too good. If we didn't take them, they would be taken back to die and tossed in the garbage. 

Since he is a softy, he brought them home.

Bout Those Butts

I thought long and hard about what I wanted letter B to be.

Guess what?
Chicken butt!

Yes, I know.
Hysterical.

What is something we all have in common?
We all have butts.

Some people have big butts.
Some people have little butts.
And some people are just gigantic butts that walk around.

For the ladies and gentleman that like to look at men's butts being painted up like Easter eggs, come on over.

There seems to be an abundance of songs about butts.
Type in butt songs on youtube and you can find a butt songs playlist.

Now, for your listening and viewing pleasure:

Samwell- What What (In the butt)


Sir Mix A Lot- Baby Got Back


2 Live Crew- Too Much Booty in the Pants


Foxy Shazam- I Like It


Eddie Murphy- Boogie in Your Butt


Have a great Saturday!

Always with the Acronyms

Here I am again. I just kind of leaped into this without a plan.
I am good at that.

I thought my A post should be Ankylosing Spondylitis or A.S.
That is inflammatory arthritis that affects the back as well as hips, knees, heels, etc. And also can damage heart, eyes, and lungs and fusing of back and hips can occur.

But, as I am still in denial, I am writing on another topic.

The beloved ACRONYM.

They are everywhere.

Not so much when I was younger. The military has always liked acronyms, but the general population really didn't use many.

An acronym is a group of the letters that stand for something.

We had BFE- Bumfuck Egypt which means being in the middle of nowhere.
We also had FUBAR- Fucked up beyond all recognition.

The acronym has a life of it's own these days.
Known as geek speak, text talk, or internet slang.

I admit to searching for some of these.
Some I can figure out by context.
Does FTW mean for the win here or fuck the world?
Are you playing soccer or having a bad day?

Maybe if you are Monsanto fucking the world means you are winning?

I kept seeing AF. Had to look that one up.
The band AFI means A Fire Inside, I knew that.
As fuck, really?

Does it seem to you that a lot of these have F as a bad word?
WTF is going on here?
OMG, do you think that is why all the acronyms? So people can say naughty words without saying naughty words?

I just have no words.

Z Marks the Spot

No, I know what I mean.
In my X post, I determined that the majority of X words sounds like they should start with Z.

Following this logic Z, and not X, marks the spot.
And the Z is where is all comes to a conclusion.

I got to the half-way point and thought the alphabet was so long.
But, I went on and I could see the Z was in my sights,

Now, I have reached
the pinnacle
the end
the climax.

Now, it is time to pat myself on the back and congratulate everyone else for reaching Z.

And in celebration, I am going to go plant my potatoes

Yes I Am

Yes, I am actually writing and scheduling this post ahead because my husband has a "procedure" on Y day.
I have had trouble so let's hope this works.

Yes, I am the type of person that has strange funny things running through my head when seeing or hearing serious news stories.
Did you know that Timmy fell down the well? Timmy was a dog and no Lassie was involved.
But, yes my mind went there.
The dog is fine and rescued by firemen.

It gets worse.
Yes, I am keeping that to myself.

Yes, I blame my husband for this.

Yes, I am very aware you might think I have a warped mind.

Yes, I am the proud owner of  the George Carlin collection of HBO stand-up specials.

Yes, I am the brains of my operation.
Yes, I am totally serious.
Yes, you can ask the hubs.

Yes, I do love Cary Grant movies.

Yes, I am a fan of the band Yes.

And, yes, this is a scene from a movie I love.

But it Sounds Like a Z

I have thought long and hard about my X word.

In the past, I have done Xanadu and X-ray and I don't remember what else.

Xenu came into my head, but everyone knows Xenu is a guy floating around the sky that Tom Cruise prays to.

My next option was to get out my dictionary and look for X words.
Xenophobe was good.

That's a person that is afraid of strangers- which pretty much describes every kid in the free world.

But, then I realized something...

Most X words seem like they should start with Z.
Unless it is like X-ray, it has a Z sound.


Except for Xmas, cause the X is really the Greek letter meaning Christ.

Xerox, xylophone, and so on and so forth.

So, in conclusion, I really have no X word for today.
Pretty much a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.

And I'm OK with that.

It's a Weighty Issue

There are two types of people in this world.

The ones that don't care one bit about what they weigh and the ones that do.
Some of those people pretend they don't but really they do.

I am one of those people that cares.
Because I could stand to GAIN a few pounds.

Normally you hear about the people that bitch and moan about how hard it is to LOSE weight and how they hate people that can drop weight so easily.
And God forbid, I mention that I can't gain.
"You're so lucky".

Cause, it's nice having hip bones stick out.

I can eat whatever and don't gain.


I can eat all the 1-2-3-4 peanut butter cookies or flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I want, but that does nothing.

Several years ago, I was a little on the heavy side.
So, I started to lose weight.

And I did.
I got to where I wanted and I thought it was all good.

I got all healthy and eating the right foods.
Figured that more money in good food, less in getting sick and doctor bills.

But, I lost some more and I am going to bitch and moan about that.

It's not easy trying to lose, but the same is true if you need to gain.

We are all different.
For some people, it is as simple as calories in/calories out.
For others, it is the type of food you eat.
Some people need more carbs and some people less.

I can keep my weight steady by eating more carbs. The tricky part is getting enough to gain what I need without eating stuff I shouldn't.

And It Vanished

It was the case of the vanishing brain power,

She could no longer recall the word she wanted.
It was there.
And POOF, it vanished.

Only to be remembered five minutes later.

She called her cat, her dead cat's name.
She forgot that cat died.

Where were all these brain farts coming from?

She forgot that she did U yesterday and did another U word today.
That post has now since vanished.

Was it brain fog from the fibro that her doctor thinks she has?
Or did her brain just take a small vacation without telling her?

However, it is just crazy.
Her mind seems very lazy.

Very mysterious indeed.

Under the Weather

Let's stop and think about this for a minute.

What does UNDER the weather really mean?

Sure, it is supposed to mean that you are not feeling so hot.
You are sick.
Whatever.

But, aren't all of us always under the weather?
The weather is above us all and falls to the earth.

Sun and clouds are above us.
Rain and snow comes from above.

So, we are all UNDER the weather.
All the time.

Unless, we are in an airplane flying above the clouds and storms.
Or, in a spaceship in another galaxy.

At that point, we would be above the weather.

The Trees Are Blooming

Over at the dump, the plastic bag trees are in full bloom.