The Countdown Clock

Anyone who knows me either well or even less so knows that I am a black and white thinker, no gray.  Plus, adding insult to injury, I am a lover of rules for anything and everything from important safety concerns to rules that may seem silly to others but that are important to me (doesn't everyone lose it when the milk container handles are not facing to the left or product labels are not facing forward?).  So imagine how upset I get when I start to see my neighbors putting up their Christmas decorations right after Halloween. I mean, seriously people, haven't you heard of one holiday at a time rule?  Thanksgiving comes before Christmas, you know?  How can Santa share a stoop with pumpkins?  It is obscene in my book. Now I know we need to beat the bone-chilling cold that sets in annually the day after Thanksgiving...I am so not a fan of 'here'...but this rush to decorate drives me crazy and seeing Christmas trees twinkling in homes days before we have even carved our turkey is enough to throw me over the edge.  That said, I lost my battle this year and to keep my husband happy (quiet!), I conceded and the outdoor decorating was done the day before Thanksgiving when the temperature was a balmy 50 degrees. But,  my tree will not be going up anytime before the second weekend in December and that you can count on!

Today we needed to tweak the time on our penguin Christmas countdown clock and may I say I always dread this as it is one of those 'press A' then 'press B' after holding down 'C' for three seconds type of set up.  Suffice it to say it is never fun but the frigid temps today made the job even more annoying. We must have set the 4 time blocks 5 stinking times but it still reverted back to the incorrect time each time the set button was pushed. I am freezing, frustrated and cranky and I feel like the biggest loser as we have had this clock and set it successfully for the past three years. Everything seems to be turning against us and now my stinking Christmas countdown has joined the party, too. Last year, my neighbor told me how much she and her children enjoy watching the countdown even though they do not celebrate Christmas. This year, I am going to have to make it a point to tell her to buy a countdown app because it will certainly be more accurate than the countdown we have going on on our front porch.

Nuts

I really think I am going crazy tonight or perhaps it is its a sign of the times, but I just spent the better part of a half hour reading someone's blog.  While that may not seem like anything out of the ordinary these days this blog was, quite frankly, about absolutely nothing more than the blogger and pictures of her daily wardrobe. Okay, so she had some awesome travel shots thrown in as by her own account, she is married to a 'brilliant businessman' who whisks the family ( the blogger and their three small children) away on amazing vacations as well as business trips that are 'transformed into makeshift opportunities to see the world.'  Impressive. While her travel log is extensive and the photos were quite beautiful, the rest of her blog is quite literally pictures she took of herself in a different outfit everyday complete with descriptions of each item, where she bought it, what she paid for it and how she might wear it again. It was as if I was in a trance. I wanted to look away, really I did, but I was drawn in, unable to click and 'x' out saving myself from further boredom.  I kept turning virtual page after page partly hoping to figure out why anyone would care what this unknown woman wears everyday and partially trying to understand why this woman wants to show exactly that to all her viewers. I wondered who might really care about this until I scrolled down to find the answer for myself. It seems she has had over 650,000 views and, adding insult to injury, she has 547 followers to boot.

So there you have it, surprisingly lots of people care about this woman and her wardrobe. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that we have such accessibility to people and their daily lives that even the seemingly mundane becomes interesting when someone else is doing it or perhaps she has latched on to the true essence of blogging--give the readers what they want and don't over think the topics.  So watch out readers, with this in mind next week I might be 'wowing' you with pictures of my own wardrobe.  (Note to self, better start dressing more creatively or my readers will fall asleep).

All In My Head

Let me tell you how I feel today.  Joan Rivers, the comedian, recently wrote a book in which she described, in her inimitably profane manner, how she hates everyone including herself and today I feel as though I could have written that book myself.  My son got me up in the middle of the night and while that is certainly nothing new for me, it did set off a domino-effect of annoyances from not being able to fall back to sleep to being stuck inside the 'dark place' in my head where all the bad thoughts lurk, thrive and multiply.  Rather than leap out of bed feeling refreshed (I think the last time that happened was about 9 years ago), I jumped up feeling agitated and cranky.  The list of things bugging me include, but are not limited to, the fact that I have a doctor's appointment this morning...who really wants to do that?; the way I look (awful); the way I feel (worse); the fact that no matter how often I wash my car (multiple times a week), it never looks clean enough; when one child has a problem, it seems they all do (has no one ever heard of the 'one at a time rule?'); my laundry is fornicating and multiplying (I just know it) so my doing 23 loads a week is just never enough; my favorite shirt has a hole in it (gleefully pointed out to me by the child who wakes me up at night) plus too many more issues to list.

My husband insisted that I write it out claiming that it would be cathartic to get it all out of my head and onto paper (okay, computer screen, but you know what I mean) and I know he meant well but I am not sure it is working. Since seeing my list in black and white, I am crankier than ever and the act of mulling it over and thinking it through have only made me want to add more items to the list namely my husband who made me write it down in the first place.  

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