Oh Crap! – Musings of an Unperfect Mommy

Minimalism

June 16, 2017

Today as I was blog hopping, I saw a review of a book on minimalism – Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki. And yes, he’s Japanese and lives in Japan. He tells about how he had too much stuff and decided to downsize after reading Marie Kondo’s books on decluttering (also big in Japan). In the process of eliminating what he didn’t need he started his life anew. That got me to thinking about what minimalism really is – awareness. Awareness of ourselves and our surroundings. The relationships we have with things and people. What we really need and want out of life and what we really need and want to live that life. Mr. Sasaki became aware that his lifestyle of drinking and buying crap he didn’t need was ruining his life, even leading to depression. So he made a change. A big change, but for him it has worked. Having four kids still at home, I don’t think I could get that minimal, but I know I could do better. Be more aware. I’m hoping our library gets this book so I can see what he has to say, think on it, and see what changes I could make in my own life.

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Summer Mornings

June 15, 2017

I really like summer mornings. Early summer mornings to be exact. The kids are all teenagers now so no one gets up until 9am at the earliest, but usually 10am. Or if they’re up they don’t come down for breakfast until they’re darn good and ready. That means it’s nice and quiet for 3 or 4 hours and I can get things done! Like writing blog posts, reading books, and maybe even making a scrapbook page or two for my album. Of course there is always housework and getting an early start to get those things out of the way is always good too. Sometimes I sneak out to the store on my own, and if I go on my own you can bet Starbucks will be in there somewhere. It’s also beautiful watching the sun come up and if I’m lucky, it might be cool enough to sit outside for 30 minutes and read and drink coffee. Yes, indeed, I’ll enjoy my summer mornings as much as I can.

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Scrapbooking Redux

June 14, 2017

In an effort to declutter my office, I also decided that it was high time to do something once and for all with these photos hanging around. Yeah, actual pictures from way back when. I do have digital photos as well, but I’ll be doing something different with those. For now, I’m just focusing on the hard copies if you will. The plan is either Creative Memories or Project Life. Or maybe both.

I started scrapbooking with Creative Memories years ago because I liked their approach – simple pages, completed albums. This was before scrapbooking took off as the craft and also all the embellishments that made you panic that you weren’t being creative enough. Kind of the opposite of what you were trying to do. I looked over some pages I did at least 8 years ago and they were all really good. Very simple, but the pages were all done. So, if I go down this road, I need to get all my finished pages in albums first – which means someone is going to have to help. For the life of me I can’t figure out these damn strap hinge books! Then, continue with these traditional style pages up to a certain year – maybe the last year of photos I made traditional pages with. I still have lots of paper and stickers so I’m ready to go.

After that, I think I’ll do Project Life. PL is a whole different concept in scrapbooking, but still the same concept as CM – simple pages, albums done. And, really, that’s the point – getting these pictures out of boxes and into a place where everyone can enjoy them. With PL you have photo pages to put your pictures in (cropping is very optional), and they also have these cute cards to journal on or just to add pizazz to your page. You can even put ticket stubs or other memorabilia into the pockets. All you do is slip it all into the page pockets and you’re done. I still have an entire kit I’ve not used, and I also bought a smaller album kit that I started putting photos in because the large book just seemed so daunting. Again, it’s all ready to go. Just do it.

Now, let me talk about journaling a minute. You might think the picture is the star, and it is, but the journaling completes the memory. That’s the other big point – you’re getting your memories down on paper instead of just in your head. It doesn’t have to be perfect, just write out the details in your own voice. It can be as much or as little as you like. My kids love our albums not just for the pictures, but also the writing – it completes each page of pictures.

So, I got all the picture sorting done yesterday. Before you throw something at me, I had the major amount of sorting done years ago into my CM Power Sort boxes ordered by year. I just had a huge stack of stragglers I’d pulled out and some I could not for the life of me figure out which years they were. So, finally got all that done and it’s on to the actual scrapbooking.

I’m excited to dive back in and get creative. I’ve got more time now that my kids are older so maybe I can finally get these pictures out of the box and onto the page. That way we can enjoy the memories any time.

(Note: I’m not a consultant for anyone. I’m just using what I have and CM and PL are what I have.)

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Still Here

June 13, 2017

It has been almost two months since I posted and I don’t think I’ve posted much all year either. When the year starts with your husband having surgery due to an accident, things feel like they’re out of control. And what happens when you feel things are out of control? Why you start nose diving into depression that’s what. Le sigh. Luckily I recognized the signs late February and decided I would take March off and get my crap back together. And it worked. I’m feeling more like myself again and that’s always a good thing (even if I’m not always sure who “myself” is).

So, I’m still around and tomorrow I’ll come back with a post about scrapbooking. Yeah, that thing I said I was going to get back into? That was six years ago! Time to get my groove back on. And “groove” always reminds me of one of my favorite songs – Madonna’s “Into The Groove”. I need to get that too. :-)

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Music Monday – At Seventeen

March 27, 2017

Remember those really awkward junior high and high school days? Yeah, me too. Not the funnest years of my life but not all bad either. This song hits the nail on the head about those turbulent years from a girl’s point of view.

Janis Ian wrote this song in 1973 when she was 22 years old “inspired by a newspaper article about a former teenage debutante who learned the heard way that being popular did not solve all her problems” (from the Wikipedia article on this song which you should read). But it was also a personal song for her for she too felt that awkwardness in her teens. For me, this is a song about being the ugly duckling in a school full of popular girls with beautiful skin and the pain of those years. She put all those feelings into this song and I’m so glad she did because it felt like someone finally understood how I felt.

I’d like to say that time changes things (and people) but I still find that some women still play catty girl games that I don’t even get into. I still struggle with skin problems, still trying to make friends, and recovering from a messy life. I do feel however, that I’m finally becoming me and I’m finally accepting of myself. It’s taken a long time, but I think I’m getting there.

I’m not going to comment overall, but going back through it there is a verse that says to be kind (pity) those who seem to have it all because in reality they really don’t. All the games they have to play to keep up appearances I would never want. I’ve done a little of that and it’s just not worth it.

Take a listen if it’s been awhile (or if you’ve never heard this one) and I’ll go put the mp3 into my cart at Amazon.

At Seventeen – Janis Ian

I learned the truth at seventeen
That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles
Who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew
The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful
At seventeen I learned the truth

And those of us with ravaged faces
Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home
Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say – come dance with me
And murmured vague obscenities
It isn’t all it seems at seventeen

A brown eyed girl in hand me downs
Whose name I never could pronounce
Said – pity please the ones who serve
They only get what they deserve

The rich relationed hometown queen
Marries into what she needs
With a guarantee of company
And haven for the elderly

So remember those who win the game
Lose the love they sought to gain
In debentures of quality and dubious integrity
Their small-town eyes will gape at you
In dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received at seventeen

To those of us who knew the pain
Of valentines that never came
And those whose names were never called
When choosing sides for basketball
It was long ago and far away
The world was younger than today
When dreams were all they gave for free
To ugly duckling girls like me

We all play the game, and when we dare
We cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone
Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say – come on, dance with me
And murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me, at seventeen

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Music Monday – ABBA

January 30, 2017

Every time I think I’ve talked about a song – I haven’t. I think I’ve just got a lot of posts in my head that never actually get written down. I’ve often said I need a portable recorder and a microphone attached to my collar and that way I’d remember what I was thinking. :-P

Anywho, today is a throwback if ever there was one – ABBA’s “When I Kissed The Teacher”. It is a fabulous song about a girl’s crush on a teacher and the day she decided to act on that crush. The music is so positive and you can’t help but sing along. Okay, I sing along to all of my ABBA favorites. God help the person who’s in the car with me when that happens.

This song takes me way back to when we lived in London and I was about 13 or 14 and yes, I did have a major crush on a teacher back then. I also had a crush on a really cute guy as well – all the girls crushed on him. Who hasn’t had a crush at one time or another – no matter what your age! Now, the video for this song I don’t like – I prefer the video in my head because it’s more real. A classroom of teens, a cute teacher, and the class laughing and screaming when the kiss happens. Yeah – that’s real. Anyway, I don’t think this needs any commentary so I’ll let it be. But do give it a listen and let it take you back. In my case waaaaay back. :-P

When I Kissed The Teacher – ABBA

Everybody screamed when I kissed the teacher
And they must have thought they dreamed when I kissed the teacher
All my friends at school
They had never seen the teacher blush, he looked like a fool
Nearly petrified ’cause he was taken by surprise
When I kissed the teacher
Couldn’t quite believe his eyes, when I kissed the teacher
My whole class went wild
As I held my breath, the world stood still, but then he just smiled
I was in the seventh heaven when I kissed the teacher

One of these days
Gonna tell him I dream of him every night
One of these days
Gonna show him I care, gonna teach him a lesson alright

I was in a trance when I kissed the teacher
Suddenly I took the chance when I kissed the teacher
Leaning over me, he was trying to explain the laws of geometry
And I couldn’t help it, I just had to kiss the teacher

One of these days
Gonna tell him I dream of him every night
One of these days
Gonna show him I care, gonna teach him a lesson alright

What a crazy day, when I kissed the teacher
All my sense had flown away when I kissed the teacher
My whole class went wild
As I held my breath, the world stood still, but then he just smiled
I was in the seventh heaven when I kissed the teacher

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A Morning in Winter

January 17, 2017

Well, okay, I’m not actually going to talk about a morning in winter – too depressing. It’s cold and dreary for the fourth or fifth day in a row. So cold and dreary I’m losing track of what day it is. What I am going to do is a post on what’s going on here. I just needed a title. Heh.

Last week was a shock to the system with the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman. Then, this last Monday, Glenn Frey of the Eagles died. WTF?? So I cried a lot. I kind of needed to cry anyway – it had been building up again without me realizing it. They’ve documented we do need to cry for emotional release so if you need to cry do it.

*Sound of needle scratching across record*

I wrote those opening lines a year ago (a post that ended in a folder) and I’m still reeling from the deaths of those beloved people. Unfortunately, Prince, George Michael and Carrie Fisher’s deaths rounded out a dismal year. And a year later, we are again on the fifth or sixth day of no sun and I’m just barely trudging along. Winter and I are not friends. I like parts of it, but not all of it.

I had also written a bunch of crap about resolutions so I deleted all that since I’m not going to do any of that this year. I’m going to do something called living instead. Growth and change will come over time whether intentional or not. I can’t keep living in regrets.

The last few days I’ve watched a few movies: “Wuthering Heights” – the good one with Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche; “The Sound of Music” (including most of the extras that go with it); and “Into Great Silence”. That last one is a documentary on the monks who live in the Carthusian Monastery in the French Alps. It is an incredibly quiet and relaxing video. I want more quiet/solitude in my life and have no clue how to get it. I’m a weird type – wanting downtime when I’m busy and when I’ve got downtime I don’t have a clue what to do with it. *sigh*

I’ve been reading a book on emotional sobriety which is very overdue reading. But you know what they say, when you’re ready the teacher shows up. Guess I’m ready.

I’ve been obsessing way too much about skin care and the state of my skin. I think I need to just do what I can, cover up the rest of the mess, and end the obsessing. I see other women my age doing the same thing so I think it’s a menopause thing. Bah!

I have figured out that sugar and caffeine are not my friends either. I have noticed that they both throw off my moods and my skin. Oh, wait a minute – what was I just saying? So, maybe it’s time to really cut down on both. I did the no caffeine thing for about a month and it made a difference so I know what I have to do. I had way too much Starbucks last year too and I’ve already cut way back on that.

I went grocery shopping for the week this morning and need to get a new menu plan in place for the rest of winter. Tonight it’s going to be a pork roast that I can just slip in the oven and let cook all afternoon. Add vegetables and maybe a peach cobbler and dinner is done. Well, in my mind it is anyway. Hmm, maybe I should read “The I Hate to Cook Book” by Peg Bracken – that would cheer me up a little.

And that’s all I have on this cold and dreary January morning. Time to eat lunch and then get that roast cooking. After that we’ll finish school and I have a couple of errands to run.

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Music Monday – I Go Crazy

January 16, 2017

And I feel like I’m just about ready to go crazy between a husband who broke a collarbone and a winter storm that luckily did not dump the ice they were forecasting. So, I had plenty of time to be bored (wow – what a concept!) and I decided to take up the idea of my 1970’s song list again. What song did I thing of for whatever reason? I Go Crazy by Paul Davis from 1977 – oh shit – 40 years ago! The sad part is that Paul Davis is no longer with us – he died in 2008 one day before his 60th birthday from a heart attack. :-( I remember crying the day I first heard that – such a sweet voice and words that resonate down through the years to all of us who’ve been in love. And this is one of those songs.

This is a bittersweet song about a man who sees his old lover and his realization that he still loves her and should not have let her go. Paul Davis had originally wanted the song to be recorded by Lou Rawls who I agree would have done justice to it. But, the studio decided that Paul himself would be the best one to record it and so he did. Good call studio! Let’s talk about the music – so sad and mesmerizing. There are parts that almost sound like a music box – like he singer is lifting the lid on one and it’s taking him back to that time. It draws you in right away and then the words – oh – you feel so much for the singer. And yourself, because we’ve all had someone we let go and we’ll never get them back. And on You Tube – millions of views of this song is a testament to it’s power over the last 40 years. So, let’s get listening.

I Go Crazy by Paul Davis

Hello girl it’s been awhile
Guess you’ll be glad to know
That I’ve learned how to laugh and smile
Getting over you was slow
They say old lovers can be good friends
But I never thought I’d really see you again
I’d really see you again

The singer ran into his old girlfriend, and I imagine these are his thoughts upon seeing her yet, not saying them. She seems to be the one who broke up with him and it hit him hard – harder than he figured on. He never thought he’d run into her again and this is that moment he wasn’t prepared for.

I go crazy
When I look in your eyes I still go crazy
That old flame comes alive
No my heart just can’t hide
That old feeling inside, way deep down inside
Oh, baby, when I look in your eyes I go crazy

Seeing those old girlfriends/boyfriends/lovers can sometimes dredge us right back into that time and it’s hard to realize that it’s gone. Those old feelings really derail us.

You say he satisfies your mind – tells you all of his dreams
I know how much that means to you
I realize that I was blind
Just when I thought I was over you
I see your face and it just ain’t true
No, it just ain’t true

This stanza is key – most women want romance and emotional intimacy. They want to talk and share plans and dreams and really get personal. Not all women do, but most do. And it’s difficult when you don’t get that intimacy in a relationship – it stunts the growth of the people in it. Our singer realizes too late that he didn’t see that before, but understands now. While she has had closure, he has not.

I go crazy
When I look in your eyes I still go crazy
That old flame comes alive
It starts burning inside – way deep down inside
Oh, baby, when I look in your eyes I go crazy

(musical bridge)

I go crazy
When I look in your eyes I go crazy
No my heart just can’t hide that old feeling inside
Way deep down inside
I go crazy

And that’s the sad ending to this beautiful song. In my daydreaming I see him walking away from her in the ending music and shaking his head – he’s lost so much. Oh, and don’t bother with any other version of this song – the original of this is the best and always will be. So, take a listen and see what you think. I was 14 when this song came out and I’ve listened to it many, many times over the course of my life. RIP Paul Davis and thank you for your tender voice and the 3 great songs you left us: I Go Crazy, Sweet Life, and Come on Over. You live on in your music.

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Resolve

January 3, 2017

I was thinking about the word resolve the other night and what it means so I looked it up:
- settle or find a solution to
- decide firmly on a course of action
- firm determination to do something
That last one reminds me of the Baltimore Catechism telling me to make a firm purpose of amendment to not sin. :-) So, to resolve means to decide firmly on a course of action and a resolution is acting upon that resolve. I don’t see the word try in any of these definitions either – you make up your mind and do it. Remember Yoda? There is no try – do or do not. Applies here.

So, I’m still not going to make any resolutions – i.e. grand statements about doing 5,000 things this year to change up my life. Nope, I’m just going to resolve to do the things I need to do – and to decide on a course of action on how to change the things I need to change. And then act on those decisions. A simpler way to make changes.

Peg Bracken in the “I Hate to Housekeep Book” says, “Act immediately on whatever housewifely impulses come your way” and I think that is a good way to get things done. If you see something that needs to be done – do it. I’ve actually been doing that lately and it works. So, here’s to a new year of living and making changes where needed. Martinis anyone?

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Music Monday – Praying For Time

January 2, 2017

It has been a week since the news of George Michael’s death shook the world and I’m still not quite over it. I remember his beginnings on MTV and listened to his music through the years so it’s very personal to me. I pray that he will find the peace that had eluded him for so long.

Luckily for us all, his beautiful voice lives on through his music and so I’ve chosen his song “Praying For Time” as this year’s first Music Monday. It is a good time for this one as so much has changed in the landscape since it was first released in 1990. I think it speaks for itself so I won’t comment. Listen without prejudice. RIP George Michael. :-(

These are the days of the open hand
They will not be the last
Look around now
These are the days of the beggars and the choosers

This is the year of the hungry man
Whose place is in the past
Hand in hand with ignorance
And legitimate excuses

The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we’ll take our chances
’cause God’s stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all God’s children
Crept out the back door

And it’s hard to love, there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope When there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much too late
Well maybe we should all be praying for time

These are the days of the empty hand
Oh you hold on to what you can
And charity is a coat you wear twice a year

This is the year of the guilty man
Your television takes a stand
And you find that what was over there is over here

So you scream from behind your door
Say “what’s mine is mine and not yours”
I may have too much but I’ll take my chances
Because God’s stopped keeping score
And you cling to the things they sold you
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That He can’t come back
Beacuse He has no children to come back for

It’s hard to love there’s so much to hate
Hanging on to hope when there is no hope to speak of
And the wounded skies above say it’s much too late
So maybe we should all be praying for time

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