Queen B

Archive for the ‘Who comes up with this stuff?’ Category

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Miffed

In Who comes up with this stuff? on May 19, 2011 at 4:03 pm

So after months and months of thinking that I don’t need another place to waste my time on the internet what with the blog reading, the blog writing, Craigslist, YouTube, Ebay, Ravelry, Plurk, Lifehacker, Etsy, Instructables, Runkeeper, and FACEBOOK for the love of GOD… I gave in and popped over to Pinterest.  I read about it all the time; it’s so interesting, and cool, and fun, and full of awesome ideas I wouldn’t be able to resist!  OK, I admit it, I can’t resist!!

It all looks so, so pretty!  I am so weak.

I went to the site to set up an account, but all I could find was a button that said “Request an Invite.”  Really?  An invite?  MmmmmK.  When I clicked on it, I was instructed only to enter my email address.  Quickly, I opened a new window to find the email invitation that was surely instantaneous.

Instead?

An email to tell me I”ve been placed on the waiting list.  There’s a waiting list.  A WAITING LIST, I SAY!!

For a website.

Yes, I’m serious.

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Ditka and mini Ditka

In The little roomies, They're... family?, Who comes up with this stuff? on January 17, 2011 at 12:27 pm

In case you didn’t know, the Bears won their playoff game against the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.  In a big way.

Prior to that, there were a number of outlets giving away playoff tickets to willing fan participants.  You know what I mean… radio stations, stores, television programs find people who are willing to do funny/crazy/humiliating things for a chance to attend a game in 12 degree weather in Chicago.  Ever wonder where they find those people?

Well……… apparently they find them at my house.  Because we’re THOSE kind of people.

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What in the Sam Hell?

In Punishment for what?, Who comes up with this stuff? on January 6, 2011 at 5:46 pm

Something strange happened today.

I was sitting in my house ALL ALONE.

THE END.

Oh, I do crack myself up.  No, that’s not really the end!  Although that is very, very strange.

I’ll start again.

I was sitting in my house, ALL ALONE, when I spotted something moving out of the corner of my eye.  It hit something on the mantle of my fireplace and knocked it to the floor.  I got up to find out what had flown across the room to hit the angel off of the mantle.  The dog got up and started barking at nothing at the other end of the room.  Not barking at the door as if she heard something and thought someone had come to the door, but barking at the space in front of the television set.  I couldn’t find anything that was out of place as if it had flown across the room to knock an angel off of the mantle.

It freaked me out.

My first thought was a texting “conversation” I had with my cousin who said that my uncle has been talking to her in her dreams.  ’Shit, he’s fucking haunting me, this is just what I need.’  I started wracking my brain to remember if he ever threatened that or not.  I’m still unsure, but I think YES.

I told my husband.  Not the haunting part, just the incident and the freaked out a little part.  Of course he had to spread it around his office, so that they all know *For SURE* that he’s married to a crazy.

Hi honey!  Thanks for that!!!

Then he called me back to let me know that he had told everyone (in case I was wondering), they had discussed it at length (yeah!), and they had decided that I need to look behind the picture frames to find the BAT that is probably in the house.

AS IF!!

And what EXACTLY happens after your crazy wife finds a BAT (no, not as in BASEBALL!!!) behind a picture frame in your house, genius?  Ask your little work buddies THAT, and THEN get back to me.

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Baby it’s cold outside

In Random nonsense, Who comes up with this stuff? on January 1, 2011 at 10:19 pm

Well, winter is finally here, isn’t it?  After a 50+ degree day yesterday!  Yikes.

There has been so much happening, and I just feel three steps behind.  Hooks’ passing, the nearly immediate services and all of the activity that was involved with that, my gf Maureen’s party for her husband down on the farm, my son’s birthday, Christmas Eve (cancelled in the traditional sense), my brother and family visiting from the East coast, Christmas, New Year’s Eve.

A pineapple incident that landed me in the ER.

I feel exhausted just thinking about it.

We have lots to catch up on, but I just spent an entire day (practically) uploading photos to Facebook and I can hardly stand it.  You know I have to have at least a few self deprecating photographs I’ve saved up that I just HAVE to share.  Can you say glutton for punishment?

Do you have any patience left for me?  It’s a new year, after all.  I’m sure you can muster up just a smidge.

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Happy Thursday!

In The little roomies, Who comes up with this stuff? on November 11, 2010 at 7:49 am

This morning, over breakfast, I educated my children about the finer points of the Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch.  Maybe tomorrow we can talk about the more recently discovered Atlantic Ocean Garbage Patch, or the 2nd Patch in the Pacific.

I’m not going to link up, because there are lots of sites on the scientists, and the studies, and photos.  You should Google it.  It’s disturbing.

Especially over breakfast.

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The cloud

In Who comes up with this stuff? on November 3, 2010 at 4:06 pm

While I was driving home today, I got to thinking about the state of things.  You know, just general things.  Like how I’m practically old now, and have yet to find my calling.  Or rather how I have found a million callings and have heeded none.  I should really make a list of all of the jobs that I deemed to be ‘perfect,’ or at least perfect for me, that I did not pursue.

Of course that would take entirely too long.

I will say, however, that the jobs I have held, and the jobs I declared to be perfect have at no point intersected.

So while driving today and mulling (yes, it’s a word), I had one of those weird feelings.  Like my one true calling was just on the outskirts of my brain’s capacity of thought, and I was unable to bring it into focus.  Sort of like a word you know but can’t think of; it’s on the tip of your tongue?  I had this strange feeling, as if my purpose in life was floating around in the car over my head, waiting for me to realize it.  If I had… oh my gosh, there was greatness involved and everything.

And then I got distracted by Weezer, playing entirely too loud in the V-Dub.

Huh.  Now that I think about it, maybe I was just daydreaming.

The end.

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Great tool!

In Healthy shmealthy, Who comes up with this stuff? on October 28, 2010 at 8:22 am

My GF Julie’s hubby Ryan has a cool blog over here called Up for Sunrise which you may have seen in my blogroll, if you ever venture down south when you’re visiting me.  It’s a great general life blog that talks about a variety of topics including their family, travels, photography, home improvement, and of course his techie innovations.  Since he’s geeked on all things electronic, it only makes sense.  I find it especially compelling, since they’re friends.  I think you might like it too, though, so feel free to check it out.

Anyhow.

Recently he wrote a post about running the 2010 Chicago Marathon with his wifey.  Go Team Dobson!!  Very proud of them, although I still think they’re crazy.  Good crazy, of course.  My favorite part, however, was the techie portion of the program.  Ryan was nice enough to share his training tracking software of choice.  RunKeeper. Welllllll…. of course I had to check it out because it looked very complicated and difficult for me to understand.

I mean… COOL.

My kids and I have been running together, and I have been looking for a way to track our distances so that we could get off of the track at our local middle school at some point.  I have an aversion to DRIVING in order to RUN.  It doesn’t even sound right.  I want to open my front door and run away.  Not literally.  Well, actually yes, literally.  I always come back!  Sheesh.  This is all a bit premature, as we have a bit longer before we can leave the security of our precious track (since we’re still training with run/walk circuits) but I like to be proactive.   Especially since the program looked like it might take some time for me to figure out, what with me NOT being a techie or anything.  What the hell do I know?  I think I was blinded by the coolness of the information I saw on Ryan’s blog.  Ok, truthfully, I was mesmerized by the fact that he burned over 60,000 calories training for the marathon.

Anyone who knows me laughed out loud when they read that part about being proactive.  Snorted, even.

Surprisingly, it was absolutely painless to get started!  Free, even.  I was able to input our circuits to this point manually, I downloaded an app to my iPhone for our future runs.  It probably took me less than ten minutes to get it all completed.  I feel so PREPARED!

The best part of RunKeeper is that it’s not just for running!  You can use the program for running, walking, biking, swimming… you name it and you can track it!  AND if you are so inclined (I’m not, since contrary to popular belief, I am actually quite anti social), you can link to your Facebook account, to Twitter, or to Foursquare.  Foursquare?  Is there another social platform that I need to investigate?  Seriously?  Dang it, I can not keep up!  There’s also some fancy wi-fi scale software called Withings you could link to, if you’re into weight loss and body fat and tracking yourself in that way.  Or, you can pretend like scales are holograms, as I do.

Do not judge me.

The bottom line is that I am really lucky that Ryan is my bloggy friend, because otherwise I might be running in circles ~literally~ forever!

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Is there a doctor in the house?

In Nothing to it but to do it, Punishment for what?, Who comes up with this stuff? on October 24, 2010 at 4:13 pm

Here is something that my kids know about me that maybe someone else’s kids wouldn’t.

If you complain, I will make you pay.  It might seem like fun and games on the surface, but in the end I win, because receiving my help is like making a deal with the devil.  I will work my magic, but there is to be no further complaining when I’m done.  And I mean it.

My friend Maureen’s kids act like they don’t know this.  They really should, they’ve been around me plenty.  Apparently they don’t pay attention to such things.  Case in point:

That’s right.  Silly girl sat down next to me and started complaining loudly that her ankle hurt.  She even hobbled around on one foot for a while for effect.  It doesn’t take long when I’m hung over to send the other kids in every direction to fetch some provisions, like sticks and paper towels and tape, so that I can make everything better.  And, of course, stop the complaining.  Also the hobbling, if I’m lucky.  No, I don’t clean wounds before dressing, obviously.  Yes, I insist upon being the first one to sign every cast.

In this case, I also had to insist that she and all of the other kids call me Dr. Frank for the rest of the weekend.  She was responsible for making her own crutches.  I’m not in manufacturing, I’m a miracle worker!  In addition, I’m not an Opthamologist, so I had to send the next complainer away without treatment.  I was exhausted from the previous procedure.

Also, I had an ankle biter that was after me.  Fully clawed.  It makes delicate eye procedures nearly impossible.

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I’m always running, literally

In Nothing to it but to do it, Who comes up with this stuff? on October 13, 2010 at 5:16 pm

I used to have just scads of time to both write many blog posts and to read other people’s many blog posts.  I am amazed at how many blogs I have amassed in my reader.  By the way, what a pain it was when Bloglines discontinued their reader service!  I was able to move all of my subscriptions to a different reader (Google), but I lost many great posts that I had flagged to go back to for one reason or another.  That fact really bothered me at first.  I felt like I had lost something, although I couldn’t put my finger on what it was that I had lost.  I’ve since chalked it up to baggage that I didn’t need, and I actually feel pretty good about it.  Sometimes things, even virtual things, can really weigh you down.

WEIRD!!  Or… weirdo?

I’m gonna go with the first one.

My point?

My husband called me out on my “computer addiction” problem at some point recently.  I tried to ignore him.  I may have sworn at him under my breath.  He said he could relate to some PSA about being “over connected” as it related to his wife.  To our kids.  At the time I wanted to smack him, but I’m realizing it’s probably a valid point.

I love my little blog.  Unfortunately for me, I also really love other people’s blogs, big or little.  When I spent all of my spare time online while eating Hot Fries, I had more than enough time to read them all.  Now, I’m not online as much, because I’m doing new stuff.  Different stuff.  Real life stuff.  BETTER STUFF.  I have stepped AWAY from the computer!  OK, I will admit that some of it is still just mundane stuff like running the kids here or there, but I’ve also been running with the kids (literally), taking bike rides, taking the dog for walks, and cooking dinner every cotton pickin’ night!!  There are literally not enough hours in the day, but everyone already knows that.

In the interest of full disclosure, I  have a confession I need to make.  I did find a rogue bag of Hot Fries in the cabinet the other day.  Trust that they are no longer in the cabinet.

Soooooo… anyway.  I have  had to reassess what I’m spending my time doing when I am online.  I promise, I am still online plenty, I am not going to lie.  I have made a commitment (to myself) to pare down the number of feeds I receive in my reader, and I have already started.  I deleted some (sadly) to save time, to more finely focus my efforts and my interests (if you don’t know me, I can be all over the place…I have LOTS of categories in my reader), and to free up time to write more of my own blog posts.  Refocusing my efforts, if you will.  While this has been really hard, it also feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.  It was starting to become a real burden to log on and see hundreds of posts that I felt obligated to read.

We don’t really need to get into why I feel obligated to other people more than to my own sanity today, do we?

So there you have it!  Now you know how I’m managing some of my virtual business these days!  Yeah, yeah, you were waiting on the edge of your seat for this, right?  Prepare, because this is just one of many gripping posts to come about my own personal brand of self-improvement.

I’m trying, people, but it’s a process.  Teeny tiny little baby steps.  Running.  Baby steps.

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Intermission

In Serious Fun, Who comes up with this stuff? on August 30, 2010 at 8:47 am

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