Category: Home Life

Fiendish Friday: When do the rules apply to you?

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 3 Comments

The other day I was driving in what I must say was particularly bad traffic. I was held up in one lane going up the mountain by a school bus letting children off. It happens. I, and a dozen other cars were waiting. What the school bus meant was I had plenty of time to watch what happened next.

Coming the other direction, a car was lagging, like 15 mph in a 45 zone. Probably on their phone. Several cars behind this driver decided to pass him. On a one lane each direction road. Across a double yellow. So they pulled into the opposite direction lane to go around this guy doing 15. Except the guy caught on and started speeding up. The third car trying to pass him is still in the opposite direction lane.

Both cars are accelerating towards the stopped line of cars behind the bus as the guy trying to pass illegally is still in the wrong lane. Neither driver is budging and they’re still coming towards the bus.

I seriously have to wonder. What are people thinking in that moment? I’m going to pass this guy even if it kills me and a school bus of children? I’m not letting this guy pass me even if it kills him and a school bus of children?

Why is it so hard for people to just drive in a reasonable manner?

 

Fiendish Friday: The Last Time

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

I swear this is the last time I will complain about the coop. But….

We’re in the home stretch. I am off the board. The new members are doing their jobs (hence me having time to write EVERY DAY). But I’m still chairing the scheduling committee. We got a schedule put together. Got it through feedback from the members. Fixed it all up.

And then it started.

“You moved my class to x time and that doesn’t work for me.”

“It meets all seven guidelines you gave me in your proposal.”

“You must have misunderstood. Please change it.”

I have played so much Tetris with little boxes of information this week, my eyes are permanently crossed.

Of course we still have to release to the members for registration. And every change that was suggested in feedback that we were unable to make….yup a parent will complain (and no angel will get her wings).

I am so close to done, I can taste it. If the kiddo doesn’t go there next year, I don’t have to do anything but teach. Can you imagine? I can’t. LOL

Fiendish Friday: I got nothing

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 8 Comments

No, seriously. Nothing came to me this week as funny and blog worthy. I’ve been keeping my head down working. If it isn’t new words, it’s blacksmithing old ones, or playing with the attachments to my dremmel to remove tile.  It’s hard for anything much to happen when you keep your head down and just work. And that was kind of the point.

Way too much drama lately.

Come on brain, come up with something rant worthy.

oooh, we’re in the middle of mock registration for the co-op and I offered three options for history class next year. I planned to teach the one that got the most votes. Wouldn’t you know it, the votes are even.

That was pitiful.

But on the other hand, I am at balance again.Three cheers for life being “boring.” Embrace the calm.

What’s the most calming thing you did this week?

Wednesday Words 2.21

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

I feel like crap today. Heinously anxious, headachey, jittery, exhausted from lack of sleep.

Whenever I have psychic pain it always becomes physical for me. I’m fighting with a friend. Maybe still a friend? I don’t really know. She isn’t talking to me right now.

For several nights, I’ve been unable to shut my head off to sleep. Dealing with massive emotional stress. Which means multiple runs of SVT, which is my body’s default when sleep deprived and stressed. Nothing like the joy of feeling like you’re having a heart attack 6-8 times a day. Wheeee.

All of this makes me not able to focus on my writing, even though for the first time in what feels like months, I have time to write.

Very frustrating.

How is your WIP? Are your plans for 2018 shaping up as you wanted? Are you having to adapt? It’s good for you but sometimes doesn’t feel like it. Do tell me all about it….

Fiendish Friday: Bad Decisions

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

So I’ve been watching various documentary investigative shows to get a feel for how cold cases are handled. More research. I do a lot of research.

I watched one recently where a guy turned up dead in an alley.

When they dig into his life they find he had been involved with a married woman for about nine months at the time of his death.

Oopsie.

Then they find, this woman’s husband is an enforcer…

Double oopsie.

Wait for it,

For the largest cocaine distributor in Miami.

Bwahahahahahaha.

It’s amazing he lived as long as he did.

I’m wondering if he was suicidal? I mean, who gets involved with a woman under those circumstances?

 

Wednesday Words 2.14

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

It’s apparently Valentine’s Day. I got my first clue it was coming when I took a girlfriend to my favorite Lularoe dealer this past Sunday. She gave away Valentine’s leggings with every purchase.

Then this morning my father in law calls me.

“I just wanted to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day. It’s so nice to hear your voice.”

I do have an awesome phone voice.

“And I wanted you to know if (insert hubs name here) doesn’t do anything for Valentine’s Day, it’s not his fault. I never did anything for his mom when he was growing up.”

That’s stinkin’ cute.

We don’t actually do Valentine’s Day in my house. Our dating anniversary was like five days before Valentine’s so it seemed pointless. And then once we got married…whatever.

I actually texted my hubs to warn him I already bought flowers while getting groceries so not to get guilted into buying any on the way home from work. ROFL

The kiddo went to school today. Thank god. Wednesday is the one day a week he goes to class for 6 hours without me. But he hadn’t been since before Thanksgiving, long story about that, he went today. I have time to write and yoga, so I’m going to get on that.

PS. Yes, I am a Lularoe devotee. I like to look like I made an effort while feeling like I am wearing pajamas. Lula fits the bill, perfectly.

 

Fiendish Friday: The Lure of Youth

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

Did you know if you go on a cruise and your age is 25 years younger than the average, you will be flirted with constantly no matter how you look?

Yup.

Just saying. Everywhere I went. Sweet old men, dirty old men, chatty old men – all flirting with me.

And I know it’s all about my perceived youth.

I must say it was very nice to have doors opened for me and men stand when I left the table though. LOL

 

Fiendish Friday: Positive Peer Pressure

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 4 Comments

I talk now and then about my son. He has special needs and we’ve had some learning challenges. His eyes were misaligned and he could not see correctly to learn to read until we figured this out and got him medical assistance to realign his eyes. Which insurance didn’t cover because it was a learning disability? Seriously? Whatever, that’s a post of other horse.

All of this is to explain it has taken some effort to get my son to embrace reading as a fun past time. I started with books about star wars and avengers and scooby doo. But then he quickly moved past those type of readers. Now what?

He would not try anything new.

Then I hit upon a scheme of epic proportion. I would get audio books from a new author, play them in the car without telling him it was a new author and then when he loved it, I would whip out other books from the same author and say look, more x, y, z.

But that is a lot of work. Like seriously. I do it, because he’s my kid. But holy cow batman, that’s a lot of planning and effort.

So the other day we’re at the library for a chess meet up and afterwards the kids are all looking through the youth section books. A very pretty little blond girl hands my son a book he has never read, by an author he has never read, and says “You’ll like this.”

He nods, says ok, and pulls every book in the series off the shelf.

ROFL. Guess all it takes is a pretty blond.

Kindness Challenge Day 31

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

Day 31: Plan what acts of kindness you will do in 2018.

I think I’ll keep on being me. I do pretty well. Except for the forgiveness thing. I’ll keep working on that. LOL

In the mean time, let’s talk about the blog. Yup. End of the year. Time to review, take stock, see what’s working and what isn’t. I firmed up into three standard posting days this year with occasional offshoots and surprise posts. Fiendish Friday, Sunday Sup, and Book Review Monday are all doing evenly well. Except….

The pure stats:

Views: 4435 (Last Year 7794)
Visitors:  1623 (Last Year 1475)
Likes: 1386 (Last Year 1502)
Comments: 452 (Last Year 761)

Most Viewed Posts:

Allison Maruska’s new book review and interview.

A funny little ditty about what it’s really like to home school

A ridiculously boring post on rebranding my blog

An amusing travelog of our time in Amsterdam

A strange little question about the nature of the Great Oz

Blog posts I thought were funny but got fat ignored:

Um. I got nothing. I spent about 90 minutes going through my lowest views posts looking for some that deserved more attention and I got none from this year. LOL. Maybe my posts weren’t as funny as previous years. Maybe I was more concerned about offending people than necessary. Which leads me to …

I think when all is said my blog has plateaued. I need to figure out how to jump start it’s growth again. I don’t have the foggiest clue how to make that happen.

If you’ve got thoughts, I’d love to hear them. Til next year my friends.

 

Kindness Challenge Day 29

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

Day 29: Do a good deed to bring a smile to someone’s day

 

Today’s challenge is pretty vague so I’ll use this opportunity to tell a story. Winter 2015/2016 I heard both presidents at the coop were resigning. One in March and one would stay on until the end of the year. I watched for several months but no one stepped up. I told the staying until the end of the year president that I would take on the job if no one more qualified stepped forward. Realistically, I didn’t want to. But on the other hand, no board, means the coop doesn’t function and my special needs child, the one who does not adapt to change, he loves it there. He loves it so much he’ll try new classes there because he’s comfortable in the environment. I can’t lose that. She agreed I hadn’t really been at coop long enough (less than a year at that point).

Flash forward a few months. Want to guess what happened?

In April, 2016 A. and I are elected and essentially take over the board. Along the way we divide up the work as much as possible and have a dozen member board over that first summer to keep things as easy for everyone as possible.

Want to guess what happened?

Yeah by Fall the board had dwindled to almost nothing. And I was doing six jobs easily. A. was doing another 6. But we ran that way all last year. Hoping we were improving the culture and community at the coop enough that this year we could get more people to get involved and do what they said they would do.

I unhappily but fully devoted all the time the coop needed to it’s running. When I do something, I give it everything. There is little point in not doing a job right to me. But that also means when you break my “give a f**k” there is no turning back. I am done. I reached that point this fall and gave notice I would be resigning when the president came back from maternity leave.

I started looking for people to take over portions of my job, specifically. Like “you spend all your time here on your laptop, can you take over the website?” That sort of volun-telling. And I eventually got people on board. In fact, almost all of my jobs have been off loaded to other people, just in time for my replacement to come in.

Why the hell am I nicer to others than to myself? ROFL.

Anyway I told the new vp all the things I offloaded. It made her day. Possibly her week. LOL