The business of life is busy - ness. With every passing day, I am realizing just how much of what I do is 'because' and for no other earthly reason. Take laundry, for instance. I know it needs to be done, but it is just so much busy work. Grrrr!
I ironed a basket of clothes yesterday with the new iron my sweet hubby brought me. It replaces the iron that managed to fall onto the porcelain tile and end up the loser in the battle. And no, the tile didn't get a scratch. Go figure.
The survival rate of small appliances in our home is horrible. Over the course of our marriage, we have collectively or individually managed to murder 2 microwaves (we are working on killing the third one - it now only displays the readout of time, minutes to cook and countdown when IT feels like doing so), several blenders, an assortment of various sized crock pots, 3 toasters that have suffered horrible deaths and a couple of table top fryers.
My parents were given a silver Sunbeam toaster when they got married. Although it did require a brand new cord and plug several years ago, this modern miracle of toasting technology has lasted for forty-seven years to this point.
That's not a typo. You DID read right. 47 years of toasting perfection.
All I can figure is that the appliance fairies like my parents better than they do us.
Either that or we are just the kind of people who are drawn like moths to the bug zapper towards appliances that secretly want to commit hari-kari but lack the motivation to go it alone. They creep unbeknownst to us towards the edge of the counter knowing that one careless moment later that there demise will be complete and we will be the ones suffering the guilt and anguish at their loss.
Like the simpletons we are, we simply go out at the next available opportunity when both time and money meet in the middle to purchase a serial replacement in our arsenal of disposable appliances.
They smile when they see us coming and push the most frail member of the herd to the front of the display, knowing that we will indeed foolishly plunk good money down and take home the weak link.
Even now, counter top appliances are laughing at me.
I can hear them because, frankly, they are in league one with another.
Just the other day, I caught them holding a straw poll to decide who should go next. I have the sneaking suspicion that my George Foreman grill has been voted off the counter by the mean spirited waffle iron and sandwich maker that seldom sees any use.
Perhaps I should capitulate to their demands and create an equality of counter space and plugs where all appliances can have their own real estate. No more sharing and jostling for counter position. Just equality and freedom for every single small appliance!
A constitution of appliance use and rights could be drafted. A convention of epic proportion could best decide how to hook up to the power grid to ensure maximum shelf life for each new member of the family of convenience.
While the counter top citizens may be rejoicing for the moment, I have to keep reminding them that they are powerless (no pun intended) unless I plug them IN. Just at the point where a riot becomes a possibility as the appliances begging to contemplate better power settings and more individual freedom when it comes to what food they are willing to prepare for me, they are humbled into momentary submission at that one blinding fact.
I can and will take away their source of power and leave them groveling in their crumbs begging to be allowed "just one little hit" on the outlet.
I have to leave now and go shopping.
Thus far, the resident canine hasn't succumbed to their delicate bribery and plugged them in. But I know it is only a matter of time before the can opener figures out how to use itself and bribe her with a can of breast meat chicken.
Stay strong, girl!
Resist the pull of the appliances!
You can be Mommy's good little doggie and I'll bring you a treat.
And as for you conspiring appliances, if YOU are good, I'll plug you in later today.
September 14, 2007
September 11, 2007
Business
I have to wonder sometimes what internet commerce is coming to.
Specifically, I ordered some business cards. With the order were specific instructions regarding the graphic I wanted to use, a scripture reference that is meaningful to me and the business and home address at which information can be obtained. Payment was made by an overburdened VISA card and I received and e-mail confirmation that not only had my order been received, but that all due haste was being executed in my behalf to ensure speedy delivery.
They finally arrived.
Let's just say the Queen was not amused.
The scripture beneath the graphic, while correct by itself was fine. HOWEVER. . . the reference for said scripture (should you decide to mark it in your own scriptures for future reference) was not only incorrect, it was downright hilarious. Or at least it would have been if the cards had not been for my son's mission.
The reference SHOULD have been the one about Jesus blessing the little children. Instead it referenced a scripture regarding raising young cows and sheep to have butter.
Not exactly what I had in mind.
While I am a BIG fan of cows in general, I don't think they make suitable reference material when we are trying our best to share the idea that Christ and His miracles are important.
I made a phone call to the printer and left a message. Later on in the day, I called back since there had been no messages from him.
Much to my delight, a very nice man answered the phone and let me know that he had just bought the company and would make good on the print job and get them to me ASAP. He even laughed when we looked up the scripture reference versus the scripture that had been printed and said "I guess this means I'll need to check all of the templates now and make sure they are correct."
This may not seem like a big deal to you, but in my world it is a minor miracle to get the process of resolution started so quickly. It is a testament to the fact that not everyone maintains a 'big business' persona and that sometimes they are willing to listen to the customer and assume that the customer just might be right.
All is right with the world.
Specifically, I ordered some business cards. With the order were specific instructions regarding the graphic I wanted to use, a scripture reference that is meaningful to me and the business and home address at which information can be obtained. Payment was made by an overburdened VISA card and I received and e-mail confirmation that not only had my order been received, but that all due haste was being executed in my behalf to ensure speedy delivery.
They finally arrived.
Let's just say the Queen was not amused.
The scripture beneath the graphic, while correct by itself was fine. HOWEVER. . . the reference for said scripture (should you decide to mark it in your own scriptures for future reference) was not only incorrect, it was downright hilarious. Or at least it would have been if the cards had not been for my son's mission.
The reference SHOULD have been the one about Jesus blessing the little children. Instead it referenced a scripture regarding raising young cows and sheep to have butter.
Not exactly what I had in mind.
While I am a BIG fan of cows in general, I don't think they make suitable reference material when we are trying our best to share the idea that Christ and His miracles are important.
I made a phone call to the printer and left a message. Later on in the day, I called back since there had been no messages from him.
Much to my delight, a very nice man answered the phone and let me know that he had just bought the company and would make good on the print job and get them to me ASAP. He even laughed when we looked up the scripture reference versus the scripture that had been printed and said "I guess this means I'll need to check all of the templates now and make sure they are correct."
This may not seem like a big deal to you, but in my world it is a minor miracle to get the process of resolution started so quickly. It is a testament to the fact that not everyone maintains a 'big business' persona and that sometimes they are willing to listen to the customer and assume that the customer just might be right.
All is right with the world.
September 9, 2007
It's been a day
While I am familiar with the suffering of the world at large and the agony of the people who have real problems, I have to say there is one issue that remains sadly neglected in the world today.
The problem here is summed up in one word.
Pantyhose.
I realize that for about half of our population, this is a stupid concern.
But for the other half, plus the assorted cross-dressing men of the world, wearing pantyhose is an issue of great concern.
I have yet to find a brand of pantyhose that can outlive the 48 hour window of opportunity. This even includes the laundry phase of pantyhose ownership. I have had a pair of pantyhose get a run in them while I was soaking them in the sink!
Now, lest you think I am alone in this malady, let me remind you that this is a multi-billion dollar a year business. There is no such thing as non-running, non-sagging and wear-ever hosiery. They can't make money if they don't create a need.
It's bad enough to get one area strained and running, but to sit down and have the pantyhose virtually disintegrate while you wear them strains the bonds of credulity beyond the breaking point. Then the average women is left with a horrible choice.
Do I slip them off and toss them in the trash and hope that no one notices my ashen skin tones that were formerly hidden beneath the rich chocolate color of the hosiery. Do I risk revealing the nicks in my shins from where my razor became a thing possessed and attacked leaving red streaks in the menthol foam coating my legs?
Worse yet, if you have put on a really dark color and managed to get a run in the hose, can you remove them and hope that no one will really notice that you made no effort to shave your legs in the first place?
I think not.
More than likely, it turns out to be an exercise in futility. Two or maybe, if the winds are favorable, three weeks of pantyhose for church and the hose are dying on the vine like late season tomatos which are shriveled and shapeless.
If only someone would invent some kind of material that would take the abuse and stand up to it without a rip, tear or worn out spot. I think I'll lie down and see if I can dream up just how to do this. I'd like to be independently wealthy and this sounds as reasonable an option as any other.
The problem here is summed up in one word.
Pantyhose.
I realize that for about half of our population, this is a stupid concern.
But for the other half, plus the assorted cross-dressing men of the world, wearing pantyhose is an issue of great concern.
I have yet to find a brand of pantyhose that can outlive the 48 hour window of opportunity. This even includes the laundry phase of pantyhose ownership. I have had a pair of pantyhose get a run in them while I was soaking them in the sink!
Now, lest you think I am alone in this malady, let me remind you that this is a multi-billion dollar a year business. There is no such thing as non-running, non-sagging and wear-ever hosiery. They can't make money if they don't create a need.
It's bad enough to get one area strained and running, but to sit down and have the pantyhose virtually disintegrate while you wear them strains the bonds of credulity beyond the breaking point. Then the average women is left with a horrible choice.
Do I slip them off and toss them in the trash and hope that no one notices my ashen skin tones that were formerly hidden beneath the rich chocolate color of the hosiery. Do I risk revealing the nicks in my shins from where my razor became a thing possessed and attacked leaving red streaks in the menthol foam coating my legs?
Worse yet, if you have put on a really dark color and managed to get a run in the hose, can you remove them and hope that no one will really notice that you made no effort to shave your legs in the first place?
I think not.
More than likely, it turns out to be an exercise in futility. Two or maybe, if the winds are favorable, three weeks of pantyhose for church and the hose are dying on the vine like late season tomatos which are shriveled and shapeless.
If only someone would invent some kind of material that would take the abuse and stand up to it without a rip, tear or worn out spot. I think I'll lie down and see if I can dream up just how to do this. I'd like to be independently wealthy and this sounds as reasonable an option as any other.
Shaving
I am not quite ready to become an 'Au natural' kind of woman just yet.
But days like this certainly make me reevaluate my position on shaving my legs.
Although I have literally decades of experience in this particular event, I cannot seem to manage the effort without a bloodletting of at least minor proportion.
I have tried a variety of creams and lotions and potions for this ministration of beauty. The results vary from so-so to gee whiz. And for some unknown reason, even the products that require no shaving at all manage to leave my legs looking like I have gone a few rounds with a wildebeest who had just rolled in poison ivy.
Fully conscious of the fact that other women don't seem to suffer these particular burdens, I am left to wonder exactly how they manage the feat. The only conclusion I am left with in my ponderings is that somehow the wonders and joys of smooth and silky legs is a mystery that requires a password which I simply do not possess.
A friend of mine suggested a product that went along ripping out the hairs electronically. Having had my eyebrows waxed from time to time just to prevent the 'Donald Penobscot' look, I cannot imagine applying either electrical or wax coated means to do my entire leg. Like Mel Gibson's character in the movie 'What Women Want', I have to wonder why, upon having completed the action for one leg, any sane person would go back and do the other one!
My sister Kari says they have people who not only come in for eyebrows and other assorted facial waxing but also seek to have legs, underarms and backs waxed for that oh so smooth and hair free look. It is not like I don't think it will work for me. It is more on the lines of 'OOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEEEE' and 'OOOOOOUUUUUCCCCCCHHHHHHH!" combined with possible swearing that I am concerned with in this little adventure.
While I might be able to bite the bullet and tolerate part of the event for one or even two legs, I know I am simply too much of a weenie to ever have my underarms waxed.
The question I am left with at this point is this: at what point in the alleged evolutionary scale did we decide that shaving was an essential to life? It's not like I think that looking like a hairy caveman/ape is a good idea, but I now realize that a significant portion of our routine for grooming for success and possible social activities requires the application of some sort of hair removal process.
If we are to believe what we have been taught in school, then the Darwinian logic flows backwards too. At one time, hairy women were considered sexy. After all, there would have been no survival of the fittest without someone breeding with those hapless, hairy chicks who could work wonders with that haunch of mammoth over a slow burning fire.
And I am less inclined to believe the hair mattered when it came time for supper. Whoever said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach made a leap of evolutionary logic that stands to this day. Men are willing to put up with virtually anything as long as dinner is on the table and it tastes reasonably good.
I have toured museums all over the parts of the North American continent which I have been blessed to see. In virtually all of them, there is some primitive exhibit that shows the hairy nuclear family of days gone by. The man is aptly demonstrated to be the breadwinner and skilled hunter by the presence of a spear or atlatl in his hand. He is certainly no prize winner when it comes to his looks.
Pronounced ridges over both eyes and deep set eye sockets combine with enough hair to weave into a sizable living room rug set this man apart as an 'alpha male'. Near him, usually depicted near a fire which has little glowing coals that are illuminated by a concealed flickering 40 watt bulb, is the little woman.
She would make the folks at Epilady run screaming into the night.
But he thinks she's sexy. The random hairy kids shown in the diorama prove it.
For at least 5 minutes on a cold night in the sub arctic of the New World which has yet to be discovered that hairy man with his less intelligent looking forehead and that hairy woman with the unibrow came together in a moment or two of splendor in the grass. . . or snow.
The point is, they didn't see the need to shave. Ever. And, according to Darwinian truth, from their generations of begetting sprang all of us who are obsessed with exfoliating and depilatory activities.
Something got lost in translation here.
Well, the time is ticking and I need to keep making myself look nice for church. I don't want anyone to accuse me of espousing that cave man ideal of beauty. At least, not today.
But days like this certainly make me reevaluate my position on shaving my legs.
Although I have literally decades of experience in this particular event, I cannot seem to manage the effort without a bloodletting of at least minor proportion.
I have tried a variety of creams and lotions and potions for this ministration of beauty. The results vary from so-so to gee whiz. And for some unknown reason, even the products that require no shaving at all manage to leave my legs looking like I have gone a few rounds with a wildebeest who had just rolled in poison ivy.
Fully conscious of the fact that other women don't seem to suffer these particular burdens, I am left to wonder exactly how they manage the feat. The only conclusion I am left with in my ponderings is that somehow the wonders and joys of smooth and silky legs is a mystery that requires a password which I simply do not possess.
A friend of mine suggested a product that went along ripping out the hairs electronically. Having had my eyebrows waxed from time to time just to prevent the 'Donald Penobscot' look, I cannot imagine applying either electrical or wax coated means to do my entire leg. Like Mel Gibson's character in the movie 'What Women Want', I have to wonder why, upon having completed the action for one leg, any sane person would go back and do the other one!
My sister Kari says they have people who not only come in for eyebrows and other assorted facial waxing but also seek to have legs, underarms and backs waxed for that oh so smooth and hair free look. It is not like I don't think it will work for me. It is more on the lines of 'OOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEEEE' and 'OOOOOOUUUUUCCCCCCHHHHHHH!" combined with possible swearing that I am concerned with in this little adventure.
While I might be able to bite the bullet and tolerate part of the event for one or even two legs, I know I am simply too much of a weenie to ever have my underarms waxed.
The question I am left with at this point is this: at what point in the alleged evolutionary scale did we decide that shaving was an essential to life? It's not like I think that looking like a hairy caveman/ape is a good idea, but I now realize that a significant portion of our routine for grooming for success and possible social activities requires the application of some sort of hair removal process.
If we are to believe what we have been taught in school, then the Darwinian logic flows backwards too. At one time, hairy women were considered sexy. After all, there would have been no survival of the fittest without someone breeding with those hapless, hairy chicks who could work wonders with that haunch of mammoth over a slow burning fire.
And I am less inclined to believe the hair mattered when it came time for supper. Whoever said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach made a leap of evolutionary logic that stands to this day. Men are willing to put up with virtually anything as long as dinner is on the table and it tastes reasonably good.
I have toured museums all over the parts of the North American continent which I have been blessed to see. In virtually all of them, there is some primitive exhibit that shows the hairy nuclear family of days gone by. The man is aptly demonstrated to be the breadwinner and skilled hunter by the presence of a spear or atlatl in his hand. He is certainly no prize winner when it comes to his looks.
Pronounced ridges over both eyes and deep set eye sockets combine with enough hair to weave into a sizable living room rug set this man apart as an 'alpha male'. Near him, usually depicted near a fire which has little glowing coals that are illuminated by a concealed flickering 40 watt bulb, is the little woman.
She would make the folks at Epilady run screaming into the night.
But he thinks she's sexy. The random hairy kids shown in the diorama prove it.
For at least 5 minutes on a cold night in the sub arctic of the New World which has yet to be discovered that hairy man with his less intelligent looking forehead and that hairy woman with the unibrow came together in a moment or two of splendor in the grass. . . or snow.
The point is, they didn't see the need to shave. Ever. And, according to Darwinian truth, from their generations of begetting sprang all of us who are obsessed with exfoliating and depilatory activities.
Something got lost in translation here.
Well, the time is ticking and I need to keep making myself look nice for church. I don't want anyone to accuse me of espousing that cave man ideal of beauty. At least, not today.
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