joeyfullystated

O is for Options

Posted on April 17, 2015 by joey

Not too long ago, someone commented that I hem and haw about doing things, right up to doing them, and then I commit fully. It’s true. I hadn’t noticed this about myself, but I had to agree with the validity of it. I was hesitant to do the A-Z Challenge this year. I didn’t sign up until April first.

I hate commitment.

Commitment removes options, and I love options. Up until I signed up, I could fancy myself with the freedom to not write a blog post every day, and to read the blogs of other A-Z’ers. Then maybe I could focus on finishing the back hallway.
Haha.
Or something.

I just wanted to keep my options open.
Options are the best!
Until you have too many of them.

I’m instinctual, so I generally choose the right people. I’m moody, so I don’t struggle with menus. I’ve done my share of cookie-momming and carpooling, and I don’t have trouble saying no, so I never over-commit. My mother taught me the hard thing to do is the right thing to do, so I don’t hesitate to make important decisions.

But mercy me, when it comes time to make a purchase! Oh could you please hold my hand?
I need to think about it. The length of time I think about it is in direct relationship to the amount of the purchase, and how long I expect to have the item. For instance, I can choose a nail polish on my own within two to three minutes, but it will take me two to three weeks to choose a wall color, and I would like the input of MIL, Beauty Queen, as well as several random strangers in the paint department.

Places that are bad for me: book stores, the paint chip area, shoe stores, the scrapbooking aisle, the handbag department, the fabric store, garden centers — I will have it all! I cannot afford it all? I do not have room for it all? Oh Woe Is Me! Let me look at everything for another hour and then I can maybe winnow it down a bit. Oh The Agony!

Do you resist commitment? Do you struggle with too many options, or are all your choices easily made?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, anxiety, Beauty Queen, lifestyle, MIL, neurotic | 31 Comments

N is for Hot Nacho Cheese

Posted on April 16, 2015 by joey

N could be for all kinds of things I like, although it took me half the day to think of anything worth writing about, and to some, hot nacho cheese is still a questionable topic for blogging, probably only chosen because it’s lunch time, but I’m goin with it.

When I was a kid, I lived in a small town that had a small town pizza chain.
Did I love pizza then? I don’t remember. I do know that since as far back as I can remember, I have never liked pizza the way other people love pizza. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always eaten pizza, and when I do, I like thin crispy crust and I like it sliced into squares. I know. What I really like on my pizza is Italian sausage, onion, mushrooms, green peppers, and black olives. I know. No one else wants this, so I eat sausage, and since I only ate pepperoni when I was pregnant, I peel the pepperoni off and lob it to the dog. I know. I also prefer it cold for breakfast the following day because I think pizza is better cold than hot. I know. Now you think I’m downright un’Murican.

Don’t even think about takin one of those triangle pieces. Those are all mine!

Anyway, even as a kid, in the small town with the small town pizza franchise, with its pizza cut the way I like, I still preferred their hot ham and cheese sandwich. *wipes away drool*
Imagine it: an Italian roll, sliced open, toasted in the oven, then piled with thinly shaved ham, and nacho cheese poured on top. Not just nacho cheese. Hot nacho cheese. Jalapeno cheese. Spicy-oh-it-burns-but-I-must-have-s’more-cheese. They sliced it in half, and rolled it in foil. The crust was crunchy and flaky and made crumbs everywhere. You had to eat it in the foil and lick your fingers a lot because it was messy good.

Years ago, The Mister and I stopped in my old small town to pick up these sandwiches. Which were nothing like the sandwiches of 1985, and y’all, the cheese wasn’t even hot. Not caliente, not picante.
*sigh*

Our local pizzeria is independently owned. They make nice flat pizzas, with the square cutting, so when I do order, I like to get a giant pizza that can barely fit through the front door.
This last time I called, they had a special, so I also ordered breadsticks and cheese. I don’t eat breadsticks and cheese, but my kids love them. As I was takin Moo’s lid off, I licked my finger and —

ZOMG Y’all! Our local place has the hot cheese! The same hot cheese!

y'all know this is not cheese, right? is cheese-flavored oil, or cheese-flavored product, not actual cheese.

y’all know this is not cheese, right? it’s cheese-flavored oil, or cheese-flavored product, not actual cheese. you know that, right?

I was so deliriously happy about the freakin hot cheese!
omg it’s sooo good! oh my tongue is burning! must drink more soda! omg it’s sooo good!
I dipped and omg it’s so good-ed right down to cheese all gone. All gone cheese.
*sad face*

I have been craving that damned cheese for over a week now. I should not eat that. It’s not even real food…

But if you know me at all, you know I’ve been thinkin about delicately placing thinly shaved ham on sliced Italian rolls and picking up some hot nacho cheese. You know, just to support local businesses…

Do you have fond food memories that cannot be replicated? Do you want to come over for hot ham & hot nacho cheese night?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, food | 23 Comments

Don’t Play with Matches — Letter M

Posted on April 15, 2015 by joey

When you have kids, you spend a lot of time teaching them not to tattle. You hafta be careful with this, because you want to keep them safe, but you also do not want to hear their complaints all the livelong day. You want them to shut up and learn to work out their own conflicts.
Early on, you teach them, “If it’s not hurting anyone, you’re tattling.”

You also say things like, “Don’t play with matches,” and “Don’t put anything metal in the toaster,” but with less frequency than you say, “Stop tattling.”

Sometimes kids are conflicted though, so they come home and they say somethin like, “Um, no one is hurt yet, and I’m not sure this is tattling, buuuuuut, Ginny is playin with matches…and um, I think that…um…”
And you are out the door! Gone to hunt Ginny down! You’re gonna have a chat to Ginny about Smokey the Bear!

The twist comes when you reach nine-year-old Ginny, who tells you her mother said it was okay for her to play with matches.
On a military installation.
In the summer.
On grass as dry and brittle as my patience for other people’s children.
You are suspicious of Ginny, and you ask her, “Why would it be okay?”
Ginny’s mom said it was okay, because she was only playing with matches outside.
Gee, thanks Ginny’s Mom. So long as she doesn’t burn your house down, it’s fine. Never mind the rest of us, livin here in the middle of the PINE FOREST!

Now you hafta go talk to Ginny’s mom. This could go either way. Ginny’s probably lyin, and her mom will probably freak out, too. But you know, in the back of your head, that Ginny’s mom could be a real piece of work. She could end up yellin at you, tellin you it’s none of your business, and to mind your own kids.
Then you’ll hafta call the MP’s because it really is not okay for kids to play with matches, anywhere…and, and…
This is really more parenting than you planned to do today! And oh my God, it’s soooo hot outside! Why Ginny lives so far? Why I gotta live in Georgia?!?

As it turns out, Ginny’s mom is a freaker-outter, too. Aren’t you relieved?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, kids, parenting | 17 Comments

L is for Lazy

Posted on April 14, 2015 by joey

Yesterday, I woke up at 10am feeling great and I had an extremely productive day. Go Joey, Go!

I told The Mister last night, “I won’t be doin any housework tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He looked around, “The house doesn’t need to be cleaned.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t. I’m just sayin, those two shirts won’t be ironed, dishes won’t be done, not bakin any bread.”
“Okay.”

Today, I woke up at 10am feeling great, but having a completely different plan.

My plan for today?
Hehe — to be LAZY!

Today, they all went away.
I was all alone.
In the quiet.
For hours and hours.

With coffee and carrot cake.
I baked that last night. Cause I like carrot cake for breakfast. Just scrape the icing off onto the next slice, and it becomes a square muffin.

I painted my nails a new color, called Ginger Zinger. I like it. It’s coral and springy, but cheerfully subdued.

I read the draft of a friend’s novel.
I reported this to The Mister, who has been reading Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia for the last four days. I said, “I read a book today.”
“Of course you did.”
“Yes, I read 761 pages, 161,000 words. Took me the better part of seven hours.”
“Uh huh. I hate you,” he said.
I like to brag to him about things I do better or faster than him, because I have low-skills-esteem in comparison.

I didn’t shower. I did brush my teeth, moisturize, and put on clean pajamas — because lazy, but still a woman.

I dipped my pita bread directly into the hummus container, but I did put the olives in a bowl.

I didn’t do any dishes. Hell, I didn’t even put any clean ones away!

I did make the swate tay today, because depriving these people of swate tay is akin to depriving me of soda.
As we all know, that IS how housewives become prostitutes.
“Who do I hafta screw to get a goddamn soda?”

Dinner?
I’ll eat bales of shredded wheat, thanks.
The girls will apparently eat fortune cookies, yogurt, oatmeal, bagels, honeydew, bananas, and clementines.
I’m roasting The Mister a bagel sammich while I write this post and drink my Cheerwine.

When’s the last time you had a lazy day?
More delicious than carrot cake, ain’t it?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, lifestyle, The Mister | 38 Comments

K is for Keeping Up

Posted on April 13, 2015 by joey

The fact that I’ve already written this post and WordPress failed to save my draft is no help.

I have trouble keeping up with all sorts of things, social media being no exception.

I do best at Facebook, because my family and closest friends are there. I’m connected to fewer than 150 people which means I generally interact with the same 20 people all the time. I love those people. They’re my original Facebook friends, the original cast, you might say, before everyone and their brother was on the Facebook, wanting to friend you for who knows what reason.
Plus, Facebook has word games.
I love word games.

I don’t understand Google+ but I have a page there. That I almost never use. I’d tell you how many people are in my circles or how many people added me to their circles, but for the sake of argument, let’s say I understand the mathematics of actual circles better than I understand Google+ circles.

I love Twitter, but I fall behind there.
At the beginning, I couldn’t imagine how anyone could expect to develop relationships with strangers through a series of 140-character spurts, but now, if I skip a few days from Twitter, I actually miss people I’ve never met, whose names I do not even know. And y’all, when I log in, I am so glad they’re still there!
I follow about 2500 and am followed by about 2800. It is impossible to read all the tweets of 2800 people. I have a list of about 170 people I like, and who I have a general sense of — I swing by now and again. I have a list of 18 people I adore, whom I really should read daily.
The other 2600 people? I really don’t have a clue wtf they’re going on about, and I’m not sure they do, either.
On Twitter, I lol and cackle and chuckle and grin and snort and lmao and pmsl, and sometimes tears of laughter stream down my face.
I like to laugh.

Instagram is a nice, easy, drama-free app, but I struggle with Photo a Day. Sometimes I open the topic of the day, I roll my eyes and say, “Fuck you ‘#4 Inspiration,’ I don’t even feel remotely inspired.” I worked at finding the right thing, but sometimes I couldn’t find the right thing, so I’d take a photo of somethin kinda lame just to have a photo of the day.
Same with tags. Honestly, I do not enjoy taking the #sds (stop, drop, & selfie) on the regular. My #sds pics? Joey generally wears the same ten shirts, (white, blue, pink, or black) wears the same three hairstyles, (messy up, messy down, or straightened) and pretty much goes to the same three places every day (living room, kitchen, and yard.) I don’t change enough to make a daily selfie even remotely intriguing. I enjoy the selfies of others, but I prefer posting pictures that narrate my life.
I like pictures of flora, fauna, and food.

Which brings me to WordPress, where I follow 366.
Compared to the number of people who follow my blog, that’s really low. But you cannot tell me you read every single post of 100+ followers. I mean, you could tell me that, but I’d think you’re lying. Some people post multiple times a day, and some of those posts are so long! If I read all the blogs of those I follow, I’d be chained to WordPress!
It’s not a matter of “I’ll follow you and then you’ll follow me.” For one thing, anywhere there’s a follow option, that means that people follow solely to get follows. On WordPress, plenty of people read two or three posts, like them, make a few comments, follow you, and you never see them again.
I read people who don’t follow me, and who probably never read me. I find great new blogs regularly, which means I start using my time to read those blogs and spend less time reading some other blogs. I regularly follow and unfollow. That’s how it goes. It only seems right that people pick and choose.

I am a persnickety bitch.
I prolly won’t read your 2000-word post about the joys of pregnancy. I prolly won’t read your re-blog. I definitely won’t read anything particularly gory or erotic. I’m not especially interested in fiction unless it’s flash and I don’t give a fuck about your god.
It’s not personal.
I read what interests me.
You should, too.

Maybe you enjoy my nature posts, but you hate my liberal rantings. Maybe you love my rants, the more profanity the better, but if you hafta read one more boring post about a fat fucking squirrel, you will gouge your own eyes out. Who should I aim to please?
Uh, me, cause it’s my blog.

I am here to enjoy my life.

This post is a metaphor for relationships, occupations, and lifestyles.

Life is short even if you live to 100.
There’s an abundance of choices.
Act accordingly.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, blog, rant | 46 Comments

J is for Jour

Posted on April 11, 2015 by joey

Jour means day in French.

I took French from 7th to 12th grade. My high school French teacher was demanding. She was so demanding that although I was her assistant for my elective as an upperclassman, and she was one of the great mentors of my life, I consistently earned low marks in her class. (Well, low for me.) We had daily verb quizzes. We wrote papers. We read French classics.

Unfortunately, for two years in high school, I had French right after lunch, and much of my French class memory involves Madame saying, “Jolene, levez la tete.” She said my name like Zho-lynn which was tres adorable. She meant for me to raise my head, but my rough translation would be, “Stop zoning out to the lullaby that is my sing-song voice before you drool onto your notes.”

Madame was such a demanding teacher that when I took my placement test in college, I nearly tested out of my minor. Meaning, to earn my French minor, I only had to take six hours (two classes) of French. She was that good.

I took French for seven semesters in college. I wrote more papers, I read more classics, I studied French history, I went to Quebec for immersion.

I was twenty-seven years old and helping my neighbor’s daughter with compound words in English when I realized, for the first time that bonjour literally translated into good day.

bon = good
jour = day

Le duh.

Have you ever been late to discover the obvious?

This post is part of LindaGHill’s SoCS as well as the A-Z Challenge

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April | 51 Comments

I is for Ignominious

Posted on April 10, 2015 by joey

Do you recall when or where you heard or read ignominious for the first time?
I do.
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter taught me the word ignominious. Sure, it’s scattered here and there in literature, but I’ve never actually heard anyone use the word ignominious. Hawthorne uses ignominious and ignominy throughout the book. They are essential words to the text.

In high school, I had American Lit with one of the most dynamic teachers in the world.
Despite ignominious. And all the other nearly unusable vocab from that book.

I did not know, at 17, that The Scarlet Letter would become a running joke with me, or that the word ignominious would haunt me forever.

You would think that having once read The Scarlet Letter, one would write a paper or take a test and be done with it, as is the case for most high school students. But if your course of study is English Education and your name is Joey, then no, you will suffer The Scarlet Letter endlessly, like catching every illness you’re exposed to in your first few years of teaching.

You must study The Scarlet Letter again as an English major. Maybe even twice, because once in American Lit and again in a writing class, because your prof is obsessed with Puritanism. But perhaps even more, because practicums.

You see, before they hand you a teaching license, they make you practice teaching. I don’t mean the lengthy period of student teaching, which is more like an internship — I mean early on, visiting many schools, teaching gobs of classes in your field, in what feels like a random, haphazard way.
Every time I went to a high school, it was Scarlet Letter time. Fall, winter, or Spring, where I went, I happened into teaching The Scarlet Letter. Sophomore, Junior, Senior, no matter, I would be told “We’re doing The Scarlet Letter.”
It was uncanny. After the second time, I thought, “No no, there’s no way the third time will be The Scarlet Letter.” When it happened the third time, I said, “Third time’s the charm, surely it won’t happen again.” When it happened the fourth time, I questioned God, “Is there something I’m not learning here?!?”

I didn’t even flinch when I got my first high school English sub job and walked into a classroom where the movie poster hung in the center of the blackboard. “Ah, we meet again.”

And again, and again. A is for AGAIN!

I could easily list the vocab in alphabetical order without so much as looking at the book, if that tells you anything.
I think Moo is a lot like Pearl, in case you’re wondering how deeply this book is burned into my brain.
I see Dimmesdales everywhere. They like to send dick pics on Twitter and frequently ask for selfies.

Friends began gag-gifting me copies of The Scarlet Letter. I kept one copy. From MIL, circa 1997. It’s merely a small token of my great burden.

Have you ever heard this word spoken? Do you like Hawthorne? Tell me without fear of reproach.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, MIL, Moo, teaching | 37 Comments

H is for Humor

Posted on April 9, 2015 by joey

People are always laughing at me.
I love that.
Then they apologize.
That upsets me.

Duh, I wrote it to be funny.

Sometimes I think people must think I’m fragile, as they apologize for laughing. You can laugh at me all you want, I sure do. My sense of humor is quirky. If your sense of humor isn’t quirky, or if you stand on the side of the fence where sarcasm and profanity are said to be crude tools for a dull mind, then stop fucking reading me, you dimwit!

Humor heals. If we don’t laugh at our miseries, they win.
I don’t think laughter hides pain, I think laughter is a way to treat pain. It doesn’t take much effort to find the pain in humor, but it takes great effort to find humor in the pain.

I’m not saying there’s humor in every situation, but with the right spin…

Go Google the health benefits of laughter. Hell, some of us are alive solely because we’ve laughed our way this far!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A-Z for April, blog, lifestyle | 28 Comments

G is for Good Morning or…

Posted on April 8, 2015 by joey

This morning began before five.
Moo knocked on the door and said she didn’t feel good.
I lifted my covers and invited her in for a cuddle.
She didn’t feel too warm.
I thought maybe she had a bad dream.
Her heart rate wasn’t too fast.
It felt too early to be awake and too late to go back to sleep.
Birds were singing.
I sent Moo back to her bed.
I tried to sleep more.
The Mister’s alarm went off.
The sheets were deliciously cold, how they are when you sleep with the windows open.
He came to kiss me goodbye, but didn’t turn on the light.
The faintest bit of dawn eked in.
I never fell back asleep, but I did lie there, enjoying the sheets.
Got some coffee.
Took Sassy to the bus stop.
Moo is still puny.
I took her a bucket, and some watered-down apple juice.
A storm has come in.
My mother sent me a text, “Batten down the hatches!” she wrote.
I’m a good kid. I shut the windows almost all the way.
Now I wonder if there will ever be a dawn today.

I think the sheets want me back.
They probably want to watch tv with Moo and me.
After I eat some breakfast.
Doesn’t toast with butter sound good?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Moo, parenting, The Mister | 28 Comments

F is for Furniture

Posted on April 7, 2015 by joey

As I sit here, on my loveseat, I’m fully aware that it’s time to clean the upholstery again. (Like three months ago!) Not my favorite task. It makes me miss our old brown couches. We were idiots then, when we bought a new sofa and loveseat and donated our old brown couches.

Our old brown couches were comfy, even after seven years of abuse, they remained soft and squishy and quite nice on the tushy. They were stain-resistant, super easy to clean. Was the wood trim separating from the fabric? Yes. Had the seams ripped, creating an abyss where things could never be reclaimed? Yes. But oh, so comfy.

When it came time to replace them we’d planned to buy leather, but we lived so far from a major city, delivery charges were absurd. Actually, local delivery for a mattress was $300, not that I paid it. People with trucks and an hour to spare can be bribed much cheaper, but my point being, we had limited selection when purchasing our new furniture, since we had to stay local.
Then when we went to the local furniture dealers, we never found a single leather sofa that we liked the look and feel of. It was as though you could have style or comfort, but not both. We were sad.
We bought new furniture with cloth upholstery, and we loved it. Briefly.

New furniture isn’t so new anymore. We began to hate the sofa around 18 months after we bought it. Oh we still love the way it looks, but not how it feels. Although they are a set, made and upholstered by the same company, the sofa just isn’t holding up as well as the loveseat. And while you may be thinking that the sofa gets more use, that’s not it. It’s simply not made as well. It’s not an uncomfortable sofa, and for that we are grateful, but it’s not as comfy as old brown couches were.

I hate shopping hindsight, which often goes with hating shopping in general. If I’d known how well those slacks would wash and wear after two years, I’da bought two more colors. If I’d known how that $30 rug would be utterly destroyed by its first run in the wash, I’da bought somethin else. If I’d known how much we’d regret giving away our brown couches, I’da paid to have them reupholstered.

You may remember I am all about purging, keeping only things that are useful or beloved. I seldom regret giving something away. Y’all know how I love some good Feng Shui, but those couches…
I can’t get rid of our sofa because it doesn’t spark joy — it seats 3-6 people depending. You know what won’t spark joy? Having my guests sit on throw pillows, or carry around their dining chairs. If anything, I need to add two more chairs to the living room!

What this experience with the sofa taught us is that we are not good furniture shoppers. If sitting on the sofa, the price of the sofa, and the brand of the sofa are not reliable ways to trust in your sofa purchase, then we have no clue how to shop for furniture.

Here, we have a Furniture Guy. Hopefully one day, Furniture Guy will lead us to making a satisfying sofa purchase. After all, Furniture Guy sold us those brown sofas.

Do you hate shopping hindsight?
What do you regret getting rid of or replacing?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged lifestyle | 32 Comments