Category Archives: A day in the life

Grammar vs. Text (& FBOF)

Posted on June 12, 2012 by funnygurl2

You always hear news stories about how texting is dumbing down our teenagers and will someday replace the English language as we know it. I don’t see it that way. I think of them as two languages you can learn side by side, like English and French. Although, like anyone who knows two languages, the one you actually use the most will be the one you are more fluent in. That is part of why I write this blog.

Being out of work, I spend more time texting than writing emails of a professional nature. I try to write this blog in my own voice, while still trying to follow the basic rules of grammar. Does a smiley face sneak in sometimes (Why sure:) Do some posts have too many statements in parenthesis? (Definitely.) But I do generally consider myself a stickler for good spelling and grammar.

But, having texted, I totally understand the need for as much abbreviation as possible. It is necessary for speed, space-saving, and it saves your thumbs. Also, you have to realize I am not a part of the core texting generation. While kids today can type something like “OMGMMISL*” and totally understand each other, texting in my generation is a little different. My asbestos friend and I use texting as a substitute for phone calls and a more immediate version of email. I would love to call her and have long meaningful chats. But as we both have children between the ages of 11 months and 18 months, that seems a little improbable. And the signal at her house sucks.

We also have silly thoughts throughout the day that are better conveyed by text. But we are limited to how much we can abbreviate and still understand each other. Hence, our message often takes two or three texts to fully convey. I am thinking teenagers don’t do that. My friend and I only have abbreviations for things like Meijer (mjr), Wal-Mart (wmrt), and flaming butt of fire (fbof). My friend’s daughter coined the term “the flaming butt of fire.” (What is “the flaming butt of fire”? If you have to ask, honey, you have never had it!)

So, I believe, if actual writing is balanced with the actual English language, civilization will b ok a lil longer;)

* “Oh my God my Mom is so lame.”

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I dreamed I rode a skateboard

Posted on June 8, 2012 by funnygurl2

The other night I dreamed I was riding a skateboard. Not doing any tricks, but just riding it down the sidewalk, feeling the wind rush past my face. I was going faster than I ever would dare in real life and very sure of myself that I would not fall off.

After I woke up, I kept thinking about the nice rush I got in the dream. Sort of like riding a bike, but in the dream it seemed like less work. I let my mind wander to what I would put on my skateboard if I could have a custom picture on it. This is what came into my head. Then I had to draw it to try to get it out of my head. It is sort of like Harajuku girl meets Punky Brewster, with a little bit of Cartman when the aliens make him sing because of the probe in his ass.

The skateboard design in my head


The only skateboard I have ever actually owned as a kid was a skinny red plastic one from Meijer. I liked it, but fell off it a lot. I never had one of these fancy wide wooden boards that the teenage boys have today. If I won the lottery tomorrow, I just might buy one to horse around on, just because of this dream. But I forget that I am old and the ground is harder than it used to be. And less forgiving. And that I would never have a picture this cool on my board.

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Bathtime

Posted on May 29, 2012 by funnygurl2

I guess every kid has an issue with something. My son (“M” for the sake of the blogosphere) has an issue with the bathtub. As an adult educated in the laws and reasons of science, I do not understand it. But, I am not 18 months old.

Baths for my son started in the usual way—in a baby bathtub, in the kitchen sink. He hated baths at first. But we just figured that was because he was probably cold. He was only 5 lb. 11 oz. when he was born. And at three weeks old, we realized our furnace had been running inefficiently for some time. Especially because it died and we had to buy a new one.

Once the weather warmed up and our baby fattened up, things started to go better. Throughout the summer and into the fall, we moved him into the big tub. It was a fairly smooth transition.

In November of 2011, M had to get a tube put into his left kidney that went out to an external bag that we had to hang on his back. He had the bag through January of 2012. In that time, we gave him sponge baths. In the living room. My mom thought we should have given them to him in the kitchen sink. I stood by the fact that he was too big for that now, and might rip the faucet off or something. And, truth be told, I liked to watch TV while we bathed him. He got to where he hated this, and would cling to one of us (mom or dad) screaming, while the other (dad or mom) did the best they could to wash him as quickly as possible. (As it was winter again, we chalked it up to that he was probably cold.) Sometimes this ritual would be followed by changing the bandage over his tube site. It wasn’t oozy or anything. We changed it to keep it well covered and keep infection out. But it required much screaming (by my son) and anxiety (from the parents). That may not have helped the situation either.

A week after the tube was removed I was very excited to return him to a more standard bathing routine. I plopped him in the normal tub in about an inch of water and…he screamed his head off and stood up and clutched my shirt as if I was trying to drown him. This went on for what seemed like an eternity. In reality, it was probably only a few months.

I asked the pediatrician what she thought. She hypothesized that he was just so traumatized by having the same major surgery twice and being stuck with needles by strangers, etc. that it was bound to manifest itself in some way. A great idea with probably some truth, but not a help in revolving said situation. I asked for advice from family members. Sister-in-Law suggested I let him play in the tub without water in it. I did. He was fine with that. But somehow, that ease of attitude didn’t translate to being naked in the tub with water.

So, he was standing and screaming and clutching. Until, one day, out of the blue, he figured out that he could splash his foot in the water. His right foot, to be exact. Then the screaming seemed to stop. He began to hold on to the side of the tub and, while standing, splash his right foot in the water. So no more clutching my shirt. And he would splash his left foot sometimes now too. I can wash pretty much any part of him, and he doesn’t mind, as long as he can splash his feet.

You are right, this is a big improvement, except HE IS STILL STANDING UP! He holds on to the bathtub edge for support, and it gets all slippery with water and soap. He is leaning down the whole time to watch his foot splashes. With his head hanging over the edge of the tub. One time, early on, as he was doing this, I was sitting in front of him. All of a sudden he had fallen head first out of the tub and done a sort of somersault into my lap. Suddenly I had a wet, slippery baby in my lap. I put him right back in the tub and he was unphased. He went back to stomping his foot and splashing the water.

If I try to sit him down in the tub, he screams. I have bath toys floating around. He might try to step on one with his foot if it floats by, but otherwise he ignores them. Have you ever tried to wash a child’s hair when their head isn’t even inside the tub, but hanging over the edge? I try to rinse it out and I end up with wet knees and a wet bathmat.

I fell like, if we can get over this hump of him sitting down in the bath, we will be caught up to where we should have been by now. If we hadn’t of lost three months to the nephro tube and sponge baths. It does seem as though persistence pays off eventually with him. I know it did with him falling asleep at bedtime. Hmmm…Maybe I could avoid all this by just giving him a shower instead?

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MEMORIAL DAY IS HERE AGAIN!!!!

Posted on May 27, 2012 by funnygurl2

Those of you who read my blog last year at this time, know that Memorial Day is my favorite holiday. I will be busy today trying to fit in the Annual Memorial Day Pancake Breakfast at the Palmyra, Michigan Fire Department, a Memorial Day Parade in Blissfield, Michigan, and a BBQ Chicken lunch at the American Legion Post 325. Oh, how I love Memorial Day. I hope the weather is nice.

And now, I present you with a parting picture for this fine holiday. Enjoy:)

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Squirrels Cannot Be Trusted

Posted on May 22, 2012 by funnygurl2

Doesn’t this totally look like a pot-smoking squirrel, using his nut as a bong?


I hate squirrels. I see them as worthless vermin. Some people feed them and think they are cute. Not me. Some people buy greeting cards with pictures of squirrels on them. I use those cards as a dart board.

My distrust stems from an encounter I had with a squirrel when I was young, a preschooler. Apparently someone in the small town I lived in had raised a squirrel from when it was a baby. Hence, eradicating it’s natural fear of humans. But it grew up and they released it into the wild. Now, I refer to this as half-tamed. Apparently the squirrel had attacked a girl down the street. But no one tried to catch it.

Then one day my mom and I were sitting on our front porch, minding our own business. She was reading a letter from her friend in California. Luckily for me, they wrote each other thick letters. The half-tame squirrel ran up and attacked me. I don’t really remember it, I remember my mom telling me about it. (I probably blocked it out of my memory for continued sanity.) He scratched and bit me. My mom beat him off with the letter.

Our next door neighbor was an RN, so she fixed up my wounds. My mom rented a live trap from the DNR and finally caught the thing and they hauled it off. I have hated squirrels ever since. Which, is like, over 30 years. I am good at holding a grudge.

One time I was taking a walk at work with my green-haired co-worker while we were on break. We saw a squirrel and she threw a stick at it. The stick hit close to it, bounced, and the squirrel ran—in the direction that the stick bounced. Hence, the stick totally hit him right in the head. The funniest damn thing I have ever seen! I wish we had taped it for YouTube.

In my current house, we have a big old maple tree in the backyard that the squirrels love to live in. If we were in the country, I would shoot them with a gun. The squirrels drive my German Shorthair Pointer nuts. They sit in the tree and “bark” at my dog. Sometimes they sit up there and scratch themselves. I just know they are flicking their fleas and lice down at me. Yuck. Filthy, gross beasts. The worst is probably when the dogs are on the 20 foot lead. The squirrels know that. They will stay just beyond where my Pointer can reach them and taunt him.

My house if over 100 years old. Several years ago, we redid the dining room ceiling, removing the plaster. As we hit the ceiling to break up the plaster, we could hear nuts up above the lathe. In the past, those nasty animals were living IN my house. Last year one squirrel moved into our garage. It isn’t a finished and nice garage, but I still don’t want vermin in it. I would open the garage door and startle the squirrel that would scurry away, in turn startling me. Sometimes he would dive across the small distance between our house roof and the garage roof, just as I was letting dogs out, driving them crazy.

A couple months ago, I let my dogs out into the backyard and was standing around, minding my own business while the dogs tended to theirs. Just then there was a commotion and all of a sudden I had a squirrel running at me at full speed, with my Pointer just inches behind him. Parker must have smoked him out of his hiding spot by the house somewhere. I screamed and jumped, which is the natural reaction when you think a squirrel is going to jump up your leg. The squirrel, realizing I was between him and his favorite tree, made a hairpin turn and headed for the garage instead. He leaped up onto the fence gate, that is attached to the garage. He stumbled, and Parker almost got him. But no such luck. The squirrel clawed his way up the garage siding, leaving me and my dog with our hearts beating out of our chests.

When I envisioned this post six months ago, I didn’t have a good ending for it. Now I totally have great closure. The stupid squirrels would use a barrel that sat next to the garage to help them climb to the roof. I had not noticed the squirrels jumping up that way for a few months. Then our neighbor realized there was a dead animal in the barrel. Everyone thought it was a raccoon. When my husband removed the carcass, it turned out it was two dead squirrels. Wow. Mother’s Day had come early. I couldn’t have been happier. Couldn’t have happened to a nastier animal. Except maybe bats. One time we had one of those drown in a storage container in the attic. But, that’s a different topic.

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