Look, I know that I’m not always the nicest person to you. I know that sometimes I let you laze around far too much, but I’m trying to change that! Didn’t you notice the exercise that I gave you two days ago? Didn’t it feel good? And the exercise wasn’t even high impact, it was just to get you moving around and feeling good. So see? I’m trying to give you the care that you need. I even sacrificed by taking medications in order to bring on a period, and if you think THAT was fun, you and the brain need to switch places for awhile.
I’m trying to take care of you, but did you feel like it was absolutely necessary to wake me up at 5 am this morning? Look, I know that I was ignoring the ache in my right shoulder for the past few days, but can you blame me? I’m used to aches in the left shoulder due to stress (some day we’ve gotta talk about that), so of course I was going to ignore the right shoulder. And, you know, housework and kid-time doesn’t stop just because of a sore shoulder.
I definitely didn’t appreciate being woken up at 5 am this morning. And my poor husband thought I was crazy at first! I mean, he looked at me like I was being a wuss for awhile. Obviously he’s forgotten that I deal well with physical pain, usually, and that if I’m crying, as I was this morning, it’s gotta hurt really bad. And you made sure of that, didn’t you? By giving me a 12 out of 10 pain.
At least you liked the 800 mg of ibuprofen, and the hour I spent laying on the heating pad. Maybe I should throw you some ice to see if that helps, or will you be ticked at me for that?
All right, body, I hear you. You’ve got my attention. Can you please stop hurting so much now? I promise I’ll baby the shoulder for awhile. And maybe I’ll even beg my husband to massage my shoulder for awhile tonight. What else do I need to promise for you to stop hurting? Chocolate? Alcohol? A long, scalding hot shower?
Please do me a favor – the next time you want to let me know that I’m ignoring you, send me an email, will ya?
I was going to write about the auction we went to this weekend and how I apparently can’t go to any auctions without filling the van. It’s not that I buy a LOT, it’s just that I buy BIG.
But last night I had to get a huge work project finished, so I missed the Grammy’s. As a Monday morning treat I’m sitting here watching them before I work on our taxes (blah). And because I’m a huge music lover, I’m going to give you some honest opinions about some of the Grammy performances that I’ve watched so far.
Lady Gaga & Elton John
I have to admit that when I first started hearing Gaga on the radio, I wasn’t convinced. I thought that maybe she was a flash in the pan. Then I saw one of her performances on an awards show – it was definitely different. She was very theatrical and that reminded me a bit of early Meatloaf.
At the Grammy’s she showed me that she not only can sing pop music, girl’s got some pipes! When she started singing Pokerface in a slow and sexy rhythm, it sounded very familiar but I couldn’t figure out what she was singing. It definitely sounded familiar, and I knew it was one of her songs, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then she bust out in Pokerface and a smile lit my own face.
But nothing was better than when she came out with Elton John. I mean – Gaga and Elton John – what genius came up with that combination?! Both sang amazingly, they harmonized perfectly, and I’d love to see much more of them together!
So much so that I had to put a video up of it!
Beyonce
*disclaimer: I have Beyonce issues – I feel that she used Destiny’s Child for her fame. However I will definitely admit that she has some serious lungs and vocal chords.
Beyonce needs to stop letting her mama dress her – the outfit she wore on the red carpet looked like it was knitted by a blind great-grandmother. And this outfit looks like it was initially designed as body armor for some weird female assassin. But let’s avoid her outfits and talk about her music.
She can sing. I can’t deny that, no matter how much I want to. I started to chalk up the whole performance as another “yeah, she can sing, dammit” opinion, but then she made me utterly happy. She started singing an Alanis Morissette song! I immediately thought “oh no she didn’t!” And not only that, she censored it! Okay, Beyonce, stick to your own songs and leave the songs of my 90’s icons alone, kapish?
Pink
There was something my mom used to say a long time ago about some singers – she’d say that “you can tell they’ve got black in them.” Okay, it sounds bad, but it’s really not. This was her way of saying that a person has seriously amazing vocal chords – the type that you’d likely hear in a gospel choir.
Pink was amazing. She not only sang on-key and beautifully, she did it hanging upside down and spinning around dripping wet. When history looks back at the true performers of our time, she will be one that will be on the list and who has earned her place there.
Here’s the video of the performance:
Black Eyed Peas
These guys? Sucked. They just sucked. No more to say about them.
Taylor Swift and Stevie Nicks
I like some of Taylor Swift’s songs – they make me dance around and they’re songs I can sing with my kids. But two things struck me about her performance with Stevie Nicks (who, may I just say, looks AMAZING).
1. As said best by my friend online last night – girl needs a steak. Or eight. And maybe a big old chocolate cake and a few glasses of milk. If it comes out that Taylor Swift has some sort of an eating disorder or a drug addiction? I would not be surprised.
2. She sang offkey. WAY offkey. So far offkey that the dogs were howling when she started singing.
Prince and Paris Jackson
The song was amazing, although I missed the notice that we should have had 3D glasses ready. Good thing I have a daughter who has a fondness for Barbie! I simply had to go to the DVD case and, voila, 3D glasses. Paris Jackson, by the way, is going to be gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous. I still don’t think that she is biologically the child of Michael Jackson, but it is obvious that the children loved their father, and as long as he took great care of them, that’s all that matters.
There were, of course, other acts, but these were the ones that stuck out at me. What do you think about the performances at the Grammy’s?
Oh – and weren’t there some awards given away last night too?
I read on Twitter (gotta love Twitter) that the moon on Friday was going to be the largest and brightest moon that we could see of the year. So when we got home from grocery shopping, I took out my camera, got my tripod set up, and headed outside to get a few shots.
I forgot to mention that, with the windchill, it was -23 outside. I tried to go as fast as possible so that I could make sure that my camera wasn’t freezing, even though I was.
I remember over a year ago I attempted to get the same type of shot. We’d seen the huge moon on the way home from my mother’s and Scott pulled over so that I could get the shot. I climbed out of the van, did my best to steady the camera using the roof, and fired off a few shots. I was pretty proud of how great they looked.
Then I saw Sherry’s moon picture, taken with the same camera and lens as I had, and immediately wondered what I had done wrong! Hers came out amazing and mine came out crappy!
Fortunately Sherry is a SWEETHEART, and she explained to me how she’d taken the photo.
That is one of the main reasons why my photographs have been able to get better as time has gone on – because of amazing people who have been willing to share their knowledge with me. Now I can take a photo like the one above, thanks to all of the friends I’ve met online.
A woman whom I know in real life said to me the other day that she was thinking of taking college courses online about photography. I told her that she could do what she wished, but that she might want to look at all of the amazing resources available online for all sorts of different types of photographers. There are so many amazing sites, great books, and sweet people who are willing to share what they know that you can learn a great deal to make your photography improve simply by doing your own research.
And I think that I’m living proof of that.
So to everyone who has helped me to learn, and everyone who has encouraged me, I wish to thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me to improve my photography. I’m nowhere near done learning yet, but I’m getting better every day, and it’s thanks to you guys.
We went to my cousin’s basketball game on Saturday. It was great fun! My cousin in only a Freshman, so she’s on the JV team. The cheerleaders, I soon learned, did not feel as though they needed to cheer for the JV team, only the Varsity team, so instead they were absent for most of the game.
Near the end of the game, however, they came in, dropped their silvery pompoms on the benches, then left. Eventually they came back and sat down.
Obviously the game was boring them (for the record it was NOT a boring game and was kick-ass) because I spied this cheerleader using her time to text some friends. Or maybe she was Tweeting – who knows.
She’s, what, 16? 17? And has a cell phone?
And yet here I still am, 30 years old and living cell-less. *sigh* What you give up when you live in the country.
One of the problems with being a blogger is that you eventually have to figure out what you’re comfortable talking about and what you want to keep to yourself. Some bloggers write about their family members and children and use their full names. Other bloggers write about nothing more emotional than their trip to the supermarket.
I am, obviously, a blogger who writes what I’m thinking. Scott has always said that I wear my heart on the cuff of my sleeve, and he’s right. I’m not someone who can avoid talking about the pink elephant in the room, and I’m not someone who can pretend to be happy when I’m not. That’s just not in me.
Now I won’t sit here and say that I’m perfect – I’m far, far from it. I’ve always been told that I’m hard on myself.
So here’s what I need to talk about today. I had a long phone conversation last night, and I’ve had a few other conversations recently, where people have told me that my blog is the issue. That my blog is the reason why others have issues with me. They do not believe that I have the right to write what I do, or that I should even have this blog.
I disagree. I believe that my blog is something tangible that can be used to point fingers at. The thing is, there are no names on my blog, save mine and my husbands. Unless you know me personally, and I have discussed the situation with you or you were INVOLVED in the situation, you would have no idea who I was talking about. So while I do understand how reading some of the things that I have written can be upsetting if you are the person I am talking about, nothing was ever written maliciously, and nothing that I have written is untrue. Everything I have written is my feelings.
But let me get out of that and back to where I am going. In a situation that has been going on recently, I am coming out as the bad guy, and my blog is being blamed for many problem.
Do I believe that my blog is the big problem? No. I believe that there are tons of issues that have not been discussed. Issues that have been going on for almost a decade and that have been pushed down or hidden behind closed door. And apparently they have now all come to a culmination, and in order for people to get out their frustration, they’ve chosen my blog as the main target. One of the things that I think bothers everyone the most about the blog isn’t what I’ve written, but what others have responded. The wonderful people who respond aren’t doing it because they want to put down anybody or any situation I write about, but they are doing it because they want to support me. If you read through my comments, you can find many where people give me a verbal bitch slap myself and where they say, “hey, Randi, wake up – you made a bad decision.”
But while this is a problem that others have with the blog, I can commiserate because it is the same problem that I have with people in the real world. They feel ganged up on by complete strangers, and I feel ganged up on by many people in the real world.
No one likes to say think that they made bad decisions or that they helped a bad situation to occur. It is normal for people to look for something else to blame.
I’m someone who, as I’ve said, is very hard on myself, and I will absolutely take blame when I am to blame. Do I think that I am to blame for this entire situation? No. I feel like there are many other people who are to blame for this situation (and yes, I am involved as well) and yet, for some reason, it all culminates on me and my blog. During the conversation that I had last night, my blog was mentioned more times than I can count. Every time the conversation was steered away from the blog, it veered back to it. It has gotten to the point where I’m going to take a good portion of the day to go back to try to find rude or cruel things that I have written, because I have no memory of them.
During the conversation, I made the remark that relationships can only work if there is compromise. And this is true! A relationship, any relationship, can only work if there is a compromise. So what am I willing to compromise? In order to “keep peace”, I am willing to compromise by being very careful about what I write on my blog. To think before I type.
But my feelings are hurt too. They are not the only ones who have been hurt. I have been extremely hurt and put down and made to feel as though I am a bad person. So while I am willing to compromise, I need to see some effort back. I need to see that I’m not the only one compromising. Just as you need to be willing to compromise to make a relationship work, BOTH sides need to compromise, and so far I have seen no compromising from the other side. That is what I am waiting for.
I love watching Babygirl and Scott lately. During her Christmas vacation, Babygirl became attached to daddy at the hip. This is something that often happens during vacations when he’s able to be home more often. Eventually she detaches herself a bit from him, until the next vacation, of course, when it starts all over again.
We went to my cousin’s basketball game on Saturday and the kids got a bit bored. They played their DS’s for awhile but eventually Babygirl had decided that she’d had enough, so she went to sit on Dad’s lap. Dad didn’t really do anything to play with her, just cuddled her and pointed out what was going on during the game. Apparently she just liked his attention, because she made sure that he kept it on her.
I love watching Scott and the kids. I have a tenuous relationship with my own father, and with my step-father, and so the relationship between a child and their father has always been a mystery to me. Seeing Scott playing with and loving our children warms my heart, each and every time, and I remember, each and every time, how thankful I am that he’s an amazing father, and I know that, eventually, they’ll realize how thankful they are as well.
Everybody has issues. I think that one of our missions in life should be to figure out what those issues are and to work through them, at least until you get to a point where you’re comfortable with them or to where you’ve overcome them, if that’s possible.
In the last few months I have been doing a lot of soul searching. I’ve never said that I was someone who was perfect, nor have I ever believed it. And I have worked hard for years to figure out some of my issues. One more issue has finally reared its ugly head, and that is the issue of abandonment.
It’s no secret that my father and mother divorced when I was 16 months old. And apparently I still am dealing with the issues of abandonment from that? I say that as a question because I’m just not sure where the issue comes from.
When I first got with Scott, I threw everything I had at him. I was a total bitch. Eventually he realized that it was because I was trying to push him away, and at the time we both thought that it was because of my ex-boyfriend, but now I’m not so sure.
The entire situation that happened in the last six months has made me relive some of these issues. I feel like I’ve been abandoned and disliked by so many people:
One of my oldest friends
My husband’s family
Members of my family
It may only be three bullets in a list, but when you add up the people you wind up with at least 22 people, if not more.
In my head, I know that it shouldn’t matter to me that people don’t like me, but it does. I wish it didn’t, but it does. It really bothers me that family doesn’t like me. In my obviously delusional mind, family should be the one that cares about you.
I haven’t discussed my photography on here lately, and for awhile I didn’t do any photography. My depression had gotten so bad that I really didn’t enjoy anything that I loved doing.
Now, however, I’m slowly getting my groove back. I’m having fun taking photos again and I’m even practicing. I purchased a book about exposure to help me to figure out some of the things that I really wasn’t getting.
Scott has been a huge help with everything, and seems as happy as I am that I’ve been taking photos again. So happy, in fact, that he’s actually been willing to sit still while I’ve taken a few shots of him! Of course he hates when I post them on flickr, but he deals.
I’m looking forward to the spring and I’m hoping, desperately hoping, that I’ll get some new clients this spring and summer. I know that starting a photography business is a slow thing, especially since I don’t have a studio (yet), but I’m really excited to be able to get shots of new people, especially now that I’m learning so much.
Until then, however, I’ll keep practicing. And thoroughly enjoying myself.
Scott headed to the school meeting last night. See, in 2009 the entire town got a shock when we discovered that our taxes were going to go up around 30%. Yeah, that’s a huge amount. So of course everyone in town got upset and blamed the school board. So everyone went there and started screaming and yelling.
I went, sat there, asked a few questions, and then told Scott that the fault was really ours, because no one had been holding the school board accountable. Really, we can’t blame anybody but ourselves.
So now that people are watching and are interested in what the school board is spending the money on, they’ve been trying to cut back. Let me first say that there are three guys on the school board that I think are really great people and I know they’re just trying to do the best for the children. But with all of the yelling, they had to start cutting back things.
Last night we found out what they cut back.
They got rid of the field trip funding (around $2,500), other supply funding, and they got rid of the librarian.
I am very, very sad that a librarian is going to be losing her job, but, at the same time, I’d rather they do that then combine the classes, which is something that was discussed.
I’ve said before that the school doesn’t do much with parents volunteering, and now I’m wondering if they’re going to change that. I’d love to volunteer at the school a few hours a week, and I know a few other parents who would love to volunteer as well.
I'm 30 years old and still reconciling myself to that fact. I have a husband named Scott who is six years older than me (and I rag on him about that constantly) and 2 children. Toad is our 9 year old son who loves the Wii and hates doing chores. Babygirl is our 5 year old daughter who thinks she's a princess and is a bit...dramatic. I'm a full-time freelance writer and am fortunate enough to absolutely love my job. I've recently discovered how enjoyable it can be behind behind the lens of a camera and tend to force my photos on any who happen upon this blog. This is my world. Run away...quickly.
