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Caught in the Riptide of Change
Warning: This is a ranty-mc-venty-pants of a post so please click away or do not click over if you are not in the mood for such nonsense.
Lately, I feel like I’m lost in a current of changes. It’s like I’m out in the surf and there are giant waves looming over my head. Whenever I least expect it, a huge wave crashes down on me and tumbles me around so that all I can see are bubbles and I don’t know which way is up. It’s like I woke up one day and suddenly everything was going too fast for me to keep up. I’m not crying about being old yet. I know I have so much ahead of me and so much to be happy and thankful for, but my deep fear is that I am getting old and it’s the beginning of the end. I feel like it’s happening.
It started out with a hard drive wipe in April. My laptop never really recovered from the hard drive crash of 2013. Things were wonkey so I let Toby borrow my laptop and wipe it clean. I’m so glad that he still steps in to be my IT guy now and then. I figured a fresh start might fix the spinny wheel problems and the email clunkeridge that was plaguing me. Oh, apple email is just the worst lately.
When I got my laptop back it was all new and different. I had a new operating system with all kinds of whistles and bells that were frankly annoying. Of course I have no time for watching videos to educate me about all the new changes. Nah. I just wing it and figure things out as I go.
One of the new things about this operating system is that all my devices are linked whether I want them to be or not. I’m sure this a good thing but half the time I can’t figure it out. The icloud is like an evil overlord who likes to share things I don’t want shared and won’t let me get to things that I do want to share.
I cannot get my pictures from my phone to open on my laptop in photoshop. I use photoshop everyday. It’s what I do. So why can’t I just download my pictures and open them the way I used to? No! It’s like Apple put a protective covering over my photos like my car company puts a protective plastic covering over my engine. What if I don’t want to go to the dealership and I want to change my own oil in my driveway?!! I can’t get to it?
Seriously, I plug in my phone and my pictures start automatically downloading but they go to some kind of mystery land hidden in my computer that I cannot see outside of the magical apple-picture-viewing center. I can order prints and make coffee table books. I can even edit pictures with some fancy filters BUT I CAN’T OPEN MY OWN PICTURES in photoshop. I think Adobe and Apple are having a war and I am stuck trying to make them talk to each other. I’m having no luck. Sometimes I try to email pictures from my phone to my laptop and even that is impossible, or at least nerve-wracking.
Email. Groan. Where do I even start?
I have switched completely to gmail because my apple email program is just beyond me. It has become the new trap for spam and I’m sure it’s silently turning into a black hole. I’ve given up. I’m so sad too because I use to be the queen of email organization. I had folders and everything was filed according to subject or client. I kept all my receipts for business write offs in one, important password emails in another, sentimental emails in another and important banking and legal emails in another. It was a tight ship. Then in the main browser section would be all my current emails to go through. Sure things got a little out of control in the main section but I knew that I could wade my way through to the bottom. Everything was chronological. First come first serve.
Now I’m living in the land of google mail and threads and conversations. Nothing is organized. It’s a big huge pile of random emails. There is no hope for ever getting to the bottom. In fact it just doesn’t matter. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe that’s better but I constantly feel like I’m not remembering to get back to everyone. I can search my giant pile of emails and find things but there is no hope of organizing it, ever. Is this the new way? Is this how the kids do it? Is google just going to keep everything I ever do on file in some vault in the mountains somewhere? Is Google Mormon? Are they the beast? Are they going punch a microchip into my forehead someday?
You know I’m joking but sometimes I just wonder.
So since I’m officially out of love with Apple. I decided to give them the finger and get a new phone. I don’t really care about all my music in iTunes and pictures in the iCloud. They’re sharing 57 selfies Bug took on my apple tv screen saver but yet I can’t get an instagram photo that I want to blog about to download to my pictures folder on my laptop. So I said screw it. Since I’m all google now with my calendars and emails I might as well have a google phone too.
And that is part two of the many many changes that make me feel like I’m under water upside down with bubbles. At least I can still see the light, it’s just very very bubbly and I’m spinning. Maybe I’m a little nauseous from all the spinning.
The new phone is very pretty. It’s gold and it has a pearlized cover that makes it seem like a piece of jewelry. The sales woman at Verizon said that nine out of ten apple users return their droid phones and go back to apple. I’m determined not to be one of those nine. But I’m telling you, the newest operating system on the new phone is almost going to break me. Lollipop my ass. I feel like lollipopping Samsung for being such idiots. I don’t know why it’s so bad but it is constantly downloading something in the background and my battery lasts from 8am to 12 noon. Yeah. I can’t work like that.
I popped into the Verizon store the other day to ask if there were any tips or tricks to make my battery life last longer and they had no solutions for me. Everyone just kind of hung their head and said, Yeah. Lollipop sucks and we don’t know when they are going to fix it. They don’t tell us these things. Really? That’s the best answer they have for me? Surely that can’t be very good for sales. So some things I really like about the new phone but this is kind of a huge drag.
Especially when you are driving somewhere, using the your map app to get there and your phone starts turning off because the battery is overheated. I had the worst day yesterday. And I found out how much I have to pay in taxes because I finally filed them. Worst day ever.
I’m done complaining. I’m just tired. I think it’s hormones.
Hahaha!! Let’s talk about another big change in my life: Hormones.
You know how you go through all kinds of hormonal changes when you are a teenager? Guess what? It happens again when you get into your 40’s. I was a late bloomer hitting puberty so that means I’m an early bloomer to leave my reproductive years. I guess God just didn’t think I was much of a breeder. I’m okay with that, mostly. I’m just not okay with having so many mood swings. I’m falling apart all the time. I cry all the time. I finally get a good guy in my life who I really really love and want to spend time with and I’ve become this wretched emotional mess. I’m afraid I’m going to scare him away.
I have less patience with Bug. I’m struggling every day to be happy and kind and not snap at the littlest things. Some days I wake up and feel like a complete failure for no reason at all and I have no energy to fight it. I just want to hide away and not show my face until this passes. But I can’t do that. I just have to put on a brave face every day and hope I can duck away when the cracks start showing.
So I cut my hair. Because that’s what you do when you feel crappy about yourself. But now I miss my long hair. I think I look even uglier with short hair which I know is silly and ridiculous. My new short hair is cute and I’m learning to do it in fun new ways. I do like that it’s something different to work with everyday. But I miss my old long hair.
I’m so sorry to go on like this. But I know there must be other people out there struggling too and maybe you can help me. I’m desperately looking for help. I can’t afford doctors. That’s a whole other sore subject. I’m trying black cohosh today for the first time. I’m hoping it works. My mom says it does. She had a hysterectomy at 40 so can’t really help me but she says it’s helped a lot of people she knows. I don’t usually buy into herbal holistic cures but I’m pretty desperate.
And lastly, Bug. She’s changing too. Not bad changes though. Just, you know, typical pre-tween changes. She’s such a pre-teen even though she’s only nine. She acts like she’s 15 with all the attitude and trappings but then I’ll catch her playing with her beloved Shopkins and acting out the voices when she doesn’t know I’m listening. It warms my heart when she still acts like a little girl. I know even bigger changes are around the corner so I’m holding onto these last days of little girl-hood as best I can.
When I do bob up to the surface for air I look back on the beach and long for those days when we had all the time in the world to sit in the sun and make sandcastles and I didn’t even have a phone to check.
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Blogging for No One
I logged into my wordpress account today and was shocked to see I only had one reader. Stats don’t really matter anymore since I don’t have ads on this page and I never blog anymore anyway but I have to admit it took me and my ego a minute to digest. Really? Only one reader has clicked on this site today? What about all those google searches for ninja costumes and painted butterfly wings or chore charting printables? Where did those people go? Surely Pinterest sent over one or two people.
I thought about this sudden lack of traffic a little bit. It’s not a big deal but it’s on the heels of work being slow and generally feeling like a failure, even though I know I’m not one. It’s usually during my hungriest times that I invent the my best work so this is not a bad thing even though my anxiety in the middle of the night would like you to think otherwise. And then I realized, I love blogging when nobody is reading! This is when I can ramble on and say whatever I like and I don’t have to think about this Aunt thinking this or that Uncle thinking that or that one lady who called me a cat murderer or my ex… etc etc.. you know, all the people you think about when you write publicly about your personal life on the internet. They’re not reading! I can write whatever I want to! I have a few things I really want to put out there in nether space.
Like maybe I have a drinking problem? Just kidding. I’m pretty sure I don’t but I have to admit the worry has crossed my mind, especially since I come from a tee-totaling up-bringing. But I think my drinking problem is related more to unnecessary calories than getting drunk. Which brings me to my next block of instagrams.
I have gained quite a bit of weight in the last year or so of happy-dating-life (Too many dinners out, too many tasty drinks, too many lattes, not so much working out…) so I’ve been trying to up my game by dressing fancier (earrings! make-up! new clothes!). I’ve been doing Stitch Fix for half a year now and I love it. It’s not the best if you are on a budget but it is GREAT for someone like me who hates to shop. I feel like I have my own personal stylist and she is AWESOME. She gets me better than I get me. None of my stitch fix outfits are pictured but I’m going to try and take more pictures of them in the future.
Next random subject: Mother’s Day. If I’ve learned anything in my life of forty-some years I’ve finally learned that if I want something to happen I have to take the initiative.
It’s funny how family dynamics change as you get older. When you’re a kid you’re always getting carted off to some relatives house for big dinners and festivities and you take it for granted thinking it’s always going to be that way. And it is for a little while. You have your own family and you cart them off to your parents or your grandparents but then at some point the grandparents die and the parents are too tired to throw dinners and family gatherings. If you want your family to get together YOU have to make the plans. If you don’t nothing happens.
This is kind of a big deal. I sat in my favorite gold rocking chair and it dawned on me: I am the matriarch of my family now. I have to make the plans.
I day-dreamed up a lovely brunch with Smitten Kitchen’s boozy baked French Toast and then I made it happen. And guess what? It was awesome. I just need to step into this new job and plan like a mother.
After brunch we all went to the beach and I sat next to my mom on the sand without any wifi-connected devices and we talked for two hours. It was the best.
Which brings me to my kid. Oh, Bug. Where should I start? She’s a gamer. She can play minecraft for four hours straight if I don’t watch her and force her to log off. She also loves these little shopkin characters that I call “squigs.” They’re pencil toppers in the shapes of grocery store products and apparently they are all the rage. Or maybe they were all the rage. Who knows.
She wanted them for ages and begged for them but I didn’t know where to buy them and it just wasn’t top of my list of things to do. Then one day I discovered they sold them at Michael’s, a destination I seem to end up at every week (much to my chagrin) so I picked her up a couple mystery packs as payment for modeling for my alphamom projects. She was overjoyed. She devoured their packaging, reading every line of mouse type and discussing it with me while I listened half-heartedly. She couldn’t wait to take her little characters to school the next day. I think she even slept with them under her pillow.
The next day we were in a mad rush to get to school, as we often are, and somehow she accidentally dropped one between her bedroom and the car. When we got to school she was in a panic. Where was Waffle Sue!!? Her distress was palpable.
I wanted to be the tough mom and make her deal with the consequences of being late but as we stood in the crowd of parents and students during the weekly pep-rally, I just couldn’t do it. They were handing out awards that day and it was going on FOREVER. I know this is bad parenting but as they read off name after name after name, my eyes glazed over. I looked over at Bug mischievously and said, “Do you think going home to get Waffle Sue is worth a late notice?”
She nearly jumped for joy. Waffle Sue was SO worth a late notice in her eyes. She hasn’t had a late notice all year so we snuck off to the car like two delinquents. I know some people would probably shake their heads at this but hey, nobody’s reading!
We drove like the wind back home. She stayed in the car and I busted my butt up the stairs. I figured I’d retrace her steps and probably find it faster than she would. Sure enough, there was Waffle Sue, face down on the top step. I didn’t even have to unlock the door. I raced back to the car and drove as fast as I could safely back to school.
The whole trip probably took us less than 10 minutes and when we got back to school, kids were still milling around and not even in their classrooms yet. Bug probably could have snuck into class and nobody would have even known she was gone but she opted to take a late pass anyway. I thought it was kind of cool and she felt special.
After school I couldn’t wait to hear a full report on how much fun she had with her squigs. Did her friends have Waffle Sue too? Did they invent new games at recess? How did it all go over?
Poor Bug. She just looked down at the ground and said that her friends decided that Shopkins weren’t cool anymore. What?!!
Pfft! Kids, man.
But I’ll always treasure that memory anyway. Waffle Sue will always have a special spot in my heart.
And that has NOTHING to do with the picture above but I’m just going to let all my blogging rules go out the window because nobody is reading and I don’t care! Wooo hoo!
I’m signed up for my local CSA box that comes to the farm across the street. It’s the best thing ever. Except I can’t always keep up with all the greens. I’m struggling with what to do with cabbage. I’m not really a big slaw fan (though I do like it) and I seem to have it coming out my ears. But I love the box as a whole because it only costs $22 a week and my fridge is always bursting with the best of the best fresh vegetables. The other night I made myself a dinner of just pan-friend green beans in butter and nothing else and it was delicious!
I wish I could be on one of those shows where a chef comes to your house and cooks with whatever you have on hand. Somebody could cook a badass meal in my kitchen. Why can’t it be me?! But I’m trying. I’m getting better at cooking (besides burning things constantly with my electric stove). I’ve been cooking a lot with Payam and that always works out well.
Speaking of cooking and Payam and showing the people you love that you love them with food…I have some really big news that I’m a little scared to share but I’m really excited about too.
I’m moving in with Payam in August. I know. This is big. Living in sin and all that… But I’ve been married before and I don’t want to do it again. I feel one hundred percent committed to him and in my struggling-with-faith eyes, staying in this relationship every day feels like a bigger honor than a piece of paper. It’s been a long journey to this decision with some twists and turns that I can’t write about on the internet (even if nobody reads) but it feels right and I’m super excited about it. Both of our (conservative) families know and surprisingly, they are letting us go right on ahead and make this decision with less struggle than I expected.
Payam has a nice house with an extra bedroom for Bug so we are all very excited about blending families. We are also super excited about blending the pet famlilies. Three cats, one dog, YAY! And cooking together and just generally being a family. Tag-team parenting is so much better than single-parenting. I’m just scared for the teenage years but maybe it will be better with a partner.
I’m thinking so.
*I know some people are reading. (And I love you very much.) I think the latest wordpress update I did messed something up but I don’t care because it’s a good thing to write for yourself and not worry about who’s reading. Maybe I can keep it up.
