Five Out and Five In

Happy 5000 Blog Views!  Wow!  For something that started as a project for fun, I've been lucky to have so many people interested in "the opinion of little ole me"!  Whether it was 10 people who showed up 500 times or 50 people who showed up 100 times or whatever, this has been a lovely experience and I'm grateful and honored that you have been here.  Thank you.

I hope you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving.  Mine was tremendous.  Thank you for asking.  I am a great lover of the traditional Thanksgiving meal and we celebrated twice over the weekend, so how could it go wrong?  This was the first Thanksgiving in six years that I didn't have to work and got to really enjoy it.   Plus I got to see all of the family I love, on my side and my in-laws.  Four star Thanksgiving for sure!  I'll attach a photo or two at the end.

Allie, the child who has an unusually diverse vocabulary, has thrown some zingers my way.  I say diverse because she can be totally incorrect with her grammar, and she follows it by busting out the four star words that make us go, "How in the hell does she know that?"  Sometimes you will get them both within the same conversation.  One minute she will say, "I seed the pap-ah ova thay-rr" and the next she will say "Would you like to read the instructions as well?"  One minute she's a New Yawker and the next she's little miss proper grammar.

So, in her honor, I'm going to list the five most irritating words/phrases that make me wish the Language Police would come fine people for using them, along with five that I feel should be snuck into Webster's Dictionary.  DON'T CLICK THAT BUTTON!  I know you're rolling your eyes and thinking 'borrrrrrrrrring', but I implore you to just skim through this.  Do it just for shits and giggles!  You might be saying this stuff and don't know it's wrong, therefore, you will learn just like I did from someone else.  I'm only sharing knowledge, not preaching.  We be equals, dawg.

Bad bad words that give me pre-vomit cheek water:

1- IRREGARDLESS :  This sucker is numero uno.  For those of you who think it's not a word, I regret to inform you that it is.  Some jackass in 1912 decided he wanted to sound like a smartypants (more on that one later) and started using it. Here is my argument....Regardless means "in spite of things" or "without care".  And that freaking "IR" they slapped at the means it's going to be the opposite of the rest of the word "REGARDLESS".  So does that mean irregardless means "caring about things; with care"?  Nope.  Oh my gawd, it's too exhausting.  I hate the person who made this word up.

2- COULD CARE LESS: So, you COULD?  Then that means you DO care a bit.  It's "Couldn't care less".  That means that you've reached the bottom of giving a shit.  You totally don't care.  Not even a rat's ass worth of caring.  "COULD" is the opposite of what you really mean, and trust me when I tell you that people hear it and the polite ones are thinking, 'What a moron.  It's couldn't, not could."  Maybe you don't care that people think you're a moron.  Therefore you couldn't care less.  (see how I did that?!)

3- FUNCTIONABILITY:  Not a word.  Not even a little bit.  The person is trying to say functionality, but functionability sounds so much more impressive, doesn't it?  Not if you know it's not a word!

4- JOHN DOE OR MYSELF:  When I worked at a large company, I saw the big cheeses doing this all of the time.  I sent them all an email saying "It's not: Please see John or myself.  It is: Please see John or me."  Not one person changed.  They think adding "myself" sounds so fancy.  Trying to sound fancy is actually making them look like a jackass.  If you aren't sure what to use, follow this rule that my Mom taught me: "Take the other person out of the sentence and see what sounds right."  So, does "Please see myself" sound better than "Please see me"?  Nay nay.

5- IRONY IS NOT COINCIDENCE - The other day I heard someone say, "It started pouring and ironically I had grabbed my umbrella this morning without knowing it was going to rain!"  Oh, heavy sigh.  IRONY is the opposite of COINCIDENCE.  I'm not going to lecture on this one.  Look it up.  I will summarize it with this: IRONY: "The irony of it is that I grabbed all of our rain coats umbrellas this morning thinking we were getting rain and it ended up being a perfectly sunny day."  COINCIDENCE: "I grabbed my umbrella without thinking this morning and coincidentally it began to pour the second I got out of my car."

Five words/phrases that don't receive proper recognition:

1- WACKADOODLE - I have no idea when I started using this term, but it perfectly summarizes a vast number of people I know.  People who are totally out of their minds, yet harmless, are wackadoodles.  I'm sure many of you are reading this and thinking "Hello, pot?  This is the kettle....you're black!"

2- KAJUNGOUS or HUGEANTIC - When ginormous made it into the dictionary a few years ago, everyone and their cousin emailed me.  Why?  Because I used it all  of the time and people made fun of me.  Well, surprise, surprise!  Those peeps at Merriam-Webster beg to differ!  They find it useful.  Pllbth!  Kajungous was a favorite from high school, but Hugeantic (hugely gigantic) really is interchangeable with Ginormous (gigantically enormous).  They just don't know it yet.

3- AGREEANCE - it just flows better than "agreement".  And it does have an air of smartypantsness. It's in the dictionary, but the dictionary peeps are a bunch of snobs who put it in there under duress and discourage the usage.

4- CLUSTERF*CK - I know I'm pushing it with this one.  But who hasn't been in the middle of a project that has gone seriously wrong?  And if you're pissed about the disaster, this one works well.  I often wonder if Obama got into the White House, evaluated the situation in the Middle East and looked at his constituents and said, "Well, isn't this just one big giant clusterfuck??!!"

5- ________PANTS - My grand finale.  My personal favorite.  Einstein was a smartypants.  When Allie gives me the "nnnnnnnnnno!" answer to my requests, she's a freshypants.  I was sick on and off for three months, so I was sickypants.  The bitch who cut me off at the gas station and gave me the finger this morning was a nastypants.  She was a snottypants too.  Love it.

Feel free to add your own personal favorites in the comments!

By the way, my site will have it's own Facebook page as of this week.  https://www.facebook.com/flipsidemom  I'm not sure how well this all will work, but if you would like to "like" it, I'd love it.

In the meantime, here are a few photos from the past few days:

"Just give me one more minute and I'll have this thing working.  And YES, the backscratcher is a necessary tool for this repair!"

"Hello.  My name is Allie.  I'll be your server this evening.  What can I get you?"

"This restaurant stinks.  I'm overworked and underpaid. I can't even read my own handwriting anymore."  

4pm on November 28th....Allie finally gets over her 3 YEAR shyness with her Uncle and sees that he's damn awesome. (Fortunately they play together better than he and I did when we were her age!)

If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!

A Weight Loss Milestone.....whew!

I finally have hit the "25 pound" milestone.  It certainly took awhile.  And it was effing brutal at times.

I will never see those numbers ever again.  They are ugly, mean numbers.  Right now, I am creeping up on a number that I haven't seen since high school.  When I get there I think I'll just ease up and linger there for a little bit.

However, Operation Fattypants is not complete.  There will be future assaults on the fat that hasn't left! I think that the lingering a bit at a certain weight will help.  The fat cells will let their guard down.  Then I can sneak attack the sonsabitches just when they think it's over!

Anyway, someone asked me last week about the most helpful thing I did for myself that isn't being sold on every a diet plan.  That was a stumper.  I had to think about it for a bit.

Then I remembered a letter I wrote.  I wrote it to myself back in July.  My desperate, old self was writing to my encouraged, new self.  I highly recommend this to anyone before they embark on trying "one more time" to get in shape, especially if you've tried a gazillion times like I have.  

It was hard to start, but then I thought, "I need to speak to myself as if I was talking to someone I love and care about."  So, I imagined that the person I was writing to was just that.... someone I love a lot.  Unfortunately, I didn't envision my current self because, well, I didn't love myself much back then as you will soon see.

I carried the letter with me and took it out when Peanut M&Ms, amongst other things, were calling my name.  (Those M&Ms are noisy little bastards.....especially during PMS)  At times when I didn't have it with me, I still heard me reminding myself of this pep talk.  I needed me to kick my ass from time to time and I did.

I'm actually going share the letter here.  I kind of flip flopped on whether I should do this at all, but what the hell!  A few days ago I was giving you my State Of The Breasts rant, so this isn't any more personal than that.

Maybe.

Dear Vicki,

I'm writing a letter to you in the future but when you read this, it will be written  in the past.    I sit here looking into the future with hope, and also with fear of failure.  I keep hoping that the person I become (you, right now) will have the strength to continue through when things get tough.....because I know they will. 

You will feel lonely or angry or sad or resentful and all of these thing will make you want to eat something that isnt part of the plan right now.  You will think of your comfort foods (donuts, everything little debbie, peanut m&ms, pancakes, etc) and something inside of you will say "If I can eat this, I will feel better.  And its just ONE time.  I'll go back to eating right later today."

Here's the thing.  That food will make you feel numb for a little bit.  But then you will feel anxious and depressed.  You will feel like you let yourself down and your body will feel like its growing fat cells as you sit there.  You will be tired, lazy, grumpy, etc.  And you will feel unattractive to yourself and others.

Please dont do it.  I'm begging you not to.  Give us a chance.  Let us have a shot at being thinner and feeling good physically.  Give it one seriously good try!!!!  Please????  I dont want to be like this anymore.  

You are my only hope, so Im writing to you to try to convince you that you can get thru this without that food.  That annoying cliche' is really true.  Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.  Nothing.  That bite of candy or cake feels good for 10 minutes.  Feeling fit feels good ALL DAY.  From when you wake up until when you go to sleep.

You don't want your daughter to have a fat mother.  Not even a chubby mom.  You want her to see your example and strive for that.  You will be able to keep up with her and do things you cant do now with her.  Do it now, for the future, while there is still time to do this type of thing.  As she gets older, you need to be more physically fit to keep up.  Don't get left behind.  

People start getting sick around your age.  Heart problems, cancers, etc.  Losing weight will help prevent this.  Just like quitting smoking helped reduce the chance of lung cancer (and doesn't that feel good to not have to worry strongly about that?) losing weight will help reduce a bunch of other things.

Right now, I look in the mirror and Im disgusted.  Gross.  I see fat rolls on my stomach.  I see cellulite on my thighs.  I see fat hanging over my bra.  My arms are slabs of meat.  I am a fat person.  Look at the photo from the july 4th fireworks.  You look enormous.  

Who is that person????  That's not who I think I am in my head.  Why because Im so disconnected from my body.  My mind still thinks Im a size 8 or something.  And Im a 14 going on 16 in reality.

I feel unattractive and don't want to even be hugged  by my husband.  He is being neglected because I am fat.  How awful to be that way over something you have the power to change!   He will leave you eventually if you keep this up.  Not because I'm fat, but because he feels unloved by someone who pushes him away due to embarrassment.  You CAN change that.

Dont give up!

Does the food taste bad?  Do whatever it takes to get it down.  Its not forever.  Just a few weeks!  You've eaten worse.

Are you bored with the food?  Its just food.  And you are trying to get rid of the importance of food.  If you keep at it, you wont care about how boring it is.

DId you cheat already?  Well, move on.  Do something to make up for it.  Extra exercise.  Eat less later.  Whatever.  Just fix the problem and get back on track.  I am counting on you.

Go have some water.  Take a walk.  Write.  Read something enjoyable like a kindle book or a funny blog.  Move around.  Do something else besides giving up.  I know you can do it.  You survived a whole mess of way worse things.  You will totally get thru this too!  And when we reach the other side, its going to feel great.  And we will have each other to thank for it.

I love you.

Yourself

Potty Training and Droopy Boobs

Happy Hump Day, people!

Thanksgiving is just 8 days away and Christmas is..... well, it's coming soon.  I don't want to even check the number because it just completely freaks me out that Christmas is coming and I haven't shopped.  I'm still in the brainstorming phase.  There is a list and there are plans, but there's no money, so we are going to put in a little more time brainstorming.

To those of you who are done holiday shopping, I have two things to say.....
#1 - I am sincerely impressed and jealous of your ability to plan, execute and complete a yearly task that, for most people, evokes the desire to get hammered instead.
#2 - Also, f**k you.  I say that with love.

On to other things....

About a year ago we started the potty training process.  Again, we were in the brainstorming phase.  (We seem to spend an inordinate amount of time doing that.)  Potties were purchased, research was done, books were brought home for Allie, pull up diapers were bought, stuff was happening.  I spoke with parents and got advice and took notes.

One thing that I kept hearing and reading was, "She will do it when she's ready."  But did I believe that?  Nooooo.

After all, I was hearing stories about parents who were able to potty train their kids in a week or a weekend or even overnight.  These kids just caught right on and did it.   Poised and precise pee-ers and poopers.

But many of them were doing it because they couldn't send their kids to preschool unless they were out of diapers or they were just tired of changing diapers and felt their kids were ready.  I was really sympathetic to the first group, since a lot of people don't have a choice.  They need to send their kids to school and have no choice but to give a crash course in potty protocol.

Allie was intrigued by the whole process, but she wasn't committed to this new way of life.  If you've been reading this blog, you've seen how seriously she has been taking this so far.  (See It's My Potty And I'll Try If I Want To )  That potty seat spent more time on her head than under her tushy.  It was both entertaining and discouraging.

However, through it all, I kept going back to that one statement. "She will do it when she's ready."

And she did!

Yeeeee haw!!!

Mind you, she hasn't quite mastered it yet, but she's super close.

Out of nowhere she started telling us she was going to use the bathroom.  She even began asking for "Privacy please" as she shut the door in our faces.  Every day she spent more and more time in her "big girl underpants".  I don't know what motivated her, but I'm not going to question it.  I don't want to jinx it again.  We were thisclose to being potty trained in May and she totally regressed, so I know first hand that anything can happen!

I'm so proud of her.  I never thought I could be so thrilled about someone using a toilet, but I am.  There's practically a parade going through my house every time it happens.

Before I go, I have to get something else off my chest.  (Pun totally intended.)

My boobs are falling.

Yes, you read that right.  And I hate to be a downer bringing this up, but I need support right now (again, pun intended).

I know this has been a work in progress for a few years now, but it only really hit me today.  And I'm shocked, to be honest.   I thought I was cheating the system.

WRONGO.

As a teenager, I slept with a bra on because I never wanted droopy boobs.  As an adult, I spent a fortune on bras.  The past few years, I've bought top of the line sports bras to wear while I'm working.  And what do I get in return?  Floppy breasts.  Gee, thanks.

The moral of this story?  You can't beat nature.  The aging process stops for no one.  Not even Joan Rivers or Lara Flynn Boyle.  They THINK they are winning, but we all see how damn scary they actually look while trying to look "young".  Wrinkle free does not mean ageless, peeps!

If you are young and have big breasts, your boobies will be sagging too one day.  So enjoy them while you can.  And start saving for quality lingerie.  Because you're going to need it if you want to make it look like they're still perky at 40.  Or you can get "breast augmentation surgery".  Either way, start saving your dollars.

Enjoy the second half of your week, friends!

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I Think It's Diphtheria

I'm sick.  Again.  I think it's diphtheria.

Okay, maybe diphtheria is a little extreme.  After all, only 56 people in the US have had it in the past 30 years, but maybe I'm part of the 1.866666 people who will get it this year.

I really hope I'm the "1" in that statistic.  I'd hate to be considered only .866666 of a person, although some would say that I lost my mind awhile ago, so that would account for the .133334 that could be missing.

It's round three with the same damn thing that started at the end of September.  I'm sure it's just a virus, but as I was self-diagnosing myself on the internet, I found that my symptoms matched diphtheria.  It's a good think I'm not a hypochondriac.  I'd be freaking.

Allie has been sick since October 4th.  She and my mom both got sick at the same time.  My mom got over it, but Allie has been coughing and sneezing and congested since then.  Justin has been sick twice since this lovely bug showed up.  And the damn thing clearly has some sort of vendetta as far as I'm concerned.  Three times???  Have some mercy!

Over the past weekend, we were sitting in bed watching a Bar Rescue marathon, when Justin started hacking and I sneezed a few times.  He looked at me and with complete seriousness he stated, "We are going to be sick until she graduates from high, school aren't we?"

Justin is convinced that Allie brought this illness home, courtesy of her preschool chums.  We were warned that Allie would probably get sick many times during her first year at any school since she wasn't really subjected to groups of kids for her first three years. She had only had a cold once, and that started New Year's Eve 2010.  We all got sick and within a week, we were fine.  Otherwise, no germies.

I have no idea how the teachers manage to avoid it.  I'm sure they have incredible immune systems, but considering where preschoolers put their hands and mouths, it's a damn miracle that they are so healthy.  They are like anti-viral/bacterial super-heroes.  I think they must have some magical medical force surrounding them, because I can't survive the germs that ONE toddler carries around, let alone the germs of 15!

As for this evening, I'm going to try to control my snifflingsneezingcoughingachingstuffyheadwithoutrest situation by rendering myself unconscious as I scarf down some nighttime medication.

I hope you all are healthy.....may the "Pre-school Teacher Force" be with you!

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You're Too Nice!

Three little words that have confused me for a very long time: You're too nice.

I would like to know exactly when being nice became a problem of excess.  When did being nice become a no-no?  Where exactly is that line between "just enough nice" and "too nice"?  Someone help me with this please!


There is the 
"you're nice to the point of being a moron
" judgement, as well as the 
"you're nice to the point of being suspicious and you must have alterior motives
" problem.
I may be the first one, but the second one pisses me off and 
I hear it more than anything.  
Personally, 
I dont think 
I'm excessively amicable, and many days my husband would be standing behind me, nodding his head like crazy.

Soooooooo....

Before I continue, I would like to put my meanie-pants on and bitch slap you just so I can be like the cool kids and have the appropriate amount of nasty going on while we talk here.  Cuz I'm not really sure what I'm doing in this "bad girl territory", so I figure that's a good place to start.

I'm a mid-western girl.  My parents moved to the east coast when I was 13.  I was traumatized because the month before we moved, my father had travelled to Aruba to look at a restaurant, so I thought that if we were moving that we would be heading to that "One Happy Island".

Nay, nay.

Instead of working on a tan and gettin' my island groove on, I found myself being analyzed and torn apart by my peers who were kind of harsh.  I dressed wrong, I spoke wrong, I carried myself wrong, and I was "too nice", which was an undesirable trait.  So, yes, I've been confused since I was 13.

But I'm not alone!  My mother, also born and raised as a mid-west girl, has been hearing the same judgement since we got here.  She's just as confused as I am about this one.  However, a few weeks ago,  she uttered those dreadful words to me, and my response was, "When did it become wrong to be nice?  Either I'm nice or I'm stupid.  But there is no "too nice".  Maybe they're just too f*cking bitchy???"

I listen to Howard Stern on satellite and when you hear people talk about his wife, Beth, they always marvel about how nice she is and how she's such "an angel".  Well, I hate to break it to you all, but I grew up in the same place that she did, and I'm the same age that she is, and her behavior seems entirely appropriate and normal to me.  It's no big shocker.  In fact, I have a boatload of cousins who are just like her!  If you got us all together in one room and filmed it, apparently they could promote it as a science fiction series or some other oddity.  An observation of a herd of Too Nicers?   Ooooooo!  Scary stuff.  (oh, puh-leez)

My husband says part of why he married me because of my morality.  When he mentions behavior here that I find mean spirited or selfish, I'm always shocked.  And when I'm shocked, he's surprised.  To him, it's all normal.  It's normal for people close to you take advantage of you, or to turn their backs on you, or abandon you for an extended period of time, or blatantly lie to you, or to say shitty things and expect you to get over it because they "feel better after venting".  I'll stop there.  I'm sure you get it.

Justin is dying to go to where I grew up just so he can see if there actually ARE more people like my mother, my brother and me.  Like we are some kind of Holier Than Thou side show freaks in his world? While I'd love to think we are special, the fact is that people who live further away from big metropolitan areas are different, and there are tons more like us. 

When I have to explain my "level of niceness" in a discussion, it usually starts with, "You know me....the happy idiot!"  I say it with a smile, but I know it's what many people think.  I know because I have good hearing and they talk too loud.

Here's my drama.  I want my daughter to think and live her life more like my family and less like "the local status quo".

Don't get me wrong, I love the extra bit of self confidence and outspoken tendencies of the people from here.  I like that they have a thicker skin and are a little less sensitive.  And I think it's awesome that they will get in your face and tell you that you're an asshole when you really deserve it!  However, I can't seem to figure out how to make "bad ass" and "too nice" merge.  At some point they start to work against each other.

This made me think of some of my prior employers..... especially at one "driven" company 

If I had my druthers, Allie would be kind and loving to people, but speak up when she's being treated in a way she doesn't like.  I want her to stick up for herself and for others who deserve it, but in a way that is respectful and intelligent.  She should be too nice, but only to people who deserve it.  And when people use her pleasant and good natured demeanor against her and criticize her for it, I hope it doesn't deter her from being a good person in the future (insert kick in the shin here).

I must clarify that everyone here isn't a bigfatjerkface.  There are many awesome people sprinkled around this area.  Granted, some of them are from out of town as well, but there are just as many that were born and raised here.  And you know what they tell me?  They say that people always tell them that they are "too nice".

Really, people?  How did something so good become so wrong?

If you clickity click on the banner below, it will seem like nothing happened, but it did!  You can close the window as soon as it opens if you like.  T'anks peeps!