Well, What Did You Expect? December 2, 2009

A while ago my brother posted on his blog about expectations and potential, specifically his own.  For those of you who aren’t going to follow the links he said basically that most of his life he’s been told that he has so much potential and only recently was he ever told that he had actually met that potential and that just by one person.

And it got me thinking, I’m a fairly smart girl, I grew up with most of the advantages that can be expected (no, my parents did not spend millions on my sweet 16.  Heck , they didn’t even buy me a car, but I had one at my disposal and I went to college and … you know, the usual non-Hollywood advantages.)  And here I am 15 years after graduating from high school still without a bachelor’s degree, I have a job that I like but doesn’t pay all that well, a small home in a crappy neighborhood (sorry, if you happen to live by me but, I’m just sayin’) my house is always a mess, my kids are occasionally really badly behaved, and I’m regularly told how amazing I am, what a great job I’ve done, that I do so much, that I’m impressive and fantastic and inspirational and all that rot.

Now, far be it from me to say that those who are calling me great are wrong, in fact I think they’re right on the money, but it seems weird to me that my brother who was raised in the same environment and has ended up in a similar situation, small house, low paying job, etc… (although he does have a bachelor’s, and eight kids) has not lived up to his potential and I have.  Doesn’t that just seem weird?

And then we were talking to my sisters about it and they said the same thing, they’re regularly told how great they are and what a great job they’ve done with their lives.  And they are great, and they have all done fantastic things (a heck of a lot better then me, but then I set the bar pretty low.) but why are they commended for that so regularly while our brother isn’t?

So we’re wondering, is it a male/female thing?  Has my brother not met his amazing potential because he’s a guy and he’s not running a fortune 500 company and I have because I’m a girl and I work full time with a smile on my face? (Let’s face it, the smile is just because working gets me away from the kids anyway.)  If I were running a fortune 500 company but I had no kids would I still be meeting my potential?  And seriously, the man has 8 kids and he knows ALL of their names, how is that not meeting your potential?!?  What do you people want anyway?

I’m not really one to rail on about the evil patriarchal society in which we live but I think the bar may be set a little lower for girls than it is for boys.  I manage to get up in the morning, I even sometimes get dressed, I birthed and have manged not to kill any of my four children so anything I do above and beyond that it just exceeding expectations.

Chris, my brother, does not run a fortune 500 company but he does run 2 small businesses (at last count) he’s active in the community, having been the president of his rotary club, a member of the chamber of commerce and working with several other small business groups, he has 8 children all of whom know and like him, he grows an enormous garden every year, and then he gives a lo of it away to neighbors, to friends, to family, to whoever wants or needs it.  In fact he’ll give anything he has to anyone who needs it.  He once gave me a car.  Yes, he GAVE me a CAR.  He’ll house you, feed you, clothe you, give you a car, or a job, or you know, whatever you need, no questions asked, no strings attached.  If that guy hasn’t met his potential no one has.

Ancient Chinese Proverb November 29, 2009

If you don’t want to be the butt of someone’s joke, it’s best not to act like a butt.

Once upon a time… November 14, 2009

I was in college.  No, not this time that I was in college.  Not the last time either.  Or the time before that.  (It occurs to me that I’ve spent far FAR too much time in college for someone who doesn’t even have an associate’s degree.)  That’s not the point.  The point is that once upon a time, about 12 years ago, I took a class at BYU and it was really interesting and all, but the day I remember the best was the day the professor auctioned off a box of donuts.  It was just a regular box of a dozen donuts.  Assorted varieties, I believe.  He started the bidding at somewhere around a dollar and if I remember correctly the winner ended up spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $300 for the donuts.

Now I’m sure the lesson went on to have some kind of supply and demand or mob mentality or some other such lesson to it, but I really remember it because the money was going to charity and after collecting the winner’s $300 the professor sent a hat (or something) around the room to collect more money.

It was about this time of year and he pointed out that it was getting cold and that we as college students, even though we really liked to refer to ourselves as starving college students, were far from being truly needy and that we had a responsibility to give.

I gave $100.

I didn’t really have a hundred bucks to give (I was paying my own way through school after all) but there were people out there who noticed everyday how little they had and the least I could do was give enough so that I would notice a little bit.

And I resolved to do that every year, to give enough that I noticed.

I haven’t always kept that resolve.  But this year I’m going to.  Or at least I’m going to make a point of giving.

And it’s been made really easy for me.  For those of you who don’t read Sue (as if there are people who don’t read Sue) there’s a call in the bloggy community for coats for refugees living in Utah.  Now honestly I had no idea that we had refugees living in Utah  never mind enough that we needed to hold a drive to get them coats.  I would have guessed that a “drive” to get them coats would have been more along the lines of a drive to Walmart to pick up two or three coats.  But I digress (can you believe it?)  The point is that there’s a call for 100 coats and I’m going to buy one (or two, or…) and you should too.

You can click on the graphic above for more information or just go online and buy a coat (or two or three or…) and have it (them) shipped to:

Gayane Manukyan
Att: 100 Coats for Kids Project
Refugee Center at AAU
1588 South Major Street
Salt Lake City, Utah 84115

or you can go to the store and buy some coats and ship them there, or you can go through your closets and find some coats that are still good and ship them, or if you’re in the greater Salt Lake area you can drop them off, or you could go online and buy gift-cards and have them sent to the shelter and they can buy their own coats or whatever else they may need, or you can do something completely unrelated to coats and or refugees (or you can do nothing at all, it’s a free country) the point is that you really really ought to do something and if you can’t do something at this time of year, well I’m not going to say that you’re dead inside and you deserve exactly what you get but… Oh heck. Yes.  Yes, I am.

If you can’t even bring yourself to give at this time of year you ARE dead inside and you DO deserve exactly what you get.

PS. I mean that deserving what you get on an eternal scale and I’m here to tell you that if you don’t give, then when you’re standing before your maker trying to justify yourself, well, it ain’t going to be pretty my friend, it ain’t going to be pretty.

PPS. On a completely unrelated note, Catherine, were you that Catherine that corrected Sue on the words to “Give Said…”?  I was totally going to do that, but then I saw that comment and you rock my world.

It’s Not That I Don’t Want to Blog November 9, 2009

It’s not even that I don’t have anything to blog about.  I have at least two really good posts in my head.  It’s just that writing either one of them is going to take me an hour at least and if I have an hour I need to do something else (homework, house cleaning, etc…) with that.  Sorry.

Oh, You Wanted Something Permanent? October 26, 2009

I got some comments with my last post that cereal (two FULL bags of cereal that I BOUGHT!) wasn’t really that big of a deal, it wasn’t permanent after all, it could just be vacuumed up (and by “just” here we mean with at least three separate vacuumings.)

And so, for your viewing pleasure, I give you the Sharpie artwork: (All artwork was produced by the Baby.)

Yes, that’s Sharpie on the carpet too. And on the carpet there.

And that’s just the walls (and carpet) there’s also this: this:

and this: And these: And my personal favorite, the hearth:

I just don’t bother to get mad about the Sharpie anymore.

No, I don’t just have markers lying around the house all the time, 90% of the time I can not figure out where he got the marker that he’s using, but if there’s one in the building he’ll find it (last week he found 2 (TWO!) within the first five minutes of being in church.)

P.S. All walls with Sharpie on them were painted within the last year.

While I Was Upstairs Cleaning the Playroom… October 22, 2009

… the Irish Twins were taking care of the living room:

(The fact that the Infantile Delinquent isn’t pictured does not mean he wasn’t involved (it means he was upstairs changing his underwear.))

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Sometimes people joke with me about having more kids.

I don’t really think it’s funny.

Today Alison Wonderland is: October 12, 2009

Wearing too much eye makeup.  Because she can.

Refusing to let her nutrition grade bring down her GPA.  (Because c’mon it’s freaking nutrition!)

Wearing too much, too dark lipstick.

Trying to get her stupid washing machine to drain.

Wearing her, oft stained, Death Cab For Cutie t-shirt (I got the blood out, no problem but the chocolate ice cream, well, don’t look too closely.)

Wondering if she would have done better on her nutrition quiz if her children had not been screaming in the background.

Wearing classic boot cut jeans even though her skinny tapered jeans would really complete the look (see above mentions of too much eye makeup, too much dark lipstick, Death Cab t-shirt) a lot  better.  (Some might say that she’s not wearing her skinny tapered jeans because she doesn’t own any skinny tapered jeans but I’m sticking with the idea that she’s trying to make a statement.)

Going to be late for school because her babysitter didn’t show up in time.  AGAIN.

Hey, Give Me a Break, I Wasn’t a Boy Scout October 3, 2009

My brother got re-baptized last night.   I’m told it went great.  I don’t know, I wasn’t there.

I did intend to be there but , well, part of it was my fault.  I got the email from my brother and I read far enough to see that there was an address and at that point I stopped reading so I didn’t realize that the address included a street name rather than a number and that the stake center would probably require actual directions (which were offered for the low low price of a return email) rather than the ability to navigate the streets of Lehi (which I learned last night is not easy as the streets which should run north-south don’t).  So I didn’t know where we were going.

And then we left a little late.  Not very late, not even late enough to really be late just past the time I like to have for a cushion.

And the traffic was unbelievable.  I don’t usually have a lot of sympathy for people who don’t take traffic into account.  I mean come on, there’s always traffic right?  But I didn’t really expect it at 6:30 on a Friday night.  (I think I failed to take the fact that it’s conference weekend so all those crazy mormons are getting out of town into account.)

So we left late(ish) and we didn’t know where we were going.  That still wouldn’t have been too big of a deal for most of you.  But Sean and I are not most of you and even with two of us there was not a phone to be found.  Not that a phone would have done us a lot of good considering the fact that neither of us have any more minutes on our prepaid phone plans (yes, I realize that the only people who have prepaid phone plans are 6th graders, shut up).

So we made it to Lehi (finally) about 15 minutes after the baptism was supposed to start and it was just about at that point that the Baby woke up and proceeded to do a surprisingly accurate impression of a Nazgul screaming (You know that scream your baby can do where you think the your skull may actually crack open and your brain, which has been converted to a liquid form by the sound waves, will come pouring out your eye sockets?  That’s the one.)  So we drove around, not lost exactly but unable to find where we were going, with the nazgul screaming for about 25 minutes at which point I was ready to give up (we had surely missed the baptism anyway) but I was not going to drive all the way home with the Baby screaming like that.

So we decided to go to my other brother, Chris’s.  He was surely not home (he was the one performing the baptism afterall) but knowing him as I do, I knew that the house would not be locked and he would be delighted to be of assistance (especially when it required nothing on his part).

So we went to Chris’s house and as expected  the front door was not locked.  Open entering the house I noticed that someone had burnt dinner and that there were mattresses in the entryway (I never did get an explanation for that one, but he does have 8 kids so I guess I can come up with one on my own).  Proceeding into the house the smell of burning increased and I was thinking that whoever burnt dinner had done a really through job of it.  And then I got to the kitchen where I found my self crunching on a lot or debris.  Now, as I mentioned, Chris has 8 kids so debris on the kitchen floor is not unexpected (especially when I , as a guest am unexpected) but this took “I need to sweep the floor” to a whole other level.  And then I realized that it was glass on the floor oh and that there was the remnants of a pan of chocolate chip cookie bars smoking on the stove.

Apparently, the chocolate chip cookies that had been made for the reception after the baptism, and then left at home, had been left on a burner on the stove that had been left on.  The pyrex pan that had held the cookie bars had exploded at some point before my entrance on the scene and the remaining cookie on the stove was making an attempt at  going up in flames.

So I’m not saying that the Lord made me do it (you know, be late and unprepared) but well, it may not have been the devil either.

The Problem With E-Bay Names and Some Other Stuff September 29, 2009

If, for example (and this is purely hypothetical, of course) you have an e-bay name like Jesuspaidyourprice, and you send me something that involves about a hundred feet of Velcro strapping and the strapping is all jumbled up and stuck to itself and to the few parts of the item that aren’t Velcro, then I might find myself thinking something like “well He may have paid my price but He certainly didn’t pack my item because He would have made sure that it wasn’t a jumbled mess when it got to me (and He probably would have sent it in a timely manner especially after I sent Him a message about how I hadn’t slept in a week because my kid could get out of his crib and this item is supposed to be able to prevent that)”  (It works beautifully by the way.)

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My hair is currently about 8 different colors.  Most are the usual blondish reds, brownish blonds etc… but then there’s the hot pink.  It was intentional and I love it.

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I got an A on my first math test.

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I have a Chemistry test next week.  I’m a little nervous.

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The lady that charged way too much for shipping (and then assured me that it was actually going to cost her that much to ship my item) made $8.50 on the deal and then (probably because she had assured me that it would cost that much and felt guilty) refunded me $3.  Which is nice.  But at the same time I have to think “why even bother?

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Climbing is giving me really nice arms.  I find myself admiring them in the mirror while I brush my teeth and my hair.  (And, you know, when I happen to walk by a mirror and pull up my sleeve and flex.)  I’m no Michelle Obama yet, but I’m getting there.

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Why do small boys insist on accompanying everything they do with farty noises?

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I’m still slogging through Buffy but it feels a lot like slogging so I wonder why I even bother.  (I bother because I want to see “Once More With Feeling” and I don’t feel right skipping ahead.)  But we’re also now watching Angel which I quite enjoy.

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The End.

Step Away From the Mouse September 17, 2009

I won again.

This time it’s a good thing.  The Baby has learned to climb out of his crib and the resultant lack of sleep is doing bad things to all of us (not to mention that that kid has to be watched every second and now I can’t even relax at nights and naptimes) so I bid on, and won, a tent for the crib that should keep him in.  So that’s a positive.

But while I was on eBay’s site I figured I might as well look at belay devices.  You know, not that I’m going to buy one or anything, just to look right?

Will you look at that that some guy is selling two of them and the bidding’s only to $10.50.  $10.50! FOR TWO?!?  That’s a sensational price!  They’re $20 easy on their own.  How can I pass that up?

Apparently I can’t.  I bid on that one too (the auction closes at 11:00 tonight so here’s hoping).

And then maybe I’ll look at ropes.  I didn’t buy any but… well, it’s pretty tempting.  And then there’s the shoes (I have an email in to a girl selling on craig’s list) and carabiners and the quickdraws and SERIOUSLY WILL SOMEONE PLEASE GET ME AWAY FROM THE FREAKING COMPUTER!!!!!

On a related note I did send a note to the harness seller asking if she would could down on the price.  She said that she couldn’t, that it really would cost her about that much and she’d only make $1 or $2 on the deal.  (She also said something about the postmaster at her post office having made her husband open a package once to prove that it was media so that he could send it media mail.  Is that even legal?)  Anyway, the thing about postage is that the receiver always knows what the sender spent.  And in this case, with the $15 that I paid her to send my harness she spent $6.45.  So she really only made $1 or $2 or $8.50 on the shipping (and that’s considerable when you take into account the fact that I only paid $24.99 for the thing).  Whatever.  Maybe it’ll teach me to pay closer attention in the future.

Speaking of, I wonder what the belay devices are going to cost to ship???