Friendship Fluctuations

Dear Sally H.,

Remember before we came here, the lines and lines of people waiting for different attributes to bring along with them?
Remember how you wanted to stand in the pink, girly queue and I scoffed at you and then skipped merrily over to where all the cute guys were standing?

Joke was on me, wasn't it? I never stood a chance at that testosterone stall and have suffered the neanderthal look because of it.

But you were a true friend... you created products that could hide my unwanted masculinity and I have happily handed my money over to your company since.

However, I am having a little bit of a problem with the wax removal strips.

It's ok that I have paid you the equivalent of one child's college fund (be forewarned mini-people living in my house, one of you is out of an education), it's only money, right?
It's ok that I scream in pain with every beautifying rip now that you've stopped including the little bottle of "NumbYoFace" in my treasure box of smoothness.

What is NOT ok is that you've also removed the little bottle that takes the remaining wax off of my chin.
Do you know anyone needing a female Santa Claus?
Because that's what I look like with half of my towel stuck to my chin and upper lip.

Why am I paying more but getting less? Is that how you treat your loyal friends?

Please respond soon or I may have to make a date with some thread...



Addendum: This post was typed in the morning. Imagine my consternation when I made a mad dash to the toilet at 10 pm (during another viewing of New Moon) and the face staring back at me in the mirror had a huge red square spot right across her chin. Sally, don't even bother responding...

I am posh/class personified, don't you think?

My Bin's Been Hijacked

We received this notice:

"This December _______ Council will be rewarding your recycling efforts.
On every recycling collection day in December, we will pick at random a bin and if all the items in the bin can be collected through our kerbside collection scheme, the lucky householder will receive a £20 shopping voucher."

Now,

did you think, "Wow, that's cool"?

or were you like me,

"Hey, that's an invasion of privacy, get the heck out of my bin!"

The evil me wants to put prank items in my bin all month, like the biggest pair of granny panties I can find.

Oh a Ranting We Will Go....

It's foggy in England

and in my head.

I am being pulled in every direction by people who have not earned a piece of me and the result is a very numb and foggy person.

I may have mentioned before (once a week) that my calling at church is sucking the life out of me. It's because I have such a different opinion than those who I report to. I'm coming to you now for your opinion.

Tell me if you think I'm cold and heartless:

I fully believe in the "teach a person to fish" way of thinking. I fully believe that if one has lived one's life as such that everyone close was driven away and one has not attempted to build friendships, it kind of sucks to be you now that one is housebound.
Ok, that sounded harsh--I mean, I will come visit and bring you a meal or a card and listen to your woes, but you better not demand what day and what time I should show up and ring the Bishop with a list of expectations of someone who just wants to be home with her family (that she hasn't driven away yet). Also, it's best not to shoot down all of the ideas I bring to you for ways we can help you help yourself, it actually makes me less sympathetic to your dilemma.

I truly believe that if you are a sweet lady who has been handed an unbelievable amount of illness and trials in the last couple of months, you deserve to be taken care of by others in your church. However, the fact that you are adored doesn't change that many people are home sick or their children have Hand, Foot and Mouth or "Slap Cheek" or the lack the petrol funds to drive you 30 minutes into the city twice a day.

I honestly feel that petty arguments between women about how they rear their children (or don't is the current issue) should be kept within the group of women involved. I don't need to be brought into it. I am not an arbitrator, I am not a mediator, I should not receive phone calls at 10 pm because someones wife had her feelings hurt (unless of course it was my mouth that did the hurting).

The thing is, this is just the tip of what I am dealing with every day and I wake up wondering when the Turrets will override what little patience I have. My husband is tired of living with a zombie, my children are tired of telling me things they need for school only to receive a blank look when they ask in the morning where it is so they can get it in their backpack.

What do you think? Am I so far off that I can't see the path? Is it me-- have I forgotten charity, compassion?
Am I too proud? I KNOW how to fish. I have been a pretty good fisherman in the past... I have lived in low income housing, while working long hours. I have received food stamps at one point in my life, after the fire devastated us. We were on WIC at a time as well, and went off long before we were ineligible. One year, I had one illness on top of another where I received care and kindness from church, so I think I'm coming from a place where I know the situations that knock us down (and I understand that if depression is involved, it's really tough to get back up again).

Give it to me. I can take it. Constructive criticism welcome here and an opinion asked for can't be rejected.


The fog is heavy today. I can barely see the trees in the back of my garden. It should make an interesting drive into town to get that mouth guard the kid needs before Rugby today.

Life Lessons

We got the idea from a Cosby show. Theo wanted to spread his wings and live on his own, so Bill and Claire turned their home into an apartment for rent. They removed the furniture and he had to buy pieces to get by with and he had to pay for his food. He got a rude awakening when it came to dealing with greedy landlords and cheeky cafe owners.
We didn't have the energy to pull it off the way the Huxtables did, but we did spend many Family Home Evenings role-playing financial Independence for Son #1.

Apparently, we failed.

The man-boy has had a rough year. The break up was enough to knock him flat for awhile, but then he began having financial difficulties. He was just having a hard time understanding how the world works and would call regularly to ask "How come...?" "Why does...?"
It's hard to give advice from so many miles away, especially when someone really doesn't want to hear what you have to say.

He has been struggling with his electric company for months.

He would go online to see what he owed and then would do a "one time payment". The next month, he would go out there again and he discovered that his payment hadn't appeared so he paid again.

Finally I had him check his bank, to make sure everything was debited correctly on that side. He rang me later and explained that he once did a transfer into his savings and discovered that he had actually clicked on something so that it was happening monthly. He was sure he had probably been trying to pay his electricity with a checking account that didn't have enough funds.

Today I got a phone call and on the other end was hysterical laughter.

Hysterical laughter isn't always good, my stomach sank.

The man-child, feeling a little euphoric to be having four days off during the NM's biggest snow in a decade, decided to take control of things and marched into the electric company to ascertain what was happening with his account. He carried cash to rectify whatever was going wrong.

The very nice lady behind the counter...bless her... managed to keep a straight face as she explained to him that his account has been carrying a CREDIT and he keeps paying them. He has OVERPAID his electric by $600.00.

Back in the training period we stressed how to be respectful of credit cards, how NOT to spend more than one makes, always pay more than the minimum balance and never, ever be late. I never thought to teach the kid how to read a statement.

Well, there's still four others I can teach...

I'm Back

Whew, what a great break I had from blogging. I'll tell you, I really needed that rest from 30 days of straight posting...

oh, that was only yesterday?

Seriously, Jill, you read EVERY post? You deserve an award, I don't even think I read everyone of my posts. Shoot me an addy and I will send you my very own personal thank you. Seriously.

I thought before I fell off into blogger oblivion, I should show you how beautiful my turkeys looked with their rustic rub and golden crackled skin. They were perfect...


But I forgot to take a photo.

I also didn't take a photo of my table laid out with a centerpiece of multi-coloured Chrysanthemums, gold textiles and red, orange and gold leaves scattered among the china and Murano glassware. It really was pretty.
(My guests reminded me of photos after the carnage and the last bit of pie was consumed).

Miss Ky likes eggnog. This photo is the before picture. Just seconds after it was snapped, she let that mouthful of drink dribble down her front onto the white (yes, I know!) chair and onto the carpet.

One piece of post-Turkey Day advice:

If you have ever spent a decent amount of money on something you know you would use for the rest of your life, and you enjoy cooking--or not, but like eating-- you must beg, plead and consider desperate measures to acquire an Aga.

Wow.

A 13 lb turkey cooked for under 2 hours and and the meat was incredibly tender and moist.

I'm sold.

If we have to, we'll build a house around an aga and since it costs just about as much, I'll even settle for an outhouse and use the indoor plumbing budget on my cooker.

I'm that convinced.

Happy December everyone!