Late to the Party Listicles

I am late...skirting in the door, disheveled, hair mussed, probably a hem tucked in an unfortunate manner so as to allow a draft.  I wanted to participate in this week's Monday Listicles because I actually had a clever twist to this week's 'OH NO YOU DIDN'T' topic.  Yes, it IS ironic that it conveniently coincided with a rather freakish 'performance' debacle, but it has been talked about, tweeted, trashed and turned from every angle so I will refrain.  I did/do have an indirect response but it remains to be seen if I actually get around to posting it.  Or the other myriad of things that have ACTUALLY filtered through my cranium to write.  Meanwhile, there's Listicles!

So as I bring up the absolute, trailing end, here is my twist on the Top 10 OH NO YOU DIDN'T Listicles.   This coming Monday's is 10 Things I Will Remember Summer By.  Stay tuned.

So my list - Top 10 OH NO WE DIDN'T WRECK TECHNOLOGY AGAAAAAAAIN

It seems that the kids and myself are particularly hard on electronics.  We have quite the rap sheet.  It all began in the earlier years where technological devices became mobile.  You recall that it wasn't so long ago that home computers were as large as a VW Bug in their desktop form, and phones were attached to walls.  So when those things got smaller, and therefore, more mobile, the havoc began, starting with -

1. My first iphone that took the classic potty dunk.  You know, it's in the pocket of your britches and well, you're in a hurry and so, there you are, unsure what to do.

2.  Daughter's first cell phone, a VERY basic model given in mid-middle school, disappeared.  We're unsure to this day if it got left on the bus that she would ride over to my school from hers.  For all we know, it could still be there, wedged in between the seats.

3.  Eldest  a)lost, b) dropped c) dunked his first phone.  Pick one.  Or wait for d) all of the above because he has done it.  You think I'm kidding.

4.  Back before we had phones that were also cameras/mp3s/videocameras/ flashlights/ fake lighters for today's modern 'no smoking zone' concert arenas, we had these things called camcorders.  We had one. A nice shiny silver one.  One that Daughter borrowed one day in her middle school years to make movies with her friend in the front yard.  Eventually Daughter tired of the fun and needed refueling so she came into the house, leaving the camera on the bumper of one of our cars.  That evening, one of us had to get out for an errand.  The camera made it all the way to the destination but on the way back, fell off.  A kind, good citizen saw it fall off the car and followed us home to return it.  It was never the same.

5.  Either Daughter or Eldest dropped one of their second phones in a cup of Dr. Pepper at a pizza place.

6.  I took a bath wearing headphones listening to my ipod and had clipped the long cord up into the hair   clamp, thinking it would keep it out of the way, nice and dry.  At least until I sat up quickly, pulling the ipod off the side of the tub and into the bubbly water.  FYI: the rice thing doesn't work as well as you'd like to think.

7.  Eldest bit through one of his phones.  Yep.  You read that right.  He put his phone in his mouth to climb a tree (during his Bear Grylls phase) and chomped a sizable crack right through the screen.  It never worked again.

(Geez, I'm at 7 and just getting started.  I should say that Daughter keep a clean record after this.  Eldest and I, however, had more havoc to wreck.)

8.  Eldest walked into the ocean with a phone in his pocket.

9.  I bent down with Daughter's mp3 perched in my running tank while at the ocean on my road trip to retrieve a tennis ball for a dog and - PLUNK.  There it went, into the surf.

10.  Eldest lost (and found) and lost probably no less than half a dozen phones.  His most recent loss landed him his grandfather's cast off - a clunky, large button flip phone....BAH HA HA HA!!  We were forever kidding him, calling him Grampa, and Pops whenever he'd get it out and flip! to text.

(told you we have had issues)

11.  Eldest put his laptop on the floor after a night of studying during his latest training and - you guessed it, got up during the night and stepped on it.  It was toast.

12.  Last spring I fried my work laptop keyboard with a hairdryer.  I'll let that one sink in.  Those top keys shriveled like smooth, black fondant.

13.  Recently my latest phone slid off my lap and landed at just the right angle to create a hairline crack on the screen.  Not terrible, but just irritating.

14.  Most recent - you all know my laptop was left out in the rain.

GAH.  What a list!  This could get us on the Technology Hall of Shame List!  Sheesh.
As an aside, just so you know, we did NOT just keep supplying our kids with phone after phone after phone.  Unlike some parents that will keep a steady flow of phones, or cars after each wreck, after the first replacement (always the freebie offered through our plan), they had to pay the replacement fee/buy their own.  This worked in our favor because we were a rare breed of parent in that we weren't going to hand our 12-year-old a smartphone and they couldn't afford those.  They JUST got new phones - the last we will ever provide - and they are smartphones.  And they are 18 and 20, and they're just fine.  

Since folks probably already have this coming week's listicles ready to post, here goes, until next time!

Fridge Poetry Friday

Fridge Poetry Friday

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Dinner Bell

This isn't the most detailed and riveting post to date, but it is a post, and I am determined to try and be more irregularly 'regular' here, in some shape or form.  I like Listicles because they are fairly easy,  'light', and I can have fun with them and not get too deep.  So this week's Monday Listicles topic is 10 Favorite Meals.  Who doesn't like food?  I would post pictures of them, but I don't actually take photos of my food.  So here's the list of my favorite 'comfort' meals:

1.  Beans and cornbread, greens, a slice of onion and hot sauce with a side of sliced home fried potatoes.

2.  Breakfast for dinner on cold, rainy days.

3.  El Som's (the favorite Mexican restaurant around the corner) taco salad, no meat extra beans.

4.  Vegetable plates

5.  Anything someone else cooks

6.  Anything out

7. Broiled or grilled salmon and veggies

8.  Caesar salad

9.  New favorite - Mexican chicken soup at the Mexican restaurant

10.  The meals we ate, cooked by the fabulous Faviola, while in Nicaragua.  Perfection.

So Where Were We? Junk Drawer

  Hello!  (Hello!  Hello!  Hello!)  How've you been and what have you been up to?  I have been dangling between summer and solicitude, serenity and hope.  I haven't been here.  So I'm long overdue for a Junk Drawer update.

First, what I haven't been doing:  hammocking - it has been far too rainy, and my hammock is covered in green slime and forest debris.  That, and because of all the precipitation, the mosquitos are the size of a Chinook helicopter, poised to lift an adult human off the ground.  

School prep - I am a week away (roughly) and I have yet to crack a book, or a syllabus.  Not worried.  Enough about that.  Moving on.

So -
I have intentionally been looking up, literally.  With so much rain, sunsets are rare.  I captured a few.                   
                                            

Toes in the Sand

No, I haven't been to some sunny shore.  Daughter decided to camp out in the backyard and pulled out our tent.  The last time it had been used, it was set up on coast of Texas from my road trip.  A fine, speckled powder poured out, puddling on the driveway.  I stood in that sand, softest sand I have ever felt, and remembered.  I remembered what it felt like to be truly free.  I remembered that God was there, closer than my own skin, walking me through the dark, reassuring me.  I was reminded again.

Dorm room shopping

(You're welcome, Target)  We have made our list and checked it twice.  Apparently number one priority is coffee (i.e. the espresso maker and coffee maker).  We taught him well.  Here's a prime example of Eldest:  See that circular thing in the back against the wall?  Looks like a dreamcatcher?  Well it is actually a chair.  A boing-y, trampoline, bungyesque chair.  So he called me and said, 'Hey Ma (he calls me 'Ma' and I always feel like I should be rolling out dough on Little House on the Prairie), you know that chair?  The one we got for my room?  It makes an AWESOME launch!  Put a lemon right in the middle and it goes flying!'  Dear Lord, have mercy.

Snake Handling

                                                     

On the way back from school shopping, we both receive frantic phone calls from Hubs ('Pops).  Apparently he was coming up from the basement and came centimeters from stepping on this guy, curled up INSIDE the house right inside the landing.  (cue record scratching sound...HOW DID THIS GET IN MY HOUSE???)  It was probably only a foot but do you see it coiled like a spring, ready to strike?  Yep.  It tried to multiple times, getting its FANGS  caught in the mesh of the upturned trashcan.  Eldest attempted to slide plexiglass under and take it outside but nearly set it loose in the house again so he and I regained control and managed to carry the thing outside in order to fling it out into the woods.  Where was Hubs?  He is seriously freaked out by snakes.  He was supervising from afar.

Singing, Whoohooing, Clinging to Summer

                                            

This past week we had a date night.  I had bought tickets to One Republic, one of my favorite groups.  It was fabulous - cool breezes, outdoor venue, stress-free zone.  I let my hair down.  I sang.  I 'whoo hoo'ed'.  I danced.  It was great.  Mayer Hawthorne opened for them and I found I thoroughly enjoyed him in concert as well.  I especially loved:

New Horizons?

I managed to successfully complete a phone interview and was granted the opportunity to move forward with an in-person interview in the undetermined future. IF all of that goes well, and it looks like this is the right direction, this time next year I could be packing to live in the United Arab Emirates.

Workin' at the Car Wash

Today, we braved extremely unusual weather (high of 63...in AUGUST.) to have a car wash with Baby Girl as she works feverishly to raise her support to go forth out into the world.  She has worked as many hours as the impending new health insurance regulations allow, taking double shifts anywhere she can, and putting in 5-6 days a week.  To supplement, she decided to organize a car wash.  Who knew it would be fall-like with chilly temps?  The rain, we completely expected, but not the need to crack out sweatshirts in August.  Overall it was successful, made possible by this crew -

                                         

The gal in the middle is Baby Girl's childhood friend.  They've known each other since they were four, the summer before their kindergarten year.  She drove all the way from her college town to help her bud out.  Love, love her.  

The tilt-a-whirl commences next week.  I am trying to map out a plan to preserve my sanity.  Here's hoping. 

Return

“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.”   Masaru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water

My laptop has returned, and so have I, in a sense.  In some ways, I am still in the process of returning, but nonetheless, I see the correlation.  Objects contain lessons if we would just stop to notice them.   Like my laptop being left out in the rain, as of late I have been literally and figuratively pummeled by life - various circumstances that were either brought on by my own doing or by others, or just by the simple fact of living in an imperfect world where things break,  tasks loom unending and things don't happen like we think they should.  When that happens, those things have a way of seeping into all the areas of our lives and wrecking all kinds of havoc.  It can trip our 'liquid contact indicator', as in the case of the laptop, or in our lives, trigger old habits, thought patterns, or simply shut down.  

OR we can recognize old 'parts' that don't work anymore, replace what isn't effective or efficient and restore old things that were working but neglected.  I intend to do that to the best of my ability.  In just the short time I've been offline and focused on being proactive, I am finding the ship turning, ever so slowly, but moving in the right direction, nonetheless.  

One of these areas being my health.  I mentioned in a recent post that I found out what was causing all my crazy issues and it turns out that the doctor 'discovered' this too, after I'd already taken action to correct it.  I had been prescribed too large a dose and it has been inflicting measured damage for over a year.  In just the two weeks that I have adjusted things, I feel a noticeable improvement, in all areas except that there may have been impairment to my heart.  I will know more when that is checked soon.  Otherwise, I feel a moderate return to 'normal'.  

Things will return.  Or they'll just get better.  This is my hope.  

You Have To Laugh

The hits keep coming.  I am on a borrowed computer, for a brief moment to let you know that if I am away for a short bit of time, it is because I am now without a personal computer.  Long story but suffice to say, it took a midnight 'stroll' in the rain.  Don't ask.

I am just waiting for the boils and sores to erupt.  Okay, not quite Job-like but DADGUM.

If you haven't seen Tom Hank's Money Pit, it is a MUST if you a) like to laugh, b) have had one thing after another spontaneously implode in your life, figuratively or literally, or c) are a homeowner.  I can relate to this scene/feeling after the laptop incident - wait for the bathtub part.  Just wait:



No, I didn't exactly laugh hysterically immediately following discovering my computer all bathed and shiny with raindrops.  It was a bonafide meltdown.  Then I laughed later.  A very costly guffaw.

In my desperate trek to Atlanta to see if data could be recovered, I found my theme song on the radio for this upcoming year to add to Bethany Dillon's 'Hallelujah'.

I will play this E'R DAY.



Okay, so there you have it.  I will be 'out of commission' for a short bit of time.  I am limited in my use  of this computer and what I do on it so I shall wait with baited breath for the hopeful return of my laptop.