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Winging It
There are t-minus 31 days until I turn the big 3-0. I’m not afraid of it. I’m not nervous. I don’t embrace it either. Granted, my twenties were not kind with the exception of my girls. No one really warns you that you spend all of your twenties trying to figure it out. Who you are. What you really want out of life. How to budget. How to be independent. How to find a real job let alone a career. You’re never given enough time to prepare in figuring it out either. You’re thrown into the fire which is how, I now realize, I work best. Under pressure.
Parenthood didn’t provide me with an instruction manual. BFam and I just knew we didn’t want to be really, really old when it was time for Mooter and Booger to graduate from high school. Mooter, the first born, doesn’t count as a child, per se. She was easy. Yes, she is a prima donna, wanting everything her way and just so. But, she’s funny. She’s quirky. She says “please” and “thank you”, and apologizes when she makes mistakes. By the time she turned four, I felt myself breathing a little easier. This whole parenting thing wasn’t so bad. So what did I do? Had another one. I don’t regret Booger one bit, but the difference between having one kid and having two are so extreme, you begin to question why you even started down this road to begin with. Mooter provided us with a cushion. A little extra cash left over in the bank after expenses, if you will. Booger leaves us flying by the seat of our pants.
The other difficulty with having two instead of one is having adult time with your significant other. By the time we get home, settle in, bathe, eat, do homework, get clothes ready for the morning, brush teeth, BFam and I are exhausted. And, I can’t believe I didn’t type that in CAPS or bold just to emphasize the gravity of our exhaustion. That “exhausted”? That’s a bold, CAPS exhausted. That’s a “I can pass out on the couch in the living room, still dressed, and sleep in a coma-like state for three days straight”-type exhausted. I miss the adult time I used to spend with my husband. Our life is so scheduled right now, I feel like we’re running a business more than a relationship or a family. A business that needs constant tweaking and monitoring and TIME, and who has any of that? When I begin having hypothetical conversations with BFam on the way to picking up Booger from daycare like, “What makes you decide to just be crazy and have kids? If when you have kids, you miss the times when you didn’t, why have kids?”, I get the feeling something in this equation is suffering and these hypotheticals are my brain’s way of telling me as much. Also, when I begin looking out the window more than normal, creating mental scenarios of moving into my first house, or walking on a beach with my husband all the while telling my kids to be quiet because they’re singing songs from their Wiggles DVD a little bit too loudly… I know something is wrong.
My biggest fear about turning 30 is not having kids. Been there, done that, burned the receipt. I don’t fear a lack of presents (I don’t want anything extravagant), feeling old (already have gray hairs) or envying people I work with who are younger than me (age really is nothing but a number, youngin’). I’m afraid that I’ll be so busy trying to keep it all together in the day-to-day, that my 30th will be treated by me (and others) as any other day. That it will go as quickly as it came, and I’ll have no real reason to celebrate. I want something memorable and inexpensive. I don’t want to have to “wing it”.
Here’s to turning 30 and remembering it whenever it gets here. Cheers to me l’est I forget.
The Look of FEAR
September 26, 2007 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
Here at FEAR, I try to keep the look of the site fresh sometimes because I get to flex my (minimal) graphic skills, mostly because I have ADD. You’ll notice a change in the masthead here and there. I’d said I would change it monthly but that’s not working out too well due to the screaming banshees that rule my house after 6:30pm. So monthly has turned into seasonally. What’re you gonna do?
Being a creature of habits and patterns – as is the case with most type-A sufferers of OCD – I have begun to notice a habitual pattern developing on the site secretly masking itself as entertainment and article links, or music and movie interests. I can only see this happening more often than it does now (see previous reference to ADD), so I’ve decided to dedicate a section of the site to such a place. Unfortunately, Blogger doesn’t have pages (one of the reasons I happen to love WordPress). I will have to make due. You’ll notice me trip over myself from time to time. It may get ugly in here for a minute. But the end result is something I hope is enjoyed by all… OK, my two readers (“Hi guys!”).
Coming soon – a FAQ page. That outta be interesting.
iPlay Sunday: Feist
September 24, 2007 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
This was going to absolutely drive me crazy. I had sworn – SWORN – this was Lily Allen. You know what I’m talking about. That new iPod commercial that’s playing everywhere. The song playing only gives you a snippet of the hook but, man, is it catchy. Here’s the commercial:
Bananas, I tell you. I’d downloaded Lily Allen’s album, 99.9% sure this was her. Alas, I was wrong. Instead, it is a woman called “Feist”. I’d never, ever heard of her before this Apple commercial, and now I feel cheated. I like her. She’s good. She’s been out since ’98 (d’oh!), and she’s from Canada (eh?). If you know who she is… SO! You are officially a music nerd. Funny enough, I’d just complained to BFam about how I’m so jealous we don’t live in a musically diverse city/state/district that embraces aesthetically pleasurable and eclectic music such as this. We’re being cheated out of good musical history. I’m relying on internet searches and happenstances of stupid advertisement snippets. This is so totally unfair. I want to live someplace cool like Seattle where I can drink my Starbucks, wear my flannel, be depressed by the overwhelming amount of rain in the forecast, and listen to some wicked good music.
Here’s the song in its entirety:
Do you see what I’m missing?!
FEAR No. 010 – Accidental Success
September 18, 2007 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
Who really plans to be famous or successful? How do you know when the dream you have will actually come true? Recently, I read an article from an author/blogger I frequent – Allison Winn Scotch. In the article, she interviewed Steve Carell. He is one of my all-time favorite comedians and seems like the absolute nicest guy in the whole, wide world. Guess what? Based on her interview and the comments of his friends and colleagues, he is. He mentions having no idea he would go into acting, or being a comedian. Of all things, he wanted to become a lawyer. His life and successes were causes of happenstance. His parents, can you believe it, told him not to become a lawyer but try acting instead. How crazy is that?! You don’t hear parents telling their kids to do that often. I don’t want anyone to misunderstand. Steve Carell is not an overnight success. But, he went with his gut and stuck to it having no clue where it would take him. No plan. No thought process. Just going for it.
I’m sure there are plenty of stories similar to Steve Carell, stories of “this isn’t how I’d planned it”. People doing things they enjoy. Stories of little engines that could because, really, that’s all this is. Throwing caution to the wind, stepping out on faith and saying, “Whatever happens, happens.”
Now I must let go of the caution for it to be tossed windward. Somehow I’m having a hand-brain disconnect.
Froinlaven!
September 17, 2007 by NaysWay · Leave a Comment
My oldest child is tone deaf. This is shocking to me because both her father and I can carry a tune. I have encountered tons of tone deaf people in my life. A lot of them were the girls in grade school who always wanted to start a singing group (you know the type). In my day, En Vogue was really big. Have you ever tried doing four part harmony with someone who can’t hear a melody let alone hear THEMSELVES sing?! Very frustrating.
The other thing about tone deaf people is they are LOUD! It’s like they want THE WHOLE WORLD to know they can’t sing. My grandmother, another casualty of tone deafness, would always make me sit next to her in church on Sunday mornings. We sat in the second row of pews next to the choir. “Nearer My God To Thee”… sweet Lord. I can still hear her singing it as if she were in a chair at the computer with me as I typed. Merciful Savior, the pain. Because God has a sense of humor, my oldest, unfortunately, inherited her singing skills from her great-grandmother.
My oldest also can’t whistle. Or snap her fingers, but the whistling is key because it ties into her inability to sing. You see, instead of trying to incorporate the whole lips together and blow technique, she reaches octaves only dogs can hear by sing-whistling. Now it’s like a tone deaf Mariah Carey. For example…
The initial purpose of me recording this was to document the hilarity of Booger trying to sing the theme song to her favorite kids show, SpongeBob SquarePants. Mooter, never one to be upstaged, joins in the singing with that dang-blasted whistling. You’ll notice at some point the whistling stops. This is because I am silently threatening her life beyond the scope of the lens with my classic look of death. You’ll also notice the moment I do this because you’ll hear her say, “Oh, sorry.”
This singing, and whistling, is reminiscent to me of an old Jerry Lewis movie (one of my absolute favorites), “Rock-A-Bye Baby”. I so wish I could find a clip of it somewhere. It makes me laugh ’til I cry. Mooter’s singing? Not so much.
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