So I was just responding to a blog group about the woes of losing balance this week with regards to computer time and everything else.  I figured I might as well add more fuel to the blaze and blog it too.  That must be the “if you can’t beat them, join them” tip being put to work.

We started preschool this week and we entered our second week of soccer practices for my daughter.  Neither are monumental shifts but my whole balance technique seems to have been rudely knocked off course.  Today I was so nuts after the first couple hours of attempts at making headway at the computer that I just walked away and cleaned.  I felt a little better.

My father in law has always said that if you want something done, ask a busy person.  We’re like moths to a flame.  We clearly have plenty to do all the time, yet we continually add more.  My biggest addition was taking up blogging and getting all my sites streamlined under one umbrella.  I must be insane.  This is a project that will take hundreds of hours and I’m trying to push it into a few weeks.  Bring on the TUMS.

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His perspective:
This one is too easy. Generally men find anything funny that can be reproduced with a sound effect. As a result, men tend to be better at creating sound effects in order to retell a story than women. Sorry women, I’m not sexist, I’m just saying that not many of you excel in sound effects. 

Guys tend to find humor in dumb things. Sound effects, people falling down, people getting hit by people, sounds effects related to people getting hurt and sound effects related to body functions.

Women … well, I’m not sure there’s an easy category in which to generalize humor that appeals to women. Some women, like my wife, like puns and wordplays. I usually just raise my eyebrow to that kind of stuff. 

My mom seems to like a good joke. A previous coworker liked a good story retold with a great deal of energy and emotion. Guys will find this stuff funny also, but it’s a lot more work than just kicking out a solid burp at the end of lunch. 

Her perspective (true to form with women needing to have the last word):
My mom tried to warn me.  She repeatedly told me that boys were different from girls.  I noticed this as a young girl but only now do I see how this education is life long. 

Take the topic of humor.  Guys have their own special group for many things and this is one of them.  Not only do they create an entire vocabulary base for things (a post for another day), they also have a very crude sense of what is funny.

Bodily functions – in a word, well okay, two words.  To guys, this is a humor category all by itself.  Not only is it funny to belch and break wind it’s funny to expound on it, teach it and glorify it for the entire world to share. 

The times this mom sits shaking her head at the lessons her kids get from dad on this topic are many.  I’m always warning him that these teachings will come back to him but it doesn’t seem to help dissuade him. 

The other day my husband was sharing a story with me.  It was something that happened out at the swing set with our three year old son.  He has to stop several times to get the laughter under control as he’s telling me.  Long story short, my son ripped one on the swing to which he called attention and giggled at his “poo tinker.”  With the encouragement from a laughing father he tries to repeat the action.  After some unsuccessful grunts he simply says he can’t do it, he doesn’t have a battery in there.  

I agree wholeheartedly that the battery comment is totally cute and funny, it’s the poo tinkers I could do without.  But in my husband’s eyes that’s at least 50-75% of the humor in the story and he embellishes the story with sound effects to recreate the experience.  I’m serious; most of the humor in his eyes is all about the sounds and smells.  If you don’t believe me just watch Dumb & Dumber with him during the broken toilet scene.  But be prepared to use resuscitation skills because he nearly passes out with laughter.

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It seems that some things in life are never ending.  Two as wife and mother are balancing the budget and coming up with meals.  But the good news is that I’m finding some things that are making me more successful at both so thought I’d share.

First - finances: I was recently introduced to Mvelopes.  So far so great.  I have always tried to do a system similar to this but most of it stayed in my head or was something that came up by way of review when balancing the checkbook.  And doing things after the fact isn’t very helpful when it comes to managing finances. 

Side step: I love that things are so easy for balancing these days - like I no longer have to manually enter my transactions into my Quicken software, just do a quick click on the one step update and everything from my bank drops into my accounts.  BUT this also makes it very easy to spend more because I spend less time actually interacting with the spending process. 

This new program seems to be providing a missing link for me and added to two other practices I’ve recently implemented, I’m seeing a big difference.  The other two are: 

1. Breaking down bigger payments into weekly installments.  

I set up automated, recurring payments each week for 1/4 the amount of the total bill in my banking institution’s free online banking tools.  It keeps things more even in my account, eliminates late fees and forgotten bills and it gets me ahead as there are a few extra weeks each year.

2. Pulling out some actual cash to push in a cash stash envelope at home. 

I find that actually seeing and touching my money helps me value it more - which means spend it less readily.  It’s such a peace of mind to know I have some cash on hand for emergencies or pleasures.  The key to keeping it for me is using larger bills.  I may only pull 10 or 20 a paycheck out for cash but when I can I exchange the smaller bills for 50s and 100s.  Amazing how something so simple can make such a positive difference!  

Second - meals:  Planning is critical.  It’s funny that I love organizing yet hate implementing meal plans.  They always feel so restrictive and complicated.  But, determined to get our dining out bill envelope down I forced myself to sit down with a few cookbooks Friday and compile a short list.  Here are some of the lessons learned from this week:

1. Keep it simple.  Don’t try to plan an entire week when you’ve never been good at planning even one day out.  I picked four dishes that looked good and didn’t assign them a day.
2. Make your spending expectations realistic.  Mine were out of whack because there were so few things I needed to complete the dishes that I was certain I’d spend very little.  As we left the store my husband was happy commenting on how that was so reasonable while I was mourning because it was nowhere near what I had on my radar.  On this note - DON’T take your family and DON’T go to a super/mega store with all the budget busters.  Half of my bill was a result of these two things!
3. Don’t be afraid of prices or trying something new.  I almost talked myself out of a bag of pre-cooked, shelled and de-veined shrimp because it was $10.00.  The other bags of uncooked were a fraction of the price (if money is more important than time this is the answer for you).  I’ve never bought shrimp at the grocery store before so was intimidated, but because this was one of only four dishes on my list and I already picked up the other ingredients for it I relinquished.  Last night we had that coconut shrimp and it was awesome!  How silly in hindsight that I even questioned $10.00 for an entire meal when we easily spend three times that in one meal dining out.  Good reality check. ;o)
4. Let go of past premonitions and habits - get off your ‘duff and get started.  Yesterday I hadn’t started anything yet and it was 5:00 p.m.  I was so tempted to just bag it and go out to eat.  But I forced myself to get up and at least look at my dishes menu.  When I read that the shrimp would thaw in 5-7 minutes under running water I realized the whole dinner wouldn’t take long to pull together.  The challenge is in getting started.  It was not only quick it was successful with the entire family enjoying the meal. 

So it’s mid week, we haven’t eaten out once yet, we’re spending more time together as a family, spending less money on food and I’m feeling a surge of success. 

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Just a little vent this morning on the emotional state of drivers in general out there.  It absolutely kills me how so many drivers seem to think they are the only ones with lives and schedules that need to be at a certain place by a certain time.  A simple observation of how many people are on the road with you is a good indicator of how not alone in the traffic world we are.

When I take my daughter to school every morning it is a very in the face reminder of a large group of people trying to get places on time.  There are lines coming from both directions all waiting their turn to reach the drop off point.  Once the gate is opened and kids are let on the school grounds the line moves fairly efficiently.  But waiting for that moment causes a lot of upset people who do stupid things.  It may only be the difference of 3 minutes or less but you’d think it was hours for the reactions.  Some fly past the standing traffic to use the parking lot to drop off instead.  Others try to cut each other off instead of taking turns.  In short, many people are so inconsiderate of anyone besides themselves and it always amazes me.  These people still haven’t learned that even the craziest, fastest driving in busy areas only buys a difference of 5 minutes or less.  However they risk causing accidents which would delay many people for many minutes/hours not to mention the negative impact on another’s life and/or health.

As I was rounding the corner coming back home a car came screaming down the way going the opposite direction.  She was clearly not expecting to have anyone else be at the corner because when I rounded it she started honking her horn and motioning for me to move out of the way. 

I can never find my horn when I want/need it.  The fact that she was on hers and motioning wildly the very moment she saw me tells me she’s quite well versed in using hers.  I hate sharing the road with people like this.  A quick review of my position showed I was on the right side of the road so it must have been a habit based reaction for the other driver.  What a waste of training.

Every mom experiences it.  I even tried to plan for it.  It’s a catch twenty-two situation:  You’re totally excited and happy to see your child grow and at the same time you mourn their growth.

As you can clearly see, my three year old shows pure delight with his first day of preschool.  Mom is sad to realize the end of a season in her life as her baby goes to school - again.

That’s right this is the second time.  There’s five years between my kids so I already did this half day of school every day of the week once when my daughter went to Kindergarten not knowing at the time that she was not going to be my only child.  I felt the same things that day knowing my baby was growing up and there was nothing I could do about it.  It was tough to accept that I couldn’t keep her little.  But you can’t.  Everyone grows, time always passes and we are left to our own devices to deal with it. 

Subconsciously my brain must have been trying to do just that as I had a horrible dream this morning.  I’m no dream doctor but you can read for yourself the many levels of emotions I must have been trying to sort.  I dreamt I was taking my daughter to her first day of school at a new school (which also happened this year) and everything that could go wrong did.  We were frantically trying to get her where she needed to go as doors kept changing on us and bells started ringing telling us we were late.  When I finally got her to her room panic struck as I realized I didn’t have my son with me.  I must have left him in the car!  A search that felt like it lasted all day finally ended with me finding my son in the back seat of the car asleep.  The car was buried under dirt from construction going on and I dug frantically to get to my baby.  I woke up, heart pounding and tears burning my eyes.  It was only 6:00 a.m.  I snuck to the door where my babies lay sound asleep and just stood there for several minutes grateful to know where they were and know they were still my babies.  I suppose in this way they always will be.

It’s not all sad though.  How can you feel sorrow when your child is SO happy and full of joy?  The anticipation of this day has been in motion for well over two months now with the daily question of “Mom, when I go to kools?”  And you can SEE his delight this morning.

Yes, there’s no denying that he’s delighted to be going to his first day of school.  His teacher is so sweet and it sure helps to have this image in my head as I walked away:

He’s in good hands.  I’m sure when I pick him up later today he’ll be full of stories and excitement to share.  He was ready for this step.  Mom wasn’t, but mom will be okay because her boy is taking his first steps to reaching his full potential.  What more could a parent ask for?

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Welcome to utopia for my three year old.  He would live on these three things if I let him.  Of course, he’d throw in a healthy dose of yogurt and a pound of chocolate for good measure.  He’s also extremely particular about how he eats; always sitting in the same chair at the table and asks for his Spiderman utensils.  I even noticed the other day that his pattern for eating Lucky Charms is not to pick out the marshmallows individually, but rather to remove anything but the marshmallows from his spoon ensuring an entire mouthful with each bite.  See below:

As I watched him, I thought of other quirky food likes and eating styles.  Everyone has at least one thing they like that is pretty unique and/or a special way of eating something.  Some of the ones that popped into my head for myself include always needing something salty when eating something sweet, and syrup with my breakfast meats (and fried egg but only when it’s served with meats.)  I have to pick on my dad in this arena too because he has to win a prize for the bizarre.  His famous “onion sandwich” still makes my stomach churn.  He butters a piece of toast, adds a layer of peanut butter, follows that with a layer of mayonnaise and tops it off with chopped, raw onion.  EEEWWW I remember him always saying how it’ll give you hair on your chest, but I’m sure what was really being said was, it’ll give you really bad breath.  He also only sits when someone points out that he’s standing while he’s eating.

One thing that amazes me is how you can always find something higher on the weird scale out there.  So what crazy food quirks do you have?  Are you brave enough to share them?  If not for yourself, I’m sure you’ve got some good ones frome people you know.  This could be very much like the age old question of how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop - the world may never know.  But it’d sure be fun to try to find out! 

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I’ve always liked cleaning - to a point.  Mostly I like always having things clean and organized.  Cleaning itself is only fun when coupled with some danc’n tunes and when it doesn’t take all day. ;o)

Bathrooms are a necessary evil unless I’m enjoying a bubble bath. ;o) It’s also the household cleaning chore that I typically procrastinate the longest with because I hate scrubbing (probably due to the many memories of asphyxiating cleaners and withered hands as a youth.)  It’s just plain gross to have to clean.  After all, it’s the heart of where bodily functions and stench combine.  Worse is that because I put it off it bothers me the most.  So I waste a lot of time thinking about, doing the stupid chore a thousand times in my head instead of the one time it would take to get it done. 

Recently I’ve found some products that have made my life and mind easier in this regard.  Thank you to the many companies that are making daily maintenance not only feasible but affordable.  Years ago these options simply didn’t exist.  My favorites for bathroom are Clorox Disinfectant Wipes and Windex Wipes. 

These are the best way to keep scrubbing and deep cleaning jobs down to a minimum time requirement while giving the benefit of the room maintaining a level of livable cleanliness.  I keep a container of the disinfectant wipes in my bathrooms just to run one over the counters and toilets on a regular basis.  I feel better knowing some disinfecting is taking place and the hair spray can’t build up on my counter.  The mirror wipes keep the fingerprints and water spots from taking a lot of elbow grease to remove.  It’s amazing how much cleaner the bathroom looks when the mirror is clean. The result of using these daily wipes on a regular basis (notice I didn’t say daily because I don’t get it done every day) is less overall cleaning time in my biggest time consuming scrub rooms and I feel better about things. 

The next big help was the disposable toilet scrubber.  The Clorox Toiletwand system is awesome.  I bought a big bag of replacement heads at my local warehouse store that has lasted me just about a year now.  It’s so great to pop on a new head, swish it around and then dump it in the trash.  And even with my next big secret I found that this item is still indespensible because sometimes you just HAVE to scrub.

Lastly (I saved the best for last), I invested in a steam cleaner.  I watched an infomercial on these babies a few years ago.  I loved the idea of cleaning and sterilizing at the same time - especially around the toilet!  I bought mine when we moved into our new home this summer.  Okay, I’ll admit I was intimidated enough that I only used it for the first time last week (just proves my theory of daily wipes is working!) But I finally dug in and realized it wasn’t as scary as I imagined.  I had some visions of the pressure cooker in my head for some reason.  But it was SO easy and SO fun!  Yes, I said fun in conjunction with scrubbing my bathroom.  My favorite feature was the squeegee on the mirrors, but watching the steam attack the mildew and rust around the shower and faucets was pretty cool stuff.  Expect more fun posts as I learn how to maximize it’s use, but suffice it to say cleaning has a new best friend at my house.

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It’s an age old question - why?  The power of this three letter word is incredible and stands alone.  By itself it can start conversation; put with other words it can deepen conversation and meaning while providing a handy thing called answers.

I’m thinking more and more about this three letter word today.  It started with an e-mail this morning from my daughter’s birthmom.  It was filled with pictures of the arrival of a new baby for her birthfather and his wife.  My daughter LOVES people and is enamored with the concept of family and being connected to people.  The why questions this event brought on were many, as you can well imagine, and the conversation involved trying to answer her many questions regarding half siblings which focused on the creation of said connections.  The last one she squeaked out before it was time to hop out of the car for school was “When you have sex do you take your clothes off?”  I hope and pray that I don’t get a call from the school or her teacher later about that one. ;o) 

Then I was out surfing through some blog sites.  This is a relatively new activity for me as I’ve only recently become interested in the concept of the blog.  It seems that when someone isn’t copying the ideas of the few successful “how to make money” bloggers, they are linking to completely unrelated content for the isolated purpose of traffic increase or at least riding on the coat tails of the more well known bloggers (a.k.a. those with higher ratings than themselves.)  I thought about two why questions after this activity.  The first was why so many people are giving up their unique identity, talents and purpose in and effort to be like someone else (or someone else’s blog as the case may be.)  The second why came when I questioned what would cause someone to be as bitter and full of resentment as the author of another blog I came across (as a result of a wanna-be blogger who created a crap content article just to link to a site that had more traffic - argh!)  It was like reading a teenager’s blog about why authority and anything respectful “blows.” (And I’m using edited descriptions!) Something obviously happened in the author’s life that caused a major lifestyle shift and I found myself scratching my chin in question to what it could be and - you guessed it - why?  

That simple three letter word has the power to move mountains.  With it comes the ability to change lives and gain wisdom.  Life is a journey it’s true, but we are the tour guides.  We choose the paths that lead to experiences and we choose how to process the many emotions and aspects related to those experiences.  They make us who we are and mold us into who we can become.  To ask the question why is like using a compass to find our way.  A simple example from my own life is the question of why you are a parent.  Is it something you chose or a consequence of another choice?  The answer brings about a very different experience. 

It’s not just about doing what you do, but answering why it is you do what you do that matters most.  I truly believe when we can define that, with complete honesty, we’ll achieve the greatest happiness possible and we’ll discover what really matters.  Until that time we will fill our time, wallets, houses and appetites but still feel emptiness.  So I’ll end this post with the same question it began with: why?

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Seeing how my husband is the one who dragged me into blogging I figured we should have some fun with it as both of us are doing it now.  So I came up with the idea for a his/her perspective article that could be a lot of fun. 

We took a stab at the first one yesterday over the power outage.  I started the article with my perspective first.  I focused on the humorous aspect of how different we both responded to it.  He surprised me with more of an explanation approach but we both ended on the same note of tying in our kids.  Today we did another one - again I started by writing first.  This time I shared how funny it was to me that I called the least likely person qualified to help me with a specific crisis and in the process realized how much I rely on him for everything.  He returned the response a few moments ago with his addition on the things he counts on me for and makes me sound like a really cool person.  I’m already seeing how different the application and timing of humor is in our posts as is our over all concept for what to write on it.  My first thought today was maybe I needed to have him start one next time to see if we can get more in sync with the concept we’re blogging.  But as I’m typing this I’m realizing that the whole point is showing the different (and potentially similar) sync patterns of men and women, more specifically of us. 

I hope you enjoy reading things in the his/her perspective format ’cause we’re sure having fun writing them.  Besides that there’s certainly enough blogs out there with advice, how-to’s, and information overload.  So come here to lighten up and just have some fun reading!  I’m certain we’ll get better at entertaining everyone by sharing our many mishaps and life experiences and even if we don’t, who doesn’t enjoy getting a laugh at expense of someone else?  LOL  At the very least you’ll feel better about yourself. ;o)

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His perspective:

This is an easy one. I’m pretty much useless without my wife. I count on the fact that there’s always another roll of toilet paper, another thing of deodorant, another tube of toothpaste, and she always knows exactly where to find them. Were I single, it’s likely that I would go at least two days without shaving gel after running out. The first day I’d forget to replace the can for sure. The second day I might remember, but after shaving two days in a row without gel, I’d probably have enough incentive to write it on a list. The same goes for pretty much everything.

My wife also just knows where everything is in the house in general. I may be the one who actually changes the light bulb (sometimes), but I wouldn’t know where to find it if she weren’t there. I rely on her for organization, scheduling and management. She does the finances (we learned that the hard way) and she generally makes sure that everything keeps working.

My wife is my greatest source of motivation – she makes sure that I aspire to be my best and she is encouraging and complimentary. She’s asked me a few times where I think I’d be if we hadn’t married. I figure I’d probably be in a van down by the river.
 

Her perspective (true to form with women needing to have the last word):

Well, this morning the monsoon storms came again.  The loud thunderclaps began around 6 a.m.  It’s 9 a.m. now and the storm rages on.  Looking out my back window is reminiscent of images seen on the news during hurricane season and we’ve already lost power twice.  The first time I was just lucky enough to miss the window of opportunity to get the garage door opened by about two minutes.  Bummer.  This wouldn’t have mattered in two minutes because I’d have been on the way to school already with the kids.  But as it was I was on my way out the door and now I needed to get out of the garage.  My first thought involved a phone call for help.
 
Our phones are cordless and they run off our Internet connection so no good when the power’s out.  Thankfully we have cell phones.  Who was the first person I called?  My husband.  This isn’t surprising I suppose, but given his history it is a bit ironic.  And it got me thinking about the relationship I share with my spouse and the needs I have realted to it.

Let me start by saying that I am the luckiest woman in the world to be married to the man I am.  He’s brilliant and funny and although he doesn’t do the man sports thing (unless screaming like a girl and doing a panic dance when a ball comes toward him counts) he does make me feel safe and secure.  To his credit everyone assumes he’s a big sports guy because of his physique but unless it’s downhill snow skiing or biking you’re out of luck.  Now if you start talking PHP coding, mathematics or extreme problem solving he’s your man and nigh unbeatable.  I guess that’s the Jack Sparrow quality of his that I know and admire.  Okay, maybe envy is a better word.
Which brings me to the irony of my calling him this morning for help with the garage door.  I realized that I turn to him for every question.  He always has an answer and explanation regardless of the topic and most of the time he’s 100% correct.  When I stopped to consider his limits with household and electrical jobs (the universe demands balance after all) I realized how funny it was that he was the first person I called.  I’m the one who deals with crisis and knows where things are when it comes to emergencies and house stuff.  But there was some need inside me to instantly involve him in my crisis.  I hope that’s a sign of achieving oneness in our marriage.  If not I need to evaluate my needy factor! By the way, it turns out he had the right answers to help me get out of the garage so his skill set is growing.

So who’s the first person you call?  Is it a natural type of knee jerk reaction to enlist their help and input or is it a necessary evil?  I’m not a psychiatrist and I don’t play one on TV, but it seems to me that this is a good evaluation point for any relationship.

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Submitted to the Carnival of Family Life September 18th Edition.