After a long weekend away from my home on a family mini-vacation combined with my husband hopping on a plane for the next week to work in Tucson, the Brown Eyed Girl is feeling a little drained and blue today. However, I do want to share with you this amazing quote that was on my calendar today, it even brightened my day which was seriously needed. So enjoy a few sunny words for the day and lets all hope Monday goes away quietly.
"Nature made us individuals, as she did the flowers and the pebbles; but we are afraid to be peculiar, and so our society resembles a bag of marbles...why should we all dress after the same fashion? The frost never paints my windows twice alike." Lydia M. Child
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Remember me?
First, let me apologize for my leave of absence. This Brown Eyed Girl just has not been finding the time to organize my thoughts, sit down, and get busy posting. I appreciate all of you checking in occasionally to see what I'm ranting about today.
Try not to fall out of your seats from the pure shock but I'm going to chat just briefly today about the health care bill. I'm sure you are all so sick of hearing about it that you could honestly throw up. Between the ignorant rantings from both directions politically, and the media doing a total blitz it just gets to be a bit too much. No secret folks, I hang my hat on the left side of the aisle, and have been known to bleed blue. So, of course for me, this feels like a huge victory. I feel so proud of what I did with my vote that I could burst. President Obama isn't perfect, I disagree with several of his current policies, but I think what he's been able to motivate our congress to do (with the help of several key democratic figures) is astonishing. I never really believed I would see any kind of universal health care in my lifetime. The bill is not perfect, but it's progress and that has to be good. I beg of you each to work hard to inform yourself from factual resources. MSNBC is far too left winged, and FOX News is raging red! Find some middle ground, perhaps NPR, they are a very considerate and fairly unbiased source. Please don't let fear be your guiding light. If you read up on this, inform yourself and still don't agree then that's okay but regurgitating another person's ignorance perpetuates a laundry list of terrible things. Some of you may have read it from a post I left on a friends page yesterday, but I would like to leave you with my personal feelings on this issue:
The bottom line is that we each get to choose what we believe, that's the beauty of free will, a gift given to us. We don't get to make the final call on what's best for the greater good ultimately, that's God, or whatever higher being you go withs, decision. So, why not do what we can in this lifetime to practice tolerance, patients, and help for our fellow man? If we get to the end of our days and there is a God and there is a heaven then hopefully we've lived a life that grants us entrance. If there isn't, then we've lost nothing but left behind a legacy of kindness and grace. Not a shabby deal. I feel that health care reform falls into that last sentiment. Is it fair that we should have to pay for people that are capable of working but don't...nope, not at all. However, if my extra tax dollars can help just one person that truly needs it then I figure it's worth it. My dad said to me once, "don't you worry that the donations you make are going to some deadbeat?". To this I replied, "I donate with love not intention".
As I leave my readers today I want you to just honestly try to walk around in another pair of shoes. Ask yourself if you are somehow impervious to life's tragedies. How many of us are more than a few paychecks, a cancer diagnosis, or the loss of a partner away from financial ruin? I certainly hope that if fate comes knocking at my door with a proverbial pink slip someday that I will be living in a country willing to offer me a hand up.
Try not to fall out of your seats from the pure shock but I'm going to chat just briefly today about the health care bill. I'm sure you are all so sick of hearing about it that you could honestly throw up. Between the ignorant rantings from both directions politically, and the media doing a total blitz it just gets to be a bit too much. No secret folks, I hang my hat on the left side of the aisle, and have been known to bleed blue. So, of course for me, this feels like a huge victory. I feel so proud of what I did with my vote that I could burst. President Obama isn't perfect, I disagree with several of his current policies, but I think what he's been able to motivate our congress to do (with the help of several key democratic figures) is astonishing. I never really believed I would see any kind of universal health care in my lifetime. The bill is not perfect, but it's progress and that has to be good. I beg of you each to work hard to inform yourself from factual resources. MSNBC is far too left winged, and FOX News is raging red! Find some middle ground, perhaps NPR, they are a very considerate and fairly unbiased source. Please don't let fear be your guiding light. If you read up on this, inform yourself and still don't agree then that's okay but regurgitating another person's ignorance perpetuates a laundry list of terrible things. Some of you may have read it from a post I left on a friends page yesterday, but I would like to leave you with my personal feelings on this issue:
The bottom line is that we each get to choose what we believe, that's the beauty of free will, a gift given to us. We don't get to make the final call on what's best for the greater good ultimately, that's God, or whatever higher being you go withs, decision. So, why not do what we can in this lifetime to practice tolerance, patients, and help for our fellow man? If we get to the end of our days and there is a God and there is a heaven then hopefully we've lived a life that grants us entrance. If there isn't, then we've lost nothing but left behind a legacy of kindness and grace. Not a shabby deal. I feel that health care reform falls into that last sentiment. Is it fair that we should have to pay for people that are capable of working but don't...nope, not at all. However, if my extra tax dollars can help just one person that truly needs it then I figure it's worth it. My dad said to me once, "don't you worry that the donations you make are going to some deadbeat?". To this I replied, "I donate with love not intention".
As I leave my readers today I want you to just honestly try to walk around in another pair of shoes. Ask yourself if you are somehow impervious to life's tragedies. How many of us are more than a few paychecks, a cancer diagnosis, or the loss of a partner away from financial ruin? I certainly hope that if fate comes knocking at my door with a proverbial pink slip someday that I will be living in a country willing to offer me a hand up.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Good bye Old Man Winter!
So it has to be addressed that after 300 years in an arctic freeze....okay, okay....maybe it was 4 or so months the snow is finally gone! I love living in the Midwest because our weather has a sick sense of humor while still maintaining a sweet side. I say this because it seems like just when I don't think I could hate the weather more, when all I'm doing in my free time is looking at cruises on Expedia, and feel like the walls are closing in, suddenly March in all it's glory shows up with a few soggy days and washes away the pain.
Today I had to make a road trip to the organic market and observed that the old adage really is true, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even though the roadsides are dirty, trash laden, and soppy messes they look utterly fantastic to me! There's life under all that snow, and I can see and swear almost feel the little blades of grass shaking off their icy crust and breathing in the life that is spring. By far the best part of my windshield time today is that I was lucky enough to catch the geese migrating. Not a single organized v-shape , massive amounts of these birds on their quest for open water either here or in lands further north. The sky was black with them. The enormity of this migration was astonishing to me and I was honestly very distracted with how amazing it was. I called my husband because I was just so impressed with it and to ask him to tell a friend and water fowl hunter of ours to cheer up because the geese were returning. Later my husband reported that apparently there is usually a 1 to 2 day period that can usually be pinpointed in which this massive flocking takes place. It was just unbelievable to me that we live in a country where it seems we cannot agree on anything for any amount of time and yet these creatures manage to organize a migration with numbers in the millions all based on instinct. Maybe that's the key, the world has taken away our instinct. We're told how to do things, how we should feel, when is the best time, and suddenly we stop listening to that little voice in our head that says, "it's time to fly".
Take a little time to really appreciate how beautiful nature is, in all it's forms. Look past the mud and the silt because what lies beneath holds immeasurable beauty just waiting for when mother nature calls it's name.
Have a great weekend friends.
Today I had to make a road trip to the organic market and observed that the old adage really is true, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even though the roadsides are dirty, trash laden, and soppy messes they look utterly fantastic to me! There's life under all that snow, and I can see and swear almost feel the little blades of grass shaking off their icy crust and breathing in the life that is spring. By far the best part of my windshield time today is that I was lucky enough to catch the geese migrating. Not a single organized v-shape , massive amounts of these birds on their quest for open water either here or in lands further north. The sky was black with them. The enormity of this migration was astonishing to me and I was honestly very distracted with how amazing it was. I called my husband because I was just so impressed with it and to ask him to tell a friend and water fowl hunter of ours to cheer up because the geese were returning. Later my husband reported that apparently there is usually a 1 to 2 day period that can usually be pinpointed in which this massive flocking takes place. It was just unbelievable to me that we live in a country where it seems we cannot agree on anything for any amount of time and yet these creatures manage to organize a migration with numbers in the millions all based on instinct. Maybe that's the key, the world has taken away our instinct. We're told how to do things, how we should feel, when is the best time, and suddenly we stop listening to that little voice in our head that says, "it's time to fly".
Take a little time to really appreciate how beautiful nature is, in all it's forms. Look past the mud and the silt because what lies beneath holds immeasurable beauty just waiting for when mother nature calls it's name.
Have a great weekend friends.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Snail Mail...
When was the last time you sat down and wrote a letter? Not typed and printed out, but sat and enjoyed the feel of your favorite pen in your hand smoothly pushing ink across some parchment? I would venture to guess that it's been some time for most of you. Your first inclination may be to say, "but Brown Eyed Girl, why would I waste my time when email is so fast and so easy?". Well, because the art of writing is dying, the writing muscles in our hands are weak (think I'm wrong, tell me if I am after you participate in my suggestion), and a hand written note or letter is still among one of the finest gifts you can give to a friend or family member. Honestly, think of the joy you get when you go to the mail box and there is a piece of mail in there just for you that does not require you to send a check back so the repo man doesn't come. You know the feeling, you trudge to the mailbox, pop it open, and see your name handwritten on an envelope. Anyone who says they don't feel instantly light is lying to themselves. It's like a smile in your mail and you know it! The art of letter writing is something I have clung to desperately as my whole life has transitioned to e-commerce. I pay bills online, I Facebook, I blog...the list goes on. However, I have some pretty special people in my life that have never turned a computer on and I would suppose you do to. It seems that since email has taken over that communicating with those people has slowed or even stopped. Even if we exclude your sweet grandmother in the nursing home (who by the way deserves a monthly letter), think about how many wonderful friend and family members you have. Pick up a pen, grab a piece of paper and know that you are holding all the tools you need to bring someone the warmest little fuzzy in the world. You don't have to spend hours and span pages with your handwritten note, it can be as simple as two or three lines letting someone know you care. A letter sent through the good old snail mail has a way of saying, "I care enough to take time and do something out of the norm...just for you". Parents, I encourage you to do this for your children be them 3 or 33, I promise you smiles all around. Your 15 year old gets about 50 text messages, and 25 emails a day conservatively....but you hold the power to give him or her something unique....something none of their friends will think to do, a handwritten letter. So here's my challenge to all of you, within the next 24 hours take 15 minutes to write a letter to someone you love. Find a great pen, maybe even spring for some fun stationary, and use one of those weird things we call....a stamp! Let me know what kind of feedback you get, I love human experiments. Wishing you all a week filled with possibilities!
Friday, March 5, 2010
Humbled...
Recently my little family all was hit by the flu bug. It was nasty stuff and I will leave the details in the past because they are just too horrific to relive, and I don't want any of my readers sitting down to check the Brown Eyed Girl's blog with a yummy sandwich and being totally grossed out. Just know this, it was a bad deal here at our house. Day two of the flu and I was downstairs trying to keep the yucky laundry going when I realized that the clothes I put in the dryer should not be dry yet, however the dryer was not running. I push the button again, and nothing. I pull the plug out and replace it in the socket, and still no power surges to the mighty machine. Immediately expletives are flying around in my brain along with the "why me's", "why now", and your typical, "this cannot be happening!!!!" sort of thoughts. I trudge up the stairs (in the bent over position because it still hurts to stand up right from my night of bowing to the porcelain Gods). As my poor husband lies under 2 blankets trying desperately to get some rest I relay the bad news. At this point I have no choice. You don't leave flu laundry hanging around so I discard by comfy clothes and attempt to make myself look semi-presentable to go out into the world. Where am I headed....the laundry mat. Words cannot explain how much I hate the laundry mat, but you do what you gotta do right? After college I had hoped to put my public laundry days behind me. So with what felt like 100 pounds of wet laundry and 2 extra baskets of dry I head off to the laundry mat. After making what felt like 20 trips back and forth to the car I finally settle in. Immediately I take stock of the place and plan my attack. The goal: get in and out of here as quickly as possible at any cost. No lie, if they had a woman standing there with a coin slot in her forehead to do this for me I would gladly pay $100 to have it done and come back later. Alas, the coin operated woman was nowhere to be found, so I move on. Here's where we stop a moment. I want you to understand the surroundings. If you ever want a strong dose of humble, go to a small town laundry mat. I'm not talking a large metro area one located in a strip mall next to a Starbucks with Wi-fi, 10 televisions, debit card slots in the machines, and free newspapers to read while you wait. No, no...I'm talking coin operated only, harvest gold Speed Queens from the 70's, a quarter inch of lint residue on everything, angry looks from tired people, and all this while a fuzzy radio plays Neil Diamond on some radio station from elevator music hell! That's a real laundry mat kids and if you haven't experienced it I suggest you stop in for an hour if you really want to put your finger on the pulse of America. At any rate I load a small fortune in quarters in the washers and dryers and am on my way to cleaner clothes. This is the point at which I have time to sit down at the old card table set up in the corner and try to find something to do to pass the next 2 hours because, as the sign clearly says, DO NOT leave laundry unattended. I organize my purse first, dink with my cell phone, and then realize that I might as well do a little good old fashioned people watching. This is the point I realize that I am the pink elephant in the room. Even I hated me at that moment. While the rest of these folks are clearly performing a weekly ritual of spending what little money they have to clean their clothes in breezes this annoying brown eyed girl with her clicky heeled shoes, her obnoxious handbag, texting on her cell phone, and all with a chip on her shoulder because for 2 hours of her life she has to be inconvenienced. Needless to say, I put the cell phone in my pocket on silent, grabbed the auto trader magazine off the old card table, and tried to exercise a little more humility. There were lots of folks in there, and all of them felt just like me, they hated it but these people were here because it was their only option, not because it would take 2 days for the dryer guy from Sears to show up. I wouldn't be back, but they certainly would. I'm going to focus on one sweet little trio I observed that made me feel the most humbled during this experience. There was a woman, probably mid-forties, her daughter who was maybe 15, and a little boy about my sons age. At first I make the assumption that this woman has two kids until the woman told this adorable little boy to take a quarter to mommy to put in the dryer. They were a well oiled machine these three, mom handled the washers and folding, the daughter kept checking the dryers and tossing clothes between dryers for the most effective use of the quarter, and the little boy happily toddled around all to pleased to push a button for his mommy or bring a quarter. The whole time they smiled, they laughed, and they joked. Their positive nature was infectious and before I knew it I was smiling too, sick as a dog, but smiling...happy...and humbled. This post was a little on the rambly side today, but it just felt like a story I needed to share. All in all I hope what you take away from this is to work hard to extract the joy from any situation, count your blessings, and be thankful for everything you have in your life that isn't coin operated.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
So I'm blogging now huh???....
Well hello world, I'm the brown eyed girl! As per the suggestion of a friend, I've decided to start blogging. Not because I have anything particularly earth shattering to share, but I seem to have little insights to life that others find amusing or at the very least entertaining. I love to write, and lets face it...you can only fit so much in a Facebook status :) Here's a place for me to jot down the randomness that is me. So come along won't you?
As the mother of a beautiful 20 month old son you'll find that as of lately a lot of my topics are centered around parenthood. I promise this will not turn into a mommy blogging site, but it's safe to say that at least half the time we'll be on some parenting topics. So lets go with this as my first transmission as a blogger: Why can't I just be a parent? Honestly, why is it that we as parents have this irrational need to label ourselves? Why must we be attachment parents, cry it out parents, organic parents, tough love parents, natural parenting parents, stay at home parents, working parents, home schooling parents, status quo parents, AAAHHHH!!!! Let me break this down for you from a personal stand point. I am a 29 year old mother of a boy, I feed him organic oatmeal and Tyson's chicken nuggets and that's okay. I prefer he doesn't watch television, but the kid loves Elmo and I love 15 minutes of time to load the washer without so much help. We read as much as we can, we practice our letters and numbers but sometimes we just hang out and all of our minutes are not filled with stimulation. It's life, and it's just how it is. This parenting gig is the most challenging job you'll ever have, I can promise you that. What other job do you have to work 3 years to teach your own boss how to communicate clearly what they want and need? Not to mention those needs are constantly changing based on the minute, the season, and whether or not your boss had a good nap today. So here's my little tid bit, let's just be parents okay? What works for you and your children might...NO...probably...differs from what works for myself and my child. Learning how to dispense advice to another parent is key. Say it with me kids, "what works for us is (fill in the blank), but all kids are different". Is that so hard? So please stop pigeon holing yourself as a certain kind of parent and thinking that you just cannot relate to someone who is not like minded. We will all be better parents, and for that matter better people if we just relax a little and embrace the differences we have to offer each other. Spend time with parents of kids younger than yours, older than yours, and don't think that just because your friend breast feed their child for 3 years and you lasted 3 days doesn't mean you can't relate. Seeing those strengths and weaknesses in others will make us all better parents and better people. This sentiment translates outside the parenting world too folks...just think about it is all I'm asking you to do. Peace from the snowy Midwest.
As the mother of a beautiful 20 month old son you'll find that as of lately a lot of my topics are centered around parenthood. I promise this will not turn into a mommy blogging site, but it's safe to say that at least half the time we'll be on some parenting topics. So lets go with this as my first transmission as a blogger: Why can't I just be a parent? Honestly, why is it that we as parents have this irrational need to label ourselves? Why must we be attachment parents, cry it out parents, organic parents, tough love parents, natural parenting parents, stay at home parents, working parents, home schooling parents, status quo parents, AAAHHHH!!!! Let me break this down for you from a personal stand point. I am a 29 year old mother of a boy, I feed him organic oatmeal and Tyson's chicken nuggets and that's okay. I prefer he doesn't watch television, but the kid loves Elmo and I love 15 minutes of time to load the washer without so much help. We read as much as we can, we practice our letters and numbers but sometimes we just hang out and all of our minutes are not filled with stimulation. It's life, and it's just how it is. This parenting gig is the most challenging job you'll ever have, I can promise you that. What other job do you have to work 3 years to teach your own boss how to communicate clearly what they want and need? Not to mention those needs are constantly changing based on the minute, the season, and whether or not your boss had a good nap today. So here's my little tid bit, let's just be parents okay? What works for you and your children might...NO...probably...differs from what works for myself and my child. Learning how to dispense advice to another parent is key. Say it with me kids, "what works for us is (fill in the blank), but all kids are different". Is that so hard? So please stop pigeon holing yourself as a certain kind of parent and thinking that you just cannot relate to someone who is not like minded. We will all be better parents, and for that matter better people if we just relax a little and embrace the differences we have to offer each other. Spend time with parents of kids younger than yours, older than yours, and don't think that just because your friend breast feed their child for 3 years and you lasted 3 days doesn't mean you can't relate. Seeing those strengths and weaknesses in others will make us all better parents and better people. This sentiment translates outside the parenting world too folks...just think about it is all I'm asking you to do. Peace from the snowy Midwest.
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