For Now, I’m Not Here

Because I can, I moved back to JunkFood 4TheSoul.  I seem to be a happier/clearer writer when I’m over there.  And yes, I use the term “writer” loosely. I understand if you don’t want to hop back and forth.  It’s really no biggie… I am blogging for me and for me to get the words that are all jumbled up in my head out in – hopefully- some clear format. I used to want to have thousands of comments and be one of those popular bloggers.  However, it’s not about that anymore.   I, of course, would love for you guys to follow me back to where it all began. Again.  However, in this blogging world where thousands of blogs pop up daily vying for your attention, I understand if you don’t want to go through the riggaromow to add yet another blog to your feed reader.  I do thank you for making the move to THIS blog in the first place.   You guys are the best blogger friends a girl could ever have. 

http://junkfood4thesoul.wordpress.com/

For My Emily

Today is my baby girl’s 7th birthday. 

I guess this blog is becoming much like church, I only post on important days. 

Well, on with the mushy mom thing.  I will want to remember this day years from now and this blog is really the only detailed link to my past.

My Dearest Emily,

This year has been the roughest year yet, well, to be honest, the last two years have been pretty rough.  I wish, as your mom, I could tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel and that our luck is finally turning around and your world will be all safe and normal again.  However, you already think your world IS all safe and normal.  Your Daddy and I do our best to keep the crappy-ness from getting anywhere near you and we know it’s working by your smiles and laughter.  In all this chaos that has become life, you are a bight light of joy. 

Things I love about you:

You are my very own Lady Gaga.  I love how you want to wear your big fat pink snow boots EVERYWHERE even though they don’t match a thing and are just so BIG and Snow boot-y looking!  You could care less what anyone thinks, you love them and that is all that matters in your world.  I wish I was more like that.  And the pink boots? They are just one thing you wear that only you think looks great.  I have a feeling we are only years away from a really cool ornament dress that you will be wearing to prom.  And you won’t be wearing it to make a statement, nope, you will only wear it because, “It looks pretty!”

I love your use of vocabulary.  You use all these big grown up words- the correct way!  For example, instead of saying, “It’s quiet in here.”  You say, “It’s so silent.”  And you can already spell better than me.  Which isn’t say too much, but still you are only 7!  And you can spell and read way better than I thought a 7 year old could read and spell.  I am so impressed by you daily at just how smart you really are.  Now, if we could just get you to understand how to use “air quotes” correctly.

And your memory!  You have the memory of a steel trap, or elephant, whichever is most correct.  You remember everything to the last little detail.  It is sooooo impressive!

I love  your kindness.  Your friend at school who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, Thanksgiving or any traditional holiday that we celebrate, in your eyes, that isn’t odd or something to make fun of someone for, she is still one of your best friends and you could care less if she celebrates Christmas or not.  You realize even at your young age, those things do not define a persons friendship with you. 

And this goes without saying, you are absolutely beautiful.  Your freckles, your cute cheeks, your super tiny waste, your dirty blonde hair that can never stay brushed and your nose.

Everything about you is perfect and no other 7 year old can hold a candle next to you when it comes to your beauty and how smart you are.   I don’t know what I did to deserve a piece of heavenly perfection that is you.  You make me laugh every. single. day.  You bring me joy every. single. day.  And I thank you for that.

Love,  Your Mommy

Ramblings

I wonder if I should give up this whole blogging thing all together?

I used to not be able to go 10 minutes without checking twitter and/or Facebook on my phone.  Now, not so much. 

I have all but disappeared the online version of me it seems and to blog now just seems…. fake, like I’m holding on to something that I need to let go, kind of like these blue pajama pants I used to love. They were so soft and comfy and now… well, I guess from all the washing they have lost their softness.  And just the other day I cut them into shorts because while I was getting up one day, my foot got caught in the leg and the ripped at the seam of one leg so it just made the most sense to cut them into shorts.  Yeah, I feel like my online life is like those pants… I’m hanging to them, but I’m not sure why anymore.

I don’t even read, but like, three blogs anymore.  I used to read so many. Now I just don’t.  Reading for school takes up my reading quota for the day, I suppose.

Writing for school takes all the creative writing juices I have – and my professors aren’t impressed when I write like I do on this blog. I hate that. It’s hard to change your writing style when you’ve been doing it for so long.

I see a picture of my entire family from Christmas 2007 on my desktop and I want that family back.  This Christmas will suck and I know this.  I do not want Christmas to come this year.  I wish I could hide in my bed and ignore it totally. But I have two little girls and ignoring Christmas is not ok when you have people more important than depression depending on you.   I think that I will probably hate Christmas forever more because my doorbell will never ring again at some ungodly hour with my mom holding a cup a coffee for me.  She always woke up and got ready and was at my house before my girls were even awake.  

I want this Christmas back.  You see, my mom’s boyfriend’s family is in this picture and I don’t think we will be invited to their house for Christmas this year. Not that we had a falling out or anything, I just don’t know how that works now.  So anywho, more than half the people in this picture … well… ya know.  It just makes me very sad.  Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m never going to look forward to another Christmas again.

I finally upgraded my iPhone.  I never hook up my phone to my computer so yes, it’s taken me this long.  I suck as an iPhone owner. 

I am working on a group project for school.  I did this really awesome PowerPoint for our project.  Nobody emailed me to say, “Wow. Thanks!”  I feel like I’m back at my old job.

I had an ear infection on Veterans day and I keep forgetting to take my antibiotics every 8 hours. I worry about that. Plus my ears are still clogged and it’s very annoying!!

And with that, I suppose I am done with my ramblings.  

Day 3 and 4

Ooopie Daisy, I forgot about my blog.  Ok, I didn’t, but I’ve been busy with life these past few days and Blah. Blah. Blah.  School. Blah. Blah. Blah. About a thousand research papers.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  Sick kids. Blah. Blah. Blah. Life.

Can I just say that I hate and I do mean HATE writing papers!  After having written a blog for this many years and never EVER caring about a damn thesis statement, and if my topic sentences relate back to my thesis and if the last sentence in a paragraph ties back to both my thesis AND topic sentence and not worrying about talking in the first person. CRAP! There are so many rules to “real” writing.  It’s enough to send me to the nuthouse!  However, I’m becoming quite the critic for other people’s writing now.  And no, that’s not a good thing because it kinda takes the run out of reading.  I have not, however, gain such an eye for my own writing.  Totally weird, eh?

Ok, back to this Memovember thing.

Day 3- A recent picture of you and your friends. 

Well, I was dumb earlier this year when I failed to get a picture of me, Karl and Cissa when we met up with earlier this year at the Happiest Place On Earth.  And again when I met up with Shiny a few weeks ago.  However, Shiny remembered, “Hey! Let’s take a picture!” So we did…  Here is me and Shiny and some kids we picked up on the side of the road…

And another picture that reminds the power of friendship and this little thing called bloggerworld…

Though she is not in the picture, these flowers represent my bestest friend Becky who sent these flowers right after my grandma passed. 

All my true friends, they live in this computer.  I can’t even get a group of ladies to go to the movies with me.  I can’t even get my own family (what’s left of it) to call me and make sure that I’m ok and NOT MAKE ME *NOT* CALLING THEM ABOUT THEM.  Yes, my true friends are the people who keep their kids up late because I can’t find the damn restaurant in a town I’ve never been before. My true friends are the ones that send flowers to say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”  My true friends are the ones that email me, text me, send Facebook messages saying “I’m thinking of you.” My true friends don’t care if I don’t call for six months, but will drive 12 hours just to hang out for the weekend.  My true friends don’t forget my birthday and call me a week later (yes, my aunt and cousin forgot my birthday this year.) Yes, my dear readers, you are my only true friends and dare I say you are more like family than my own family (except for my hubby and kids, they kinda take top honors in that department). It both makes me sad and happy. Now, before I get all dopey on the topic, I do have two ladies who I do like in real life and dare I say, we might end up becoming friends? One day maybe? It’s just hard for me to trust people in real life, they always seem to let me down in the worst way.

Ok, enough of all that…

Onto Day 4- A habit that you wish you didn’t have.

Easy! 

Smoking. 

If I could go back and kick my way younger self’s ass, I so totally would!!  My mom was right, I do regret ever picking up the habit.  I really fucking hate smoking.  I do have plans to quit though, but that is another bad habit of mine, I have all these grand and wonderful plans, but my follow through needs improvement.  I wish I was a hardcore type-A person.  Yeah, that would be awesome. I’m more of a type-W, X, Y, Y am I doing this again? Type person. 

Day 02- The meaning behind your blog name

After reading LeSombre’s 15 interesting facts, my interesting facts seem blah.  There is one more thing you outta know, I always second guess myself.  It’s a massive curse I have always thinking, “Man, I should have done or said THAT!” 

One thing I forgot to tell you yesterday, I always read the Chuck Lorre Productions vanity card blog type thingy’s after The Big Bang Theory.  I actually pause my TV and read them.  I wonder if anybody else does too?  I would love to meet Chuck Lorre one day.  I hope if I ever get on Big Brother, since it’s a CBS show as well as the The Big Bang Theory, I will get to meet  him. 

None that has ANYthing to do with my blog name.

My official online name is Pipper.  I may change blogs, I may change emails, I may change my hair color, but I will never change my official online name. 

I was going to college way back in 98 and I took a class on how to use the internet, yes it was an easy A.  This was a time when not everybody had a computer or cell phones. The internet was a thing everybody knew about, just not everybody was on it.  The masses were just finding out all the mysterious things the internet could do like if you type in your name, your address might come up!  Somebody, no make that ANYBODY could find out where you live by typing in your name!  Now, of course, that idea is not all ground breaking since now, with a few clicks and dropping a little yellow man onto a map, you can actually SEE someone’s house and street and their neighbors and all kinds of goodies.  But that was not the case back in 98. 

All I ever heard back then was, “Don’t give out your personal information! Don’t give out your real name or address! You will get a stalker and they will come to your house and rape you and kill you AND your dog!”  So, while sitting in this internet class (it was called something else, but really it was a class in which we played on the internet and built our own webpage- I still have that code tuck away because I was so proud of myself! I had built a webpage out of thin air!) again, while sitting in class we had to create an email account, not one the school provided or anything because the school didn’t have school email addresses like today.  Really, the internet was really new and just starting to come into its own.  So, we could pick to create a Hotmail account or a yahoo account.  I was going to go with Hotmail, but when I typed in Hotmail, and I swear it was just like that, HOTMAIL, all kinds of pop up ads for hawt males popped up and if I X’d out of them, another one would just pop up.  All these gay male ads took over my computer!  I had to shut down the computer from the hard drive to stop the madness! 

So, I went with yahoo after that.

The night before, I had watched the only episode of Charmed I would ever watch and there was a girl on there named Piper. I liked that name and decided that would be my online name when I was instructed to come up with an email account- remember, I was told NOT to use my real name or I would die in the most horrible way.  And thus, I would be Pipper.  Yes, and one of the most embarrassing spelling errors in my life, I misspelled Piper and put Pipper instead.  I didn’t even realize my mistake until years later.  I tried once to correct myself and officially become Piper online, but to no avail.  I am now and will forever be Pipper.  The numbers after my name may change, my blog address may change, everything about me will change, but am Pipper.  And of course, some of you know my real life name, and for that reason, I will go by both, but I am making more of an effort to keep my online life more close to my heart and not just “out there” because if I do become a teacher, I don’t want every parent and principal Googling my blog and knowing what you know.  Like I’ve said before, I trust my blogging family and friends more than I trust people in real life. People in real life are mean and judgmental and I generally just don’t trust the people I know in real life. 

And how did I get Misery Loves Company as THIS blog name which was the original question?  I like the saying and thought it was a cute idea for a blog name. No flashy reason why I came up with Misery Loves Company, just wanting to change from my last blog to this one.  However, for those of you that know my old blog… I am thinking of returning?  I don’t know.  I’ve been throwing the idea around because while I like Misery Loves Company, I *am* my old blog.  I visit it from time to time and reflect on where I was and where I am today.  I don’t feel I have come a long way since my very first post.  I don’t know if I will really make the change?  Maybe after this 30 days thing, I will?  I don’t know… I think it’s a lot to ask of people to keep following you from blog to blog.  What do you think? Would you update your feed readers if I ever change again? 

And just another random FYI- one of my newest traditions is watching The George Lopez show with my oldest daughter after the youngest one goes to bed.

George Lopez Show

Day 1- 15 facts about me

So, my Canadian friend, LeSombre had this meme up a while ago and I really liked the idea of it. 

Day 01- A recent picture of you (with really messed up bangs!) and 15 interesting facts about yourself

Fifteen interesting facts about myself:

1. I am only child. While not all together interesting, I could not imagine having a sister or brother who I had to share with.  I used to like that everything that is mine, is in fact, mine. I never had that argument, “Mommmmm! She stole my hair bow!”  The downsize, I have nobody to share the pain of losing my mom. I am all alone in this heartbreak and it sucks. I guess it would have been worth losing a few hair bows just for someone to say, “I know and understand.’  And I totally know that they do. 
2. I want a third baby. I will never have a third baby.  No longer can I hide behind the unknowing of how much babies cost.  I know how much work babies are and how much they cost and having a third baby would not be fair to the two that I have.  So, yeah, that’s a touchy subject for me.
3. I have a messed up fingernail.  You probably wouldn’t even notice it, it’s not big deal. It has some ridge type stuff going on.  However, it would be enough to identify my body – if my hand was attached and my face was not.
4. I love and hate staying up late at night. I am a hardcore insomniac.  Apparently, so was my great great grandma.  I love the quiet. I hate that I’m tired in the mornings.
5. I am going back to school so that I can teach algebra.  Math is easy to me.  English stuff like, spelling and grammar is not.
6. If I loose a certain amount of weight, I made a promise to myself to get plastic surgery.  I hope I have enough money saved by then to make that dream come true.
7. There isn’t much about pop culture that I don’t know about. I really should work at E!  However, I’m not young or pretty enough.  Had I known what I was doing with this blogging thing years ago, I could have been the first Perez Hilton only I wouldn’t have been so mean.
8. I have an uncanny way of knowing – in pop culture- who’s mom of whom and who played in what TV show.  In just about everything I watch, I’m like, “That’s the lady from so-n-so show.” or “She is the real life wife/mom/girlfriend of so-n-so.”  It’s a gift I have. 
9. I suck at remembering real live people.  I have classes with people who, when they see me outside of class, say hi and stuff and I have no idea who they are.  Apparently I don’t care as much about my classmates as I do who was Jennifer Aniston’s latest boyfriend. 
10. I want to be on Big Brother.
11. I don’t understand how Charlie Sheen still has a job, I mean Two and a Half men isn’t even nearly the funniest thing on TV by a LONG shot!  They let him go on as business as usual and yet Lindsey Lohan is crucified.  I don’t get it.  The same way I don’t understand how the Oxy-Clean stuff still has Billy Mays on it’s commercials and he died with cocaine in his system.  I have a feeling if it were a woman who was the spokesperson and then died with cocaine in her system, she would never be seen again.  It goes without saying that I think, in Hollywood, there is a double standard for men and women. 
12. It annoys me when people say, “My family always comes first.”  Of course they do, I think it goes without saying.  So, when people say it more than, oh like one time, I think they are being fake.  I also think it’s fake to brag. I can’t stand a bragger.  And being happy about something is different than bragging. 
13. I think 9/11 should be a holiday.  I hate that we go on as business as usual on that day. It will never be normal for me again.  However, I get the reasons we don’t make it a holiday. I just wish that we didn’t treat it as just any other day. 
14. The only crossword puzzles I can do are the People crossword puzzles.  I feel so proud of myself when I complete one. 
15. People said when I was younger, I looked like Linda Blair. Now I don’t I guess I look like anyone but me.

Boston or Bust- A.D.D Style

Soooo, the Hubby and I decided to travel to Boston this coming week to visit with the Hubby’s family.  We were gonna fly, but flying is for the lame-o’s* and we  ARE SO  NOT lame. Therefore, we are driving.  20 hours.  Hardcore, eh? 

I don’t worry about the kids getting bored. They have enough gadgets and gizmos to keep the occupied- or so I assume.  I worry about meeeee!  I think in my old age, I have acquired A.D.D. Seriously. I have the attention span of a nat.  I need constant changing of things. 

But we are gonna do it. Drive 20 hours.  And then back 20 hours.  That’s like a full work week just in driving.  Crazy!

The last time I took a long car trip was when my mom and I rode a train cross-country to California for my 13th (or was it my 14th? Somewhere around there) birthday.  Then we moved there and moved back here - all within like six months.  She must have acquired A.D.D. as well?  But I swore then that my days of long car rides were O-V-E-R.  I had seen all of America nearly from cost to cost four times over in a short amount of time and that was good enough for me- for a lifetime. 

Fast forward to this weekend and I’m gonna do it again.  Granted, it’s not nearly as long as driving to the big C- A  but still, it’s a long drive! 

But ya know, I think it’s a rite of passage for kids to endure such car rides.  I was telling my oldest that when I was her age and I had to endure countless 8 hour trips to see my uncle and all the trips my grandparents took me on and all I had was a walkman.  And there was no USB ports or car battery adaptors to recharge non existent iPods. Once I was out of batteries, that was it.  There was no buying anymore.  I actually had to talk either my mom or my grandparents- whoever had dragged me on some “adventure.”  But, truthfully, it was fun. Some of my favorite memories were those long car rides and now I am more than thankful that I have those memories.  Yeah, now that I think about it, long car rides can be pretty awesome. 

So, what say you? Do you have any memories of long car rides with your family? Was it torture of was it fun?  Did you guys play games or what did you do?

A song that I’m sure I listened to a thousand times before the batteries ran out…

Tiffany- I think we’re alone now

*Lame-o’s are actually people who can afford to fly a family of four, which I cannot at this moment in time if I want to stay in a hotel and eat while in Boston.  *le sigh*