These are my Swishy Pants. They’re called this because of the sound they make when I walk ~ swish, swish. They make this sound because of the material they are made from, not because my thighs are BFFs and have to constantly be touching. 

Whenever I wear these, The Girls know we are going for a w.a.l.k. (I can’t say this too loud because it’ll set them off again.) It’s like Pavlov’s dogs and a bell. At the first swish of these pants, even as I pull them out of my dresser, before I even put them on, The Girls go crazy ~ wall-denting tail wagging, unbelievable body contorting, ‘ruw, ruwing,’ swarming around my legs, pushing me down the hall, crazy.

I can be folding clothes and they can hear the swish of these pants and begin their ‘mom’s taking us for a w.a.l.k.’ dance again. It’s that sound.

I believe people can become just as conditioned to sounds as animals.

When my kids were babies, I breast-fed them both until they were almost a year old. (They were each weaned the first time they drew blood ~ there is no need to explain this one.) For months after they no longer nursed, at the sound of a baby crying, any baby ~ and only that ‘I’m hungry’ cry ~ my milk would let down and I would have two huge wet spots on my shirt.

The ice cream truck comes through our neighborhood broadcasting that creepy circus music, and no matter what I get a irrational desire for a chocolate Drumstick. It’s immaterial that I just ate lunch, or dinner, and am nowhere near hungry. It’s that music.

The phone rings in the middle of the night. My stomach clinches, my heart races, and that panic feeling sets in. If it’s a wrong number I’m not relieved, I’m pissed at the caller for scaring the bejeezus out of me.

So many songs remind me of certain people, different events in my life. Some are still so painful, or embarrassing that I can’t listen to them any longer and will immediately turn the station if I hear them playing on the radio. Others bring on such sweet memories that I can be moved to tears.

I can hear one of my kids, now both teens, sigh ~ one of those loud huffs full of such meaning, such contempt ~ and my immediate reaction is anger. That has to be one of my least favorite sounds. All the disgust of a put-upon teen exhaled in one gust of breath. I will be so glad when they finally outgrow that annoying habit.

(I’ve seen this meme around at other sites and thought it looked very cool. If you pick this one, let me know in the comments. I would love to see you in pictures.)

(click anywhere on the mosaic to enlarge)

What you do:

1. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
2. Using only the first page, pick an image.
3. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into this mosaic maker.

My Answers:

1. What is your first name? Tara
2. What is your favorite food? Thai curry
3. What high school did you go to? Karns
4. What is your favorite color? Blue
5. Who is your celebrity crush? Vin Diesel
6. Favorite drink? Root Beer
7. Dream vacation? Ireland
8. Favorite dessert? Brownies
9. What you want to be when you grow up? Retired
10. What do you love most in life? My children
11. One Word to describe you. Confused
12. Your (blog) name. Opalstorm

(On #12, if you have a Flickr name, use that one instead of your blog name.)

1. From Tara, 2. Homemade Thai Fried Rice, 3. WooHoo…. it is finished!, 4. water droplets in the shower - o.k. bokeh, 5. vin_diesel_02, 6. Root Beers, 7. A TRIBUTE TO A DEAR FRIEND. (KILKENNY, IRELAND), 8.Pecan Brownies and Peanut Butter Saskatoon Berries Square, 9. Sweethearts, 10. daffodil, 11. Which set applies to me?, 12. Opal made of Ajax

Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Have a safe, happy and rockin’ Fourth of July! 

I can actually remember the day I started worrying about being overweight. I was maybe in my early 20s, in college and working at my Aunt and Uncle’s restaurant. An old friend of mine was there having dinner and I stopped to say hello.

She hadn’t seen me since high school when I weighed somewhere between 118-120 pounds. At 5′8″, I know now that was way too thin.

What I remember about that reunion was how she responded to seeing me again. We had been great friends, but college and life had moved us away from each other. Her first words weren’t ‘great to see you,’ or ‘I’ve missed hanging out with you.’ No, they were ‘wow, you’ve gained some weight.’

Up to  that point, I hadn’t really considered that I had gained any weight. I was still thin, still fitting into my clothes. But, that night when I went home, one of the first things I did was step on the scale. I was shocked at how much I weighed, a whopping 130 pounds. In retrospect, that was a much healthier weight, but I was dumbfounded.

From that day ’til today, the scale has not been my friend.

Now, two kids and 30 pounds later, I’m still not what any of my friends or family consider fat, but I am not happy with my size.

I keep thinking back to my pre-baby, pre-marriage weight and wonder where that person went, and how do I get her back. My whole attitude about myself has changed. I no longer think of myself as attractive… I’m frumpy, doughy, slack… you name it, I’ve thought it.

If I make some self-deprecating statement about my weight, my family and friends react almost with anger and tell me I’m not big. I don’t see what they see apparently. I avoid mirrors and large windows. I constantly compare myself to other women I see.., ‘am I as big as her?’ I fret about what other people think about me, when in reality, they most likely don’t even notice me.

I see the rolls of back fat, I see the love handles pooching around my waistband, I see The Sisters straining across my shirt. I don’t see thin, I don’t see me. I don’t see that college coed that I once was.

What I have to get passed, is that I never will see that girl again. I’m not a girl any longer, I am a woman and have filled out, have grown up. My body has changed, because I’ve changed. I have to learn to like the person I see in the mirror, to see myself as other people see me… and stay away from the scale.

Thanks to Ashley at Boss Sanders for prompting this examination of self-image… check out what others are saying.

WK found this T-shirt and just had to have it… Hubs the great enabler. Yet, if you really think about it, and get all philosophical with me, this really has a great message. If these two can make nice and be friends, couldn’t we all?

I’m not what anyone would call religious. I have serious issues with the organized church, but also have serious views on the influence God has had in my life. I do believe in God and believe that He has worked miracles for me throughout my life, and continues to do so daily. Not big, flashy miracles, but little things I like to call ‘random acts of God.’

I won’t preach at you, or try to ‘witness to you’ and turn you toward the Light. That’s not how I roll. I believe that those who do worship God, a higher power, or some omnipotent being, are all trying to achieve the same thing, how you get there is your business. If you follow some other ideology, that’s cool too ~ we’re all big girls and boys, and can make our own decisions here.

I believe in the tenet of ‘doing unto others’ ~ a moral value that is universal to nearly every major world religion (I don’t think that is a coincidence). I believe that there is true evil in this world as well as pure joy.

I try to live my life as an example of what I think a good person should aspire to be and try to pass that along to my children.

It hurts my soul to see what is being done today, throughout history really, in the name of God. We talk almost every day. I don’t think He’s too happy about it either. 

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. ~ Jonathan Swift (Irish author and satirist, 1667-1745)

Of all religions, Christianity is without a doubt the one that should inspire tolerance most, although, up to now, the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men. ~ Voltaire (French philosopher and writer, 1694-1778 )

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. ~ HH The Dalai Lama (Spiritual and political leader of the Tibetan people, born 1935)

(UPDATE: check out the cool bling I got! (It’s at the bottom of the page, and in ‘Start Here’ up top) Then check out how the other Huckdoll challenge takers ‘disconnected to connect.’)

Huckdoll threw down the gauntlet… double-dog dared everyone to ’step away from the computer.’ She taunted us all with this:

I want to know that it’s not all about the internet and that you’re all able and willing to just put your hands in the air and back away from the keyboards and remotes for just one hour.

She seems to think that there are other things in life than blogging, or reading blogs, or lurking around blogs. Things like children, spouses, books, romance, downtime, ‘me’ time… what was she thinking?

Since starting my blog, almost a year ago, I don’t remember if I’ve ever gone a single day without at least checking my blog for comments, or cruising my blogroll to read other posts, or… you name it, not a single day without getting on my computer for something.

Every morning the first thing I do is look at my e-mail to see if I received any comments during the night.

Kinda sad really.

She has a point and a very good one. I have become obsessed with this thing called Internet. I have become too concerned about how many comments I get, how many hits I get, whether I can maintain a certain level of readership. That’s not how it was supposed to be. This blog thing was just supposed to be a diversion, something simple I could do in an hour or so a week. No one told me I would be online for HOURS, well into the dead of night. 

So, what exactly does she want from me? Do I do something radical like get some freakin’ perspective? Do I find some sort of happy medium between total submersion and complete neglect ~ not with my family, my kids, or my husband… but with this terrible, awful, glorious, addiction called blogging.

Is there a patch for this? Or, is it better to just go cold turkey… face that glowing cyclops and say ‘not tonight dear, I have found someone better.’

This evening, I took that dare and shut down my computer, hit the power button on my cellphone and crackberry, even turned off the television. Huckdoll’s challenge was to stay ‘offline’ for only one hour… 60 minutes… 3,600 seconds… a lifetime!

Instead I spent that hour, plus some, with my family. I took my Girls for a walk, had dinner with my family  ~ ate at the table and not on trays in front of the television, curled up in the dark with a good book and lost myself in tales of the supernatural and macabre ~ and didn’t take a single photo to post along with this missive. I still got all itchy from not being attached to my computer by a firewire, but I’ve been told that it gets easier the more I do it.

Check out the other bloggers who stepped up and took the challenge. Just click on the awesome, hot button.

A saltwater fish found in the Gulf of Mexico and honored sea creature at the annual Boggy Bayou Mullet Festival in Niceville, Florida.

A hair style popular from the 1970s through the 1990s ~ ‘Business in the front, party in the back!’ At the height of it’s infamy, country singer Billy Ray Cyrus was the unofficial poster boy for this lopsided coif.

In a huge upset last week in the battle of the Bulldogs, California underdog Fresno State upset Georgia 6-1 to win the 2008 NCAA Division I Baseball National Championship - the college World Series. Not sure where Fresno pitcher Kris Tomlinson was going with this variation of the mullet, but it seems to have done the job. (Would this be called a ’skullet?’ ~ thanks for the suggestion Butch!)

I’ve got the itch to do some more changes… it’s been a while since I changed my template, so I’m going to experiment a little tonight. 

Tuesday, I will have a new look. It may just be a different header photo or something all together different. 

Let me know if you like it, or if you preferred something else… because you know, dear readers, it is all about you. 

Here’s a fun little trick for you. Most everyone is either left or right hand dominant. I have met very few people who are truly ambidextrous, but have known people who are right handed, but bat left in softball or baseball. I’m right handed, but when I train in taekwondo, my left leg is the stronger.

Did you know that you can also be left- or right-eyed? And, it doesn’t always follow along with being right- or left-handed. Like my legs, I am also left-eyed…

To find out which eye is dominate try this test:

1. Hold your arms out in front of you.
2. Make a triangle with your hands.
3. Look at an object that is at a distance through the triangle made by your hands.
   Focus on the object and not your hands.
4. Now close one of your eyes. If you still see the object with your left eye open you are left eyed. If you still see the object with your right eye open you are right eyed.

There are also ways to find out if you’re more right- or left-brain dominant. Each hemisphere of your brain controls different aspects of your thinking. The right side is more creative, the left more analytical. 

When JM was in elementary school she conducted this simple test as a science fair project to help determine if her subject was predominately right- or left-brain controlled.  Looking at this chart, read the color rather than the word… try to do this quickly and not stop between each word.  Example: on the first word say ‘red’ don’t read ‘blue.’

If you are right-brain dominate you will be able to ‘read’ the color, if you are left-brain dominate you will want to ‘read’ the word.

At the bottom of the post, there another short quiz to help you find out if you are in your right mind:
(when I took this, and tried to do the color chart, I found that I’m fairly evenly distributed… neither truly one or the other. Does that mean that the lights are on but no one’s home, because I’m not in my right mind, but there really is nothing ‘left’ either? )

You Are 50% Left Brained, 50% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you’re left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you’re right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

While out this morning walking The Girls, I saw that we had new neighbors in my community. Chances are that I will never know their name, never know if they have children, never know much of anything about them ~ unless I see them outside some day.

The only reason I know about these new neighbors is that the ‘For Sale’ sign in the front yard is down and different cars are in the driveway.

I’m not really a bad neighbor ~ I do know my next door neighbors to the right (the ones who bring me blueberries) and the ones to the left (the ones who have a lawn line fixation). I actually know many of my neighbors on the same street, but I can’t say that the peeps and I socialize with any of them. Hubs and I are some of the first to offer a hand if one of these neighbors need help, but all of us are mostly self-contained.

Now in my Internet community, at the social network where I’m most active, I’m right there when someone new signs in. I stop by with a pithy little welcome message, tell these new members I’m glad they are there, offer help getting settled in ~ I am all over that Welcome Wagon.

I know, I know… the anonymity makes welcoming these new ‘neighbors’ easier, less threatening. But,  it  wasn’t always like that when new people moved in to a ‘real’ community.

I can remember my mom baking a casserole or pie for neighbors. Going over to meet the new people, hoping they had kids my age so I could make friends.

When Hubs and I moved into our first house, one of our neighbors came over our first night there with a pie, still warm from the oven. I remember doing the same when more new people moved into our community. I just can’t pinpoint when all this changed. When did we become so immersed in our own lives that we can’t offer a decent welcome to someone moving within shouting distance from our home. 

When someone new moves in near you, what do you do to welcome them? Did one of your neighbors go out of their way to make you feel welcome when you first moved to your neighborhood?

Totally unrelated sidebar

(seriously, this has nothing to do with the first post)

The continuing saga of community signage that, while on the surface might seem unnecessary to the average person, apparently isn’t reaching it’s intended market.

  
Further proof that laws and ‘No Dumping’ signs do not apply to buttheads who can’t read. 

These good community stewards don’t want their own lawns marred by the presence of bagged trash (when they even bother to bag it), but think nothing of making the whole neighborhood look like a bunch of dumpster divers. 

Did you ever stop to think that when you make the whole neighborhood look bad, you make yourself look bad too? Next time, just put the bags in that stylish olive green trash can we were all given upon moving to this lovely neighborhood, and not out on the public lawn.

Thanks, and have a nice day!