Believe it or not, I’m never bored. Maybe it’s a result of having been chastised as a teenager for ever uttering the “B” word.
Instead I decided to make a case on how to avoid boredom. I give you–
Exhibit A: Writing blog posts.
Yes, any time I feel a tinge of ennui sneaking up on me I plop myself down in my favorite writing spot and just begin typing. Usually these posts end up perpetually stuck in my draft folder, but occasionally they see it to publication.
Exhibit B: Utilize the full potential of my pets.
Surely they were placed on earth to serve and amuse us.
No actual felines were harmed in the writing of this post.
Exhibit C: Make snarky comments on Facebook.
It really is too bad that snarkiness doesn’t pay better. Or anything.
Exhibit D: Explore Pinterest.
Honestly, if one can’t find something to pique his/her interest on Pinterest then he/she might not have a pulse, and should be administered CPR ASAP.
Exhibit E: Drive!
Drive to a new shopping center or explore a local tourist spot that you’ve never been to because you’re, well, a local. I still kick myself because the entire time I lived within 100 miles of Springfield, Illinois, I never visited the capitol building.
I believe I’ve made my point. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a nap.
Last night I posted the following post on my Facebook page:
A few people responded directly, but no one took me seriously. My friends know I have nowhere near a gazillion dollars. Right at this moment I barely have twenty dollars, and that has to last me all week.
The interesting thing that occurred following that post was the number of rather lascivious offers I received on my private message board. So many that I ended up deleting that app from my phone. Who knew that my itchy back could inspire so many perverted responses?
Back to my back. I cannot tell you just how agonizingly itchy it is. Apparently one of the side effects of withdrawing from the antidepressant Effexor is itchy skin–along with vivid nightmares and brain zaps. There isn’t much I can do about the last two, but I can put lotion on the offending body parts. At least the ones within reach.
Studly Doright was out of town last night, and he’s my go to lotion application expert. Without him I was reduced to all sorts of physical contortions that still left my back untreated. One of my Facebook friends (not a creep) suggested that I do the following:
” get a very thin dishtowel, lots of lotion. roll up the towel, lotion top to bottom, hold it as if you want to dry your back, like this / right top to bottom left, lotion side toward your back, and rub up and down. reapply lotion, switch hands, repeat.”
What a great plan, I thought. But what if I went a step further and got an old white tshirt, one of Studly’s of course, and squirted lotion all over the inside? Then I could just put the tshirt on and voilà, lotionwould magically be applied to my back!
This was not a terrible idea; although, I did end up with copious amounts of lotion in my hair. The important thing, though, was that my back was thoroughly moisturized and for a wonderfully, blessed time wasn’t driving me ape sh*t crazy.
In retrospect I should’ve used a button down shirt which would’ve prevented the whole lotion in the hair scenario. I’m now thinking of designing and patenting the exciting new MOISTURE SHIRT! Available where fine personal care items are sold.
Today I took a proactive stance. That’s something I seldom do, so applause might be in order. I’ll wait while you give me a standing O…. I purchased a product that should make applying lotion much simpler:
I gave it a trial run this evening, even though Studly is home. Honestly, this lotion applicator might be my new best friend. It worked exactly as advertised and doesn’t need any laundry done or dinners cooked. If it knows how to change a tire I might not need Studly at all.
I keep my blog fairly free of political posts. Oh, occasionally I’ll get riled up about something and spout off, but for the most part Praying For Eyebrowz is a peace-filled zone.
My Facebook feed is just the opposite in a schizophrenic sort of way. It’s filled with dozens of political memes along with a smattering of cat videos. I tried to go without posting political stuff on my feed, but I’m almost addicted.
A few days ago I posted this meme. I think it’s hysterical and makes light of the whole wacky far right’s insistence that the President is a Muslim in cahoots with radical jihadists.
In my comments section I found a nifty conversation between two extreme right wing conspiracy theorists who waxed eloquently about the evils of the current administration bringing about a New World Order. On and on they went using ridiculously inflammatory language intended to get a reaction from me or my friends. And a beautiful thing happened:
We ignored them.
No one responded to these two. It was beautiful. We could’ve gotten all righteous and gone on the attack, but decided to let it go, and the conspiracy theory nut jobs played out like a couple of dud firecrackers.
To celebrate this lesson learned I am going to declare my Facebook page and my blog politics free zones for the next two weeks. That’s my Christmas gift to friends and family. Yes, among other things I’m a bit of a cheapskate.
A couple of days ago I received a notification from the good folks at WordPress informing me that I’d reached the important 1,000 post milestone. Considering that I’ve been blogging for 506 days, that’s not too bad.
The stat I’d love to see reach 1,000 is “number of followers,” but that one breaks down like this:
Facebook 411
Twitter 90
Tumblr 40
WordPress 398
Total: 939
A great many of those are overlapping, so I’m still way short of the 1,000 I covet.
What’s a girl got to do? Ride a horse naked through the local village? It worked for Lady Godiva. I hear she had tons of followers. I’d better start growing my hair. This pixie cut isn’t going to come close to covering all of my assets.
In the real world I have a lovely friend who has a gift. Janie Christie Heniford writes the most beautiful, inspirational, heart warming posts and shares them on Facebook during the month of November.
I look forward to these posts. They make me laugh, cry, think, and nod my head in ardent agreement. Today I asked if she’d be okay with me sharing her post on Praying for Eyebrowz. Of course then I wondered if I was savvy enough to do that.
To my delight, Janie consented. Now let’s see if I can get this done. I’ll be sure to share any comments with Janie. It’s a real pleasure to share Janie’s gift with my readers. Enjoy. And as always, peace, people.
Janie’s photo Janie Christie Heniford at Sooner Lake
I am thankful today, for changes. Changes of all kinds, actually. Circumstances. location, mind, weather, leadership, looks, understanding, time, hairstyles, position, jobs, almost everything.
One of the first times that i can remember thinking about how things change is when i was a young girl. To join the Christian church, one of the things asked of me by our pastor, is, “are you willing to give as much of yourself as you know and understand, to as much of God as you know and understand?”. I was smart enough to realize that i might not know every SINGLE thing in the world, but I thought that I knew God. I did. I knew all that my sweet and untried young self could really know. I grew to realize, of course, that one’s walk with God is dynamic, in as much as our experiences and understanding of life are dynamic.
When Rick and I decided to retire to Oklahoma, we chose it mostly to be near our family, but also because of the seasons here. We found that we missed the definite four seasons. Our circumstances will change some with retirement, a fixed income, a lower income, and hopefully (this is the plan anyway) lower expenses.
Over the years our health will change, our abilities will change, absolutely our looks will change. It’s all a good thing. It is likely that I will never love the storms here, but as we have weathered the storms in our lives, we will stand fast in the storms here. We will be prepared. We will take precautions. I will learn to accept them as part of my life. Today as I was out driving, I noticed that I was following right beside the back end of a front. The clouds further out were ominous, but the ones up close were breaking up, beginning to let light through, and a much different pattern than the clouds further out. Closer they held the promise of sunshine, and beauty. Further out they threatened storms.
Our lives surely don’t follow a line that is clearcut like a front line. The clouds of life are different day to day, and minute to minute, and the shapes that change are our own. I imagined today, as i watched the clouds, even took pictures of them as they spoke so deeply to me, that maybe that is part of what I have learned about God. There are storms, and there are fresh new beginnings. There must be changes wrought within as we battle the storms, to allow the fresh new starts to come through.
Yep. Sometimes i figure things out when i travel alone. I’m a lucky, lucky girl to have that opportunity.
Thanks to social media and WordPress I’ve become friends with a large number of people who* I’ve never actually met face to face. (*Should that be whom? I’m sure one of my friends will let me know.)
I enjoy these friendships formed over creative writing, political leanings, and witty comments. In many ways they are as important to me as friendships formed in old-fashioned ways, such as over a shared love of hopscotch in elementary school or while playing hooky together in junior high (not that I ever did that, of course).
Social media friends tend to be extremely forthright and plain-spoken. If one thinks you’re full of cow manure or a post is weak they’re likely to tell you, knowing they’ll never have to look you in the eye. If a fellow blogger doesn’t “like” or comment on a post their silence might indicate that they didn’t care for the piece or that they didn’t have time to actually read it. The Pollyanna in me always believes it to be the latter.
A friend I don’t know with whom I play Words With Friends (Roy S.) went missing from the game for more than a week, and I began to worry about him. Because the game is our only link, I had no way to inquire after him. Finally this week he played a word and in chat said he’d been unwell for the past few days. Whew! Of course I’d imagined poor Roy S. dangling from a cliff by one hand while trying frantically to type “a-p-r-a-x-i-a” with the other.
Similarly, if I don’t hear or read something from a blogger I follow I start feeling anxious. My imagination goes on overdrive and trust me, in my mind some of you have met spectacular ends. I’m so very relieved when I see a post from your site, and your make-believe death gets saved in my future fiction file.
This leads to the following question: Shouldn’t there be a way of making sure the friends we don’t know are ok? Maybe I’ll invent an app that generates one final note on social media upon one’s death. Something like:
Hey there. Leslie’s dead. She wanted you to know that your support meant so much. Here’s one last poem composed in advance of her demise to be shared on this occasion.
Gone
By Leslie aka Nana
Life was so wonderful
But my time has come,
No one thought I was sick
Guess they feel pretty dumb.
But I lived a full life
Full of all that is good,
Now sit and weep for me
Like any real friend would.
Leslie knew this wasn’t much of a poem, but, hey she was really sick.
How is a pariah like a piranha?
Neither are welcome dinner guests.
Give social media credit
where credit is due.
Pariah status becomes easy
for users to accrue.
Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook,
and Instagram, too
Provide pulpits for all
who have hatred to spew.
I have a gift when it comes to giving out too much information, a.k.a. TMI. My brain is hollering, “For the love of God, STOP!” while my mouth keeps spouting all the details of my life that are better left untouched, unknown, and uncovered.
In the good and/or bad old days if one gave out TMI it often wasn’t a big deal, unless one happened to be in front of a television audience. The TMI didn’t travel far or for any distance. However, today’s social media makes sharing TMI much too easy and in some ways dangerous.
Take yesterday, for example. My 10-year-old grandaughter started a pet care service. She created a professional looking sign, made copies, and posted them all around her small town Illinois neighborhood. I immediately copied the photo and posted it on my Facebook page. Thank goodness my youngest brother pointed out that it might not be wise to post the phone number of a preteen girl on Facebook, and I promptly deleted it.
Usually, though, my tendency is to provide entirely too much information about myself. Case in point, I typed this post on my iPhone. In the john. Would someone fetch me some t.p.? TMI?
i found a little troll today
angry as could be
on facebook he attacked
my views
without even knowing me.
i let him spew his venom
calmy held my own
then chained him underneath
his bridge
where all good trolls belong.
Well, I blocked the obnoxious little twerp, which is almost the same thing.
Praying for Eyebrowz 