things you post that nobody gives a damn about

Sweet Dreams

Mar

I’ve been trying to get pictures of the kids while they sleep, you know, when they’re cute and can’t talk. It’s been tricky because I am lazy and can rarely get myself up before they wake up. It’s too dark in their rooms at night, so early morning is the only option. But yesterday, Dutch crawled into my bed and went back to sleep after I got up, and in my foggy haze morning brain a little light switch flipped.

Things are picking up. Spring has come a month early, I guess everywhere in the US. Our trees are blossoming and it was 79 degrees today. It’s still March. That is weird for PA. With the warmer weather the calendar is losing wiggle room. I find it hard to prioritize, since everything is part of my job. Me time, or kids activities, or house projects? And the daily stuff that has to happen every day. Daily. Day in, day out. Ev-e-ry day. Every one. I hate you, laundry. Which is why I also considered becoming a nudist family today. Blargh. I think I can blame it all on today. It was another one of the busy-all-day-but-have-nothing-to-show-for-it days. Coincidentally, it seems to be paired with a rambling day.

Well, since this is already pointless, let me tell you that I spend a fair amount of time thinking about Friday Night Lights. I think about them as if they were my real life friends. It’s not normal. Please let me have another Tim Riggins dream. Also, the boys are baking cakes right now for the Fella Cake Bake. It’s part of the Blue & Gold dinner (cub scouts) and I just want to stuff my face with cake. I want to eat cake and watch FNL all night – consider it my happiness project. Which brings me to my next free association:

MB, I love you like a fat kid loves cake. Sorry about the last two minutes of your life. (That’s for everybody, not just MB. MB has years he can’t get back. YEARS.)

{ 8 comments }

Hey Girl

Jan

Not being on FB means that I’m usually the last to catch onto internet memes. Which is fine. But please tell me you’ve all seen the Hey Girl stuff floating around on Pinterest?

Started by the Feminist Ryan Gosling tumblr – writer Danielle Henderson features “feminist theory flashcards from your favorite sensitive movie dude-turned-meme.” And then the crafty people caught on.

I always call MB over to check them out. And then last night I wondered aloud if Mr. Gosling was aware of this particular fan obsession. He is – and he’s pretty cute when he’s asked to read them.

Let this post be an indicator of how productive and focused I am today.

{ 9 comments }

I’m a Loser Baby

Oct

exhibit number one:

I love hats. Let’s all wear more hats, okay?

The rainy Fall day wardrobe. Secrets to my success: greasy hair and no make up. And an undeniably bad attitude about everything.

What is wrong with me? Sometimes the things I do for this blog are stupid. I can’t figure out what compels me. Here I am, standing in the rain and mud, listening to chickens, while my 9 year old tries to balance his umbrella on his neck and follow my styling instructions, “get my whole body – the hat and the boots.” How do we feel about this pose I’ve got going on? I was trying to hide my face which turned into trying too hard. Seriously? Is this what my life has come to? Photo shoots in my weedy backyard next to the dilapidated canoe? I used to roll my eyes at these people and now, well…..

Yet, here I am, still posting. I should not make these decisions late at night. I think that bell sound is the Don’t Hit Publish warning. The great thing about scheduling your postings is that sometimes you forget and then it’s just a happy little surprise the next day. Kind of like a blog walk of shame.

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Mad Dad Airlines

Sep

I’m Angry Baker, and I’m an aggressive driver.

I didn’t really plan to be this way. It just kind of happened.

See, when I was a kid, my brothers and I used to joke about flying Mad Dad Airlines. (We joked to hide our terror.) My dad was frequently maniacal behind the wheel. He would wave his angry hands, call people names, speed up next to the offender, and work tirelessly to teach the other guy a lesson. You get the idea. I hated this as a kid. It made me nervous and quite scared on occasion. I swore I would never let driving a car get the best of me.

Do you like how I am decisively placing blame? Me too.

Well, 25 years later, guess who flies the Angry Baker Skies? I like to think that I’m not as intense as my dad was, but every once in a while, MB will mutter something like, Bad Mad Schmairlines, or something. (Don’t worry Dad, you’ll always be my favorite pilot.)

And there was the one time he outright told me I had to stop freaking out in the car – for the sake of the children (my poor sheltered little souls). I don’t know that I would call it freaking out, it’s more like being assertive. So, I drive a little too fast. I gesture frequently. I indicate where people have come from – or perhaps where I’d like them to go. Sometimes I give them pet names. I just know where I’m going and someone is almost always in my way. My kids (the poor sheltered ones) think that “idiot” means another fellow driver.

“Look at all these idiots mom!”

“That’s right kiddos, they’re allllllll idiots,”

Don’t even get me started on people that don’t know how to park. (Which reminds me, exactly when are we going to get our hovercrafts? We children of the 80s grew up knowing we would have flying cars. Somebody get on that.)

This is where I sigh and slump my shoulders. Another tally for Angry Baker’s bad side.

Cookies, anyone?

{ 6 comments }

Flaky

Jul

Dear Unreliable People of the World,

I am not talking about pie crust. I am talking about you and how you get away with everything. My friends and I had a good chat about you lot the other night. I’m really torn about it. Either I’m deeply resentful that I have to pick up slack for you all the time, or I’m maddened by jealousy. Oh, the freedom of blowing off anything you want!

The reasons are never quite clear; you are overwhelmed, you are forgetful, you are more important and/or busier than anyone else in the world, you do not know how to operate a calendar or a clock. I get it, it’s tough.

I think the thing that gets me the most is how you’ve got the rest of us trained. We don’t even think about asking you to do stuff anymore, and we’re not even bothered by it. It’s like you’ve got this cute little quirk. “Oh, well, so-n-so’s unreliable so let’s not saddle her with the job. Let’s find somebody else that is dependable.” Once you own the title, we give you a free pass. Okay, I’m firmly on the jealousy side now.

I don’t know, I just wanted to say that I’m onto you. I’m onto you and considering joining your ranks. Is there a class or an online course? How do you work up the nerve to never, ever follow through?

Sincerely,

Angry Baker

Oh, and PS -We always tell you the wrong time to make sure you actually show up on time.

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Have You Hugged a Teacher Today?

Jun

The nail biting is over. The Academy remains intact (as it is) for next year. The school board approved the budget and although relieved, we’re a bit worried about how this is going to play out next year.

Let me pull out my handy soapbox.

Public education is in such desperate need of overhaul. Nothing will convince you more of this than attending some of your school district board meetings. Elected officials are like the USA network. You know, “Characters Welcome.” Take popcorn for the show, it’ll be that much more enjoyable. For an extra challenge, try to count how many different types of “math” are being utilized.

I appreciate that they’ve got a hard job to do, I’m also a bit concerned with how out of touch they are with the children they serve. Even if you live in a affluent area, I would suggest checking out your school district meetings and the decisions going on there. It’s frightening.

I’m happy for my kids, but this is bittersweet. What they did to save the budget was dig into the pockets of the teachers. They agreed to a pay freeze, no raises for anybody. They got rid of positions – Assistant Principals and Special Ed were hit the hardest. Not to mention the hundreds of teachers that have been furloughed. Our teachers get crap pay to begin with and they do so much for our kids. We are never going to turn this around if we continue to view our educators as disposable people.

So that’s the official news friends. Talk about anti-climatic, eh? Pretend you care. We’ve got five weeks to get over it and squander our summer away.

Don’t worry, I’m good at squandering.

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Hood Walk

Jun

Some would say that the weather around here isn’t great. Everybody likes to complain about the grey days, the rain, the snow, the rain, and the grey days. This may be true. I may even participate in the murmuring on occasion, but then the season changes. SPRING and FALL are where it’s at. My neighborhood rocks these two verbs.

A few weeks ago, Dutch and I took a stroll through the hood to spot our favorite blossoming trees and to soak in the sun. Dutch loves Popcorn trees. Me too.

It’s kind of hard to explain where we live to people that have lived exclusively in the western US. We’re not in the city limits, but our street address says that we are. We live in what would be considered the first suburbs created in the early 1900s. But anyone that visits knows this is not what we call the suburbs anymore. The city is really divided up into neighborhoods and we’re part of the eastern cluster of neighborhoods. So yeah, we’re city dwellers compared to most residential areas. Not like Manhattan, but definitely urban. I really enjoy being close to the universities (we’ve got a lot), the museums, and the boutique shopping areas. No strip malls around here. And yo, I’m the master at parallel parking a mini-van. You need to see why I don’t want to move to the suburbs. [click to continue…]

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Un-post-able

May

There are actually a lot of drafts I have sitting around that I never post. Can you believe I actually edit myself that much? Yeah, me neither. I write when the mood strikes and then I save drafts and schedule them for posting, so I don’t always write everyday. I actually trash a lot of stuff too. I’m really trying not to mention here that I know some people who are totally annoyed with the frequency of my posting. But I think they’ve ditched me (phewsh!), so no more of me wasting their time. Also, sorry about the last 20 seconds, you’ll never get that back.

Here’s something I’ve had sitting around. Enjoy. Or not. [click to continue…]

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Hot or Not

Jan

Remember that circa 2002? My little brother would spend hours rating babes. I think it still exists doesn’t it? Humanity at its finest.

So it’s not often that I look at someone and think, “I want to look just like you.” In fact, while I admire the good looks and fortune of many women, I’m mostly okay with me (excepting my skin- I hate all of you with flawless, pore-less skin). When Lands End Canvas launched last year there was an onslaught of catalogs. An onslaught of THE redhead to be exact.

I was completely fascinated by her. She is gorgeous. A rare beauty. I want to go to there. I decided I should tell MB that I wanted to be someone else. I pulled out my most recent mag, selected my favorite shot and said, “this is what I want to look like.” He squinted and looked at me to gauge my seriousness. “I’m serious.”

“Um, she has a lot of freckles.”

“Are you sayin you don’t like freckles to your freckled wife?”

“No, absolutely not. I don’t know, it’s just that I find her kind of weird looking and it’s odd to me that you want to look like her.”

“Well, she is beautiful FYI.” I say this in my 16 yr old so-there voice. “She doesn’t look like everybody else out there and that’s what I find appealing.”

It wasn’t just MB though. A few months later I confessed my body-swapping desires with some of my buddies. Same reaction. They thought she was kind of “weird” looking. Really? I just don’t know how anyone can think she’s not hot. I’m not sure what this says about me, other than I have always wanted to be a real redhead. And apparently I want to look weird.

{ 14 comments }

Angry Baker’s Closet

Sep

A while back I admitted one of my lame-o talents: Organizing. (talent? symptom? you decide.) Yes, organizing. I would have preferred multi-tasking. (If only for the respect of a certain person, who teases me mercilessly about my inability.) The thing about organizing is figuring out the way you live, think about, and utilize your space. I saw an excellent example of this over on DALS the other day. She gave readers a peek at her command center in the kitchen. Is it totally dorky that I find this stuff kind of fun? I thought I would let you take a peek in my closet to see some of my solutions:

[click to continue…]

{ 21 comments }

things you post that nobody gives a damn about

Sweet Dreams

Hey Girl

I’m a Loser Baby

Mad Dad Airlines

Flaky

Have You Hugged a Teacher Today?

Hood Walk

Un-post-able

Hot or Not

Angry Baker’s Closet

Find stuff

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