The Thin Line Between Love and Fake

***I've been trying to finish this post for over a week, but struggled because I didn't want the tone to be...off. Hopefully this came out the way I intended. 

The tricky thing about keeping it real is this: sometimes there are people who challenge that. It isn't humanly possible to like every single person ever even if you are the nicest person in the world. I mean, everyone probably likes me because I'm awesome, but I'm above average. I want to be nice to people, its not realistic to act like a catty high school girl and just be a total bitch to people because I find them annoying. But I don't want to be fake. Serious dilemma, right?

I'm struggling to find the balance between nice/friendly and fake. I can't be rude, cause I'm an adult and also my father's daughter so I can't help myself but talk to strangers and random people I meet, but I don't want to like have a big slumber party and braid each other's hair and tell them all my secrets. Do they make a card that says "Let's just be acquaintances"? Cause if not, I'm calling up Hallmark right now. 

There have been a couple of times in my life when I was friendly with someone, talked to them, even hung out with them, only to find out later that they didn't like me/talked crap about me. That made me weary, unsure of my friendships. What if none of the people who I called my friends were, in fact, my friends? What if they were just putting on a show, not brave enough to tell me what they really thought of me? Most of these incidents occured in high school, since that is the time in everyone's life when they're most unsure of who they are. Teenagers are immature to say the least, and some of them think that it takes putting others down to feel better about themselves. I don't want to be one of those people, but does that mean I can't laugh at the clueless lady who has her skirt tucked into her pantyhose?

There is a difference between talking about people when they're not there and talking crap about people who aren't there. But its a tricky one. I'd like to say that I never say anything that I wouldn't say to someone's face, but aren't we all guilty of saying not-so-nice stuff every once in awhile. That's where it gets into a gray area, can you be someone's friend if you occasionally voice your negative opinions about them? Of course you are going to have some negative opinions, but should you voice them?

I kind of, hesitantly, wonder what other people think of me. Do they think positive things? Or negative? Their opinions don't really impact how I'm going to live my life, but if someone doesn't like me and I consider them my friend, I'd kind of like to know. You know, so I can cease being their friend. Cause they don't actually like me.

I realized this morning that we are aware of how other people see us at such a young age. Today was crazy hair day at school, and Alana was scared. She didn't want her hair to be TOO CRAZY because even in kindergarten she is scared that people will laugh at her. I made her hair moderately crazy cause what I had planned was really crazy and took her to school. When she got out of the car she looked across the street, and because she did not immediately see anyone else with crazy hair she panicked a little. No one else has crazy hair! I'm gonna look stupid! She's 6, and she's worried about looking dumb. That's how early we start to care about other people's opinions. In freaking kindergarten.


I want to be friendly, and I will be, but the last thing I want to be is fake. At the same time, if disliking someone because I find them annoying even though I've never actually had a conversation with them is wrong, then I don't want to be right.

Pre-vacation thriftiness

I wrote this last year right before we went on vacation. It pretty much sums up how I'm feeling right now, so I'm resharing for anyone who hasn't read it.

Its only 27 days until we go to Disneyland but from where I'm sitting that seems like an eternity away. This week in particular is dragging on forever. We should have our tax refund deposited in our bank account Friday (I'm keeping my fingers crossed) and then we can make our reservations and go shopping for some new vacation clothes!

I get a case of cheapness when shopping right before vacation. I'm super hesitant to spend any money because I would rather have that money to spend on vacation. There is a reason for my condition - we'll call it pre-vacation thriftiness. The summer when I was 16 I had a job at McDonald's where I earned a slaves wage of $5.15 an hour. I had to really work hard for every stupid dollar I had. Regardless of this I spent all of my money on crap. I had no car, no bills, no worries.

Anyways, we were about to go on vacation to lots of destinations: boring family reunion, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas for a day or two and finally San Diego where we only really went to the beach and overrated San Diego Zoo. I got my paycheck a couple days before we were going to leave and it was probably like $250, not a lot but at that age it seems like a small fortune. All of the vacation preparations were made: we had boiled lots of chicken for sandwiches and packed some of our crap and rented a van to separate my youngest brothers on the endless road trip. Honestly if we didn't separate them they would fight constantly. So then we go to Walmart in Sierra Vista for a couple last minute things. We didn't yet have a Walmart in Benson so going to Sierra Vista was like a special treat. 

So we get to Walmart and I went across the parking lot and spent just a little bit of my small fortune at Miller's Outpost (now its called Anchor Blue). Nothing to worry about, I have $250, how could I possibly run out of money? Then Melissa and Nicole and I went back over to Walmart to join our parents, who were stocking up on cheap crap to feed us so they could avoid going to restaurants while on vacation. While we were there I figured I could also use a few new things for our trip. Maybe some scented lotion, some facewash, lipgloss that I could not possibly live without. Just the necessities. I also bought some really stupid looking hats for me and Melissa. Why didn't anyone tell us we looked like idiots? We wore those in pictures! So I get to the checkout with my basket full of crap that no one needs and guess how much I spent. Like $200. It was the day before vacation and I had $20 left. No payday in sight. My fortune was gone in a matter of minutes, with nothing to show for it but ugly hats, grapefruit lotion and overall shorts.

The next two weeks left me strategizing on how to ration out $20 on souvenirs or any other crap that I wanted. I ended up with postcards and an apple tart at the the Grand Canyon: $5. Then more postcards at Las Vegas: $1. Even more postcards in Hollywood and a cheap crappy keychain at the San Diego Zoo (which broke like 2 weeks later) : $8. A few random vending machine candy bars and sodas: about $6. Lesson learned not to blow all of your money right before you go on vacation: Priceless.

I'm not perfect

I'm not perfect. So sue me.

I don't fold laundry right out of the dryer, even though my mother-in-law insists that's how it should be done. It sits. On top of the dryer. For 3 - 5 days. On average.

I sometimes dream of assassinating Wow Wow Wubbzy. Usually about the tenth time we watch him in a 24 hour period.

Sometimes I think it would be easier to throw away the dirty dishes and buy new ones.

I find it hard to fake an interest in football. I don't care where Patrick Crayton is going.

I've eaten food I dropped on the floor. And I've let my kids eat it too. Five second rule still works right?

I don't wash my hair everyday. I don't always even shower everyday.

I don't always think other people's babies are cute. Rule of thumb: If you're not related to me I won't necessarily think your baby is cute. But I won't say its cute unless it is. No lies about baby cuteness. And I won't say something else either to avoid saying they're cute. She really takes your breath away. Or You don't see a baby like that everyday. If the kids not cute, I will remain silent. I guess cuteness is a matter of opinion. Everyone thinks their own baby is the cutest. I just happen to be right.

Yesterday I ate 4 granola bars before noon. They're too much like candy. Is it necessary to cover them in chocolate?

I said I hate Facebook and then I signed up for my own. Curiousity about other people's lives just got the best of me I guess.

Right now I'm doing this blog post instead of homework. My brain can only handle so much thinking in one 24-hour period.

I return at least half the gifts that my kids or I receive. I'm really picky. Sometimes I feel guilty but then I rationalize that the gift-giver would want me to enjoy the present, even if I'm just using the store credit as the present to buy something I like better.

I really want to go to Disneyland again next year. Even if that means spending half of our tax returns again. My ladies will only be small for a short time, and I want to go on as many vacations as possible with them.

Ava is making me rethink my previous opinion on kid leashes. As soon as you set her down she takes off. If we do go to Disneyland I am so buying one.

This is the second post I've done this week where all I did was list things. I guess I'm too lazy to write an actual post, I'd rather just list random thoughts. To be fair I've had this post saved in draft since the beginning of September, I just decided to post it today. I added some stuff and called it a day. So there.

Stuck-up

Some people think I'm stuck-up. Maybe I am, just a little. But not as bad as I could be.

I prefer to think of it as having high standards. I'm trying not to look down my nose at people as often, but people make it really hard. Its their fault. Not mine. I'm innocent till proven guilty, right?

Being stuck-up just comes naturally to me. And the funny part is I'm way more stuck-up now than I used to be. And people thought I was stuck-up in high school. They should see me now.

In high school I wasn't really even stuck-up. Just shy and mildly socially awkward. I was dorky, not stuck-up.

Now I'm stuck-up. I look at people in front of me in line at Walmart and my most of the time I wonder if they got dressed in the dark. Not that I'm a fashion guru, but my shorts aren't in my butt crack. And my feet don't hang off the end of my shoes. And I don't have a fanny pack.

I know I shouldn't judge people and make assumptions. Blah blah blah.

If people at Walmart weren't dressed like such weirdos, then I could restrain myself a little more. There's even a website dedicated to how tacky people who shop at Walmart dress. Its an epidemic.

Its not just me judging people, its everyone with a camera phone and an opinion. So there.

Did I shave my legs for this?

So I don't know about everyone else, but I started shaving my legs when I was like eleven. I just couldn't take their hairy-ness anymore.

Not that they were even that hairy. I have blonde hair so therefore I'm lucky enough to have blonde leg hair.

But I wanted my pale white chicken legs to be smooth and touchable.

The only razor I had access to was my dad's. It was a cheap single blade Bic razor, with no moisturizing strip or anything. Just a plastic handle, a blade and a piece of metal over the blade.

So I locked the bathroom door and gave it a shot. I don't recall if I used some kind of shaving cream, but I'm thinking I didn't.

My calves were the hairiest part, so I started with them.

Remember the previously mentioned chicken-ness of my legs. It was an understatement. My legs are skinny now, but when I was eleven they were like twigs. So therefore I had boney shins. Really boney.

I was in the bathroom, by myself, with a cheap razor and a vendetta against my leg hair. Nothing left to do but try to eliminate all blonde leg hair immediately.

The problem with boney legs and cheap razors is that when you combine them with a girl who is shaving her legs for the first time you have a recipe for disaster.

I shaved the skin off of the front of BOTH of my shins. Not just one, but BOTH. I don't know how I managed to repeat the same mistakes from the first leg on the second leg, but I did. I must've pressed so hard with my cheap razor that I cut my skin off with the hair.

The main problem with the skin being missing from both of my shins was that I now had to explain it to my dad. Or wear pants till it healed. I'm pretty sure I made up some far-fetched story about hitting my legs on the door. I don't know if he bought it, but he didn't say anything.

After that I didn't shave my legs again for at least a year.

No one ever told me that shaving your legs is a fine art. You have to learn just the right angles to turn the razor, the right amount of pressure to apply to not shave your skin off and what to do to not get razor burn. Plus, getting all the hair off of your knees takes lots of practice.

Now I have a Venus razor, which I appreciate so much since my first razor experience left me scarred for life (not literally). Its next to impossible to cut myself with it so I no longer have to explain 9 inch cuts on my shins.

How long is too long?

I put off folding laundry for at least a week and a half.

Long enough so that all of my kitchen towels were either dirty or waiting to be folded.

Long enough so that Alana had a pile of socks and underwear as tall as her folded on the kitchen table this morning. So did I. Ava only had 3 1/2 pairs of socks so she was in better shape than us.

Long enough so that for the past 4 days I had to dig around in laundry baskets to find pajamas for both of my kids to wear to bed.

Good thing I finally got up off my butt and folded them. It made my life a little more organized.

Lurking

I admit it. I'm a lurker. I look at random people's blogs who I don't know and will never meet.

I don't do it with bad intentions. Some of the funniest blogs I've found are people I don't know. They share my same weird sense of humor. Thats rare in the small town I live in. Sometimes people don't know if I'm joking or not so they don't know what to say. I want to tell them to loosen up, don't take everything so seriously. I was actually told at my last job that people didn't know whether I was serious or not so I should try and watch what I say. Alrighty then.

Sometimes when I'm looking at blogger I find myself with four or five windows open. I was looking at someone's blog that I know or that I went to high school with, then I click on one of their friends or relatives and keep clicking on anything that sparks my interest and end up with some random person who lives in Utah that I've never met. Or I'm looking at one of the blogs that my sister follows and I end up looking at everyone in her list, then people in their lists and by six degrees of separation I end up looking at someone's blog that I do actually know. Its a complicated process.

Then David will look at the computer monitor and ask whose blog I'm reading. Then I have to tell him I don't know. Cause I don't. I don't even know how I ended up looking at it.

I don't know if these people mind me looking at their blog, but I figure if they didn't want random people who they may or may not know looking at their blog they would've made it private. I don't mean anything by looking at it, they just have cute kids or funny stories, so I'm intrigued.

Sometimes I wonder if people I don't know are reading my blog. I wonder what they think. I know my sarcasm doesn't translate on paper as well as it does when I'm in person. If they've never met me they don't know how crazy my sense of humor is. They don't know that I'm secretly a Democrat living in a town of Republicans. Shhh.

I really don't mind if people look at my blog. I don't take the time out of my day for one person to read it. There's nothing in it that's so private I wouldn't want anyone to know, or else I wouldn't put it on the internet. Nothing's secret on the internet. Why do you think people's naked pictures always get leaked? Duh. They put them on the internet and somebody found them. There are no naked pictures of me anywhere on the internet so I'm safe.

I don't even mind if people I don't know leave comments. It would be nice to have some comments on here once in a while. People I know don't even leave comments. They are lurkers too. We are all guilty of lurking.

Whether you like it or not

I just cut open a bottle of lotion. I took a kitchen knife and sawed it in half. There was still plenty of lotion in there and I was unwilling to throw it away or buy a new bottle until I used it. Then I took the two halves and put them in a sandwich bag.

Everytime I'm at my dad's house I tell the kids not to lean on the edges of the table, they're only held on with pins. (The edges didn't come off when we were kids and we leaned on it all the time).

I also tell all the kids to quit going in and out. Don't stand with the fridge door open, pick something and close it.

Before I know it I will be washing and reusing sandwich and freezer bags. Then I'll start using cool whip and butter containers as Tupperware. Eventually I will start taking bags of boiled chicken and bread with me on vacation instead of eating at restaurants.

Yes, its true. Its inevitable. We all eventually turn into our parents. Whether we're cutting open bottles of lotion or putting leftovers in a cool whip container, we can't help ourselves. It will happen to you eventually too. Don't try to fight it.

I lost count

Friday was my 20? birthday. I'm tired of keeping track of my age since all it does is become a number that keeps getting bigger and bigger. Before I know it I'll be 30 then 40 and its all downhill from there. Maybe not all down hill, but close enough. So from now on I'm staying at 25 and not counting anymore. Late 20's are overrated, I prefer to keep my age group at mid 20's. Maybe I'll find the fountain of youth or something in the mean time. As you can see I already have so many candles on my cake I require the assistance of three year olds to blow them out.

Lazy Tuesday

As a stay at home mom there are just some days that I lack the motivation to change anyone, especially myself, out of their pajamas. What is the point of getting dressed every day if I have no intention of leaving the house? It does save on laundry just a little because if I'm too lazy to change my ladies out of what they wore to bed the night before then I have a couple less outfits to wash next time I do laundry. Sometimes Ava doesn't give me a choice about changing her because her diaper leaks and I can't in good conscience leave her in poopy clothes all day. That kind of crosses the line.

Nine times out of ten I put them in their clothes and comb Alana's hair even though we won't see the light of day. The statistic for me is probably a lot worse though. I'm gonna estimate that I get dressed about 60% of the time. Its not that I don't shower, its just that after I shower I put on clean pajamas, no makeup and just dry my hair. Drying my hair doesn't improve it much since without the aid of a flat iron its texture leaves a lot to be desired.

In a couple of years when Alana goes to school I will have to improve on my lazy days because theres no way I'm gonna be that lady who looks like she just rolled out of bed taking my kid to school. Not in a million years will I ever be some frumpy looking housewife at the grocery store with baby food in my hair and holes and stains on my clothes. If I even attempt to go to Walmart without makeup or looking less than glamourous I always without fail see someone I know. And that person always looks like they have put some sort of effort into their appearance. I will just have to be lazy while I can still get away with it.

Sisters

My 2 hot ladies Alana and Ava are just so cute! They are such good sisters right now. Alana is always insisting that she get to hold her baby sister although at this point its more Ava just laying across her lap unless I prop her up next to her in the chair or on the couch. Ava just looks up at Alana and smiles. They really like each other right now.

I'm sure they'll fight when they get older, that's what siblings do. Its easier for them to get along right now since Ava is not old enough to want to play with Alana's toys so there are zero sharing issues. At some point Alana is gonna want someone to blame stuff on too and who is an easier target than your sibling. If you're an only child and something goes wrong, goes missing or gets broken you're the only suspect, but with a sister the blame is split and you can just deny, deny, deny.

I may have blamed my sister for stuff when I was young. (Not an admission of guilt). When a couple of Barbies mysteriously showed up with super short hair and my mom asked who did it, I pointed the finger at Nicole. Sorry. How was I supposed to know that if you cut Barbie's hair it doesn't look cute. Not at all. It sticks up in every direction and you can see every little hole where they shoved the hair into her little plastic head. Lesson learned.

I know all of these sibling rivalries are in the future for our family. Lots of Mom, she's looking at me funny. Mom, she pinched me. Mom, she won't do what I want her to do. Why does she get a candy bar and I don't? How come she never gets blamed for everything? Its not fair! I guess I will have to deal with it and referee the fights as they come along. Until then I'm gonna enjoy the peace and quiet.