Have you just ever paused and thought about the funny, odd and so typical things we sometimes automatically do or think or say? What do you take for granted about yourself and others? What's the phrase you use all the time that others associate with you?
I started thinking about this - in a seriously random way - during a long drive one night when I had nothing else to do ...
1. How you can imagine something great and work (and work) long and hard to make that something wonderful happen - a particular something - and you believe with all your heart that one day, ONE day, it will. And then it does ... and you're, like, O.M.G. and you can't believe it! (that even sounds silly. Can't believe I typed O.M.G. - I'm older than 13!) You say things like, "I can't BELIEVE this is true" and a whole lot more phrases like that. Just as if you didn't really work that hard to begin with. Yes, some timing and some luck were involved, but in the moment of realization, you forget the hard work and can't believe "your luck." #I KNEW Courtney's book would sell. And now ... I have to pinch myself to believe that something so awesome has actually happened!
2. How did I survive so many years without a GPS. As direction-challenged as I am, it's a wonder I'm even here.
3. Which reminds me ... I tried to use one of those "You Are Here" directories at a city mall recently. And apparently it lied. Or (possibly) I wasn't where it said I was ...
4. How many times in a day do I ask myself, "What did I do with my phone?" And how many times is it lying on the same arm of a particular chair (where it totally blends in)?
5. So ... then how many times do I use the landline to locate my cell phone in the house? Yeah.
6.How many times in his life has the son said, "Trust me, Mom."
7. Corollary: How many times has the same son told me to get a MAC. "Macs are better." (Trust me, Mom.)
8. How will the daughter feel the day Fed Ex drops that big box of Faking Normal ARCs from HarperTeen at her door? And sees her name on the spine.
9. How will I feel - really feel - the first time I walk into a bookstore or a library and spy Courtney C. Stevens on the spine of a book? (I will definitely make certain it's facing OUT!)
10. Have you ever thought how incredible e-readers are ... really? As a child, I haunted the library and bought as many paperbacks by my favorite authors as my parents would allow; as an adult I have a book-filled library in my home (I have been accused of hoarding books ... nooooo!) I could never have even imagined such a marvelous thing as a child ... so surreal! But I love to read; in fact, I MUST read every day (like a 'fix' for a drug addiction). So I will always love books - the smell and the feel and the hunt for them - but any device that facilitates my love of reading AND saves space gets a thumbs up from me! It is the written word that counts, not the manner in which it is delivered.
11. Having said that ... my dream job would have to be in a library (surrounded by books but without using a cash register). Soooo ... guess that should have occurred to me before I'd spent nearly 30 years in a classroom that was NOT a library. You think?
12. There's the fact that I would love to visit foreign countries - see amazing sights - join in all kinds of activies I've never done before - but I don't like to travel. Neither by bus, nor train, nor plane and sometimes, not even by car ... how about inventing 'teleporting' someone? Anyone?
13. If I have to travel 8 hours in a car, there better be a beach at the end of it ...
14. We had a Blue Moon in August - it's the second full moon in a month. Who the heck thought it should be called blue? It's not blue. So why? A Blue Moon only happens once in a ... well, a blue moon. There won't be another one until the year 2015.
15. I love to work outside, especially with flowers and shrubs, planting, weeding, dreaming about end results. BUT ... I hate to get my hands dirty, and I can't live with dirt under my fingernails. #gardengloves
16. I think about knees alot. Mine are ... aging (that might be putting it kindly). So, I started thinking about those Little League boys and softball girls who are catchers. The Daughter was a catcher in a summer league (starting at age 5), in middle school, on a traveling team as a teen, in high school and in college. I wince when I think about the continuous squatting and jumping up it takes to throw down to first. And the toll on knees. I don't have that excuse.
17. The sisters of those boys who played baseball in the Little League World Series had on tee-shirts that said, "I don't have a LIFE. My brother plays baseball." True. They were grinning and hamming it up for the TV cameras, but I bet they don't always think it's funny. Traveling teams require a lot of dedicated time, and it affects the whole family. #BeenThere
18. I am no athlete. REALLY not an athletic bone in my body.
I didn't participate in any sport during my childhood, unless riding a bike counts. Neither a team sport nor an individual one, and I hid when intramural teams were being formed at school. Klutz, no eye-hand coordination, no flexibility, no body awareness; zero, zilch. So why was I able to strap on a pair of shoe skates (the kind that require a skate key to fit) on my third birthday and ... skate. Very easily, my mother says. I loved it and skated during my whole childhood and teen years - on sidewalks, in our concrete floored basement, at the occasional rink. I even skated as a teacher with my students in PE for six weeks every year (and I won't tell you how old I was the last time I did it). And what's more, why could I ride a skateboard? They were introduced the summer before my sophomore year of high school, and I lived on a hill. I woke up every summer morning to the sound of ball bearings on pavement and couldn't wait to get on my board. No tricks, just plain balancing and riding down the hill way too fast. But you'd think ... maybe if I could do those two things, then maybe I could learn some other sport or something mildly athletic. But no. It is not to be.
19. Have you ever wondered about those contestants on Wheel of Fortune? I worry about them. They are always married to a 'WONDERFUL husband/wife' and their children are without fail 'AMAZING.' Some of them, for heaven's sake, can't even name their children without stumbling over the names ... but they're amazing! I just want Pat Sayjak tell them to use a thesaurus ... get some new adjectives.
20. I think about Extremes. They happen. Last spring we had major flooding in our area, surrounded as we are by the river on three sides. Homes and families were affected as well as many farms and crops. And this year ... major drought. Hardly any rain between the middle of March through the first of September. We finally got a little more than two inches of rain over Labor Day weekend and had to thank a hurricane for that. Farmers have lost most of their corn crop; the verdict is still out on the soybeans. Extremes, two seasons in a row. It affects everyone, those who grow and those who consume.
Just a few things to ramble on about, to think about and ponder.
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