Little House memories

In reading class right now we are reading the novel On the Banks of Plum Creek.  It is a cross curricular unit with Minnesota history where we are learning about the settlers.  It couldn’t more perfectly tie into what we are learning if I had written it expressly for the purpose.  But that really isn’t the point of what I want to talk about today.  Today, as I was reading aloud to them, and getting way too excited about the book as I read, it brought me back to why I love these books so much.

When I read aloud this book, or read to myself any of the Little House books, it takes me back to my childhood.  I can remember like it was yesterday how I would anxiously wait for the bus to roll up in the dust in front of our house.  I would run as quickly as I could up the driveway so that I could dash downstairs and get Little House turned on before it was over.  I watched every single episode, over and over, I think I may have every episode virtually memorized.  I grew up feeling like Laura, Mary, Nellie and Almonzo were my close personal friends and I wanted nothing more to meet Laura who I related to so much.  I still have that theme song stuck in my head and can picture the opening scene with Pa and Ma in the wagon as the music slowly begins.  I remember crying when Bunny died or laughing when Laura put the pepper in Nellie’s meal for Almonzo.  Little House books are like a time machine to my childhood.  

I’m trying to figure out if any other books take me back the way these do.  Gone With the Wind is probably my all time favorite book.  I remember reading it in high school and everyone giving me a hard time about the big, thick book I was reading.  I remember loving the Chronicles of Narnia, but couldn’t even tell you what age I read them.  I have a couple of tiny picture books that I can picture the cupboard they were stored in at my grandmother’s and remember grabbing them out and reading them over and over again.  I remember Mr. Tickle and Little Miss Giggles and all their friends.  I will never forget the Judy Blume book, Forever, and how we all were embarrassed to check it out of the library because of it being about the “s-e-x” word, but all waiting our turn to read it.  I remember Fudge, Ramona and Beezus, Dallas and Soda Pop, Piggy, Charlotte, and those kids from Sweet Valley High.  I can remember a ton of books from my childhood, but none take me back to the smells, the sounds and the sights the way that Little House on the Prairie does.  

I know I can’t expect my students to be as enthralled with the series as I am, but it does give me immense joy when some of them pick up the rest of the series.  And I love watching their faces as we share a particularly funny part or read about the nastiness of the grasshopper plague.  I guess I can’t expect that 30 years from now they will see a Little House book and instantly be transported back to Ms K’s sixth grade classroom, but I hope that each and everyone of my students, and especially my own kids, has a book that touches them like Little House has touched my life.  

Leggings as pants and who should/can wear them...

It was brought to my attention that someone was commenting about my leggings and my friend who is a consultant for LulaRoe and sells leggings.  They didn't have a problem with them per se - just didn't think they were appropriate to wear out of the house.  More like pajamas.  My friend also had someone comment on her sale posts about how she hated the look of leggings and would never wear them.  (And since that time has fallen in love with them and purchased from her, FTW) Then the other day I had someone tell me that "big" people shouldn't wear leggings.  Okay.  So here's my humble opinion and if you don't like it, then I'm okay with that too.  Feel free to click away.

#1 - Yep, I've said it in the past and I'll say it again, leggings are not pants.  But I use them as pants.  Especially when I work out.  So I'm a big fat hypocrite.  Mostly I have a problem with my daughters wearing leggings as pants and showing body parts to teenage boys that should be left to said boys' imaginations.  Nobody wants to look at my old parts and I want to be comfortable when I'm working out.  When I wear them out and about I tend to wear tunics, long sweaters, long sweatshirts, etc... over them.  I'm 40 not 14, and I most certainly don't have that body any more.  I wish I had the confidence to wear leggings with shorter clothes on tops as true "pants".  I do not.

#2 - Okay.  This next part is hard to write so I'm doing a lot of deep breathing and pausing here.  Sorry if it gets disjointed, but I think people need to hear this.  I have been in two relationships where I was teased about my weight.  Maybe "tease" isn't quite the right term.  One of them referred to my body as "repulsive".  I was told I should get plastic surgery.  I was told I was fat.  Made jokes about fat people and shopping at Mason City Tent and Awning, etc...  I got VERY self conscious.  I wore big baggy clothes, stopped wearing makeup, kind of gave up on my hair, etc...  Even though I work out, there are areas of my body that will never look like they did when I was younger.  I had two kids and, I'm not gonna lie, I gained a TON of weight with both.  And for a while I allowed myself to be heavier than I can even imagine today.  I had zero self respect.  Zero.  I work my ass off (literally) to try to be a respectable weight.  I never imagined I could wear the tighter fitting clothes I wear today out in public.  But my friend got me started with leggings and they make me feel pretty.  And comfy.  And I'm not going back.  I'm going to assume the people that comment on how I look are just not happy with themselves like I was so unhappy with myself. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and I'm not going to judge you.  I'm actually going to pray that you find the peace I have found with how my body looks and can feel happy with yourself.  Hopefully you will pay that forward the next time you feel the urge to judge someone else.

#3 - I regret not telling this directly to the person who commented on "big" people wearing leggings.  But we need to stop.  We need to stop worrying about what others are wearing no matter what the heck size they are.  There are enough people tearing us down, including ourselves in our own heads.   We need to stand up for each other, support each other and build each other up.  If wearing leggings makes you feel comfortable and pretty then I say go for it.  If wearing a pair of dress pants and 14 layers makes you feel comfortable and pretty, more power to you.  I don't care if you're a size 2 or a size 32, wear what makes you feel confident, comfortable and pretty.  And rock it.  If you want my honest opinion, as long as modesty is play, I could give a crap less what you wear.  But I have found I am far more likely to notice and comment "cute leggings" now that I have a love of them myself.  I probably won't comment "cute khakis" - but they are probably very nice!

#4 - I love LulaRoe.  I also buy leggings from Walmart, Shopko and even Goodwill.  I am not and will never be a clothes snob.  I can't afford it.  My primary place to shop is used or "previously owned".  I'm okay with that and I'm okay with that fact that you may not be.  You're entitled to your own opinion, but you don't get to judge my friends and I, and I will tell you that next time.  I am super proud of my friend that is a LuLaRoe consultant.  She's changing people's lives.  If you would have told me that leggings and clothes could change someone's life, I would have laughed at you.  But I've seen it and I've lived it.  That's what I think Lula is about, inspiring people to be confident, comfortable (both in their clothes and in their own skin) and supporting each other as we break out of our comfy shells!  If you don't want to try, believe me I understand.  But please don't judge those of us who do.  

So to close, I'm going to answer my title "Leggings as pants and who should/can wear them", the answer is anyone and everyone who wants to.  And we should all be okay with that. 

Convenience store food

Yesterday’s question of the day on KROC was about favorite convenience store food.  Apparently Casey’s is one of the top pizza sellers in the nation and their pizza ranks right up there as a favorite.  I’m not gonna lie, I do love Casey’s pizza and their breadsticks.  They tend to put plenty of cheese on, the crust is decent and it’s greasy.  Yes.  I said it.  I love greasy pizza.  I’m not talking about every day.  Okay. Lying.  If I could get away with eating it every day, I would.  

But… that said. I don’t think it is my favorite per se.  If I had to pick the one food I most like to grab and go it would have to be the cheese stuffed breadsticks at Kwik Trip, no sauce needed.  I have a serious love affair with those things. Funny(ish) story.  The other day, Libby and I were racing to get somewhere and stopped at a Kwik Trip to grab something quick on the way.  I went right for my old standby (which happens to be Libby’s favorite too so it is always a race to see who will get them first.) I get there and sadly, no breadsticks.  Of course I have to be dramatic and forget that I have a voice that carries, “No breadsticks!  What am going to do?  I’ve been looking forward to them! They are the only thing I like here, etc…”  This kind gentleman hands me his little baggie of breadsticks, apparently he had chosen the last ones, and says “here, you can have them.”  Horrified I tell him no thanks, that I was just being silly.  And he pushed them at me again saying, “no really - they aren’t my favorite and it sounds like they are yours.”  So I did end up getting my breadsticks after all.  And bonus - I totally embarrassed my teenage daughter!

I think all my favorite convenience store foods are Kwik Trip foods.  I had a garlic chicken sandwich one day that was amazing.  I love their soft pretzels and yogurt parfaits.  I wouldn’t turn down an egg roll or chicken roller bite.  The cheesecurds are pretty good but the cheesy tator tot things are amazing!  They had these delicious apple pie wrapped in a tortilla things that are good.  Their breakfast croissants are yummy and their muffins - oh my goodness!  It’s a good thing I try not to eat there very often as I have a lot of favorites that aren’t the most healthy of choices.  

What’s your favorite convenience store food?  

New Clothes!

A friend of mine letters clothing, well and other stuff too.  She has had some really cool designs pop up on her Facebook page and I saw one that I had to have.  I’ve been wanting DE clothing anyway, since my entire wardrobe is virtually black/silver/teal Falcon wear.  I really have two items I can wear to the kids’ events and I don’t want other DE parents thinking I own two shirts.  And this was even more perfect because of the message.  

So my order came in the mail and I was SO excited.  But I wanted to surprise Sophie.  So I waited.  The perfect moment came at her home game last night.  I walked in and she was warming up.  She didn’t notice my shirt until all of sudden she glances up from the bench.  Of course I had to sit up straight and point to my shirt.  She starts shaking her head and laughing.  Then I turn around and her sister, my accomplice, points to the back and gives a thumbs up.  If I remember correctly she slaps herself on the forehead and really starts shaking her head and mouthing “oh no!” but smiling all the way.  

After noticing my new shirt she had the BEST game of the year, so I think it’s my new lucky shirt.  And the next best part is that I got to pair it with my new leggings.  These leggings were also lettered by the same friend and sport the message “This basketball mom loves her basketball girl”.  It was her first attempt at lettering leggings and they turned out fantastic.  I’m so happy!  And despite the fact that I think she was a little bit embarrassed, I think Sophie was happy too! That’s the best part.  As much as my girls make me smile, I love to try to make them smile too.

Love is Easy

It’s all about life experiences, isn’t it?  Sometimes, if you follow social media, it seems like all men and women know how to do is complain about their spouses.  Oh, unless it is Valentine’s Day or their spouse spends some extravagant amount of money on a gift for them.  The rest of the time it’s complain, complain, complain.  For the longest time I thought that was because marriage, and relationships in general, sucked.  I thought relationships were hard.  I thought relationships were hard work and constantly forgiving each other.  I thought it was hard to be happy and you had to work at it every single day.  I mean, that was my life experiences with relationships.  Say hurtful things.  Do hurtful things.  Ask for forgiveness.  Rinse and repeat.  

People say to me now, why did you let men treat you that way.  Really?  Explain to me how I knew it could be any other way.  Our life experiences can cement what we believe to be true.  And for every quote or article that says that you should be treated one way with love and respect, there is another one that says relationships are hard work, you can’t be too hard on your partner, we all make mistakes, you need to be forgiving, etc…  You can literally find an article, an expert, or a quote to explain and justify any behavior.  So I was left with being pretty sure relationships were hard, couples treat each other like crap but love each other deep down, you’re supposed to forgive each other, and not to be a quitter.  Believe me, as I've said before, if I could invent a time machine and go back and kick younger me's ass, I would.

I remember one of my friends getting married a couple of years ago.  She was so excited.  And it wasn’t the young, naive love of the kids getting married to their first love.  She was my age, had been in plenty of relationships and still wanted to marry this guy.  I jokingly, but secretly seriously, asked her if she was crazy.  I told her how much easier it was to walk away if you didn’t have to get divorced and pay lawyers, divide assets, etc…  At this point in my life after one failed marriage and a pretty miserable second relationship I was beyond cynical about love and marriage.  She, without pausing even a heartbeat, said yes.  100%, without a doubt, yes.  She was excited.  He was her best friend and she was happier than she had ever been.  She couldn’t wait to have her wedding day and spend the rest of her life with him.  I didn’t believe her.  I thought, “just wait - that will all change.”  But guess what, here we are a couple years later and they are still happily married. Huh?  What’s up with that?  What was I doing wrong?

Turns out I wasn’t doing anything wrong.  I was with the wrong people.  Years ago I wrote down my ideal man.  The perfect man criteria.  Mostly because certain people told me that the person I was looking for wasn’t possible, a fairy tale. There are some pretty tough things to do on that list.  I know you’re probably thinking “tall, dark and handsome” was on there, but honestly - I didn’t even put any physical characteristics.  Isn’t that kind of interesting?  You think it so important to someone, yourself even, and then it isn’t something that comes to mind when you sit down to describe the perfect mate.  

I’m way too embarrassed to share all of them, but some that seem less “crawl in a hole and hide” are:

*gives affection - holds hands, hugs, etc…

*financially stable - has a job

*good dad

*does not lie

*sense of humor

*not crude or judgmental

*is respectful

*social and well liked

*active

*is proud of me and acknowledges me

Okay - wow, stopping there.  But you get the idea.  All personality traits and ways I wanted to be treated.  And nowhere on the list does it say “treat me like a princess” or “give me everything I ask for” which is what guys seem to think every woman wants. But again - I was sure what I wanted, what I hoped and dreamed about, didn’t exist.  I was told it didn’t. It was the stuff for movies, especially the Disney kind.  So I made concessions.  I settled.  I justified.  I rationalized.  I explained things away.

Here’s the truth people, or at least as I have discovered.  Love doesn’t have to be hard.  Relationships don’t have to be hard work.  Being happy shouldn’t be a chore or a research project.  Couples don’t have to treat each other like crap.  And it doesn’t have to be a constant battle of forgive and try to forget.  Not with the right person.  With the right person, loving is easy.  Trusting is easy.  Teasing is fun.  And there are lots of happy relationships out there. People just don't share them nearly enough. The other day Tim shared a post to me from a Facebook page called "Happily Married" where people can buy clothing showing how much they love their partner. It was super sweet. But what made my day was reading through the comments. Dozens of people professing their love and sharing how much they loved their wives and husbands, sharing how sexy and attractive they found their partner, etc... It was so heart warming and eye opening.

There is some work involved.  But it is easy work.  And maybe a person has to go through the failed relationships and be treated poorly to realize what it takes to be in a good relationship.  It’s not expecting the person to be perfect, and recognizing that you aren’t perfect either.  But it is looking for the good in that person every single day, even on the day they forget your anniversary or leave muddy prints on the kitchen floor.  It is being appreciative of the little things, the many ways we say “I love you” without ever using those 3 words.  It’s thinking back to how you felt when you first fell in love.  It’s butterflies when they kiss you and watching them sleep at night knowing everything is okay as long as they are happy.    

I hope that you all are happy or find your happy.  It may be with someone else and it may be alone.  Maybe that’s the biggest step of all, being willing to be happy alone rather than be in a toxic relationship.  I’m not telling everyone to go out and get divorced!  But please, if you’re unhappy, scared, feeling like less of a person; evaluate your relationship, talk to your partner, get help or leave.  People ask me how you can get divorced when you have kids.  I didn’t want to either.  But I didn’t want my girls growing up thinking that what they saw was how a relationship should be and how they should be treated in the future.  I wanted a better relationship future for them. This was my pledge to myself moving forward after the last failed relationship. It's good advice for all people, young and old.

I wish there was a flow chart for relationships; if this happens, choose this, if that happens, choose that.  Unfortunately there isn’t.  You just have to keep making the right choices for you and your loved ones, messing up along the way, getting back up and trying again. But no matter the outcome of your relationships, please always remember...

Trigger Words

So.  I’m going to lay out some words or phrases that I really hate.  Not so much the denotation of the words.  But the connotation behind them.  In other words, not the words you say, the words you MEAN.  

For example.  WHATEVER.  Merriam Webster provides us with the following definition.

• 1a :  anything or everything that <take whatever you want>b :  no matter what <whatever he says, they won't believe him>c :  whatnot <enjoys skiing, hiking, or whatever>

Yeah, umm.. no.  Maybe that is whatever started to mean or was the original denotation of the word.  But it does not mean that today.  As I have told my kids, there is a little “f--- you” in every “whatever”.   Think about it.  And use it very. Very. Carefully. Sophie still needs to learn this one. Apparently so does Tim. Poor guy tried to use it with the actual denotation and it didn't get taken that way.

Another one that I warned Tim about from the get go is FINE.  I’ve used it.  You’ve used it.  And I would gather that 90% of the time that you tell people things are “fine”, things are decidely not “fine”.  Now on rare occurrences, I may actually use fine the way Merriam Webster intended.  But for the most part, it is definitely more a sign of “oh shit, things are not going well”.

How about bae?  Why the hell did this even become a “word” that people use?  According to Urban Dictionary it means the following:

"Bae," Urban Dictionary says, is an acronym that stands for "before anyone else," or a shortened version of baby or babe, another word for sweetie, and, mostly unrelated, poop in Danish

Have we Americans gotten so lazy we need to shorten 4 letter one syllable words like “babe”.  Really?  And do we really need to go around calling someone we love the Danish word for poop?  This is one that needs to disappear.  Soon.  And we can all look back and laugh at how silly everyone was.  

Anyone else have trigger words?  Nails on a chalkboard, do not use that one around me, pet peeve words?

Dating Someone Younger

Dating someone younger than you can be a lot of fun, but it also sets you up for a lifetime of teasing and jokes.  Some of them I bring on and think of myself even.  For example… when we had furnace trouble, they came out to fix it.  The furnace guy commented that it was getting older and we should think of replacing it.  I asked Tim if he responded that in our house we don’t get rid of things just because they are a little “older”.  There is also the time I asked Tim where he was back before I was married and dating in college.  And then I remembered that he was in high school still and a relationship with a college student probably would have been frowned upon.  

But my personal favorites (tongue in cheek) are the quips my kids and Tim delight in sharing with  me.  

1. Cougar is a popular theme.  Libby was even kind enough to bring back a stuffed one for me as a souvenir from her band trip last year.  A stuffed cougar for me, I’m so lucky.  
2. Or every time I talk about something from when I was younger and Tim says, “that’s before my time, I don’t remember that.”  
3. Any and all “old” references get giggles and glances at me.
4. Going over Tay’s spelling list and the work prehistoric comes up.  I bet you can guess where that went.
5. OR how about when I post how Tim didn’t even know who Princess Leia was.  Backfired a little when several people’s response was that he’s “too young” to know.  Which as we all know is SO not fair as everyone aged 8 to 80 knows who Princess Leia was unless they live under a rock.
6. Every "robbing the cradle" reference.

My friend that designs tshirts just made these for another couple. Guess I'm not the only lucky woman who snagged a younger man.  Go me!

Now some of you are thinking, how many years separate these two?  She must be a LOT older than him.  Three years people, three short years.  Which would be a lot if I was 18 and he was 15, but at 40 and 37, I think it is not nearly worthy of the teasing I have had to endure the past few months.  

I love this line from an article on dating someone younger, “A birth certificate has nothing to do with ensuring  happiness to a partner, what does matter is a foundation based on love, respect, honesty, and shared dreams.” So there kids and Tim.  So there.