My Bucket List

I've found something to go on my Bucket List.

I hope to never ever ever have to attend a funeral where there's caskets lined up like that. Ever.

People need to stagger their deaths.

My Attitude Is Improving

I have noticed in the past few hours that my poor attitude is improving, and it has a lot to do with interacting with people. Not the people who have made me angry or who have let me down this past week, but people who are just as busy as me and have hectic complicated lives.
You see, my outlook on things have been pretty bleak for the past seven days. I can actually pinpoint the moment when it went downhill, but I'm not airing that on the World Wide Web just yet.

To be pissy for seven days straight is very difficult. You have to ignore the pretty sunsets, the smiles on children's faces and the warm, reassuring feeling of a really good hug. Oh wait, I haven't had any of those....
Time for a hug.
It's been a lot of effort to ignore the sunsets because our neighbor to the West is on fire and it makes for some pretty spectacular reds and oranges.

And the children...well they're not smiling because they've got some pissy attitudes as well. It's not their fault.

My baby Shay turns 12 in two days and he's not happy about the whole birthday thing. Not because of puberty (he's there, by the way, and that makes me bummed out a little. o.k. I'm actually bummed out a lot) but he's unhappy because his dad promised a very cool present then backed out of that promise. Gee, thanks, dad. Now I have to pull a rabbit out of my rear and get this birthday out of the crapper. Maybe I can sneak him into Kokomo's. Lil Jon is playing there this weekend.

Pioneer Woman

It takes a lot of dedication and talent to have a website like Pioneer Woman's. She has the blog portion, the cooking portion, the home-schooling portion, the photography portion....and on and on and on. And she has a ranch to run on top of all that.
She is a beautiful, articulate mom of FOUR who went from city life to a very remote ranch with miles and miles of horses and cows and bulls.
And her recipes are simple yet gorgeous creations that you don't need a huge budget and enormous amount of skill to execute.
I adore her.
She got Bloggie of the Year.
She just wrote her own cook book.
I pre-ordered it on Amazon. It made me negative in my checking account. Oops.

Well then she posted a schedule of her book tour. Holy crap a book tour!
She will be three hours away from me in October. And guess what. I'm going. I'M GOING!!!!!!

Will I play it cool, like, "Whatever, Okie, I like your book but whatever...."

Or will I be truthful and just gush over her at the book store?

Maybe I'll show her my moon walk.

Hi Steve

How's it going?

Can Ya Do Something For Free For Me?

If only people were THAT honest when they approached me about stuff. Just tell me up front, how much of my free time is this little favor going to take?
Perhaps I need to be smarter about my answer, and include the response: "And what favor will I be getting in return?"

I get lots of requests from people, asking me to do things for them, things that will never pay and will never earn me anything more than frustration.

It's my own fault, for being someone who BELIEVES in volunteerism. I know if I can do a particular thing, to help someone out, I will do it. Only afterward feeling a bit put out because I failed to negotiate something fair in the deal. I never negotiate at all, I just do the favor and then later on I wonder why I spent so much of my time doing something for free.

That girl that cut my hair today; she asked to be paid when she was done. What? You mean this wasn't a FAVOR??? She was clever. She went straight over to the cash register after she hacked about 2 pounds of my hair off. I know some of the things I do for people isn't exactly worth the $16 that I was charged for my haircut, but it's at least worth a FAVOR in return. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. That kind of thing.

I just need to be better about getting scratched. Then I can stop complaining.