FLASHBACK 1995

*iA repeat because it's necessary...."

"i can see the russian army rollin' thru my head..."
the kids are at school. it's a beautiful fall day. i've cleaned the house...finished the laundry...gone to the grocery store. i have a few hours before the boys bust in from school. maybe i'll read a book? watch a movie? and then...flashing lights in the corner of my eye. i look at my dog. i can only see half her face. what?!! this is weird. i spend the rest of the day in bed...my head buried under a blanket to keep out the light. if i move...at all...i run to the bathroom to blow chunks. i am experiencing what samantha stephens mother-in-law used to call "a sick headache". UGH!!!
FLASH FORWARD september 29, 2012
the bk and i have a relaxing morning. noon (ish) we go into town for the applefest. we duck into the paddock for lunch. hmmmm...mel's face his blurry. i never noticed she had a blurry face before? i have no advil migraine (it's solubilized ibuprofen, which means it gets in your system faster than regular ibuprofen)...this is not good. i text danno..."please have advil or the osu game is gonna suck for me!". he meets me at the door with 3 advil and a promise to turn the music down during commercials. you went to the game day party with a migraine, you ask? ummmmm...yeah...i'm no scarlet!! 

as a migraine sufferer who refuses prescription drugs as much as possible...i have a little advice:

#1~advil migraine really works...and doesn't upset my stomach. it doesn't contain caffeine, which can help but can, also, be a culprit when it's in high doses...
#2~a trick my daddy suggested...and it really works...ICE CREAM!!! not long after he mentioned this i noticed the beginnings of a migraine (flashing lights, blurred vision, an adversity to light) and the bk bought me the biggest chocolate malt united dairy farmers has to offer. KABOOM!! problem solved. maybe it was the cold on my brain...maybe it was the caffeine in the chocolate...i don't know and i don't care. the full on migraine was averted AND i had a tasty treat!
#3~get to a dark room and nap. i really need to purchase a sleep mask but, until then, i just wrap my favorite blanket around my eyes.
and finally...
#4~stay off your computer!!! even if you've taken meds, the light and all the colors and words on your computer screen will strain you eyes, making the migraine 45000X worse than it needs to be.
and, last but not least:
#5~be a scarlet and skip game day. you don't want to be a debbie downer, and besides, you need to be following rule #3...

 

FLASHBACK 1976 *or possibly further*

 
REPEAT BECAUSE IT'S IMPORTANT:
"a very merry unbirthday to me...to you..."
i'm not sure when she started...my earliest memory of my grandma marge reading "alice in wonderland" to me was when i was 10. but we had just moved back after 4 years, so it's very possible she had been reading it to me before. she told me i reminded her of alice...i was easily distracted. 
FLASH FORWARD july 2004
grandma marge passed. we start going thru her scrapbook. we learn some very interesting things...she was on the ohio state homecoming court in 1938. what?! that's cool! she was a licensed pilot. what?!!!!!!!!!!! okay!! grandma!! how do you not mention these things to your granddaughter(s)??!! grandma lillie says it best "ladies never brag...and marge was a lady...". i picked up a copy of "alice in wonderland" soon after. i read it at least once a year (or did until i mis-placed my copy...time for a trip to the book store!! yay!! or better yet...someone can get me this louis vuitton edition from penguin publishing...thanks for bringing it to my attention paige!!!). it keeps her close to me.....
FLASH FORWARD today
today is "mad hatter day**"....today is a day that all the stuff we do everyday, that most people would consider sane (going to work, paying the bills, cleaning the house), is complete and utter madness...and all the stuff that makes us happy, that most people would consider madness (playing in the rain, singing at the top of our tone-deaf lungs, dancing with the devil in the pale moon light) would be deemed completely sane!! just for today...
so put on your favorite hat...and get out there and do something completely...sane!!

                                

 

a gallery of silly hats:

      

 

                          

                  

 

                         

 

                                   


**interesting factoid: in the illustrations, the hatter is always seen wearing a top hat with a slip reading "this style 10/6" (meaning that style hat cost 10 shilling sixpence)...so we here in america took it as a sign to act like the hatter on october 6...the english? yeah...they read the date backwards, which means they act like the hatter on june 10...since i like to write my dates backwards but am, in fact, american, i think i will act like a hatter on both dates...XD     

"dear dear diary...i wanna tell my secrets..."

FLASHBACK 2008

i sign up for facebook, even though my kids don't want me to be THAT mom. i immediately start updating my status. "i'm bored". "why am i up so early?". "i'm cold". ugh. really? is my life really that...boring? i need to spice it up a bit. so in comes the song lyrics and movie quotes. bored? "i thought i had mono for a whole year, once. turns out i was just really bored" (wayne's world). up to early? "i gotta get up eeeaarrllyyy in the mornin'...to find me another lover" (the gap band). cold? "cold? i'm freezing my royal rastafarian nay nays off" (cool runnings).

FLASH FORWARD today

i still use the occasional song lyric or movie quote, but i find it much more entertaining to put a fun spin on my real life: 

"dear old house in the middle of the woods,
why do you wait until Jamie Conover goes to the office before you start creaking and moaning? i'm pretty sure he's convinced it's my imagination or that i am completely insane, but you and i both know you're just mean. i would appreciate it if you would just hush. k?
thanks"

kind of a fun little diary.

today is "dear diary day". people have been keeping diaries, or journals, for simply ever. but, with our hectic lives, we find it difficult to do that much today. oh...but we do find time to send out a tweet or update our facebook statuses. guess what? that's just an electronic version of posting in a diary.

so here are a few words of advice from the self-proclaimed queen of facebook (i'm not really...or maybe i am...but i'm not...but...):

#1~update your status no more than 2 or 3 times, daily. any more than that and you fill up your friend's news feeds and that's kind of irritating. which brings me to:

#2~do you have a friend that is constantly updating their status, constantly complaining, or constantly posting pictures of peanut butter? confine them to a list. simply hover your cursor over their name, hover over "friends", and then uncheck "show in news feed". voila! now you only have to see their rantings when you go to their profile or the list you assigned them to.

#3~remember how i said "fun little diary"? let's keep it fun. your friends don't need to know what you had for dinner, how you prepared it and, then, how long it took to digest. we love you but we really don't need to know EVERYTHING! do not do that to us!

#4~don't post a cryptic status and then refuse to answer when your friends want to know what you're talking about. if you can't say it on facebook, it belongs in an ACTUAL diary, with an ACTUAL lock and key.

#5~don't be a debbie downer. an occasional complaint is fine. "my cat died today. i'm sad.". that is a legit complaint. an important journal entry. your friends want to know and offer sympathy. "life sucks", "i have a migraine", "i hate everybody". posted every single day. really? is your life that bad? probably not. if it is...maybe you should consider seeing a therapist. 

okay people. get out there and celebrate "dear diary day"! happy posting!!