12 Days of Christmas … in my world

December 8, 2017February 9, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 14 Comments

It all started with, “Are you ready for Christmas?” My brain went into overdrive and again I was paralyzed by too many thoughts at once. The things I LOVE about Christmas are the same things I HATE about Christmas.

I’m going try to make this a “12 of the same things I love and hate about Christmas thing” in the spirit of the 12 Days of Christmas Song. So here goes my Brain Dump.

The First Day of Christmas

I Love that people TRY to be kind to or to do things for others that they don’t normally take the time to do. Many people get in the “spirit” of volunteering. I Love the Spirit of Christmas, but I hate that it only happens one day a year. Why aren’t people nice to other people every day? Why don’t people have that SPIRIT EVERY SINGLE DAY?!?!?

The Second Day of Christmas

Gift giving. When I was younger, I used to love giving gifts. As a child, I loved making those horrible little crafts for my parents and friends. Once I got a job, I was happy to be able to purchase things for my friends and parents that they would not normally have spent the time or money on for themselves. Then I had children. I loved the joy they had looking at all the presents under the tree, thinking that for at least one moment in their lives I was able to make everything perfect. Not because I had spent $100’s of dollars, they would have been happy with just a box at that age. Then the hate part kicked in. Somehow gift giving became a requirement and/or stressful. The gifts became more expensive and then the kids just wanted gift cards or money. My parents on the other hand wouldn’t let me buy them presents. They started saying sensible shit like, “I have everything I need”, or “What we would really like is more time with you”. Damn parents always raising that “How to be a good person bar”….grrrrrr

The Third Day of Christmas

The other side of the coin. The negative nelly’s come out of the woodwork. Comments like, “Seriously, you’re putting up your tree in October” start appearing all over social media. If you have done that, do me a favor and ask yourself “Why do you care?” Are you angry that someone is excited and wants to celebrate? Don’t get me wrong, I have thought that October is maybe a bit early, but that is MY OPINION. I don’t go slamming people on Facebook about it. YAH YOU!!!! In reality, I wish people had a reason to be happy everyday, so I will just be happy for you that putting up your tree in October makes you happy.

The Fourth Day of Christmas

Family Time. I love spending time with my family. I love that some companies give their employees time off to spend time with their families. I HATE that some people don’t have a family to spend time with, and that they only time some people are able to make the time to see their families is on Christmas.

The Fifth Day of Christmas

I HATE that I won’t be able to spend Christmas with my grandmother this year. She was my favorite person in the entire world. (even smarter than my parents 😉 ) I miss her everyday. I LOVE that I had such an incredible person in my life, and that I have so many wonderful memories with her. I even loved that she called me “Awwwsshhhluck”. I have no idea how to spell that or what it actually means, but she thought it meant “shithead” or troublemaker in German, so I will stick with that.

The Sixth Day of Christmas

This is a lot of work, I don’t think I am going to continue counting days. Before I climb off my soapbox though, I have a favor to ask of anyone reading this. Please remember that everyone is different and has their own experiences with the holidays, some good some bad. If you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything please. In return, I am offering everyone a gift of my time. If you are feeling sad or lonely, or just need to vent give me a shout out. I hope everyone enjoys their Holidays! Again, if you are struggling I am here. I can’t promise to fix it, but you won’t be alone. …

Do you look like your pet?

December 3, 2017February 9, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 10 Comments

As I laid my head on my “dog pillow” the other day, I noticed that our hair consists of the same colors (blonde and black). It made me recall a meme, post, article, or video that I have seen that showed numerous pictures of dogs and their owners with very scary resemblances. I began to wonder if there were other similarities… while my mouth is always open like hers seems to be, ( I talk ALOT) I think I have a bit better control at keeping my tongue inside my mouth. Then again, I also think people that know me in real life have plenty of pictures of me sticking my tongue out. (Not sure if it counts that I stick my tongue out on purpose, I think my dogs tongue just hangs out.) I don’t think my ears are nearly as big, or my nose for that matter, but we definitely have the matching hair color thing going on. By the way, my GSD’s name is SNUFF.

My other dog is D.O.G. (not dog, but each letter individually, D.O.G). I think she thinks her name is MOVE, GET OFF THE COUCH, and YOU’VE GOT TO BE FRICKING KIDDING ME, though. She looks at me whenever I say those things so maybe, poor D.O.G.

Actually there is nothing poor about D.O.G., she is spoiled rotten. She is allowed on my bed, she gets lifted into the car, she even sits in the front seat, and for being the smaller of the two (three if you count me) she is the ruler of the “bitches”.

I will save the discussion of my three cats for another day, but Foxy, the white one, rules the whole house. As usual I digress….

So about D.O.G…..

I have always been an animal lover, but the last dog I had was hit by a car, and killed while a friend was “petsitting”. (That was almost 15 years ago.) It took me seven years before I could bring myself to get another dog, and the initial reason I got her was for companionship when my MS put me in a wheelchair. Over the years, we have become codependent. I don’t like to sleep without her and she doesn’t like me leaving the house without her. So I guess it works?

OMG am I ADHD!!! The point is, do I look like D.O.G? If you ever saw me “precoffee” I am sure I do.

I love how her teeth are spaced like that! And ok maybe we both have a face that only a mother could love 🙂

So that’s it! That’s my life in a nutshell. Beautiful children and animals, coffee and cigarettes, and lots of horrible prescriptions for a nasty monster of a disease. MS really sucks!

When I was telling a friend about the do pets look like their owners meme, she says, “Oh yes, I can totally see you and snuff…..you even cock your head to the side like she does when someone is talking to you and you don’t understand”…..SMH FML and all that.

Thank you all for reading along. One day I will actually get to the point of why I started this blog and talk about how to cope with MS, depression, ADHD, etc, but for now I am having so much fun meeting new people and those things just plain suck to think about.

Do you have any pets? Do you look like your pets? Do you know anyone who does? Please feel free to share them to my facebook page if you do. 🙂

Get your mind right, be present (borrowed)

November 16, 2017February 9, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 4 Comments

Yesterday I posted about slowing down and needing a break. I thought that technology was supposed to make things easier for us all?!?!? Well with every good thing there is inevitably bad too right? For example, the picture above is of a shelf in my office filled with photo albums that I had made for my daughters back when scrapbooking was all the rage. I have another shelf (almost as big) filled with scrapbooking SUPPLIES. You know scissors that cut every shape imaginable, corners, borders, acid free papers, photo safe glue, and boxes of unsorted pictures.

Ok Grace, here goes nothing! Maybe you should scan the photo albums onto a hard drive and then just give each of the girls a hard drive for Christmas? Sounds like a plan, until the scanner which is supposed to be wireless decides that it needs to be hardwired to function correctly. Yep NO WAY is that cord gonna reach. SON OF A BITCH!…. So I spent the next 3 hours rearranging my office so that the cord would reach. (Yes I realize that I could use my laptop to do this but then I would have to figure out how to download all the drivers for my 1000 year old scanner, because my laptop doesn’t have a disk drive) It seemed easier to move the office around.

I also thought about uploading them all to google drive and letting the girls download them on their own but my google drive is full. How the hell could that be, I don’t even know how to use the damn thing, how could it be full?!?!? (Another hour spent investigating that) Apparently, every picture I have taken with my “Mom you need to have a smart phone, smart phone” was automatically backed up to the cloud. 19736 of them to be exact!!! Yes even the ones I thought I had deleted 3x because I never wanted to share them with anyone. I could literally #feelthegreyhairgrowing.

I decided to take a break, grab a cup of coffee, and relax with more technology?!?!? (Hey no one said I was very smart.) “Let’s check out if the link you tried to put on twitter worked”…… Oh look a squirrel! Some how I ended up reading a blog, then another, then another. (We won’t comment on the amount of time I spent doing this or the fact that I literally spit/dripped/ no full on choked on my coffee while reading a couple of them.) But the last one I read made me STOP. I actually read it 2x, not because it was hard to follow, the writer is actually quite humorous, and one of her earlier posts caused the coffee incident. I had to re read it because it contained a lot of good information that I needed to think about considering my post from yesterday. Her post was titled, Get Your Mind Right. Be Present. If you have a minute, check it out by clicking the link.

I’m gonna leave it at that. No more thinking about tomorrow, or yesterday for the evening. No more facebook, or instagram, or twitter etc.