Red!'s 200th Post!

This post is the 200th post published on Red!  I'm so proud of me!

Today, as I'm busy making some behind-the-scenes corrections around the site, I thought I'd leave you all with a Top 10 Best Of list, naming the 10 most popular Red! posts to date.  Enjoy!

#10: The Slightly-Belated, Long-Awaited Proposition 8 Blog Post!

“Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite sex couples are superior to same sex couples.” [U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker]

That's right, the judge (rightly, I believe) has ruled that people cannot enact laws, even with a majority vote, that have no rational or practical basis and are based entirely on the prejudice of the majority against a minority group with a different belief set.

Keep reading --->

#9: Wiser By The Day

"I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday." ~Abraham Lincoln

Well, Abe, I learned a lot yesterday after making a somewhat painful discovery.

That said, I started thinking last night about all that I have learned in my life as a result of romances and friendships, some of which failed miserably and some that fizzled out slowly and some that are still ongoing.

Keep reading --->

It's Not Supposed To Be Real!

Have you ever been watching tv program or a movie with a car chase, and then watched as the car magically burst into flames and exploded after a collision?  Sure, I think most of us have watched that scenario on a screen at some point.  When I see something like that, I, like many people, have the initial reaction to proclaim, "Cars don't really just blow up like that!"

Well, of course they don't.  And the television and movie producers aren't trying to maintain reality.  If they were trying to make it real, they'd go work for reality tv.

Sometimes, we need to take a moment and remember to take our entertainment at face value, as the simple entertainment that it is, rather than trying to force it to be reality or anything else other than what it is.  If you want reality, watch documentaries.  If you want something pretending to be reality, watch "reality" television.  But if you want to just be entertained, watch anything else and resist the urge to pick apart the specifics.

2 Neat Google Features Most People Don't Know About

Most of us know that Google can do hundreds of really neat things thought the many applications integrated into the Google website.  Recently, though, I have discovered 2 Google features I had never heard of and plan to make good use of for the benefit of this blog.

Google Alerts

is a Google feature that allows you to receive notification from Google when they discover new content on the internet that meets your set criteria.  Want to know when someone writes a new article about the Wizard of Oz?  No, you probably don't.  But if you did, you could set up an alert for it, and Google would let you know any time it came across new websites or webpages with Wizard of Oz subject matter.  Better yet, you could set Google to let you know any time it comes across your name online....but beware of that if your name is John Brown or any other common name!

Google & LIFE

(the magazine) have partnered and Google now hosts the entire photo archive of LIFE, including hundreds (thousands?) of photos that were never published in the magazine.  These photos are available to everyone through Google for personal use....you know, like blogs!

Go check out these really awesome features!

When Did We Get So Lazy?

These days, those of us living in fully-modernized countries can have pretty much anything the easy way.

We can buy frozen meals that are fully prepared and need only a few minutes in the microwave to be ready to eat.  The windshield repair companies and auto detailers and dog washers will come to your location to save you the time and effort of driving to them.  Nearly anything you could buy in a store can now be ordered online and delivered to your front door, if you don't feel like going into the store.  So many things in our lives have been made so convenient.

But have we gone too far?  In some ways, I think so.  Recently, I have noticed two products that make me shake my head in disbelief:

I'm sorry, but I think there is something very wrong with people who are too lazy to measure out the laundry detergent or dishwasher soap on their own.  This is not something that needs to come pre-portioned.

Kaleb's Jobs

No matter what I do, Kaleb is growing up.  He has learned to identify colors, count objects, and sing numerous songs.  His vocabulary continues to grow, and he is getting better and better at communicating with those around him.  He's also developing his own opinions and learning how to express them.  As a preschooler, many of his opinions are expressed through defiance, so I'm constantly looking for new ways to inspire Kaleb to do the right things: follow directions and follow the rules.

And I'm trying to accomplish this with as few tears (his or my own) as possible.  When several of the incentives I had offered weren't working, I started looking for a new strategy.  What I have ended up doing is actually recycling a tactic I used last summer when Kaleb was potty training: a sticker poster.  It's so simple, yet so effective.

During potty training, Kaleb would get to stick a sticker onto the poster on the bathroom door.  He was always so proud and excited to add a new sticker to the poster.  Last week, I created a new poster which is now hanging on the wall in Kaleb's bedroom.  It's a little more involved than the Potty Poster, but it also covers more jobs and is divided into one-week columns—enough columns to last us until school starts back next Fall.

Each job is labeled in words, for me, as well as pictures that Kaleb can interpret on his own.  They are lines up on the poster, from top to bottom, in chronological order as they occur during the day.  Most are jobs he will do every day, while a couple are jobs that occur less often.

So, what are Kaleb's Jobs?

P52, Somewhat: Week 13, "Accessory"

This week's post almost had me stumped.  We have been given the topic "Accessory."

Let's face it: I'm totally not a girly-girl.  I don't wear make-up, I don't usually have the most trendy jewelry, and I don't really accessorize much at all.  I do own many little items that would qualify as accessories, but none of them were things that I felt were really all that important to me or things I thought would make a good photograph.  So when I hit that brick wall mental block, I did what any natural lexophile would do: I turned to the dictionary for ideas.

Here is what the dictionary told me:

That single definition lit up many areas of my mind, but it was this part that stood out the most: "Contributing to or aiding an activity or process."

I knew immediately what to photograph for this post.

Fad Activism

A few days ago, a friend posted an observation online about the sudden disappearance of all the "Kony" videos and other posts.  They have vanished from common conversation as quickly as they appeared.  The Kony hysteria was a wave that passed over us all, then dissipated without effect.

So, that must mean that this Kony guy has been stopped from continuing to commit further atrocities, right?  Well, no.  It just means that the media hype and activism fad have ended.

In our world these days, billions of people around the modernized world are interconnected through social environments on the internet.  Facebook, of course, is now the largest of these, but they are certainly not the only game in town.  A quick glance at the data listen on this Wikipedia page will give you an idea of just how much a part of our lives these online social environments have become.

In many ways, these digital connections have helped to bring about improved quality of life.  Families and friends who are separated by geography have a simple way to stay in contact.  Scientists and medical professionals can quickly and easily share data with one another across the globe.  People who, because of handicap or illness, have a hard time getting out of the house have a way to connect to the outside world from within the safe confines of their own homes.  Students at all levels of education can access information that they might not otherwise be able to access, and some of them are even taught remotely by teachers who are hundreds or thousands of miles away, interacting through a digital campus.  News travels quickly these days, both the good and the bad, and emergency aid can be dispatched with life-saving speed when a disaster occurs somewhere in the world.

Unfortunately, living our lives at the speed of digital means that we misperceive the seriousness of some situations.  People also misunderstand what is needed to help some situations.  It is very common for people to share videos and news articles among their online social circles, and many of these videos and articles focus on issues that are controversial or need to experience change.  So we read these articles and watch the videos posted by our friends, family, and colleagues.  We get fired up about the issues represented in each, and we decide we want to "do" something to help.  So we repost the link to the video or article, thus sharing it with everyone in our own online social circles.

And all of that is wonderful, except....

Alert: Childrens' Consignment Sale Pensacola (April)

I found out that there is another childrens' consignment sale happening in a few weeks.  Unlike the March sales I posted about several weeks ago, this is a sale I had never heard of before, and so cannot verify the quality of this sale.  I think I already have all the clothes Kaleb will need this season, but he and I will probably go check out the sale anyway so I'll know if it's one I want to attend next year.

For those of you who weren't able to get what you needed at the last sales, or those who didn't attend them, check out the flyer below for the upcoming April sale!

If you need more information than what's on the flyer, check out

http://www.tinytotsandpolkadots.net

A Fine Balancing Act

Tuesday (2 days ago) was the Spring Equinox.  I remember several time, during middle school, when the science teacher at my school would balance an egg on the table at the front of his classroom on the day of an equinox and leave it there all day.  Supposedly, this trick is only possible on an equinox because of the perfect balance of the earth and its gravitational fields, or something like that.  Anyhow, I thought it would be a fun thing to attempt myself, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, after 15 minutes of delicately trying to make a raw egg stand on it's fat end, I was finally able to accomplish it!  As soon as it was in place, I quickly snapped a photo, as I was afraid even breathing too hard would ruin what I had done.  I was right.  Within 5 minutes, the egg had rolled out of its upright position (and was punished by becoming part of my lunch).

As I mentioned, however, I did manage to snap several photos.  This is the best of them:

Spring Equinox: Life in Balance

For generations, the arrival of Spring has signaled the start of a time for renewal, for cleaning, and for refreshing.  It's the time when we begin to shake off the winter gloom and turn our thoughts toward the bright happiness of lengthening days.

The onset of Spring is a time of balance, both universally and personally.  In our solar system, the first day of Spring is the day when the sun is most-directly above the equator—rather, the equator most-directly faces the sun—causing night and day to be equal in length.  Today I will live half my day in the light of the sun, the other half in nighttime darkness.

In some ways, I think my body sensed the equinox even while I was still asleep last night.  I awoke refreshed, for the first time in a long while, even though I got less actual sleep than on a typical night.  Upon waking, I felt instantly wide awake, determined to have a productive day, ready to get up and being Spring.

From time to time we all get that feeling that we are precariously perched on the edge of some unstable precipice.  Our footing wobbles and we know that at any minute one wrong step could plunge us over the side into some dark abyss from which there is no simple escape.  We are faced with hundreds of decisions every day, every one of which determines the course of our lives.  The goal, through all of our decision making, is to keep things balanced so that we can move toward our goals and accomplish those things which are most important to us.

So, how do we get there?  How do we achieve this all-important balance we all need?

Unfortunately, this is a question that we each must answer on our own.  I cannot tell you how to find your perfect balance point.  In truth, I am still searching for my own.  I do know that I feel like I'm moving in the right direction.  I have finally identified what things make me happy and what leaves me feeling empty.

What is it that brings balance into your life?  Identify it, then do whatever you must to move in the direction of your happiness.  Take advantage of the promise of Spring, the promise of new life all around you, and let the warm breezes of the season breathe renewed enthusiasm into your journey toward balance.

Why I'm Not A Christian

Several weeks ago, I wrote and published on this blog a post entitled "A Darn Good Christian," wherein I mentioned that a co-worker had told me I'd make a "darn good" Christian....if I only believed in God.  I went on to explain that I didn't need the Bible or church or any other religious trappings to see a need in the world and try to do my part to fill that need for the benefit of my fellow earth-dwelling creatures.  Christians do not have a monopoly on good works.  Within that post, I did not get into the reasons behind my non-belief, stating that they were fodder for another post.  This is that post.

Before I get into my specific reasons, there are a few things I feel I must state first if I have any hope of my words being understood in the manner intended.

1. I probably know more Christians than non-Christians.  Most of these people are my friends and are good people, and I respect their choice to believe as they wish, not because I think they are right, but because they are my friends and I care about them.  Those who are my friends and already know about my lack of Christian faith may not agree with the choices I make in this regard, but they all acknowledge my rights to believe as I choose, and they care about me regardless of our differing opinions.
2. I do not believe that Christianity itself is bad.  You'll understand more of what I mean by this as you read through the post.
3. As with all my blog posts, the comment section is open for your feedback.  However, remember to be civil with your comments.  Hate-filled comments will be deleted.  Strongly emotional comments, those aimed at "converting" me, or those filled with scripture are probably not comments to which I will post reply....unless you actually come up with a compelling argument.  One more thing: If you feel the need to post harsh criticism, at least have the courage to attach your name to it....I've grown weary of people hiding behind the "anonymous" label when spewing negativity.

With that out of the way, I'll put forth the primary 9 among the many reasons that Christianity has found no place in my life.

P52, Somewhat: Week 12, "Spring"

Do you ever get the feeling that the inanimate or non-sentient things around you are aware of what's going on in your life, and that they're working either for or against you?  Sure, we may know it's not true,  we as people sometimes can't help but imagine and project human qualities onto nonhuman things.

We get mad at the car when it won't start.  We beg the traffic signals to hurry up when we're running late.  We thank the cool breezes when we're outside on a hot day.  And though we know that none of these actions actually have an effect, many of us continue to do them.  And, as evidenced by the picture to the right—which I snagged from the  Facebook profile of my friend, Sarah C.—some of us even make a preemptive habit of being genuinely polite to some of the objects in our lives.

Personally, I have frequently felt like everything was going right for me lately.  Don't get me wrong, there have been some trying times too, but when things are good, lately, they're very very good.

This week's P52 post topic is "Spring," and Spring is a season which has arrived even earlier than usual in my part of the world.  All over the place, record high temperatures are being recorded.  Kaleb's back into wearing shorts to school nearly every day, and I'm digging the capri pants back out.

The Evolution of Red!'s Name

In life, things change over time.  They grow, they mature, and they evolve.  This blog has been no different.  Over the years since I first began writing here, the tone and nature of my posts have changed.  The site has grown to accommodate more and newer features.  The site "grew up" and adopted a domain name of its very own.  The site has grown and changed in conjunction with the growth and changes that have taken place in my own life.

Something I have learned while developing this blog has been how to use my blog's statistics to help direct posts and features toward my audience, to help raise my visibility in search engines, and to help attract new visitors to my site.  While looking over the search terms which have brought people to my site within the past 30 days, I noticed that some people are still searching for my blog using various incarnations of past names from this site.

I've decided to use this post to share a brief history of the evolution of Red!'s name and page banner, like a quick stroll down memory lane.

The first post was published here in November of 2008.  At the time, I hadn't done anything to personalize or customize the look and feel of the blog's pages.  Back then, the title would have been whatever Blogger's software had used as a default.  My first attempt at a custom title/header came along with the May 2009 post:

Sure, it wasn't anything spectacular, but it was a good first start—something other than the bland blue & white default settings.  I had a silly notion that this font was "edgy."  What was I thinking?

The Real Reason We Celebrate St. Patrick's Day

Today is supposedly St. Patrick's Day, a day where people celebrate the undeserved fame of the man who is wrongly credited for driving the snakes out of Ireland—a country that is believed to have been snake-free since the end of the last ice age when the ice melted away and left no path for snakes to travel to the island nation.  Can you believe that nonsense?!

I could, like many other bloggers do, post a history of St. Pat's Day or a list of debunked St. Pat's myths and misunderstandings (like this).  But that would only further reinforce the false belief that anyone still genuinely wants to celebrate a saint from the 5th century.  Everyone's jumping on that bandwagon!  Even Google is honoring St. Patrick with a Google Doodle:

I swear it just amazes me the stories people will invent to hide their real desire: to celebrate the beauty and awesomeness of the world's natural redheads!  (And also to drink beer dyed green.)

So, as I don my GREEN and ORANGE—yes, that's right, both of them—to head out to run my errands today, I leave you with this collections of Facts & Myths About Redheads.

Happy Redhead Appreciation & Awareness Day!

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Milestone: Under 50

Today is the last school day of the 3rd grading period of the 2011-2012 school year here in Escambia County, FL.  Next week, schools will be closed while we all celebrate our Spring Break.  Then, when we return to school on the 26th of March, we will have only...

48 days left

until the school year is over!

This year has been so different from the year I had last year.  I don't know if this is because I'm more settled into the unpredictable nature of the job this year, or if it's because my daily schedule is so different.

In some ways, this year has been significantly better than last year.  I feel appreciated more days than not, at least by the teachers I directly work with.  Most days, I am able to leave work feeling as though I accomplished all I needed to during that day—unlike last year when I never felt like I was even approaching being caught up.  This year I've been able to get onto friendly terms with some of my co-workers, rather than just being professionally polite and making small talk.  I feel more free to be myself at work this year, and not as if I have to squeeze myself into the restrictive mold of predetermined expectations.

However, this year hasn't been all peach pie and picnics.  While I worked with only one teacher last year, I was able to learn her routines well enough to begin to anticipate what would be asked of me.  This year, working with many different teachers increased the time it took for me to learn these routines.  I have also had to be more adaptable throughout the course of each school day to change to fit the needs of the classrooms of these different teachers.  Moving around the school during the day has also increased my visibility within the school's faculty and staff.  Last year, there were teachers I never even saw....literally.  Now, however, most everyone knows who I am.  Sometimes this is great; more often, however, it just means more people scrutinizing my job performance and finding unnecessary criticisms.

Regardless, this school year is rapidly approaching its end.  Hopefully, budget cuts won't prevent me from still having this job next year.  And, if I am still working this job next year, there's no telling what my day-to-day will look like.  But that's all many months away.

Hello, Spring Break!

I [Don't] Enjoy Being A [Stereotyped] Girl.

I don't know about any of you, but I grew up watching movies that were musical classics: Singin' in the Rain, Shall We Dance, Holiday Inn, The Sound of Music, White Christmas, The King & I, and Flower Drum Song among them.  While I loved the musicality and exuberance of these movies—and still do—I have, as an adult, begun to see things in these movies that I never noticed as a kid.  Primary among these more recent observations is that these movies, to great extent, seemed to celebrate "girly" women, women who loved dresses and lace and being taken-care-of housewives.

And this one simple observation has caused my first feeling of complete disconnect from these movies.

Of these movies, Flower Drum Song is the most obvious in it's display of these traditional gender roles, highlighting them in all their somewhat-outdated detail in the musical scene shown below.

I got to reading the words to that song a few days ago, and have been unable to stop comparing my real life to the realistically fictional life detailed in the song's lyrics.  As a formerly-married single woman, a single mom, and a woman with a full time job, my life seems to stand in near-complete contrast to these lyrics.  Below, I have listed the song's lyrics and contrasted them line by line.  Enjoy!

It's Pi Day!

Happy Pi Day, Friends & Readers!

Today, March 14th, is Pi Day....also known as π Day.  Why?  Because pi is an enormously long number, so is shortened to "3.14" for more practical use in teaching the concept to students.  3.14.  March 14.  Yep.

At school today, we are doing lots of fun Pi-related activities to reinforce this concept with our students: eating pi-e (apple and cherry) in homeroom, handing out pencils stamped with the first 60 digits of π, and watching videos schoolwide at the start of each class period—each with a song, poem, story, or historical fact about π.  Since these activities will be filling most of my day, I fear I won't have much time left for blogging.  So, today, I'm going to share with my readers some of the same information we'll be sharing with our students at school today.

A Brief History of Pi (π).

[Quoted from Exploratorium.com]

Pi has been known for almost 4000 years—but even if we calculated the number of seconds in those 4000 years and calculated pi to that number of places, we would still only be approximating its actual value. Here’s a brief history of finding pi:

The ancient Babylonians calculated the area of a circle by taking 3 times the square of its radius, which gave a value of pi = 3. One Babylonian tablet (ca. 1900–1680 BC) indicates a value of 3.125 for pi, which is a closer approximation.

Rhind Papyrus (ca.1650 BC), there is evidence that the Egyptians calculated the area of a circle by a formula that gave the approximate value of 3.1605 for pi.

50 Words I Love, But Never Get To Use

Several times over the course of this blog I have discussed being a self-identified lexophile (someone who loves words). As often as I write, however, many of my favorite works are simply not suitable for everyday blog use. One of the goals of any writer is to be understood, and using some of the words I know would certainly prevent many of my readers from being able to focus on the content of my posts, as they might become too distracted by the words themselves. Today, however, I decided I'd like to share my love of words with you, my readers. To accomplish this, I've decided to publish a listing some of the most wonderful—and most impractical—words I know, along with a basic definition for each. (For the record, even my laptop's spell checker doesn't recognize many of these words!)

P52, Somewhat: Week 11, "Nostalgia"

This week's P52 post topic was "Nostalgia."  I could think of plenty of things to write about, but they were all either quite mundane or were memories I like to keep to myself.  Then I was looking through some storage boxes, came across one very small item, and was stricken with a bout of nostalgia.  So I snapped a photo of that memory-inducing item, and here it is:

"Tiny Memories" photo by Sarah Getz for P52 Photo-A-Week Challenge, 3-12-2012

Just three short years ago, Kaleb's little feet were shorter than my fingers.  While I can't honestly say that I miss having a newborn baby, I can't help but look back fondly at where we've been.

Those Fleeting Angelic Moments

Kaleb was sleeping particularly soundly through a nap a couple of days ago.  In fact, he slept so long I decided I'd have to wake him up if I was to have any hope of him going back to sleep that night.  Normally, Kaleb is a light sleeper and wakes up the moment I open his bedroom door.  This day, he slept through me sneaking into his room.  So, I sneaked back out, grabbed my camera, and tip-toed back in to snap a pic of Kaleb at his most angelic: sound asleep.  I can't imagine any parent being able to catch sight of their sleeping children without falling in love all over again.

A New Direction in Life

Seven years ago, on a random day in the middle of a very cold January, I was on my way to visit a friend and happened to drive past a homeless man by the side of the road, shivering noticeably, holding a sign that said, "I'm cold and hungry. Please help me if you can." 

On that particular day, I was pretty broke myself.  I also instantly realized that I had eaten both breakfast and lunch that day and was driving down to road in a heated car on my day off going to visit a friend and hang out watching television all day.  Surely, there was something I could do.  A few blocks down the road, I pulled into a parking spot at a McDonald's restaurant and started digging in my purse, the ashtray, and the floorboards for change.

What I found was enough to buy three double cheeseburgers—they were still on the dollar menu then—and a medium coffee.  I drove back the way I had come, found a spot in a nearby parking lot, and walked toward the man with the food and hot coffee in hand.  When he spotted me, and realized that I was intentionally approaching him, he came in my direction.  Completely unsure of what to say, I wordlessly handed him the bag and cup.  He smiled back at me and turned to walk back and collect his sign and the old milk crate he had been sitting on.  By the time I had walked back to my car, the man had silently melted away into some nearby woods.  I never saw that man again, but I have also never forgotten the genuine smile that crossed his face at the gift of fast food and coffee.

In the years since that day, I have helped when I could.  Sometimes it has been a dollar or a handful of change handed out the window of my car.  Other times it has been a sack of fast food or a few cans extra purchased during a grocery store trip.  The feelings that come after such a small donation last for days, and these encounters make very lasting impressions on my heart and mind.

"Those" Homeless People

If you've driven around Pensacola for any length of time, you have no doubt seen at least a few local homeless sitting or standing roadside, often near high-volume intersections.  Some are holding a sign and hoping to earn enough money to buy something to eat....others are seen just sitting, alone or in groups, by the sides of the roads because they simply have nowhere else to go.  The homeless in our community have been getting a lot of press lately, as the Pensacola City Council and Escambia County Commission have been working overtime trying to pass anti-panhandling ordinances and other regulations limiting where people can sit, lie down, or "camp" without being fined (or worse).  And while the press may bring attention to the already-obvious fact that we have homeless in our community, it's not doing anything to fix the problem.

I don't understand why society spends so much time trying to take more and more away from these people who already have so little!  As a society, we spend millions more annually on providing food, shelter, and health care for our pets than what we spend on aid for the homeless!  How could we have forgotten that these people are still people?

While we're climbing into our clean, safe beds each night with stomachs full of nutritious food, it's easy to feel like that "homelessness" thing could never happen to us.  But we're wrong to be so sure.

"7 out of 10 Americans are one paycheck away from being homeless."  ~Pras Michel

It occurs to me that, thanks to society's mass dehumanization of the homeless, many do not have an accurate idea of exactly who these homeless are.  I had only a very loose understanding of this myself, so I decided to do some research.  Let me share with you some of the basic statistics I found.

A Darn Good Christian

A co-worker friend of mine said to me today, "You know, you'd make a darn good Christian....Well, you know, if you believed in God and stuff."  I must have had one pretty quizzical look on my face, because he then looked at me and added, "I meant that to be a compliment, just so you know, 'cuz you're always doing nice things for people and stuff."

At first, I thought this entire concept was somewhat silly, since if I remember correctly, belief in the Biblical God is the primary defining quality of a Christian.  And, while the reasons for my non-Christianity are a topic for another post coming in the near future**, I can say for now that I do not identify myself as a Christian—and never have.

What a crazy thing it seems to me that because I make an effort to affect change in the world—on whatever scale I am able—people will assume I must be a Christian.  I know I live in the Southern dip of the Bible Belt, but have people really begun to believe that Christians have a monopoly on doing good?

If this were the first time this has happened to me, I might assume it was just a random occurrence and dismiss it entirely.  But this has happened to me for years now!  When I've done volunteer work, people always ask me what church I'm affiliated with.  When I reply that I'm intentionally not affiliated with any church, they look at me as if that thought is incomprehensible.

Really?!?!

So, let me just set the record straight, in case there are any questions.  I don't need a Bible to tell me that helping people in need, even if I can only do a little, is the right thing to do.  I don't need to be a church member or be church-sponsored to see a need and do what I can to fill that need.

So, to those of you who keep asking, let me put forth the suggestion that your time might be better spent helping the less fortunate rather than concerning yourselves with my chosen beliefs.


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**Update 3-20-2012: You can now read more at my latest post, "Why I'm Not A Christian."

I Can't Do This!

When faced with a difficult task, it can sometimes be so much easier to just say, "I can't do this," and let someone else do it for us.

I notice Kaleb does this all the time.  Just tonight, he had trouble reaching the light switch in the bathroom and said, "Mommy, I can't reach it."  A short while later he was trying to open the plastic case that contains his play set of doctor's tools.  When the case's latches got stuck, he said, "Mommy, I can't open this!"  The difficulty he encountered trying to put a book back onto his slightly-overcrowded book shelf caused him to exclaim,"Mommy, this book don't fit on here!" Finally, as Kaleb's bedtime drew near, I told him to go take off his clothes in preparation for bath time.  He was wearing new pants today, and the buttonhole is still a little tight.  He called out to me, "Mommy, I can't unbutton my pants!"

And in our house, this is a very typical evening.  Whenever Kaleb runs into trouble trying to do something on his own, his first reaction is to call in Mommy for help, to do it for him.

As children, we learn to depend on the grown-ups in our lives to take care of us and provide for us.  That trust and reliance is an important aspect of the parent/child relationship.  While we grow up, those grown-ups begin to teach us the skills necessary to grow up to be self-reliant.  And then the cycle begins again once we are adults, and begin to pass along these skills of self-reliance to the children in our lives.  This cycle has been repeating for millenia throughout the animal kingdom, and is not unique to we human creatures.  What is more unique to humans (and some other primates), however, is this desire to proclaim we "can't" and have someone else handle things for us.

So, did I turn on the bathroom light for Kaleb tonight?  Or open the case of toys?  Or put his book back onto the shelf?  Or unbutton his pants?

Responsibility, Part VII: Workplace Behaviors

Back in January, I wrote a series of blog posts about responsibility, the first of which can be found here.  However, over the past couple of weeks, I have realized that I forgot about something that is a major aspect in the lives of most of the people I know: work.

Most of the people I know are not wealthy enough to stop working, not old enough to retire, and not lucky enough to have a spouse who can/will work 3 jobs simultaneously so they can sit on their fat rumps at home all day.  And so, most of the people I know work.  And for these same reasons, I work too.

But before I launch into a post centered around responsibility in the workplace, let me first share a bit of my own employment history.  I have had enough jobs to create a resume several pages long, and those jobs were a bit random and totally varied in their types.  Some of those jobs are experiences I look back at with fond memories.  Others are places in my past that I'd rather not spend much time thinking about.  Among the latter, you will actually find the highest paying job I've ever had.  During my 2nd stint working at Waffle House (most people working there have worked there more than once), during which I did double duty as cook and waitress, I brought in more income than I ever have with any other job I've held.  When I waited tables, I was good at what I did and brought home fistfuls of tips.  When I cooked, I was good at what I did and earned a grill bonus nearly every shift.  In fact, that one single year, I claimed more on my income taxes than most teachers at my school will be claiming on their 2011 taxes this April.

Yes, you read that right: Many of the people whose job it is to serve you double and triple mountains of greasy, Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, Diced, Peppered, Capped, Bitted, Spiced, Country, & Topped hash browns are bringing in MORE income than the teachers who work in our public schools providing students with the education necessary to keep them from lifetimes of serving  double and triple mountains of greasy,   Scattered, Smothered, Covered, Chunked, Diced, Peppered, Capped, Bitted, Spiced, Country, & Topped hash browns.

P52, Somewhat: Week 10, FREE WEEK

Several dates over the course of this P52 Photo-A-Week challenge have been left as unassigned free weeks.  This is one of those weeks, and I decided to use it to take a photo that would illustrate an ideal evening at home for me.  So when the perfect night came along, and after Kaleb was tucked into his bed, I snapped a few quick shots the remnants of our quiet evening activities.

Lately, Kaleb and I spend a lot of our evenings together doing quiet activities that exercise Kaleb's developing motor skills.  This particular night, we spent out time on the floor of the living room coloring in some brand new coloring books with crayons and stringing beads onto shoelaces.  Kaleb likes pretty much any activity we do together, but these are some of his current favorites.

"Beads on Strings & Coloring Things" photo by Sarah R. Getz for P52 Photo-A-Week challenge.

Workplace Email

I have a co-worker who doesn't seem to know the difference between a public post on Facebook and a mass email sent out to every person at our place of work.  It occurs to me that, perhaps, the etiquette of workplace emailing is not common knowledge, so I have decided to share it here in hopes that someone may be enlightened and cease bothering their co-workers with inane emails.

Do:

• Be professional with the type of language and vocabulary you use when sending workplace emails.
• Use workplace email to send specifically work-related emails to bosses, co-workers, and clients.
• Use workplace email to reply to work-related emails from bosses, co-workers, and clients.
• Use workplace email to correspond with other business contacts concerning specifically work-related matters.
• Only send out bulk emails when the subject matter contains work-related information which is relevant to everyone at your workplace.
• Use workplace email to send occasional work-appropriate emails to co-workers with whom you are also friends, even if those emails are not work-related.
• Use workplace email to share your personal email address with your work friends so that you may share personal emails with them outside of the workplace email system.
• Remember that, at most companies, workplace emails can be read by the bosses or other management any time they deem appropriate.

Don't:.....

D.I.Y. - Calming the Flip-Flop Chaos

I live in Florida.  For me, being a person who almost never gets cold, that means flip-flops are pretty much suitable for year-round wear.  This also means that I have amassed a small horde of flip-flops, in several styles and a range of colors.  And while most of my other shoes reside in identical plastic shoe boxes stacked in my closet, flip-flops see too much use for that to be a practical solution for their storage.

So, most of the time, my flip-flops end up piled under two of the three bar stools in my kitchen instead, near the door where we come in and out, rendering those stools unable to be pulled out and used most of the time.

Alert: Consignment Sales for Children in Pensacola (Spring/Summer)

If you're a parent, you're probably well acquainted with the expenses involved in keeping growing children in clothes that fit them. Over time, these expenses can get to be difficult to keep up with. Some are lucky families can hand down clothes from older cousins or siblings, but not everyone has this option available.

So, for those without hand-me-downs, many organizations have events where parents can get together and consign or purchase used-but-still-usable clothing for children of all ages and pregnant women. Pensacola has two organizations that do this on a grand scale, and both are gearing up for their Spring/Summer sales, scheduled within the next couple of weeks.

I have gotten copies of the Spring/Summer sale flyers for both of these upcoming sales and have posted them below for any readers in or near Pensacola that might want to come and take advantage of these great opportunities to stock up on some warm-weather clothes for the children in your lives.

Both sales are primarily clothing, but they each also have an impressive selection of kids' toys, gear, furniture, and other necessities. It is certainly worth it to go and have a look! The majority of all the clothes Kaleb has ever worn have come from sales at one or the other of these organizations.

Honesty: It's More Than Just Words

Looking innocent in the winter of 1992.

When I was a child, honesty and I were near-complete strangers.  Right or wrong, it's the truth; and it's one truth that I have spent many years pretending didn't exist.  I lied as naturally as I blinked my eyes and nearly as often.  The older I got, the better I got at lying and getting away with it.  Sure, there were plenty of times someone figured me out, but there were plenty of times that no one did, and I learned from those "successes."

Over the years, my lies resulted in hurt feelings, disappointments to my parents and family, the losses of friendships, and some not-so-fun punishments.  Was it worth it?  At the time, I was fully convinced that the benefits outweighed the down sides.  However, as I became an adult, I began to see that there had been nothing gained from any of it—not the lying, not the deceit,  not from any of the dishonest behaviors.

I admit, I'm still not perfect.  Lying can become as addictive as any drug, and I spent well over a dozen years in the grips of that addiction and in denial of the problem right in front of my eyes.  Now, however, I see those faults in all their damaging detail, and I actively work to be honest with friends, family, and anyone else with whom I come into contact in my life.