My Special Guest

Today, Claudine the Mean from Coffee Time Romance is sharing a blog she posted a few weeks back on the review sites very active blog.  She participated in the Thursday Thirteen, but today she's sharing on a Tuesday because I'm preparing to leave for Southern California to see my eighty-six-year-old Mom who I haven't seen for almost four years.  It's a quick trip and I'm looking forward to a wonderful Mother's day.  Wishing all the other moms the same.

So enjoy Claudine's post and a few giggles.  See you next week.

Thirteen Signs of Aging

There’s no escape!  You can’t hide, run, or avoid it.  Eventually one or more of the following will happen to you.

• Crows Feet.  I can’t picture a bird roosting around my eyes, but all of a sudden that smooth, flawless skin around those baby blues or chocolate browns takes on the look of crepe paper.  And no matter what advertisements claim, NO ONE has invented a special potion to turn back the years, at least in those little bottles and tubes.  Maybe if they sold the product in five gallon-drums, but….

• Sock Imprints.  You know you’re getting old when you remove your socks and the pattern and indention stays on your shin for hours afterward.  Same for blanket marks from sleeping.

• Lip Lines – OMG, one of the worst signs of aging is discovering you no longer have lips.  The line that distinguishes your lips from the rest of your face just disappears. This may not happen to those of you blessed with full bow-shaped ones, but for those of us who had thin lips to begin with, our mouth suddenly becomes a slit in our face..  This makes the idea of a facelift totally impossible, unless of course you want to resemble a snake.

• Pleat lines.  Yes, there will come a time, even if you have beautiful lips, the area between your nose and top lip will look as though someone fan-pleated your skin.  Prepare yourself; it’s not a pretty sight.

• The Chinese Shar-Pei look.  One morning you’ll wake up, go to brush your teeth and stare with wide-eyed wonder in the mirror, asking what in the hell happened to whatever it was that held up the skin on your neck. Don’t be surprised if you now hate Thanksgiving because of the stark reminder of the turkey’s waddle (that’s what it’s called) hanging under your chin.  Short of gathering the looseness into a huge clippie at the nape of your neck, there is no inexpensive, painless or immediate cure.

• Turning silver. Not a problem, you think?  You’ll just grab a bottle of dye and cover up those strands.  I have bad news for you…I’m not talking about the hair on the top of your head.  Yep…your hoo-ha falls victim to gray hair too, at least until it starts to fall out.  Male pattern baldness doesn’t only happen to men.

• Sagging Boobs.  Yep, if you are bigger than an A cup, then get ready for the downhill slide.  I went from wearing a 38D to a 40 Long in the blink of an eye.  Once it happens to you, the only time you’ll have cleavage is if you stand on your head.  Oh, and never bend over and look into a mirror.  You’ll never again consider being on top when you have sex.  If you still have sex.  There’s something about having to lift your arm so your husband can find your breast that kinda kills your sex drive.

• Tube Top. And I don’t mean the type your wear.  I’m referring to nature’s shelf that materializes around your midsection.  I wonder if that’s the stuff that held up my neck skin at one time.  Either that or it’s timely appearance is meant to offer a safe haven for my boobs to rest on.

• Loss of Eyelashes. – Take lots of pictures of those sexy, smoky eyes because eventually you’ll mourn the gaps in your once lush lashes. The mascara that used to highlight one of your best assets, now clumps and draws attention to the holes where lashes used to be.

• Facial Hair. I suppose you could look at this in a positive light…your missing lashes aren’t totally lost.  They’ve simply found a new home sprouting on your chin and your upper lip. Always have handy a pair of tweezers unless you want to rival your husband’s mustache or beard.  Another positive note…the hair under your arms and on your legs doesn’t grow back quite as fast as it used to.  Everything slows down…especially your digestion.  Can you say ‘a-c-i-d   r-e-f-l-u-x, but I got totally off topic and I apologize.  See number 13 for my explanation.

• Leg Cramps. I see it written that senior citizens remain sexually active well into their eighties and nineties.  I’m wondering if this report is based on the moaning and groaning overheard outside bedroom doors.  Trust me…there is NO chance at all that you can contort your body as you once did.  Leg cramps really kill the moment, but you do moan and groan.

• Creaking Joints. WD-40 works on creaks and squeaks around the house… on everything but your aging joints.  Knees and hips develop a melody all their own that play every time you rise from your chair.  If you’re lucky like me, your husband won’t notice because he never wears his hearing aids.

• Loss of Memory. The worst of all for me!  If you find yourself wandering the house looking for something but not remembering what, don’t panic.  It’s just the first little hint that your memory is leaving with your eyelashes and lip line.  If you go to the kitchen for a cup of coffee and come back with a sandwich, don’t be surprised.  Or if you go in the bathroom to fetch a tissue and put on deodorant, it wasn’t a totally wasted trip.  Sadly, there will come a day when what your mother did makes perfect sense to you.  I just had that AHA moment this week.  I always kidded Mom about tying a red ribbon on her car’s radio antenna, but as I wandered through Wal-mart’s parking lot yesterday with my grandson in tow because I couldn’t find my car, I got it.  I made a panicked discovery though…if you are close enough to your car, the emergency button on your remote will allow you to follow the constant beeping of your horn to where you’ve parked.  I meant to mention that to my husband, but I forgot.

There are many other things I could list, but there’s no use sending you into panic mode.  Some things take time, and others  happen overnight.  I think our creator got it backwards…we should start old and turn young.  I think it might be easier to handle every tomorrow if we knew eventually our fat thighs would be considered cute.

Note:  Thanks to JoyFeldman.com for letting me blogjack the image above.

So You Think You're Ready????

Through the kindness of one of my new Coffee Crew pals at CTR, Virg Nelson, I have permission to share what she posted to the loop this morning.  I like the way she thinks.

 

Hey, I wrote this today after reading this note on FB that listed things you should do before thinking about having kids.

It was all lessons for preschoolers so I wrote this.  Hope it gives you a giggle: Some of you may have read the posting about having a child.  It lists things you should do before deciding... But all of them were for the preschool set.

As my darling children are all in the school ages now, one a full fledged teen and one almost a teen, I figured that people who make it through those lessons might (like most of us who make it through the preschool years) think they are prepared.  They may have the assumption that now that they have nailed working and coping with parental demands on zero sleep, that life will be simpler now that the child at least allows you to sleep.

I present these lessons before attempting parenting in your home...

Step One:
Drive to the nearest elementary school.  Head straight to the office.  Sit in an uncomfortable chair and think of all the reasons that you may have been called to the school.  Make sure none of the things you are thinking of are good and the more outrageous the better (bet you never thought you would get called to school because your child clucked like a chicken?  Was caught chewing toilet paper?  Didn't get in a fight but could have?  I have been called for all these reasons.  Be creative.)  Now hand your paycheck to the office.  Advise them that you will be back with the contents of the nearest Office Max.  The school will nod and smile.  They are used to it.  Then ask them to make you feel like you are the worst parent ever and how dare you have thought you were doing a good job parenting.  Once you have been thoroughly chastised, get in your car.

Step Two:
Go home and talk to a wall.  When the wall doesn't a. clean a room b. answer you about grades c. have an explanation as to why it thought it was a good idea to convince the baby that gummy worms and real worms are the same thing... continue to try to convince the wall to accomplish/answer a. b. and c.
You have now had a conversation with a child.

Step Three:
Get back in your car.  Drive in large circles.  Pause at museums, schools and random houses.  Get more gas while blasting a tape that repeats, "Are we there yet?  He is breathing on me again.  I'm hungry."
That's all.  Just do that.  Every spare moment you have.

Step Four:
Go back to the wall.  Give it three random directions. (Example: Take off your shoes.  Put them by the door.  Hang up your coat when you are done.)
Then ask the wall why it only finished one of the directions. 
Repeat.

Step Five:
Tape a high pitched shriek that shatters your ear drums and makes your eye twitch.  Then go back to the wall.  Talk to it.  Every time the wall would be expected to reply, play the shriek.  To really do this exercise well, you must never raise your voice or lose your patience.  Continue to talk to the wall.  Do this for an hour.  You have now discussed something with a teenage girl.

Step Six:
Assume you are wrong.  About everything.  All the time.  Because between the children, other parents that don't seem to be frayed around the edges and the aforementioned school... You will realize  that you are wrong.  Always.
Luckily, your kids have an answer for everything.  Everything.  And they will tell you.  At length.  Usually when they should be sleeping.

Step Seven: 
Once, every so often, fill a bucket with a mixture of rotten potatoes, spoiled milk and kool-aid.  Set your alarm for 2:30am.  Wake up.  Pitch the bucket at your couch or the carpet or even better dump it on you and your bed.  If you want realism, have someone else wake you by dumping the bucket, preferably after warming it, on you while you sleep.  Wake up.  Notice that the smell hits you first.  Instead of shrieking in panic and disgust at the mess, grab a pillow covered in vomit.  Cuddle it and clean it gently while murmuring soothing things.  Then give it a bucket and clean up the rest of the mess.  For more realism, have a back-up bucket and have someone dump it when you are almost done cleaning up the first.
You have now experienced projectile vomit.  And no... they rarely ever make it to the bathroom.

If you can do all of these steps, continue to smile and never yell at the wall or stinky pillow, you are ready to love an older child.
This is tongue in cheek fun, people.  Kids are totally worth it.  You will never laugh so hard or be so willing to conquer anything as you are when you are a parent.  Kids make you brave.  Kids make you learn what love is. 
But there is still the projectile vomit...

You can 'befriend' this witty woman on Facebook.