Say It Sunday #3 (sorta...)

Roller Boogie Baby!!!!

Say It Sunday #2

Of Swears, Shows and Spring...

We're experiencing technical difficulties....

Ok, so Blogger sux--we all know we feel that way, at least from time to time. For some mysterious reason, no one can comment on my audio post. I have yet to figure out the cause. If I had some of that annoying Muzak that stations play when they go into standby mode, I'd play it--so instead, you're gonna have to hum a tune of your choice... If you wanted to comment on my last post and couldn't, feel free to drop me a comment here... We now take you back to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress....

Centennial Post--Live from Maine...

Help me celebrate my 100th Blog Post!!!

My next post will be the big 100!!! To celebrate this milestone (read: "I can't believe I actually kept it up this long..."), I am looking for reader suggestions re: what this auspicious blog posting should be about. I'm putting a call out there for all of your creative ideas. Have burning questions that you want to know about me? A fun idea of what I should do to mark the occasion? Even if it's a meme that you think might fit, throw it out there. There are no dumb ideas--well, maybe... My next post (#100) will be based solely on what those out there want to read. C'mon, you know there's something you're dying to know/ask. Go for it, because you never know, I just may give you the answer! LOL Can't wait to hear your ideas. I mean, I can't think of things all the time, right? Until we meet at #100!!! M.

Baby steps in my house

Before any conclusions are jumped to, I assure all of you that the baby steps I mention have nothing to do with the Rossiters gaining a new addition to our family. Babysteps is a saying from this wonderful woman who goes by the name "Flylady"; she works at helping multitaskers, like me, who wind up getting distracted way too easily and therefore say, "Screw it", to get their homes, lives and families to a place where we can feel content and satisfied. Flylady is not about being perfect, but "good enough", and doing it one step at a time--thus, the baby steps. Her website is here and I highly recommend it for scatterbrains/supermoms/superwomen like myself. It almost seems too simple, but it works. I adapt the system to what works for me, but the basic principles are so obvious that I find myself smacking myself in the head when I read through them. Slowly, but surely, I've been working at getting my act together when it comes to the house. As the sign in my dining room says, "Martha Stewart doesn't live here--adjust!", so I will never reach domestic divadom any time soon. However, in the interest of my sanity, I've been trying to think of ways to make it easier for my family to help me out so I don't feel as though I'm tackling this place all my own. After some serious thought, it dawned on me that I haven't really given my family the right tools to get the job done. I tell the kids, "Pick up your room" without really providing a sense of where things go or even give them a place. I look around the house and say, "Eh", but I really haven't taken the time to add little things to make it more like the home I reallly want and we all can enjoy. Last weekend, Jon and I tackled the kitchen. We got a new kitchen a few years ago and as much as I've loved it, I really never took the time to get it really organized. Therefore, cooking was even more of a hassle than normal. But, while I was putting away a few of my Christmas gifts--which many seemed to be kitchen-oriented--something came over me and I finally have a place for everything, and it's all where it needs to be. This past week has been a joy in my kitchen, to the point where I'm actually looking for new recipes to try because I know I have what I need and right where to find it---scary shit, believe me. This weekend, the whole Rossiter family went to Home Depot to spend a gift card we received from Jon's folks. We actually had fun there!!! Whooda thunk it?? We picked up a bunch of stuff and went home, ready to work. Cailyn's room and the dining room became our projects yesterday. Cailyn's had her own room since spring and has had a really hard time keeping up with it. Keeping in mind about giving her the right tools and teaching her what works, we hauled out the room, put in her new rug and then she and I set to organizing her things--and pitching some of it, too!! A couple of underbed storage totes, some clothes hooks, a new area rug and the organization was all it took to redo her entire room. In about 3 hours, this was the result: The chain with the stuffies hanging on them had been buried in her closet--she had two. We never got around to hanging them up. It took care of most of her stuffed animals: got them off the bed and off the floor. The cool light on the dresser was from Grandma and Papa in Vermont. Cailyn kept saying, "I can't believe this is my room! This is awesome." She wasn't jumping up and down; it was more like she was in awe. She had to have a picture of her "cool, new room". Instead of saying "Cheese" like she usually does, she kept saying, "Thank you!". Made me feel really good. Cailyn's closet was really the key to getting it all together. Believe it or not, we had all of this stuff in there already, but there was no organization. I showed Cailyn that each shelf should be home to a certain type of thing: one for games, one for arts and crafts stuff, etc. She had all of these things, but just threw them randomly into bins and then trashed the room because she couldn't remember where she put stuff. The stuff on the top shelf is storage for Mom and Dad right now--Cailyn didn't mind sharing, though. ;) This isn't the best picture; it's a bit blurry, but you get the idea. The room looked pretty bad while we were sorting/organizing--ok, it looked like her room totally exploded instead of partially--but we had to see what she had and where it had to go. It was worth the effort. Meanwhile, as we worked, Jon put down the new area rug in our dining room. We had moved the furniture around months ago, but something still seemed...off. We had a beautiful rug there from when we moved in, but over the past few years, it had seen better days. The rug we picked out is a different style than our previous one, but we think it will be more functional than the previous one. Once he got it down, even he was amazed at how it pulled everything together. It was hard to get a decent picture, but it's not bad. *Notice the gorgeous paper signs on our chairs: Cailyn made those after she and Erin argued for 15 minutes about where to sit for dinner the other night.* I still have to put Christmas stuff away, and yes, that is a plastic pumpkin on top of my china cabinet. The girls finally polished off their Halloween candy just in time to put their Christmas candy there. Jon and I put it up out of reach so we wouldn't have two sugar overdoses. There are a few more little projects that we'll work on during the week. One for the kitchen, one for the living room. I'll post update pics. If it seems that I'm proud, I admit that I am. I'm not trying to brag, I swear. The house has always been one of my trigger points when it comes to my depression. I think if I can keep control of it, my emotional roller coaster may slow down some. Now, with the whole family getting involved, it will be a bit easier....I hope ;)

*WARNING* MAJOR VENT AHEAD--RATED R FOR LANGUAGE

Now that I've gotten the appropriate warnings for those who have sensitive eyes/ears, those of you who are still with me, I apologize for the following rant. ARRRRGGGHHH Why does everything have to be so damn difficult???!!!! All we wanted was one night where we could watch one fucking movie and we can't even accomplish that. Jon and I decided that we would start our own movie night. We bought each other some new DVDs and we figured we'd start tonight. The girls went to bed, although it was a little later than planned, we got our snacks and sat down to watch "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Our piece of crap multi-disk receiver/dvd player ate our DVD and scratched it. The friggin' thing hasn't been working right for a few weeks, but we thought it might just be some of our old dvd's have scratches on them. Now, even with brand new DVDs, the fucker don't work and the ones that do, it pushes them out of the tray and scratches them to hell!!! We're 30 minutes into the movie and it just stops playing!!! Once in a while, I would like to be able to not have to take the long way, jump over a pile of hurdles, duck and cover or any other way of avoiding the proverbial shit hitting the fan. We have been working our asses off to save money, stick with a budget, cut spending, etc. We don't go out on our own much anymore because we don't want to pay a sitter and can't find one on a regular basis anyway. So, we figure this would be a great compromise: spending some quality time together, saving some money and just enjoying each other. Now, Jon is fiddling with the blasted machine and I'm here ranting. We should have gone to bed early. I know it seems trivial to bitch about something like this, but Jon and I work hard at making our girls happy, giving them what they need/want, and it's not very often we have time to ourselves. What is so hard for arranging two hours on one night of the week????? Sigh. I'm done ranting. Seems pointless anyway. Gonna get ready for bed and hope tomorrow is a better day.

The era of (mis)communication

In light of what happened in West Virginia, I think many of us are looking for answers as to how something like this could happen. I'm not sure there will ever be an answer that satisfies either the victims' familes or even the general public. A lot of backlash has come upon the news media, and perhaps much of it is deserved. Yes, the 24-hour news cycle has made news gathering and reporting almost instantaneous. We, as humans who are curious, (and sometimes, let's all admit it, to a morbid degree) crave as much information as we can. Why, I'm not sure, except for the fact that we're just plain nosy. Ok, I don't believe all of our interest and curiosity is for self- serving reasons. Perhaps we want to feel closer to the people in our world, in spite of the fact that many out there want us to believe that technology is bringing people closer; I have to wonder sometimes if it is, instead, isolating us as a culture even more...but, that's for another day's soapbox. I wasn't a journalism major in school. Hell, I'm simply a features writer most of the time--fluff, drivel is what some other professionals in my field may call it. However, even as a fluff writer, I know the importance of checking, double-checking and triple-checking facts before I put them into print. The article linked below goes into this argument much better than I ever could. For those who like the Cliffs Notes version because you're not a news geek like me, allow me to provide a few snippets that summarize this whole horrible experience pretty damn well:

This case reminds us of a lesson we learned, at least in part, from Hurricane Katrina: Even when plausibly reliably sources such as officials pass along information, journalists should press for key details -- respectfully and courteously, but assertively. Mr. Mayor, tell us more about how you found out. Chief, can we talk to the officer or officers who actually responded to those rapes? Governor, you tell us "they" say 12 are alive; who, in this case, are "they"?--Scott Libin

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That said, I don't believe this case is one to dwell on as a major failure of news organizations, at least not in the erroneous reporting that the miners were believed to be alive. Frankly, when the Governor said they were alive and when the church bells started ringing and the families started celebrating, it would have been extremely difficult -- if not impossible -- to "hold the story" pending more verification. Sadly, this is one of those cases where the truth was tainted by the most unfortunate sort of miscommunication. But let's not be trapped in the "media blame game" syndrome on this part of a tragic story. The first reports on television and radio and the newspaper headlines were wrong in many cases, but the circumstances of this case were quite unusual and terribly unfortunate.

and

However, we can and should re-examine our overall coverage of the West Virginia mining disaster story. Perhaps too many news organizations played the story too prominently in the previous 48 hours. Perhaps we fell prey to the classic story line of "trapped miners" and pushed the story too heavily on relatively slow news days. Perhaps we went overboard with the above-the-fold stories and pictures. Perhaps we got carried away with the intensive coverage on cable news and talk programs.--Bob Steele

For those who want to read the full article, here is the link. Poynter Online - Beyond the Headlines: Attribution, Verification and the Time Lapse It is a worthwhile way to spend about 10 minutes of your day, and it will really make you wonder about how we, as a culture, react to the news media, and, in turn, how it reacts to the public. It is a give and take relationship. Even I, as a "non-journalist" understands that. In an era where the news is usually not good, it isn't unreasonable to want to cling to something hopeful or "miraculous". It was only a matter of time before something like this would happen--and I can say with any certainty is that I am praying for everyone involved in this story--the victims, their families, the company members, and even the media.

It's all about me.

Hi. Yeah, that's me in the picture over there. I hate having my picture taken because, well...we'll get to that in a minute... But, I figure if Heidi can step up and show herself off, then I, as her best friend, should brave it, too. What are best friends for, right? She looks fabulous, btw. She's still a youngin', though--just celebrated a birthday yesterday. I won't reveal how old she is--that's her prerogative. Anyway, back to me. December 2005 wasn't the best month for me. With all the issues with my medication, my back going out while away in Vermont for the holidays, and news that I need to see a gastroenterologist because of some wonky liver enzyme levels, a "fatty liver" and a gall stone, I seem to have become a walking health hazard. The truth of the matter is that I've been a walking health hazard for quite some time. I've managed to dodge some major problems, and I'm damn lucky. The fact that something significant hasn't happened to me can only be described as good fortune and my guardian angel shining down on me. I'm overweight. I'm not just talking a little bit. The clinical term is obese. I hate the word, but I figured I should just call it what it really is. I've never been this bad off before--sure, I've been plus sized for a long time, but never to this extent. Part of it, the doctor feels, is a result of being on my first antidepressant, which can cause significant weight gain. Again, before I started on the drug, I was already heavy. But, I ballooned to my current weight over the past 12 months. Many things in my life changed in 2005 and I didn't make very good choices on how to cope with those changes. Pure and simple, I eat because I'm happy, sad, angry, depressed, lonely, etc. So, for someone to be clinically depressed, one can imagine the struggles I've had with food. When Jon found out I was posting a pic of myself, he was stunned. He knows how much I hate getting my picture taken, never mind show to the world. Looking at pictures is a harsh reality check. I've gone on with life, just pretending that the weight doesn't bother me or that it isn't really "that bad". The weight does bother me. It really is "that bad". I've gone on "diets" before and do well the first two months. But, at the slightest hiccup, I go right back to my old habits. This time, I want to do things differently. I don't want the focus of my efforts to be on just the scale. It's not really about the numbers on the scale, but more about living healthier--the pounds lost will be a bonus. I need to hold myself accountable, and that's where you all come in. I plan on holding myself accountable to all of you. Each week, I'll be posting something (either here or somewhere else and I'll provide the link) about my goals and progress for the week. Don't expect to see a lot of emphasis on the scale. I'm going to be looking more toward my behaviors and identifying the problems and figuring out the solutions. Then, I plan on diving in with a more conventional weight loss program. It's all about taking tiny steps. I will be posting more pics, too...talk about being accountable!! But, when this works, and eventually it will, I'd like some documented proof of my progress. The first week is focusing on drinking more water and watching my portion sizes. I will probably keep a food diary for the week, to see my patterns. In general, I know I don't eat stuff that is horrible for me (except fast food from time to time). My issue is "how much". I can't just eat one serving. Kinda sounds like a form of addiction. The second week will be all about adding activity to my life-even if it's only 5 to 10 minutes. In the past, I've worked so hard, I've burnt out. I won't do that this time. Those are the only two things I have concretely planned. Well, that and that by the Jan 31, I am going back to an eating plan that I know has worked before. I was joking with Heidi yesterday that I've proclaimed 2006 "The Year of Me". Sounds selfish, but I've decided that if I don't take care of myself, who will? Instead of focusing all of my attention on everyone and everything else around me, I can spare more time for myself. I think that I'll be pleased with the results. So, at least once a week, I'll be keeping it real by giving all of you the scoop on my progress (good, bad or indifferent). Swift kicks in the ass are graciously accepted (and very-often needed).