Is it just me?

Is it just me, or...

Do other husbands leave their dirty clothes in every room in the house?  I mean, I don't feel it is ever appropriate to have dirty socks in the dining room.

Do other people get mosquito bites in random places?  Apparently a swarm attacked my bootie!

Do Blackberry's suck?

Speaking of technology, has the technological revolution gone too far with social media?  I mean, how connected is too connected?

Do others ever wonder what their dog is thinking?

Do other people love their "work" while at the same time want to do nothing other than hang out with their kid(s)?  (Hello, cognitive dissonance.)

Am I the only one who loses sleep after seeing an actor or actress on tv/a movie and can't remember what else he/she has been in?

Does the saying "If I've told you once, I've told you a million times" bother anyone else?  If someone's told me something once...they've told me once, not a million times.

Do other teachers literally bang their head against the wall while questioning the purpose of their existence while grading?

Is it common to feel like you're finally catching up financially only to have some minor (or major) disaster set you back...again?

Does singing in the car free the soul?

Do others find it impossible to ever have ALL the laundry done...and put away?

Does playing the "what if" game keep you up at night?

Do the parents who get really competitive at their young (i.e. 4-8 year old) children's sports events really get on your nerves?  This is supposed to be fun, people!

Does holding hot change make your teeth hurt?  (I think this came from having braces for too many years.)

Are the of words "I love you, Mom." the best on earth?

Can petting a dog really solve 85ish % of your problems?

Do you stir about the fact that owning a pet is so irrational, since your best friend is getting really old?

Do other people give voices to their pets?

Does mom-guilt bother you really bad?

Do you wish you could just hug away all of life's "bad/challenging/mean/though stuff" from your kid(s)?  But realize it's your job to teach them how to handle it...and freak out a little bit?  (That's a big job!)

Do you forget what it was like to not be a mom?

Does it seem impossible that you were ever young and carefree?

Does humidity make other people's hair look like something from a low-budget 80s video?

Do others only buy stuff on sale at the end of the season, so that their "fashion" is always at least a year behind...and not really care?

Do other people not really even know what is in fashion?

Should summer never end?  (I miss Florida.)

Is the beach the best place on the planet?

Do people who get really agitated while driving make YOUR blood pressure rise...yet you can't help but watch in amazement at other people's insanity?  (I recently witnessed what almost became a fist fight over a gas pump.)

Do other people stew over crazy questions?  :)

Just wondering...

Head on over to

and find out what's going on in other people's heads today. 

Party! (in my head)

I don't usually go for the newer songs on here, mostly because they haven't been around long enough to "speak" to me.  BUT, this week we have an exception, for a few general reasons.

1.  Any song that can fit "Zach Galifianakis" into the lyrics of a song gets a major awesome point from me.

2.  I have a huge conscience and, what those close to me call, a guilt complex.  I overthink EVERYTHING and that overthinking turns into excessive worry.  I replay things I have said or done in my head over and over and come up with countless ways that I should feel bad, made a fool out of myself, or made someone think less of me.  And when something even remotely "bad" does happen, it's stress city in my brain!  Some recent examples of my overthinking (not to mention I still stress out about events from years ago, as well):

- First, Let me not forget my pay it forward adventure and its aftermath. Seriously, even when I try SO HARD to do the right thing, the NICE and KIND thing all planned out but things don't go exactly the way I think they should, I end up overthinking and worrying and being totally awkward.  I mean, I am awkward, but you'd think by now I could just embrace that and run with it.  :)

- I spent an evening at a little party at a conference with my colleagues, my professors, some other sociologists I didn't know, and a few cocktails.  Everyone was having a good time, most way more than me in the cocktail department, but I don't get in social situations with these people very often.  So, for so long after that, I stressed over whether or not anything I said was stupid or if the stories I told were boring. (Luckily, after talking with some friends after the event, I was totally not the most awkward one there and other people did things silly enough to be remembered over any faux pas I may have made.  Yay!)

- I have made plans to go out to dinner and a movie with Buzz and another couple this weekend.  We NEVER do things like this.  K has even been asking if she could have a "young" babysitter come hang out with her like they used to do before she went to school.  BUT, I feel guilty because I am going out and leaving her at home--even though she will have way more fun that if she were to come with us.

- When we do go out to special events, like the Marine Corps Ball (seriously, that's the ONLY time we really go out), and someone else puts K to bed, I can't sleep when I get home because I feel guilty and feel like a bad mom for staying out later than her bedtime.  I seriously have issues--most of these probably stem from the fact that for so long, it was just the two of us--Buzz was deployed so much in her first few years and I was away from family and most of my friends.  I never had the option to do such things.  K and I are a team.  But SHE has cut the cord, I believe this is MY problem.  Mom guilt sucks...especially when you worry like I do!

Anyway, back to 2. on my list...These are just a few examples of how I feel and overthink everything and lose a lot of sleep over things that no one else probably even remembers, or people don't even remotely care about if they DO remember.  I dream of being able to let things go, of having fun without worrying that I said or did something stupid or to "silly," of not caring if I am an awkward faux pas queen.  I have always prided myself on being true to me--of who I am and what I stand for.  I wouldn't compromise that for anything, but I will stress about it!  :)  So, this song makes me smile big smiles--and laugh.  Because I can't IMAGINE being in such crazy situations and saying "Whatever." "It doesn't matter."  Oh well!"  It seriously makes me uncomfortable to watch people being awkward on tv or hear about an embarrassing story of someone else.  The scenarios in this song make me uncomfortable--but they make me laugh because of the anecdote to just be like "whatever!"  And I dream of letting myself off the hook--even for just one night--to let my crazy hair hang down and not look back with anything except for happy laughs.  It's not likely to ever happen, but in the soundtrack of my mind, it's a good hypothetical story. 

And, 3.  I like the beat.  :)

So, without further ado, here is MY song for the week...(and, yep, I'm bouncing and smiling right now)  :)

Head on over to

to link up and hear other great songs!

The many faces and uses...of my back yard

So, today I was running behind (as usual) and did not have time for my usual run.  I have been working REALLY hard to run most days and I did not run yesterday (though I did some killer kettle bells and tae bo-ha!).  I had about 20 minutes before I had to jump in the shower to make a lunch date, K has requested not to be in the running stroller anymore (I get it--she IS 5, but she still weighs so little), and I didn't have time to go to the track we have been going to where she can ride her bike or swing on the nearby swingset while I complete my run.  What to do?  What to do?

[Enter my "great" idea]

Yes, the back yard.

We spend a lot of time in the back yard.  I love this house--and the back yard was the biggest selling point.  For a family who loves to be outside with two big dogs, this fenced in back yard was calling our name.  So, what did I do today?  I ran a few laps around my back yard--forwards.  Then I galloped sideways to the left, then to the right, then I ran backwards...and repeated.  About 20 minutes of that helped me work up a sweat and made me feel like I had the check in the box for some sort of cardio activity for the day.

Crazy?  Maybe, but it was another chance to reflect on our home here.  I love this house--more than I have loved any other place that we have lived.  Maybe because Buzz is here more often than at our past houses, maybe because we have such great neighbors, maybe because of this yard--I don't know, but I love it.  And the back yard is still my favorite place.  It has it all:

A hammock, under a weeping willow tree.  Ahhhhh...

A playset for our kiddo and her friends--I knew this house was a "yes" when I couldn't get K off of the playset when we came to look at the house.

This is the "cooking facility" and table where we prepare and eat most of our meals--the grill is now dimpled and without a cover thanks to the hail storm, but we still love it.

This is K's private diner--sometimes it's in the tree house, sometimes it's under the tree house, sometimes it's in the yard--today, it was in the sandbox.  :)

Oh yes, and the fire pit.  Notice the "seats" around the fire pit?  Well, those are new.  Those came from an old friend of our front yard--the birch tree.  The birch tree used to drip sap and stick leaves to the cars in the driveway, and Buzz was convinced it must come down.  Last weekend he was on a mission:

That would be my husband--on my neighbor's house, preparing for the goodbye ceremony for the tree.

Thanks to some great friends and neighbors,

And some pulling and tugging while chainsawing...

That bad boy came down!  Whoot Whoot to men with chainsaws!  ;)

It took a couple of days to clean up the front yard, but, anyway, the trunk gave us some fire pit seats.

So, that's about it.  I love my yard.  It gives me rest, play, exercise, food, and good stories--all of which often involve dog poop, but that's okay.  I love it here.  I'll miss it when we leave for the next part of our journey--we found out when and where we are going next year.  I'm excited and ready to get back to the beach--but this yard will always hold a special place in my heart.  :)

Life in the 'Burbs: Dressing your mailbox for success

Welcome to the first (I think there might be more) installment of "Life in the 'Burbs" where I contemplate the strange things in suburban life that are so foreign to me.  I didn't grow up in the suburbs.  When I first got married, I jumped between apartments and base housing...much different from the suburbs.  When we bought our first home it was in Jacksonville, NC--I suppose it was TECHNICALLY in the suburbs, but it was a neighborhood of Marines and their families, so it was pretty much still like base housing except with more bills and less rules.  When we moved to TN, we bought a house in the suburbs--the REAL suburbs...where people act differently than all of the places I have lived before.  I love it here, but as a sociologist, it brings about a lot of questions.  I notice some quirks that I suppose are normal for suburbanites, but I'm not a native.

There was a time in my life, before I moved to the 'burbs, when I thought that mailboxes were merely receptacles for receiving mail delivered by the USPS.  How silly!?!  Mailboxes are not just for getting your mail...apparently they are for showing off your landscaping skills (or, more likely, the landscaping skills of the landscaping company you hired to dress your formerly naked mailbox).  I don't know if status-symbol is the right word, but mailboxes in my neighborhood have something to prove!  I was thinking, while walking the dogs today, how humorous it is that people have taken this necessary, government-mandated box and turned it into a fashion statement of the front yard.  All mailboxes (and their surrounding areas) are not created equal.  But what makes a good mailbox?  I truly have no idea...but I did take the opportunity to walk just a few houses up the street to document some of the mailbox ornamentation in my little neck of the 'burbs.  Please forgive the lack of quality in these photographs...I felt a little silly walking around taking pictures of mailboxes so I was trying to be inconspicuous.  (On a sidenote, I think this would be a great idea of a coffee-table book--I called it.  Can I get a copyright on that?  I'll get to work as soon as this pesky PhD is out of the way.)

This is our mailbox, poor thing.  The mailbox landscaping came with the house.  But the box itself is falling over and is being overtaken by that bush that we keep trimming back but won't let up.  That little dogwood looks like it might be on its last leg, or should I say branch.  Those white flowers are pretty, but they are taking over, too.  We have a single tulip holding down the perennial fort.  Some of the monkey grass is new since we've been here.  We have no idea what to do with this thing.  We really need some fresh mulch, though.

This, I think, represents a mailbox that has it all.  Residents are obviously well-read (note the newspaper-box-thing).  You also have your classy Japanese Maple, some tulips, some irises (I think that's what they are) and some monkey grass...all encompassed in nice rocky line with mulch.

Here we have your big-time-mailbox-landscaping example.  Look at that mailbox, standing strong on a freshly-painted post-thing.  Complete with your colorful flowers, complimenting the landscape of the larger yard, and your bold monkey grass, all held together with rock and mulch.

I feel like this mailbox landscaper came from our school of thought.  I'm not sure that they knew exactly WHAT to do with the mailbox's yard, but they knew it was something.  So they planted this azalea (I think) around the mailbox and let it be.  Notice the symmetry with a similar bush on the other side of the driveway.

Similar to the specimen two pictures above, this mailbox landscaper went bold, but held off on the color.  Strong, upstanding mailbox in and of itself, it is complemented with a couple varieties (careful not to overdo it) of greenery with some new mulch and brick fence.

A fan of irises (and difficult to contain monkey grass), this mailbox landscaper also welcomes visitors with the garden flag--nice touch to make your mailbox feel homey. 

Woah!  This mailbox landscaping is in need of some TLC (I think--but of course it is quite possible I'm totally wrong).  What probably began with some crisp and defined greenery is spilling over a bit.  I picture the different plants fighting for the attention of the mailbox.  Clearly, this specimen has potential but needs some control.

A common sight in our neighborhood...the brick mailbox.  These pieces of yard ornamentation allow for additional landscaping around them or for the mailbox to boldly stand on its own, as if saying "Dude, I'm made of brick.  I don't need no landscapin'."

Now we move to the somewhat common "there's supposed to be something here, but what?" mailbox landscaping.  I'm glad our little area was filled in when we bought our house...otherwise, our mailbox would likely fall into this category or be extremely tacky with mis-matched plants because, again, we don't know what to do with these things.  I'm thinking of suggesting an HOA meeting on the topic.  People need to know what's expected of their suburban mailboxes.

Oh...this poor guy didn't get the memo. 

Am I the only one dorky enough to notice these things?!?  This is important stuff here.  Urban sociologists, move over--I'm going to dive into the subfield of SUBurban sociology...

USMC Fashion--Awesomeness...and PT Panties?!?

It seems like everyone talks about fashion on their blogs. I don't "do" fashion, myself--I'm a jeans and t-shirt type of girl (much to K's dismay--she tells me I dress boyish--for the record, I did wear a dress to her latest birthday party per her request).  I have no fashion authority because I have no fashion knowledge. I may not be up on what's "in" regarding the fashion world, but I do have some opinions on a certain "line" of clothing...

I love, love, LOVE Marine dress blues.  K calls Buzz's blues his "prince costume."  I love them.  Nothing makes me happier than being able to dress up in something fancy and have Buzz dressed up like my prince. 


2009 Ball--Buzz in his Blues and me in my favorite Ball dress ever

Now, these happy, nice pictures prior to whatever event requires Dress Blues usually turns into my irritation with too much drinking and hanging out with the guys, but I digress.  I also love the Alphas or Deltas--or whatever these are called (I can't remember which is which with the long sleeves vs. short sleeves and the big green hat vs. the little green hat vs. the white hat--I mean COVER--and the jacket vs. no jacket and the blue pants vs. the green pants)..I am talking about the uniform with the khaki-ish shirt.  Not as flashy, but nice, nonetheless.  I do have a slight problem with that banana-hat-thing, but I can deal with it.


Windy day in NC, prior to Iraq deployment #2

I even like cammies.  It might just be that I like that the guys call them "cammies."  Maybe because they remind me of homecomings?  I don't know.  But overall, I think the USMC has picked some great fashion choices for the Marines to wear and us to enjoy.

Homecoming 2009

 Now, where this gets thrown for a loop is when we get into the PT gear.  Those little silky-skivvy-thingies...really?  I mean, really?!?  Some friends when we lived in Florida introduced us to the term PT panties.  What a great term!  It sums up this insane piece of anti-fashion perfectly...

Where did these things come from?!?  Why wear anything at all?  I still think these things equal indecent exposure.  Seriously.  Buzz still thinks they are awesome.  I admit, they are comfy to sleep in--for ME when I am NOT going outside of my home.

There are some other versions of the PT shorts that are not as offensive, in my opinion such as

or even

But not the PT panties.  Just to reiterate, these things...

But I do have to wonder, since I am seeing more and more of the more appropriate shorts, are the PT panties phasing out?  My husband joined the Marine Corps in 1997...so he's been around for a while.  Do the new guys find the attraction in these things as the 30-something-year-old Marines do?  I know Buzz's friends still like them.  I know Buzz still likes them.  (sigh)  Is this more evidence of the changing nature of the Marine Corps?  Are our young Marines becoming modest or more aware of PT fashion?  Is the "trend" of PT panties leaving us?  In some ways, I hope so because of their utter inappropriateness.  But, in another, more personal way, I hope they are here to stay...at least for a while.  Why?  Because Buzz will not let them go.  He will continue to wear them. And I don't want to be "that girl" whose husband is the only one out there in PT panties--and when I mean out there, I mean OUT THERE because these things leave nothing to the imagination.  :)

The Grocery List

I am so overly behind with about every single one of my home chores and just about all of my schoolwork this week.  My husband had been out of town with his other true love (The Marine Corps) and my daughter has been sick.  Things are all off--not that we have a "normal" around here but I just feel out of sorts.  Anyway, at the top of the list of things to do is go to the grocery store...we are out of everything and have been eating out every meal since Monday, I think.  (NOT good for the bank account or for health reasons but whatever...)

So, I am preparing to grocery shop.  I hate going to the grocery store.  It's right up there with putting gas in the car of things that I have to do on a regular basis, aren't that big of a deal, but that I just can't stand.  And so the list begins.  You know, the grocery list that you try to stick to but you always end up buying more and forgetting one or two of the most important things on the list...so you spend more money than you want and STILL have to go back.  [sigh]

I'm all about trying to save money.  I'm cheap, yet somehow we still never seem to have extra money.  I don't mind buying what we call "the bo-bo brand" (i.e. the store brand) of things, but there are some things that I buy where I MUST have the real-deal, expensive name brand.  Top among these are aluminum foil (it HAS to be Reynolds Wrap).  I just can't seem to deal with the bo-bo brands of aluminum foil--they rip too easily and aren't strong enough.  I also must have Silk soy milk--my daughter won't drink anything else.  I am starting to gravitate away from the bo-bo brand of paper towels, too.  Speaking of paper towels, I have another issue with grocery shopping...

I have a small fear of running out of 3 things:  paper towels, toilet paper, and light bulbs.  A light bulb just blew in our living room and I went out to our cold garage to the storage shelves where I keep a healthy stock of reserves of these items and HOLY CRAP, I'm running low!  We are down to our last roll of paper towels on reserve.  And, if you'll take a quick journey into that garage with me...

I am down to my last jumbo pack of TP...and it's OPEN!!!  Not only that, look...

The light bulb boxes are emptying out!  Oh, back to the grocery list--there are necessities that need to be on there!

I get it, I'm really not running that low.  I'm not sure where these irrational worries come from.  They are not major worries that consume my days, but when I recognize this ever-so-minor emergency is on my hands, I must take action.  These shelves must be filled again with their appropriate goods.

So, I'm wondering if anyone else has any of these random grocery shopping pet peeves?  Are there other must-have-name-brand goods where the bo-bo brands just won't do?  Am I the only one who feels the need to stockpile light bulbs, TP, and paper towels...or other random things?

Happy almost weekend!



Help Wanted:

Upper Management Level Position...in theory--to help manage my time and jump into my mind to help me understand the way theory and practice work together, sociologically speaking. Candidate should be well-versed in classical and contemporary sociological theory; a vast and complex knowledge of the world of philosophy is a plus. Ideal candidate will be able to take very abstract concepts that have nothing to do with reality and put them into understandable, concrete terms that make sense in my world. The ability to completely dehumanize yourself to see how society impacts the individual so much that, in theory, the individual has internalized society to the point that one may not be separated from the other is a necessary trait for this position. Compensation will be the non-monetary payment of being my hero.

Equal Opportunity Employer

P.S. Yes...that's Karl Marx throwin' the peace sign :) (Oh I am contemplating all of the ironies and theoretical discussions that could be had on this post......)