This weekend Pippy came up and we cleaned out some boxes of old books looking for children's books to pass down to the baby. And we struck gold.
We found a box of some of my old diaries, and they are ah-mazing! First, I've learned a few things have, sadly, not changed that much since I was nine years old. Obviously I couldn't spell, but you already knew that. Also, I have a very hard time keeping diaries. It is truly a miracle that this blog has lasted as long as it has.
Here is an example of both findings:
"April 7, 1996
Dear Diary,
This is probobly my 3red attempt at keeping a "Diary". I haven't ever been able to keep writting in one for long, but maybe this time. I can't spell to well so exuse mis-spelled words, (my teachers usally do). Also if I skip a day or two exuse that. I'm very busy you know."
I still think many of those words should actually be spelled that way, and sometimes do. Especially "writting," which should have two t's. Also, I remain very busy, you know.
Anyway, also in that entry, the reader learns I have a boyfriend, Keith Smith. "He's shorter than me, but I really and truely don't care and neither does he so who cares what other people think any way? Besides he'll grow over the summer." Sadly for Keith, that did not come true and he remains rather short to this day.
Then, 11 days later, the next entry:
"April 18, 1996
Dear Diary (It's gonna be long),
Today so many things happend so I'll have to go in the order they happend so I don't leave anything out. Well I didn't wear my new out fit today because it was to cold."
What? Of all the things that happened, that's what I lead with? Other things that happened that day were "langwige" class was cool and Keith gave me a bunny ("which I later named Bernarde") with a "Russal Stovers" candy box tied to its chest ("little box 4 chocalates"). Such an exciting day! It was love!
Sadly, our love was not to last though, me and Keith Smith. He must have broken up with me some time at the end of April. You would think this would have been a long, sad entry, but there's nothing. Only this short, but triumphant entry from May 9, 1996:
"Dear Diary, Today was the anniual trash pick -up and Keith was in my group! Well, it wasn't like I talked to him (whew!). But all my friends were rude to him when he talked to them. I didn't even ask them to. I guess when a guy brakes up with you he breaks up with all your friends too!!"
True that, sister!
Another theme is that in the period of me keeping up with each diary, for a while I am unfailing at keeping the entries regular- to the point of writing weekly summaries when I didn't have time to write every day. Or, as in this entry, when it is inconvenient for both me and the people around me:
"February 3, 1995
Dear D (diary was a hard word),
Carla is spending the night (yes!!), Pippy is gone and I'm sitting on the pot. (WHAT? What? What are you doing? Why are you sitting on the pot writing in your diary when you have a friend over? Where is she?) Carla's in the other room asking "Are you almost done?"
So there you go, militant vigilance at keeping the blog...I mean diary, for a while.
But when I wasn't, I was very guilty and apologetic:
"May 7, 1996
Dear Diary,
WOW! I'm SO sorry it's been a month! But I just couldn't find the time to write in you! (What was I doing? Just one year ago I was willing to write while pretending to poop while a friend was over. What happened to my dedication?) I'm SO sorry. I'll try to fill you in. I won't let it happen again. (Okay good. You're forgiven So what have we missed?) Well, last month we had to make a castle in Social Studies. Mine was so good."
Sigh.
The last thing I learned is that I had a deep burning belief that my writings would become famous and be passed down from generation to generation (there are many references to my "children, grand-children and great grand-children" reading a particular entry). In actuality though, they're pretty boring. Just a lot of things about what I did that day or week.
So to recap, in the early 90s I couldn't spell, had a need to write on a schedule, had terrible guilt when I didn't and the hope that my mediocre writing would be discovered and make me famous.
So, yeah.
On the bright side, there are some pretty bad ass drawings:
As previously mentioned, we have two cats. While we love our cats, no matter how much you love your cats, no one loves litter. It's gross to scoop the poop of another creature, but it's even grosser when they've left it for you in a smelly little box and then you have to fish it out like you're on a terrible treasure hunt.
I've always hated litter, but since I've been pregnant Brad has taken over litter duties. This has made me realize that I should never have to scoop litter again because I love not scooping litter. Brad disagrees. I've been plotting.
Flashback to about six months ago. Brad came home and told me this story about a magical poop scooping machine that one of his friends just bought. These friends are very nice, but they are also way rich, and they're kind of weird.
As an example, they didn't use diapers for their kid, they just held her over the toilet every time she looked like she had to go...from the time she was a newborn. They swear by it and said that she was potty trained by the time she was six months old. I don't even kind of understand this. So when Brad told me about the magic robot and that they remodeled their bathroom for it, I was pretty sure this thing was 1). very expensive and 2). dumb. I was half right.
Basically, Brad explained, this litter box scoops the poops and pees (yeah, not that impressive), and then it washes the litter (which is actually little plastic pellets), dries the litter and sends the poops and pees into the sewer. Whoa. Hold your horses.
That's right, you hook it up to either your toilet or the washing machine outtake valve that goes into the sewer, and all the pees and poops get swept away. NO human intervention ever!
This was nuts, but at the time seemed like something that was just a little too nuts. We both laughed, and I just filed it away. And then...I got pregnant.
The litter box was previously upstairs, on a tarp, in the closet of a bedroom we don't use (okay, fine we call it the "Cat Room." Yes, we are ridiculous people. Judge me. That's fine.) I didn't want the litter box upstairs by the baby room.
But where to put it? If we put it in the laundry room, the obvious choice, it would be right by the kitchen. That would be stinky and not hygienic. Unless...
I casually planted the seed with Brad "Remember that cat pooper scooper Alex and Martha got? Wouldn't that be cool?" He wasn't sold. "It's fine where it is," I believe were his exact words.
But, then..we got new carpet. With the baby coming and the new carpet, I explained, there was no way that the litter box would remain in its current home. He was still on the fence.
The final straw was we found out Brad will be gone for work for three weeks while I'm still preggo. Who will scoop the poop then? "I guess we'll have to have some kid come over every day and scoop the poop. Too bad we don't have that magic poop scooping robot." He didn't bite, or so I thought.
A few days later, out of the blue I got a text message from Brad saying the robot was on the way! Hooray! Winner!!
When it came, we installed it and then watched it run through a full cycle, which takes 20 minutes. We both sat on the laundry room floor watching our robot. "I can't believe this has become our Saturday night," said Brad. "Yeah, and we paid a lot of money for the show," I said. It was amazing though, and I couldn't tear my eyes away.
Okay, now look, I know how ridiculous this seems from the outside looking in. I realize this is a luxury item, and that people in third world countries are starving and we got a litter box that cleans itself. I also realize it uses a lot of water because it washes the litter three times after each cleaning, which I think is overkill (although I did take it off auto-cat mode and have it on manual mode so I can choose when to clean it...which kind of makes me feel better).
I'm not ashamed of the robot, but I'm do feel a bit guilty...BUT I'M SO HAPPY!! I LOVE THIS MACHINE! I LOVE IT!
It has solved a major dilemma in my life and it is keeping our home cleaner. Plus, if you amortize the cost over just one year, it's less than $1 a day. I mean come on, a single dollar to never have to touch litter again? I do realize that I could be giving that dollar to a child in need, but I will give other dollars to that child, I promise.
My final rationalization is that we didn't buy anything for each other for our anniversary this year, so this is our anniversary present. And everyone knows that year six is the year of the robot.
Videos of the Robot in action (this is my first attempt at videos on the blog, so hopefully it works):
My boss is from Utah. Recently, he was down going on some appointments with me, and in an effort to make chit chat while we drove around visiting clients, he asked "So, what's the best thing about living in Texas?"
Do you know what I said?
"Well, there's no income tax, so that's good."
What?!? That's all I had? It was so awkward for both of us. One, I was embarrassed that was the best answer I could come up with to describe the state I love, and he was stumped on follow up questions. I mean really? How do you follow that?
To his credit he did come up with one: "Oh, so yeah, that's good. Um, do they make it up somewhere else?" It was a very strange conversation.
The worst part is, that's NOT the best thing about living in Texas. It's a good thing, but not the best. There are so many good things I really can't name them all, and reading a list of what I like about Texas probably wouldn't be that entertaining, so I direct you to the classic Gary P. Nunn song "What I Like About Texas." This version includes some great pictures to go along with the song- in particular I love the ladies holding "a cold Lone Star" in their hand at both 53 seconds and the lady with the cold Lone Star in her "hand" at about 1:38.
"What I Like About Texas" by Gary P. Nunn
Anyway, so now you know.
But, this really sparked an internal debate. Why was that my answer? Why did I struggle so much? Sure, Texas has its downside and gets a bad rap. I'm not going to get into the politics or the heat- arguably the two worst things about Texas- because overall, it's a great place to live. My God, we're the state of Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn...BBQ!
Maybe it wasn't Texas that had me stumped. Maybe it was me.
We lived in Colorado for two years, and really loved it. It's so beautiful, and we made some wonderful friends. But, while we were away, all we could talk about was how great Texas is and how awesome it would be to move home. Then we did, and now we talk about how great Colorado was.
Are we unsatisfied with the wonderful life we have? Ungrateful? Not happy to be back close to family?
I don't think so, at least I hope not. I think it's kind of like going to summer camp or college though. You leave and have an experience, and then come back and the world you knew looks a little different for the experiences you've had. But, it makes that world better because you're back because you chose to be, not just because you were born there.
So now I think, so what? So I recognize the no income tax is fun. That's what happens when you go away to summer camp or college, you grow up a little and start caring about taxes.
