Cindy's World

Archive for June, 2013

I watch the show Love It or List It and the number one reason for renovation it seems if a couple has children is not enough bedrooms. They don’t want their kids sharing a bedroom. If you prevent siblings from sharing a room you might also prevent a strong sibling bond that could form as a result of sharing one.

My brother and I shared a room when we were young. At night when it was ‘lights out’ we would talk in hushed voices so no one would hear us. During the day we would laugh and play, forming a bond thanks to the confines of our room. When we aged and got our own rooms, my brother would still come into my room so we could talk; strengthening the bond. Today, looking back, I realized we were privileged to have made a connection we otherwise might not have.

But, not all siblings share a bedroom and not all share a bathroom. It always got me that the Brady Bunch kids (6) shared one bathroom. The father was an architect. Why couldn’t he design a house with more bathrooms?

For some couples separate closets and bathrooms make a happy marriage. Go ahead and keep your clothes on the closet floor, if I don’t see it, I don’t care. Go ahead keep the toilet seat up, if I don’t see it, I don’t care. Go ahead and keep blobs of toothpaste in the sink, if I don’t see it, I don’t care. I would think separate bathrooms for married couples would be the number one reason for home renovation.

The Institute of Medicine recently recommended schools provide at least 60 minutes of activity and for PE to become a core subject. This makes sense since schools might be the only place some kids will get any physical activity. When we live in the age of ‘snowball throwers’ (Yes, there’s such a thing) you need to plan activity.

I was not the PE enthusiast when in school. Climbing the rope was enough to make my stomach turn. Nobody wanted to climb the rope after Jimmy, who wiped his runny nose with his hands and climbed the rope first. This was pre Purell. Jimmy was the reason Purell was invented.

I spent gymnastics day wishing I was taller, at least 5 feet, 3 inches so that when I attempted to jump over the horse I wouldn’t land on it in a position that had spectators tilting their heads and commenting, “That’s not right.” I would pray the horse was real so it would gallop away before I had a chance to embarrass myself.

Adults as well as children need more exercise. The other day when a stores automatic door didn’t open I was infuriated. I had to exert energy to open it myself. At the mall when the escalator broke and I had to walk the stairs I was infuriated. The last time I couldn’t find the remote and had to get up off the couch to look for it, I was infuriated.

A clear sign you may need more exercise is if the only time you jog is when someone is chasing you down a dark alley. I could of sworn that guy was Jimmy.

I was trying to break off a piece of dental floss, but it kept coming, so I cut it and ended up with a mile long strand of floss. Looking at it I felt like I was at the dentist. It’s baffling to me that my hygienist uses enough floss for 12 people on my small, little mouth. (My husband debates whether or not my mouth is small.) Who needs that much floss? Last time she used cinnamon flavored and I asked to switch to mint. There’s unflavored and flavored floss and if I’m going to use flavored – it will be mint.

Then poised with the mile long floss wrapped expertly around her fingers she asked, like always, “You floss on a regular basis?” Even if I didn’t, I wouldn’t tell her. She had enough floss to strangle me. I suspect this is why prisoners are not allowed dental floss; which probably leads to very poor prisoner dental hygiene. So, I gave her an enthusiastic, “Yes, I floss after every meal.”

The more important question is – should you floss before or after you brush? Does it matter? Some people floss to loosen the food and then brush it away. Some people brush and then floss. Some people floss, brush and repeat floss. This is a personal choice. I would imagine it would be a snap to remove and clean them.

Everybody has a personal flossing style. Some, like my hygienist, uses a quick in and out method. Some people use a sawing method. They go down to the gum line and begin sawing back and forth, slowly moving up the tooth. Then they wrap the floss around the tooth for optimum effect. Bye the time they’re done, it’s time for their next meal.

Sometimes as you’re flossing your entire meal comes back to say, “Hello.” Sometimes you have enough food for a second meal. Wow. You sure ate a lot of corn, buttered corn. You can still taste the butter as you lick the corn covered floss. Yum. What do you do with the food? Do you spit it out or do you chew it? If you chew it, you’ll have to floss all over again. These are the people who need the mile long strand of floss.

Woman’s Day magazine listed ‘7 things your cell phone salesperson wants you to know.’ One of them was to order your phone online as carrier websites offer exclusive online specials and you’ll save lot of money. Then you can go to a store where a salesperson will assist you set up the phone for free.

I read this on the heels of reading that some stores now charge customers to try on clothes. The reason given is that customers try on clothes, waste the salesperson time and then buy it online cheaper. Two ends of the spectrum here.

Buying clothes online hurts the salesperson working on commission and the brick-and-mortar stores. What’s next? Will car salesmen charge you to look at cars? Will real estate agent charge you to look at houses?

Next time you go shopping and know you’ll be trying on clothes bring a buddy so you don’t have to waste a salesperson’s time. I recently went shopping with my husband and waited outside the dressing room while he tried clothes on. And why aren’t there any chairs outside the men’s dressing room like there is outside the women’s dressing room? Anyway, there was a lady standing next to me, typing away on her blackberry. Anytime her husband (who she knew from his sneakers) emerged from the dressing room, without even looking up she’d give him an automatic, generic, “Looks great, Sweetie.”  She was typing away when she saw the sneakers approach again and started with the usual, “Looks grea…” when I stopped her and said, “I got this one. He’s mine.” Startled, she looked up and said, “Oh, I didn’t realize. I saw the sneakers and assumed he was mine.”  “Perfectly understandable,” I replied. Not only were our husbands wearing the same sneakers, but the same clothes. Men don’t mind if another man’s wearing the same outfit; matter of fact they like it because then they think they look good. When trying on clothes men don’t ask, “Do I look fat in this?” They don’t care. If it fits, they buy it. Men don’t need to try on clothes to feel the material and see how it hugs the butt.  The one thing men care about is price. If online shopping is cheaper, then they should shop online and not waste the salespersons time and more importantly, the wife’s time.

Just about everything these days is motion sensored.  Soap dispensers and faucets are. Paper towel dispensers are; at least they claim to be. I go to this one restaurant that has a sensor dispenser. When I wave my hands in front of it nothing happens. When I wave my hands under it nothing happens. Only when I punch it does the paper towel roll out.

When I was at Home Depot the other day I walked by some porch lights that came on. They were motion sensored. With nothing else to do while my husband looked for tools I walked back and forth watching the lights go on and off. When I started to dance in front of them it was my very own light show.

I recently stayed at a relative’s house equipped with motion sensor night lights. When I went to the bathroom at night, I happened to look toward the light just as it went on. It was like looking at a flashbulb. I was blinded. When I went to check on my daughter sleeping in the other room, the night light would come on, waking her. Not wanting to disturb her the next time I checked I developed a plan. When I got close to the lights vicinity I would drop and roll toward her so the light wouldn’t come on. It was like a bank robbery scene from a mission impossible movie. And since these night lights were placed outside bedrooms, bathrooms and in hallways I was given an all-points bulletin every time one lit up.

In bed, I’d hear my bedmate report, “Suspect in room four is out of his quarters, the light is on and there’s movement in the hall. What do you think he’s doing?”  My guess was since the light was outside the bathroom, that he was going to the bathroom and since there was a light in the bathroom, he would then be blinded by that light. Thank goodness we didn’t get up all at once to use the bathroom as the whole house would have been ablaze with light.

The zip code turns 50 this year; happy birthday. The zip code was rolled out to make mail delivery easier for your postman.

Until recently a neighbor who moved away years ago was still getting packages delivered to her old house. Every so often she’d call to ask if we’d go next door, talk to the new owners and collect her package. At first we thought the post office was at fault for not forwarding her mail. It turns out she was at fault. She would shop online and when she moved she never bothered
to change her address. So, when she placed her online order she would ‘click and confirm’ her address rather than change it. One day she showed up and wrongly accused the new owner for withholding her mail. When he found out she placed the order online, he told her, “Change your address and your packages will be delivered to your new house.” You can tell she had a light bulb moment as planes started to land on her head.

Recently I put a birthday card in our mailbox. I was home and outside when the mailman came. I saw him remove the card, look at the card and put it with the rest of the mail in his truck. About a week later I receive the card in the mail with stickers ‘undeliverable’ and ‘lack of postage’ on it. Unbelievable – not that I forgot to put a stamp on it, but that the mailman
didn’t say anything to me the day he took it. I know he saw me. He could of let me know I forgot the stamp. Did he have to take the card and let it travel around the world only to be returned a week later? My birthday card became a belated birthday card. From now on I think I’ll go with e-cards.

Warm weather means barbecues, vacations and mosquitoes. You could use bug repellent and light citronella candles, but they’re gonna get you. I got eaten alive recently walking the Wetlands in Florida. Only at the time I was unaware as I was preoccupied with avoiding the snakes on the boardwalk. Ah, memories.

My husband and I passed on the anti- itch cream and decided to tough it out. I’ve been scratching ever since. It helps to have long nails for scratching as you’ll get instant satisfaction. Once you start scratching a bite that’s been driving you crazy you release an audible sigh of pleasure so loud that just like in the movie When Harry Met Sally, those around you will
demand, “I’ll have what she’s having.”

Last night I was walking and attempted to lift my foot to scratch my ankle. I toppled over. So, I propped against a neighbor’s mailbox and went at it. Heaven. Lucky for me she wasn’t home.

Sitting on the couch watching television, my husband started to scratch his bites. Watching him I felt myself start to itch. It was a slow buildup. I call it contagious itching because just like yawning is contagious, so too is scratching. The more he scratched, the more I scratched. He scratched his foot. I scratched my foot. He scratched his arm. I scratched my arm. He was
envious of the relief my long nails brought. We scratched and sighed, scratched and sighed. It was when he scratched where baseball players scratch that he begged me to scratch him. I stopped scratching, got up and cut my nails.

USA Today’s snapshot was – What is your ‘pantry personality’? It had percentages for people who were neat, disorganized, a minimalist or a doomsday prepper. Just like my husband and I have an interfaith marriage, we have a mixed pantry. I’m in the nice and neat percentage and he’s in the doomsday prepper. It’s hard to keep things organized when you live with a prepper. So, basically all I do is organize the masses of stuff he buys. Recently I was kind of happy when pantry supplies started to run low as I could see the shelves. My husband saw empty space, panicked and ran to fill it. Rice-a-Roni was on sale so he bought 12 boxes, for us that’s a year’s supply. Pasta was on sale and even though we didn’t need he bought it because, “It never goes bad.” So, he brings the sh…, I mean supplies home and I organize.

I do try to have some semblance of order in the pantry with tall stuff in back and short stuff up front. Although I’m not a fanatic, I do not alphabetize my spices. I organize the shelves I can reach. I can’t reach the top shelves. I want to know the person who designed ceiling high cabinets, unreachable to the short person, and thought they were a good idea. A short person should be able to reach the top shelf in their own house. They should not have to get a ladder, chair or department style pole to retrieve what they want. We have cabinets above our refrigerator that I have no idea what’s in them. My husband could be hiding money, knives, a small mistress, or my guess Rice-a–Roni.

If grocery stores strategically stock sugary cereals for kids at eye level, why can’t home builders place cabinets at eye level? Because then and only then will I know how many boxes of Rice-a Roni my husband has stored away.