Thursday This n That

I swear to god whoever's sneaking into our house at night and beating us in our sleep needs to stop. (This is not really happening.  It just feels like it.)

I taught Hubs how to make cake cookies last night.  He had a sweet tooth thing going on and I told him to go make cookies.  I ended up doing most of the work (which is not much work anyway), but now he knows how for future reference.  (Considering the fact that I am a total control-freak in the kitchen, this was a bigger deal than you think.)  I made them BIG because it was necessary.  And as soon as they were cool enough for the chocolate chips to not burn our mouths, we ate some.  Yay.  Warm chocolate chip cookies are da bomb.  

I'm also a control-freak in my car.  His car? Nope.  My car?  I'm in control, baby.

It might snow today.  And that's just about enough of that already.  Sheesh.

We've had a red-shouldered hawk hanging out around the yard lately.  I've named him Rufus.  Yesterday, I saw Beauregard in the woods.  (He's our resident broad-winged hawk.)  Luckily, I think they have different prey.  Unfortunately, I fear Beau might be prey in Rufus's eyes.  Hope not, but nature's a witch sometimes.

Did I tell you someone hit a beaver on the highway the other day?  There's a wet-weather creek right there leading to the lake, about 3/4 of a mile away, and for some reason the beavers cross the highway at that point.  No clue why.  I just know this is the second beaver that's been hit right there since we moved here.

My brother traps beavers in Michigan.  He provides a service for people whose land is being ruined by the pesky buggers and he takes the skinned carcasses to a raptor rehabilitator.  He also makes maple syrup.  This is probably a busy time for the maple thing and according to this, nearing the end of beaver season.  Plus, he works a 'full-time and then some' job.  Bro's a busy dude.  If more people had his drive, this world would be a better place all the way around.

We're a pretty industrious family.  Stop laughing.  I can be industrious.  =op  (I'm not, but I can be.)

I quit watching Grey's Anatomy cold turkey.  I'm not even sure why I liked it.  Don't even get me started on the dysfunctional relationships it regularly portrays as normal and good.  It's certainly addictive, though, which is why I had to stop cold turkey.  Like football.  I'm not a 'wean myself off' kind of person.  It's really hard to not walk in the living room right now and turn on the TV to watch it.  But I'm pushing through.

Speaking of dysfunctional relationships, I have had more than my fair share.  I was talking to Mom about it yesterday.  One in particular was especially nasty and I was telling her I still have nightmares.  They're only about once a year now, but they're always bad.  And no, he never hit me.  He just tormented me mentally and emotionally to the point where I thought about killing myself to get away from him.  And THAT was the point at which I realized I needed to get the hell away from him.  And I still tried to stay.  It took one more week of being treated like crap to put some starch in my spine and I was outta there.  Whew.  Did I learn?  Nope.  Fell into a similar relationship about 2 years later.  Eventually, I did learn, though, and I'm with Hubs.  Who is awesome, by the way.  

Wow, I was a little wordy there, wasn't I?  Got anything to share with me this morning?

The First Step is Loving Yourself

Yesterday, a FB friend of mine posted the following statement: "A woman needs a man who will make her feel beautiful & loved every day."  I was all like 'yep', liked it and moved on.  This morning, I read the comments.  

Oh, don't worry.  No one's gone after her for the whole binary thing.  (Although I did see that elsewhere in a different post sharing the venom a certain writer is receiving because she defended someone else's right to have an opinion and the opinion was that there are only two genders or some such verboten truth.  But I digress...)  The comments were mostly guys talking about being good men and not finding women who actually want them.  Or finding women who say they want a good man, but then treat those good men badly.  

One comment struck me... He said something along the lines of having to get past women's self-doubts and that no matter how many times a guy tells a gal she's beautiful and loved, she won't believe him.  Been there, done that.  And I'd like to address why.

Okay, so I'm not exactly sure WHY why.  But I do know that by the time I reached dating age, my self-esteem was so screwed into the dirt, I not only couldn't actually tell a good guy from a bad guy, but I didn't think I was worthy of a good guy.  How that came about is the why I can't quite put my finger on, but I'm pretty sure it's not all that different from the majority of the women out there.  Or maybe it is.  

Beyond that, I was such a rube.  I was so busy trying to find a mate, because the culture says you have to find a mate or be worthless, that I hung my hopes on the slightest positive attribute and ignored any negative attributes.  If he was nice to me and actually WANTED little ol' unlovable me, I was all for him.  I learned the hard way that sometimes the biggest shits are the nicest guys... at first.  And then when things went bad, I put it all on me.  I believed I was at fault and I was the reason they turned into shits.   

Umm, no.

Between 16 - when I was allowed to date - and 33, I went through a tragic amount of bad relationships - good guys and bad guys, them fooling me or me fooling myself or both.  The central failing all along was that I didn't like myself.  Over the years, I got better, but not better to the point where I stopped the cycle.

After the last relationship before Hubs, I worked on being happy being single.  Loving myself and my own company.  Once I got there, I waded in again, because being single is lonely and man was not meant to be alone.  I got lucky and found Hubs.  Now, there's a good man.  

Even then, though, the self-doubt crept in.  That first year, I was terrified I would do something or say something and everything would fall apart.  I'd be the stupid one again.  He was very patient with me.  He's always very patient with me.  And I was patient with him.  Because that's the way a real relationship works.  Patience and understanding, setting aside your baggage and helping them set aside theirs.  Until you've been together long enough that the baggage fades away.  

Yes, there are good men out there.  There are good women out there, too.  Finding them is as easy or as difficult as wading through the bad ones, and the not-quite-right ones, until you make it.  But the first step is loving yourself, recognizing your faults and working to either fix them or make peace with them. Loving yourself is the ultimate path to find someone else who loves you, too.  I discovered that being okay with being an individual alone is the best way to become part of a duo that endures.  

Thursday This n That

I'm too old for dissenting opinions.  I mean, people can certainly have them, but I'm tired of looking at / hearing them.  Scrolling down the FB feed, I hide them and block them.  I spent a lot of time in my younger years having debates and poking people with pointy sticks to try and make them see things my way or to try and see things their way.  I'm so over it.  Meh.

The other day I was talking with a younger friend of mine about dating and relationships.  She told me that some numbnuts told her (an unsolicited opinion, btw) the reason she didn't have a boyfriend was that she was too lazy to look for one.  :eyeroll:  Fortunately, my friend's with me - it's better to be alone than be with the wrong person.  I spent enough years with the wrong people to have learned that one the hard way, lemme tell ya.  Lucky for me, I've been with the right one for almost 15 years now.  My friend wants what we have and she's not settling for anything less.  Go her.

Yesterday, the whole area filled up with smoke.  Again.  This time we didn't bother blaming the neighbors. (Tons of them regularly burn leaves and/or trash.)  It was obviously not from around here.  Sure enough, it was out-of-state smoke.  Two controlled burns in AR.  It's like an annual Spring thing.  They burn down there, it gets smoky up here.  I joked with Hubs we could probably hang strips of salmon on the porch and they'd be smoked by morning.

It's time to spray for ticks again.  While the spray we use doesn't kill snakes, it does make them feel weird, so they avoid it.  Win-win.  Particularly good since we had what I believe was a smallish cottonmouth (as in not huge, but still probably over two-foot long) on the deck earlier in the week.  He'd seen it the day before, poking its head out from a hole in the wood siding, and the next day it came out to sun itself on the deck.  We weren't sure what kind of snake it was, not until it started to strike at us with its white mouth open.  We kept it from going back in the hole and Hubs has since stuffed the hole with steel wool.  Unfortunately, this means no more woods time for me until fall.  =o(

I've started watching a couple game shows - America Says and Common Knowledge.  They're a hoot.  If you get the Game Show Network, they start at 4pm Central and run 'til 5.  It's a nice break from the bullshit.

Speaking of hoots, I watched a video yesterday of a dad trying to get his toddler to try ketchup on her fries.  When she solemnly shook her head no, like the thought of anything on her sacred fries was disgusting, I about fell apart.  "Try it.  It'll change your life," he says.  ROFL.  She finally tries it and she has such a look of utter contentment.  Ketchup on fries... it's deep and it's real.

Sometimes the only thing keeping me from going all apeshit on the world is funny videos of puppies, kitties, and kids.

What say you this week?