The volcano may be turning dormant.

Well, as of today, it has been a year...  What a grand experiment!

I started this blog on June 21 of 2012 mainly because many many many people complained about my long winded status updates on my personal Facebook page.   Then, one person highly recommended that I start a blog.  By "highly recommended" I mean that she pretty much threatened me with death or worse, to unfriend me on Facebook, if I didn't find another outlet for my thoughts.

She mentioned blogger.com and that was all I needed.

This pretty much became a "Dear Diary" therapeutic type thing for me and it helped me express myself as I wished without having to impose upon those on Facebook whom I consider "friends."  What amazed me and continues to do so is that, people actually read this!  Thank you.

As I recall, I wrote every day in a row for the first 63 or so days.  How I did that, I am not entirely sure but it was a lot of fun simply writing about what was on my mind.  However, I gave myself some rules in that I refused to write about the things that truly anger me, depress me or are controversial in most senses of the word.  I didn't start this blog to change anything or anyone and I haven't done it to convince anyone of any personal issue or to impact any one's life in anyway.

However, by setting those rules for myself, I've kind of limited myself.  By avoiding anger and controversy, sadness and pain, I have the happy to write about, but I just cannot get too personal.  So I opted for the happy inane thoughts and events in my life.  I'm actually surprised to admit that my whole life isn't as inane as I had thought when I first started this.  And in limiting myself, I found myself not having as much to write about as the year has gone on.

I liken my brain to Vesuvius (sans the death toll) in that, I was full of thoughts, I was overwhelmed by the pressure to get these thoughts out, I vented a few here and there and then suddenly I erupted into the Blogosphere upon an unsuspecting Pompeii (that'd be those of you reading).  I imagine some people got stuck staring at this blog from time to time, simply trapped as if they have been turned to stone by the volcanic ash of my Vesuvian-verbiage!  Yup, I made that up!!!!

As of the moment I am composing this, I have published 144 posts in 365 days of which the first 63 or 65 of them happened in the first 63 or 65 days.  I also have 15 currently waiting to be published some of which have been in the "draft" phase since day one.

It dawned on me early on that people all over the world randomly read blogs on a daily basis.  I am amazed that I have readers all over the planet.  In the last year, the TOP TEN nations to read the blog have been:

1. The United States
2. Russia
3. Germany
4. United Kingdom
5. Latvia
6. France
7. Canada 
8. Sweden
9. Turkey
10. India

And those are just the double to quadruple digit nations (and blogger only keeps track of the top ten at any given time).  In the last month Spain and Switzerland have checked in often.  And in the last week Japan, Poland, Uruguay, Pakistan and Indonesia have been following me.

THIS AMAZES ME!!!

I have a few friends who write blogs.  Forgive me for not directing you to their blogs but I'm going link free today.  Some of them use their blog as a place to practice their writing skills.  Some are happy and some are dark.  One friend writes a brilliant review of foods she likes to make and places she likes to eat.  Another has made of a career of traveling to places and blogging about it for the places she visits.  What a great career!  I had no idea that any of this was going on when I started.

The thought of making money on this was very intriguing!  Blogger offers a way to make money but I have to say they seem to be rather vague in their rules as to how one may generate an income and from what I understand, one doesn't make too much form them.  Essentially you apply with them to allow them to place advertisements on your page.  They find an audience to cater to after reviewing your site and BINGO, you make like 1 dollar a month!

I tried.  The first step was to create a Facebook page to compliment and direct people to the blog.  It kind of worked!

I say "kind of" because, well, whenever I post a link to my latest blog addition on the Facebook page, I do see a quick response in readers.  However, by creating the Facebook page no one had a reason to follow the blog when they could just follow the page.  I know that it's kind of the same thing as one relates to the other, but... well I don't know, but something about that just seems wrong.  I don't know why.

Regardless, it works.

Originally I was posting the link to the blog on my personal Facebook page but I think that still managed to drive "friends" nuts.  The new Facebook page for the blog turned out to be a hit and maintained readers.  However, it did not appease the advertising Gods.

Upon reviewing my blog for advertising, I received a message that broke down to saying that I don't really have a particular audience.... 

So much for this as a fall back career!

 Now, I have learned that I truly enjoy the writing and putting my thoughts to page, but, I always have to hold back.  Mainly, I hold back out of respect, or perhaps, fear....  I have family whom I wish to not ostracize, but DAMN they create such fun and awkward situations.... I have friends, whom may not forgive me if I spout out our Vegas-esque escapades... I have people, or at least one person, who read this to find out what awful things I may say that they could use against me in a court of law... and then, I just don't want to turn this into a one sided bitch-session.

Seriously, there are what, like 7 billion people on this planet and at any given moment, my life has got to be at least 50 times better than maybe 6 billion of those people!  Yet, daily, something is going on in my life that just might be "THE WORST THING EVER" as I often hear any dramatic experience described in the elementary school social scene!

I could write a blog solely on all of the negativity that is around but, man, have you looked out there at all the negative blogs?  It ain't me!  I could see where it would feel very good to write a bitchy blog, much like truly cursing someone out (who totally deserved it) or quitting a terrible job feels GREAT, for about fifteen minutes until reality sets in...  But once you tap into that negativity, you just encourage it and strengthen like a muscle until, eventually, it's all you know. 

Seriously, I know at least one furiously self-absorbed negative person who has grown so accustomed to being angry all the time that they've decided everyone around them is always angry all the time too and is therefore defensive towards and angry at EVERYONE!  I pray they're wrong.  Maybe I'm naive....

I'm getting off point....  That's my thing!

So here it is, soon to  be published post #145.   At the time of writing this, I've had 3987 hits on this page and hope to break 4k with today's post.

After today, I'm not sure when I'll post again.  As you can see on this page (to the right) my monthly posts have seriously dwindled since I started.  I think a post a week is healthy, but man, did I set my standards high when I first started.

When I first started, something would happen to me, or I'd notice something from a different perspective, and I'd think to myself "I need to write that out RIGHT NOW" and I totally would.  Now when something pops in my head that I should write out, I find myself thinking "I need to write that out, RIGHT NOW!... orrrrrr, I could go over there and do something else...."  and I'm distracted.

I liken this to waking up in the middle of the night because you have to go to the bathroom, but you are too tired to get up and go and so you convince yourself to just lie there and go back to sleep. It takes time, but you eventually fall back asleep and then have those awkward dreams of wetting the bed and so you finally get up about five minutes before your alarm and make a mad dash to the bathroom only to have your alarm go off while you're in there and then suddenly everyone in the house is awake because you refused to address a necessity that needed to get out in lieu of your own personal desire to sleep you selfish bastard!!!

Wait... what was I saying? 

Oh yeah.... so, I have these thoughts to write down but I try to get to it later and in putting it off, I create more of a frustration when I try to get to it later....

I don't know what I'm trying to say here anymore today.

I think I'll stop here and come back around in July... or maybe August....

I suddenly feel an overwhelming urge to go to the bathroom.  C-ya.

If I yell at my TV it will still NOT turn itself on. And the same goes for squirrels!

One of the kids I spend my days with got really mad the other day.  Really REALLY mad!

She simply started yelling, dropped her paperclips put her hands out in the air in a surrendering gesture and stepped away from the table as if she just shot the guy across from her.  As it turns out, I was the guy across from her, so I'm grateful there was no gun play.  It was not me she was yelling at.

She was yelling at the paperclips.

Yes, the paperclips.

She was trying to manipulate them and do something with them that they apparently did not wish to do.  By her reaction to the lack of accommodation or compromise that the paperclips were willing to give her, she opted to yell at them as if they were a living being choosing to be a pain in her ass.

At this point, the father figure in me opted to make this a lesson.  I seem to remember this happening to the Beave' in one of those episodes where Ward was trying to help him make a puppy out of an erector set... or something like that.

So, I discussed with her:
- the merits of controlling ones (mostly hers) temper
- you cannot scold or correct the behavior of inanimate objects
- paperclips are inanimate objects
- that means they aren't alive
- no, they don't think
- no, there are no Mommy and Daddy paperclips
- no, yelling at them won't change anything
- no, the problem is with what you're trying to do
- no you're not stupid, you just have to practice
- here let me show you
- how did you get me to do this
- just, just don't yell at things....

So, yes, I found myself make a keyring out of a paperclip on which to place all of the other paperclips.  By the time I was almost done, she had moved on.

I'm sure this is a phase we all go through.  Some of us grow out of it.  Some of us (you know who you are) do not.  But like most anything a parent tries to instill in children, you have to say it to them a couple of THOUSAND TIMES before it finally sinks in.

Anyway, this got me to thinking....  I am not a yeller.  I am not an angry person.  Although people who are angry at me because they're really mad at themselves seem to think I am an angry person.  I do get angry.  It takes a lot to get me angry.  You do not want to make me angry.  Seriously, it's counter productive and I'm not good at it.

So, I too once had to learn the life lesson of not yelling at or trying to scold or even correct the behavior of inanimate objects (or angry people).  They just will not respond to anger or loud noises.  And their lack of response tends to make angry people angrier.

Granted, it still happens from time to time.  Surely you can think of an example?  Like when you are trying to load the black ink cartridge into the printer, you know, the one you JUST took out to shake up and now it won't go back in.  So you try it from every angle but it just wont fit.  So you try to cram it in... smash it in... force it in there so hard that you hope to make it an example for the other printer cartridges (magenta, cyan and that yellow one whatever it's called) so they know to never be as difficult.. and eventually you have to buy a new printer because, well, things escalated and it turns out that the printer was in cahoots with the cartridge and now it had to die so that the rest of the printers would learn how we deal with bad printers!!!!

Or like when your weed eater keeps breaking the line too quickly and it gets so frustrating that you have to swing the whole thing over your head and smash it to the ground in front of you into teeny tiny bits just like you're the Hulk acting out the song "I've been working on the railroad!!!"

Just take a deep breath... in and out, in and out... find a happy place....


So, you get the picture.... we just have to grow up and learn to take deep breaths and pray that our children never learn the deep dark secrets of what we did to that printer... and its friends....

I think kids have to act out these issues and learn these lessons early.  It helps them learn to not yell at animate objects either. 

For example, just today, I went home for lunch and discovered that the squirrels ATE ALL OF MY DAMNED MARIGOLDS!!!!  I just filled my planters a week ago.  I thought I'd liven it up a bit and I planted Vincas, Begonias, Petunias and Marigolds in my planters.

If there's anything you should know about me, it's that I am not good with keeping flowers alive.  As seen in this article here:  By the way, the plant in the cup has since died.... 

And so here I am, trying to make my home all homey for my lil' homie (my kid) by planting flowers AND THE DAMN SQUIRRELS ARE EATING THEM!!!

But what can I do, I can't yell at them, I can't punish them and I certainly can't make an example of them.  Seriously, I don't know what fight the car tires in my neighborhood have going on with squirrels, but they make an example of a squirrel a day on average and it's just not getting through to the little rodents.

If I were a squirrel, I'd move out of my neighborhood and leave people's marigolds alone.

Come to think of it, I think they ate my Petunias too.  I'm telling my tires!!!

I got off point again somewhere....

Pantlet- Act 3 Scene 1

To wear pants, or not to wear pants: that is the question: 

Whether 'tis nobler in the summer to suffer
The fabric and rubbing of outrageous pants legs,
Or to take arms (legs) against a sea of denims,

And by opposing end them? To wear pants: to wear shorts;
No more; and by shorts to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural socks
That flesh is leg hairs to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To wear pants, to wear shorts;
To wear shorts: perchance to feel the breeze: ay, there's the rub;
For in that legless clothing of leglessness what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this knees and legs covering coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long pants legs;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of walking around in nothing,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's costumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy pants,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bottom? who would Levis bare,
To grunt and sweat under a weary restraining pant leg,
But that the dread of something after pants,
The uncover'd legs from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bare those legs we have
Than zip up our fly to others that we know not of?
Thus pants (and all constricting clothing) does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native pantless hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er the pale legs,
And enterprises of great fashion sense and practicality
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy short shorts
Be all my shorts and kilts remember'd.


Okay, so, it took some work, and I had to change some of Shakespeare's wording (or at least, the words he

 most likely stole from someone else) but I think I've made my point.

I DON'T LIKE WEARING PANTS!!!