Mom Genes

Most of us have experienced that phone call.  You know the one…the call that everyone talks about coming in the middle of the night, waking you out of a dead sleep, only to turn around and scare you to death.  But the truth is, that call doesn’t always come in the middle of the night.  It can come when you’re grudgingly happily driving carpool.  Or when you’re elbow deep creating your latest culinary masterpiece for dinner.  Or reheating chicken nuggets in the microwave.  Or really, any one of a thousand other daily activities.  When that call comes, your blood runs cold; your heart races; and you brace yourself for what it’s going to take to get through it.  You know there will be pain.  There will be tears and anger.  Hopelessness will engulf you and frustration will overwhelm you.  And the worst part is, you have no idea how long the situation will last.  There is no light at the end of the tunnel.

So, you take a deep breath, whisper a prayer, brace yourself for the news, and pick up the phone.

“Hi honey, it’s mom.  We have a big mess over here.”

Now let me say this, my dad is a cancer survivor.  My mom has had heart issues.  Regardless of their medical issues, nothing really slows them down, so we’ve also dealt with the issue of falling.  When I heard my mom’s barely controlled panic, I was already reaching for my shoes and my mind was going in a million directions.

It was bad.  It was the call that comes far too frequently. 

My senior citizen parents were having technology issues.  (I’ll pause so you can calm your palpitating heart, because you know it could have been you, instead of me, receiving that call.)

I remember my great grandmother being afraid of the remote on the first remote controlled TV we had.  She would not use it.  She couldn’t understand what kind of black magic was in the palm of our hands, that allowed us to change the channel or control the volume from 20 feet away.

Today it’s the fear of being hacked.  Just the word “hacked” can conjure up nightmares consisting of identity theft, losing your life savings, being arrested, ending up on Joseph McCarthy’s famous list, and a host of other unimaginable horrors.

After my mom told me they had a mess, she proceeded to tell me that my dad’s Facebook had been hacked.  Some evil terrorist was requesting to be friends with everyone on my dad’s friend list.  Wisely, my parents took the appropriate steps to resist and defeat this infiltration.  They changed their passwords on everything. I mean everything.   And like most of us, proceeded to forget the new passwords and ended up locking themselves out of their iPad and my dad’s Facebook page.  It was a CODE RED.

My mom has never been more disappointed in me than when I told her I couldn’t help her recover their passwords, but rather they were going to have to call the “geniuses” at Apple.  I also had to explain the difference of being hacked and someone creating a fake Facebook page.  Frayed nerves were somewhat calmed when I explained that someone had just screen captured a picture of my dad, created a whole new page, and that person was requesting to be friends with everyone my dad is already friends with.  I promised that they didn’t have any level of control over my dad’s actual page, finances, life expectancy, or iPad.   But I want to say it again, because as much as I’m teasing my parents, this is a real thing, and confusing to many people.  So here ya go:

Being hacked is a different beast than someone creating a fake page.  If you get a friend request from someone you are friends with, delete it.  It’s most likely a fake page.  In the banner along the top, to the far right, there is a question mark inside a circle.  If you click on that, you can report a fake account, and a host of other Facebook issues.  Facebook is pretty responsive and removes those accounts pretty quickly.  You don’t even have to touch your real account.  Nor do you have to change your iPad or computer passwords.  You are safe.  I promise.

If your account actually gets hacked, the hacker will start posting stuff on your page, as if they are you.  Sometimes it’s ads, you know…where you can get a free pair of Oakley sunglasses, or a free computer.  Sometimes it’s offensive material.  In that case, change your password ASAP and take all that crap off your page.  The end.

Here’s a bonus:  Shopping online, with Amazon or other reliable retailers, is about a gazillion times safer than using your credit card at a restaurant.  Take it from me.  We have never had a card compromised while shopping online.  But we’ve had to get somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 new Amex cards in the last year because of sneaky servers snatching our info.

All of this is today’s version of the original remote control that terrified my Granny.  So, when that phone call comes in…brace yourself.  Then delegate it to your kids.  Because someday we will all be calling them to solve our techno-panic.  They might as well learn to deal with it early!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Listening to BS makes me happy.  Doesn’t it make you happy too?  Filling your head and ears and heart with BS?  BS at high volume…so much so that you can hardly hear your own thoughts over the sound of it?

I could sit and listen to BS all day long.  But only certain days.  Other days I’m not at all interested.  I want to punch a different button and shut it all out.  I want quiet.  I want peaceful and melodic.  But those days are rare. Most of the time I can crank it to 11 and listen with a smile.  I will even join in, slinging my own version of BS at the top of my lungs. Not caring, at all, if it bugs other people.

Try it today.  Listen to as much BS as you can.  Roll your windows down, turn the volume up, and sing along with  Bob Seger and Billy Squier.

They say (whoever ‘they’ are) that once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget.  Is the same true for writing?  I’ve spent most of the last 24 months of my writing time doing it for other people.  This is simultaneously more difficult and much easier than writing my own stuff.

Let’s start with the positive:  It’s easier because I don’t have to come up with any concepts, nor do I have to exercise any creative brain muscles.  I simply have to follow directions.  However, the difficult part is taking someone else’s raw notes and scattered thoughts, and try to write in such a way that accurately and successfully conveys what that person has in mind.  Sometimes I am aces!  I write it once, and the person who hired me is over the moon.  Sometimes it takes innumerable re-writes and extensive editing.  It’s akin to trying to read someone’s mind, and while I’m intuitive, I am NOT clairvoyant.

That being said, while I have been parked at my computer, at all hours, racking my brain to write for someone else, I’ve been thinking and praying about what else I’m supposed to do with my writing skills.  Everyone I know tells me to write a book.  I would love to write a book.  In fact, I have several ideas, at all stages of development, saved in my word docs.  Unfortunately, nothing is coming together in the form of anything that would make sense to anyone else.  So, I find myself getting discouraged and walking away from it completely.

This morning I got up, determined to get back on the bike.  I decided to read back over my old blog, and was very self-entertained.  I like what I wrote.  Now I’m sitting here, not pedaling, because I wonder if I can write as well, or come up with any entertaining content to restart this cycle.  I’m filled with doubt.  Will anyone read what I write?  How vulnerable am I willing to be?  What if I’ve lost the ability to be entertaining/funny/informative/encouraging or any of the other million emotions that writers hope to evoke.

I’m going to give it a go.  I’m going to toss off the fear of failure.  I’m going to open my heart and share everything I can.  I am passionate about women, and the things that make our hearts beat, break, sing, and palpitate in fear.  I want to be as transparent as I can about being a wife, mom, daughter, and friend.  I hope to share successes, as well as failures. I hope to make you smile or maybe even laugh now and then.  I have done some things SO well.  And I have run my ship on the rocks more times than I can count.

Somedays this journey will be like riding a cute beach cruiser, complete with matching basket and bell, and feeling free in the ocean breeze.  Other times it will be a road bike and I’ll be in the Peloton, climbing with the pack to the top of the Alps.  Or maybe I’ll be on a mountain bike and by the time I’m done, I’ll be covered in dirt and bruises.  Occasionally I’ll be on a spin bike, pedaling like crazy, heart racing, but going nowhere.

Let’s ride!!!

 

Do my kids drink?  No.

Do they smoke?  No.

Do they swear like sailors?  No.

Are they rude to adults?  No.

Do they get bad grades?  No.

Do they know that we have trashcans and laundry hampers in our home?  NO!

It seems like it would be just as easy to throw gum wrappers, tags from clothing, shopping bags, notes, useless scraps of paper, labels, etc., into one of the 11 trashcans we have scattered in and around our house, as it is to artistically and carefully place trash just out of plain sight.  Seriously, it must take more work to stash it than it would to trash it.

And New Zealand’s Southern Alps used to hold the record for fastest (non ice) rising mountain range, but I am in the process of documenting the newest contender for that title:  Mount Laundry a la Hamilton.

Again, our home is ripe with laundry hampers and laundry baskets…all ready and waiting to catch the dirties and magically return them fresh, fluffed, and folded.  Yes, I still do their laundry WHEN it’s where it’s supposed to be.  When it’s not, they have to do it themselves, which is WAY more work than the 20 seconds it takes to gather it and drop it in a hamper.

On the other hand, while the receptacles that are available and in place for proper usage go unused, they have become quite creative in creating vessels for trash and laundry that are less than desirable.  For instance, drawers, shoe boxes, envelopes,  old backpacks, jars, underneath each and every piece of furniture in their rooms, stuffed behind their beds, on their bathroom counters, etc.  It is maddening. (I would snap a few pics of underneath their beds and the trash hidden like Easter eggs, but I’d get in major trouble with my little angels.)

So, do I have it bad with my kids?  No.

Will I ever understand teen logic?  No.

Is “teen logic” the biggest oxymoron ever?  Yes.

Am I raising hoarders?  yes…

And I don’t mean in the cool, clubbing all night, lounging on the beach all day, way.  I mean in the “I’M LOSING MY MIND AND GOING CRAZY” kind of way.

Honestly, if you look at me, I look the same.  (Well, say for a few additional wrinkles and more frequent trips to my fav stylist to cover the gray.  Shout out to Jeff Brown at Kenneth Brown Salons for keeping me looking my age and not like my girls’ grandmother.  No offense to their two beautiful and wonderful grandmothers.  I digress…)

But what in the world is going on INSIDE my head?  I’ve seen “Inside Out” and instead of Joy, Sadness, Anger, and Fear, I think my headquarters is inhabited by Forgetful, Insane, Sentimental, and did I say Forgetful?

Por ejemplo:  I can remember how to say “for example” in Spanish after two years of barely paying attention in high school, but I was sitting in a dressing room at Nordy’s with my girls and asked them to please hand me the umbrella.  Which is all well and good, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT I WAS LOOKING AT, AND REACHING FOR, A HANGER.

I can remember the address of my childhood best friend (12331 Charlwood Street, Cerritos, CA 90701) but I couldn’t remember to close the door of Matt’s car when we got out to hike at Morro Bay.  (Thank you, Good Samaritan, for chasing us down to tell us the door was open, instead of robbing us blind.  But there’s $100 in it next time if you can whisper it to me instead of announcing it to my entire family, thus causing them to collapse into fits of giggles and chatter about how old I am.)

I can still sing (albeit off key) the fight song from my high school but I can’t remember the three things I needed at Target.  So even though I walk out with a cart full of stuff, I walk out without what I walked in for.  But it’s OK because gas is cheap and I have so much extra time on my hands that driving back and forth 22 times is no big deal.

Also?  I have a decent vocabulary so why, OH WHY, can I never think of the word I need, when I need it?  It does me no good when it comes to me at 2:30 in the morning.  And as much as I want to call you back and tell you that I finally found it, I won’t.  Because it turns out that not everyone is an, an….someone who can’t sleep.

I had more to say but I don’t remember any of it.  I’d look in the notes on my phone, but I can’t find that either.

I have a love/hate relationship with social media.  As a blogger it’s a necessary, and sometimes enjoyable, evil.  As a mom…well, I’m undecided.  And let me tell you why…

But before I do, have you ever asked your child this question:

Why do you use social media?

The key is asking without a hint of what you might be thinking.   I have one daughter who was forced into all forms of social media because she has to participate in publicizing a group she’s in.  My other two eventually joined the fray and take great pleasure in embarrassing their sisters.  My husband?  It might as well be the river to hell.  He stays off of any form of social media unless he’s checking in on what our kids are doing.

As I watch all forms of social media hit my phone on a daily basis, I’m left to wonder about motivation.  It might be as simple as “it’s fun.”  It might be a quest to show others how popular you are or how perfect your life is.  It might be a form of networking.  I was curious so I did a little informal “man on the street” poll.

I applaud the 20ish people I spoke with, for their honesty and candor.  Here are some of the answers I got:

I want people to see that I have a life.

I love when I post a selfie and everyone comments on how pretty I am.

I get bored so I post a picture to get comments.

Sometimes I do it to make someone feel left out.

I wonder what people think of my life when they look at my Insta.

I have no idea…but everyone does it, so I do it to.

I hate it.

I’m nosy so I stalk everyone.

Then I asked how it made them feel when they see their friends together and they aren’t included.  The general consensus was it makes them feel bad.  But then the majority admitted they have posted pictures and snapchats with the sole purpose of showing someone else who they were with, and trying to make that other person feel left out.

I acknowledge this was a very unscientific, and very limited sample set, however, after chatting with my own kids I think it’s pretty accurate.

So what to do to keep your kids from finding their self esteem in comments like “you’re perf,” or “you are goals,” or basing their popularity on the number of likes and favorites they receive?  And what to do about developing sensitivity in regards to the public exclusion of other kids?

I don’t have answers.

But I will tell you that all of this prompted a great conversation with my three girls about their use of social media.  We are admittedly conservative so our rules probably won’t apply to a lot of families, but here’s what we discussed.

DO NOT ever post a picture of yourself posed seductively in anything.  Especially bikinis.  I asked them to try and stay away from swimsuit shots altogether, but I get that they spend a good portion of their time in the pool and ocean, so as long as it’s more on the fun side and not a shot begging for attention or comments, we’re good.

Please refrain from profanity and innuendoes or anything you wouldn’t want your youth pastor or grandmother seeing.

Please be sensitive.  Remember all those times you wondered why you didn’t get invited?  Don’t do that to someone else.

Your self-esteem should, in NO WAY, be based on your number of followers or the number of likes you get on a picture.

No one is perfect.  Even if 200 people comment that you are, you’re not!  In fact, all those selfies and butt shots are begging for attention, which should tell you immediately that there might be some insecurity or need for attention going on.  Don’t be that girl.

Snapchats don’t disappear.  They had to go through a server somewhere; therefore there is a digital record.  ‘Nuff said.  (I’m not a giant fan of snapchat but we decided to let the girls have accounts.  I also have an account and all passwords.)

No nudes ever!  (At this point they all looked appropriately appalled and swore to NEVER.  But it had to be said and it will be monitored.)

Ultimately I want my girls to be wise, caring, sensitive, and confident.  I don’t want their value to be tied up in anything social media related, so I will keep working to refine them and help them develop into who they really are in the 3D world.

If you have any tips or ideas on how to instill sensitivity, and how to protect them when others aren’t….or any social media rules you have in your family, I’d love to hear them!

A few days ago a man got pulled over and ticketed, in Cobb County, Georgia, for eating a cheeseburger while driving.  It turns out that the law doesn’t explicitly state that you can’t eat and drive, however such negligent and reckless activity is covered under the broad umbrella of the “distracted driving” laws.

You might ask yourself, “How bad can it be?”  The answer:  BAD

You can get up to three points on your driver’s license, along with a fine ranging from several hundred to one thousand dollars.  (Honestly?  If I drive 100 mph I will only get 2 points. So if I see lights and I’m holding a burger I’m going to drive 100 mph until my burger is gone.  I can’t risk that extra point.)  No cheeseburger is worth that kind of money…except maybe the Kobe beef variety that comes with a magnum of Armand de Brignac Brut Rose…oh, and someone to drive me home, because if  I got my hands on that bottle of champagne, I probably wouldn’t share.

I wasn’t super worried about this “eating while driving” ticket thing (because we all know that as goes Cobb County, GA so NOT goes the world.)  However, this is also a potentially ticketable offense here in my fine state.  I get the no texting, hands-free law.  I also think applying make up while driving is a bad idea.  I’m not saying I’ve never thought of doing that on my running late days, but honestly, I can barely apply make up sitting in front of a make up mirror and the thought of what I’d do to my face, trying to apply while driving, just isn’t pretty.  So I pass.

However…eating is another story and I have some serious choices to make.  Two days a week I leave my house at about 2:15 and the only time I see my house before 8:45 p.m. is from the driveway when I pull in to drop off or pick up my next fare.  (PS I’m grossly underpaid.) You might be thinking my kids are over-scheduled, but in reality it all just falls on the same two days.  Sports, tutors, life groups (Bible study), etc.  If I didn’t eat in the car, I would starve be super hungry and more than likely, really grumpy.  Also?  My blood sugar could plummet and I would become an extreme road hazard as my vision, reflexes, and decision-making would be compromised.

On the flip side…if I didn’t eat in the car those two days I could lose some serious weight.  And summer is just around the corner.

Bon appétit!

 

 

 

 

So I was on Twitter earlier today, looking for several authors that I wanted to follow.  I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter, mainly because I don’t get it, but also because there’s so much going on that I’m sure I miss some really good stuff in light of the cornucopia of crap that people tweet.  The whole Twitter experience kind of feels like dumpster diving to me.  You have to wade through a bunch of stuff to find that one thing that might be worth reading.  And who has time for that?

And because I don’t have that kind of time, I am careful about which accounts I follow…

I limit myself to pastors, authors, speakers, good friends, my kids, and I do follow back the very few of my kids’ friends who follow me.  I also follow my university and a couple of news accounts.  So I am flummoxed when I scroll down and see suggestions on whom to follow.  Typically I ignore these, but I was bored today because I was waiting on Jacey to finish a test, so curiosity got the best of me.  I looked at a few names and clicked on a few accounts.  NONE OF THESE ACCOUNTS WERE OF 1% INTEREST TO ME.  The few that I clicked on were young enough to be my kids …and no offense, but with three teens of my own, I don’t have the time, interest, or inclination to read the twitter ramblings of someone else’s kid…unless I know and love you, then of course I hang on your every word 😉

I hit “follow” on some random girl,  she was quite darling, but nothing changed.  I could still see exactly what I could see before I followed her.  This got me thinking about my own kids’ Twitter accounts and their lack of privacy.  I know you can make your tweets private but it seems like no one does that.  I also flashed back to touring the Library of Congress last spring and the guide telling us that EVERY SINGLE TWEET EVER TWEETED is recorded in the Library of Congress.  So if you are an idiot, all someone needs is your name and a little time and they can find evidence of your idiocy.  Even if you no longer have a Twitter account. (Time out while I THANK GOD there wasn’t the opportunity to permanently record all the stupid things I did as a teen.)

Before my kids had Twitter, they cruised around on my account, looking at pictures and reading their friends’ tweets.  I would, occasionally, find that I was following some random teen and could only assume it was courtesy of the fat fingers of my kids.  Maybe Twitter is living in the past and making recommendations from when the primary users of my account were under 17.  But now, as my writing increases, I’m actually using it myself.  So I’d appreciate a few more “mature” suggestions.

Or maybe the technology is so advanced it is picking up on how young at heart I am…