The June Cleaver Hipster Traits

June Cleaver would never wear bell bottoms, rock rose-colors sun glasses or don peace beads. June was not a hippie and I never thought I was either. This week I was labeled a hippie, and while I have never smoked pot in a room with scarves over lamps or burned my bra in a war protest, I feel like there is a part of me that can identify with that label. Though I thought I would be classified as more of a modern June Clever, perhaps I also encompass a modern hippie. So, I have decided to make a list which combines my two traits. I will call it, The June Cleaver Hipster Traits.

Trait #1: I love to make meals from scratch. They taste better and I think it is fun. I know I have told you that it is not uncommon to see me working in the kitchen with an apron on, hunched over my most prized, kitchen possession, my Kitchen Aid Mixer. (Seriously, if our house was on fire, I would maybe run into the burning building for that.) However, I like to make these meals with quality foods and sometimes, I do go the organic route. Those pesticides freak me out, and I can't stop thinking about how they were made to kill bugs, so what is that doing to me? Quite honestly, if we could afford it, I would maybe go 100% organic. How's that for hippie?

Trait #2: I love to be outside. I get rejuvenated from creation. **Side Note: when I was in college, there was a hill that was between our undergrad campus and our seminary at Bethel. The hill is known to students as Sem Hill. There is a bonfire pit up there, and a few benches and it is just beautiful. When I would get stressed out with classes or roommates, I would go up there by myself and just relax. In the summer, I love to go on bike rides and walks rather than drive my car, and I love to go camping. But you will never see me in a pair of Chacos. I am not that granola. I realized that this one sentence might alienate me from many of my Minnesotan friends, but let's be honest, you know me. I am more likely to rock out a pair of Mary Jane Crocs than Chacos. June Cleaver wouldn't wear them, and I won't either.

Trait #3: Speaking of footwear, my latest obsession is with Toms. Toms are canvas shoes that are the most comfortable shoes I have ever owned in my life. I cannot say enough awesome things about these shoes. The coolest part about Toms are that with every pair of shoes you buy, Toms donates a pair of shoes to a child in a third world country. It is fantastic. So, every time you buy something from them, you're also helping others. I have two pairs right now, and they are my favorite shoes, not only because they are cute and comfortable, but because it feels good to know that you are paying it forward. June Cleaver would definitely be down with that.

Trait #4: On Thursday, the night custodian came into our classroom to collect the trash. Next to the recycling bin was an empty plastic container that use to house animal crackers. The custodian had two garbage cans that he pushed into our class, but they looked the exact same, so I assumed they were both for trash. When he threw the container into one of his bins, I alarmingly informed him that the container can be recycled!! He then told me that was his recycling bin. I felt kind of stupid, but I am pretty into to recycling. Troy has been also. He even brings home his empty, plastic containers to recycle them at home. What a good green husband! Some people may think that recycling is granola, but going green saves energy which in turn saves money and keeps things nice for the next generation. June wouldn't want Wally or Beav's kids to be playing in a dump, so she would definitely be on board for the three Rs, reduce, reuse, recycle!

Anyway, even after I write this, I realize my friend who called me a hippie, was right. I don't think I ever thought about it before, but I guess I am and you know what? I am gosh, darn cool with that. As long as I can still be classy like June and wear my pearls and apron with my Toms.

The El Camino Effect

Troy and I drove up to Maple Grove today and on the way I saw a guy driving an El Camino. My sister always talked about how she wanted one of the those cars and I was telling that to Troy. He commented on how weird the car looked which made me laugh because that is one of the reasons why Laura likes it so much. I mean, half truck, half car . . . it's the best of both worlds! So, I am laughing and pointing at the El Camino, picturing Laura driving it and singing Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves by Cher, and then we drove right past the car. It was only when I made eye contact with the driver while I was laughing and pointing that I realized . . . he can see me. I have decided to call this . . . The El Camino Effect.

The El Camino Effect is what makes us think we are invisible in our vehicles. I know that most people feel that way because I am always seeing people pick their noses. (The worse is when someone picks their nose and then inspect it. Gag. Gag. Gag.) Or people are pretending they are in a Bono music video. I myself have rocked many a concert in the driver seat of my little G6. I swear, I have zero reservations about that either. Most people seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that their vehicles are not tinted, Pope-mobiles. I include myself in that group. Simply put, it is The El Camino Effect in full bloom.

It is kind of like when people walk past a mirror. This would be the sister effect which I have now dubbed, The Mirror Effect. (I know, it's not as catchy as The El Camino Effect. I am willing to take suggestions for this one.) Have you ever stopped to watch that? Their pace may not change, but their countenance does. Eyebrows raise, lips become slightly pursed, some do a little hair-flick, all for that moment that they see their reflection. Sometimes I purposely try not to look in the mirror as I walk by. It's another small victory. It is sort of like saying, "Hey Mirror, I know you want me to look at me in you, but I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna purse my lips." That is me dominating The Mirror Effect.

There you go folks, a little Pam-Sense psychology. This one is free of charge.

Gum Smackers and Whistle Blowers

There are obvious behaviors that are not appropriate in public: loud burping, socks with sandals, foul language (especially around the ladies) but there are some things that we find ourselves doing often and may not realize the unpleasant effect they may have on others.

Someone at work was whistling today. My first thought was, "That's super annoying." To be honest, I may have even rolled my eyes. (Side Note: I have a bad habit of rolling my eyes. Sometimes I don't even know I am doing it. That's no bueno.) Fast forward to this afternoon. I was sweeping the floors in preparation for a good mopping session and I found myself whistling. I immediately thought of the whistling woman from earlier in the afternoon and then I had a small epiphany - also known as Pam Sense. I realized that whistling is one of the many things we do which are perfectly acceptable while we are in the act and completely aggravating if done by someone else.

Similar actions would also include (but are not limited to) humming and singing sans music. Now, I am a hummer, by nature. I often have songs stuck in my head and I have found that when I am in a bad mood, sometimes singing or humming helps me out of the rut. I do try to do so quietly enough so nobody can hear me because I know how irritating it can be. In general, I can tolerate most of the quiet humming/singing, but why is it some people feel the need to sing out loud at a normal decimal when they are out in public? My theory is that they are hoping that American Idol and Candid Camera are planning on merging into one television show that they will be "found" in the middle of Barnes and Noble while perusing the classics. But that's just a theory.

Gum smacking is another act to follow this rule. When someone is chomping on a slab of gum and they are smacking their jaw up and down, resembling that of a cow chewing her curd, it is repulsive. However, there is something satisfying about smacking on a piece of Bubble Yum Bubble Gum (especially if it is grape flavored!) when it is done yourself. Sometimes when I am by myself, I will purposely smack my gum in the most annoyingly delightful way. The whole time I think about how Troy would hate it if he were there. (He hates gum smacking like I hate socks with sandals.) Blowing bubbles would be another. When you see someone who continually blows bubbles with gum, there is a small part of you that wants to see it get stuck on their face . . . or is that just me? However, once you blow a bubble yourself, you wonder if you can make your next one bigger and then you just can't stop.

Well kids, the moral of the story is that we all do stuff that makes people want to tear their hair out. Just try to do it in the comfort and concealed area that is your home. Unless you are smacking your gum . . . then share a piece with me and we can be cows together.

Classy Coffee Chicka

Even though we are in the end of April, the weather has not been cooperating very nicely. We have had more chilly, cloudy days than warm, sunny days. That, mixed in with the stress of school, has been leaving me a little caffeine-deprived. Around 3 o'clock, I am really jonesin' for a cup of joe, and not the slop that is in the teacher's lounge, I am talking about some good, quality coffee . . . like Dunkin Donuts! (Come on, you know that was coming.)

Yesterday, one of the teachers I work with bought coffee for us. Scrumptious Dunn Brother's coffee! It was awesome. I swear, when he brought in that glorious coffee carrier, I was looking at that delicious mocha like it was the holy grail. I downed it so fast that I got a little light headed. I realized that this new desire of afternoon coffee, has possibly given me the golden ticket to adulthood.

Growing up, when I saw grown ups drinking coffee in the morning, it was very normal. My mom has had a cup of coffee every morning for as long as I can remember. (My dad was more of a tea guy, just in case you were curious.) But, there was something classy about the grown ups drinking coffee in the afternoon. Whenever we went to my grandma's house, she always offered to make coffee for herself and my mom. They would sit in the kitchen or front room, sip their coffee and talk about grown up stuff. I thought it looked glorious. Even now, I feel awesome when I get my little Starbucks to tootle around Target.

Unfortunately, our school does not have a fantastic barista in the teacher's lounge, so for now, I have to settle with hand outs or waiting until I get home to brew up a batch myself. That is unless . . . you'd like to have a coffee date with me . . .

Rejected Ideas

Oh my goodness! It has been so long since I last wrote that I kind of feel like I need some training wheels to get back into the swing of things!

Quick re-cap of my life, (and subsequent reasons for my inexcusable absence) we went down for some Chi-town love, finished off the bathroom by putting in the porcelain throne and we celebrated Troy's 30th birthday. I have also been consumed with a humongo project that sucked up all my time and brain power, thus drying up my creative juices. In my defense, I have been thinking of blog topics . . . however to due my lack of energy, they were all, well . . . lame, and since I didn't want to disappoint my fantabulous fans, I was holding out for something interesting . . . but . . . it never came. I think my muse went on vacation and decided not to come back. What a jerk!

That was my problem. The harder I tried to think of a topic to blog about, the more lame-o ideas I had to sift through until I realized, that this was one of those times when your brain refuses to do what is expected of it. Like when you go on vacation and Dad says to use the bathroom before you go and you don't "hafta," but then 30 miles down the road your parents wonder if you should sit on a Target bag, due to you're whining because now you hafta! Or when someone introduces you as being funny to a perfect stranger and then the only topic of conversation you can think of to have with this new person is the most recent destructive tsunami and the negative effects of El Niño. (Actually, I did that to a couple of friends of mine once. I introduced them to each other as being super funny and then I swear I heard crickets. As a third party watching, the awkwardness was kind of amusing. My friends were uncomfortable as all get-out though.)

Anywho, just to let you know that I had not forgotten about you, here are a few of my rejected ideas, with commentary, of course:

Rejected Topic #1: How pregnant women and young mothers refer to time only in months. I always think it's funny, but I don't really have a reason why. So the entire blog would be something like, "Isn't funny how moms always refer to time in weeks . . . ?" LAME.

Rejected Topic #2: Something to do with the Kennedys. Troy and I just finished watching the series on Reels. But I realized that it wouldn't really be funny; it would be more like a recap which would be boring and slightly depressing.

Rejected Topic #3: Something to do with Mark Wahlberg . . . again . . . We just watched The Fighter which made me relive the best dream ever, when I told Marky-Mark that I was going to body slam him and then he challenged me to an arm wrestling match which I lost. I didn't really know what other angle to go with.

There you go. My lame-o topics that I have had to sort through and ultimately reject due to their lack of luster. Hopefully, this blog will get me back on the horse again and writing more ridiculous nonsense.

Minnesota Spring

Minnesota Spring

A Haiku

Dear Minnesota

It is officially Spring

Please stop sending snow

Imaginary Rock Star

Confession time: I am a rock star. Of course, when I am rocking out my music videos . . . what I really mean is, I am singing really loud . . . to the radio in the car . . . by myself. And I guess if we are being honest here . . . my recording studio is really just . . . my shower . . . when Troy's not home.

You might think I am popping some crazy pills over here, but I know for a fact that I am not the only one who does this. Who doesn't like to belt out their favorite song when they are alone in the car? And anyone can sound fantastic in the shower! I produce my best stuff in there! Seriously, the acoustics really are decent. Anyone who claims they have never done this had better have an extinguisher handy because his/her pants are on fire. Yeah, that's right, I'm calling you posers out!

Of course, singing alone is way less scary than singing in public. I am painfully shy when it comes to performing, and the thought of singing in front of people makes me want to barf. I took vocal lessons for a few years and there was a recital at the end of the semester. It was just me and a piano on a big stage in front of about fifty people. Of course, I am really critical of myself and one time after I sang my song, I walked right off the stage and made a bee-line for the ladies room where I bawled my eyes out because I was so embarrassed that I messed up on six notes. My parents recorded the performance for me, per my request, so I could study my singing "plays" like I was in the NFL. When I finally got the courage to watch it, I realized that I could really only hear three mistakes and my parents said they didn't hear any. But of course, they are my parents. The rules say they have to tell me that. Bless their little hearts.

So, long story short, when Troy went out with the guys and I went to run some errands, you better believe I was in my car singing my heart out winning over "my fans" with my melodious harmonies. **Side Note: Does anybody else have this strange sense of invisible security when they are in the car? Could this be the cause of our music videos? Another blog topic?** And when I went to take a shower, I was laying down some wicked-hot tracks which are sure to be overnight hits! My records are really hard to find in stores, but that's probably okay because I know you are too busy with your own music career in your car or shower. Hey, break a leg out there. Maybe our tour buses will meet up some time.

Intense Concentration

My grandparents like to read my blogs but they don't have internet so I format my "Nonsense" into a Word document, print them up and mail them out so my G.P.s can read them. If I am diligent about doing this every month, it doesn't take that long, but it is still a process because I have to reformat all the pictures.

I was working on just such a project this afternoon and while I was doing so I realized that my eyebrows were furrowed very intensely. I only realized this when my forehead started to feel fatigued. Of course my first thought was, "Relax! You don't want to get pre-mature wrinkles!" **Side Note: This is something I think about often since I was once an ignorant sun-worshiper in high school and now I am desperately trying to reverse the skin damage I am sure I created, thus the wrinkle-worry.** At my fearful command to myself, I would stop working, take a minute to do a few forehead stretches (Don't you love picturing me doing this? I bet I look ridiculous!) and continue on with my formatting, only to once again be interrupted by my intense forehead muscles contracting a mere few minutes later.

It made me think about how funny we can be when we are so engrossed in our work that we forget how our bodies respond to this attentiveness. I remember when I was in school and working intently on a writing assignment, I would tense up . . . my nose . . . I know it sounds weird, but I would. There was little third or fourth grade Pammie, hunched over her lined notebook paper, feverishly forming paragraphs and then the nose would start to feel tired. I think it's so weird, but also super interesting. Because of this, I try to notice what other people do when they are wrapped up in a project.

My dad also makes a profound, furrowed brow. My grandpa sticks his tongue out of the side of his mouth. My sister's action is my favorite though. You know she is so narrowly focused on your conversation when her mouth starts to form the words that you are saying. I love it. I think it's so funny. You might be animatedly sharing an exciting story and say the word, "wow!" and then Laura's countenance completely shifts. Her eyebrows rise and her mouth slowly forms the /o/ sound in "wow." Whenever she does this, I usually stop what I am talking about and point it out to her. Though I am usually teasing her, I really do find it endearing. It is such a fun quality to have.

We know that our bodies do things automatically without our need of cognitively telling our brains to perform this action. Breathing, heart pumping and blinking would be examples of this. But we forget the little things that our body language does in a similar fashion. Maybe you do some of things listed. Or maybe you have perfect and complete control over your body and don't. If the later is true, you are probably kind of weird. But don't worry, we can still be friends. If you do something that is funny, share it! I would like to know what weird things other people do. Mostly so I can feel more normal about myself.

Showering at Home

For those of you who don't know, we have been renovating our bathroom. Four months ago, we found a crack in the floor of our tub. After having a friend look at it and tell us that we needed to get that fixed like, yesterday, we thought we would have some time to figure out how we were going to fix the problem . . . until the very next day when we saw water damage in the ceiling of our kitchen. We immediately stopped showering at home and thus began the daily ritual of showering at our health club.

As we demolished our bathroom to the studs, we would gaze at the unfinished room and dream about the day we could shower at home again. Then we would grab our gym bags and drive to our showers. The funny thing is that as more time passed, the more showering at Lifetime became normal. We installed our new tub and tile, bead board and paint, and we would still dream about our finished bathroom, but we were not feeling the inconvenience as we had in the beginning. We had developed a new routine. We had new places of storing our personal care items and brushing our teeth and washing our faces in the kitchen sink was becoming more endearing than inconvenient.

Then the glorious day came when the bath fixtures were put in and the sink was connected to the water line. We could now not only shower at home, but use the sink upstairs too. It was so exciting that I literally giggled throughout my first shower and would shout out things to Troy like, "I am washing my hair in our shower right now!" or "I am using the loofah in our shower right now!" Sure, we were still missing things like the toilet and the last few pieces of trim, but who cares?! We can use the shower! It was fantastic.

However, this had created a need to make a new routine. I found myself standing in my almost completed bathroom with my towel wrapped around me, wondering what to do next. At the health club, I had my after shower routine and I had packed clean clothes in my gym bag. What do I do at home? I faced the same challenges in the morning. Where do I go to brush my teeth? Upstairs? Downstairs? One morning, I realized that I had actually put deodorant one twice because I lost my rhythm. (Sadly, this is completely true.) I suppose that is better than the alternative and rocking B.O. all day, but seriously, who does that?

It has been almost a week now of showering at home and I think I am starting to get the hang of it again. You'll know if I go into a relapse if I start packing my gym bag just to catch a hot shower. If that happens, I may need an intervention. Preferably in my beautiful bathroom because even though it's still feels kind of weird to shower at home, and it's not completely done yet, I really do love it!

Before

(Almost) After

Run-a-muck Thoughts

A few months ago, I met Troy for lunch at work. Instead of a friendly hello, he was greeted with a glum wife on the verge of tears. That morning I realized I had lost one of the little diamonds in my wedding band. It wasn't the fact that I had to get the small rock replaced, it was more of a sentimental feeling of loss that I was upset about. That ring is supposed to symbolize our unending love for each other and it was falling apart. (Deep, right?) Since I am a sentimental schmuck, this was upsetting to me.

Troy, being the fabulous husband that he is, swiftly took me to the jeweler to get it fixed and while there we learned that to avoid losing any more diamonds, I was going to have to get my engagement and wedding rings soldered. I really didn't want to do that. I had visions of my giving my rings to my children and though rings can also be un-soldered, it took away the tender vision. (Once again, reiterating that I am a sentimental schmuck.) I was also suffering from the sticker shock of the price to replace the diamond, re-tighten all the prongs and now the soldering, that I didn't want to pay to get my rings re-sized, per the recommendation of the jeweler because when the rings are together, it makes for a smaller size than the original ring.

For months now, I have been squeezing a size 4 1/2 ring on my size 5 finger. My finger hates this and often tries to rebel, by either holding my ring captive or not allowing it's passage. I decided that enough was enough. With my birthday being around the corner I concluded that for my birthday, I wanted to correct what I should have done months ago and re-size my ring. So, this was one of my many errands that I ran yesterday. For a day and a half now I have been ring-less, which I didn't think would be that big of a deal . . . until thoughts ran a-muck.

Here's my problem. I think to much and sometimes these thoughts run a-muck. Yes, that's right, a-muck. Like today when I was at the doctor's office with Troy. (He had laser eye surgery!) He has his wedding band resting proudly where it should be, while I am bare-fingered. My run-a-muck thoughts are thinking, "What if these people think I am his mistress? Maybe they think he is cheating on his wife with me!" Which, in actuality, wouldn't really be cheating, since in this scenario I am the wife and the hussy, but they don't know that. Another run-a-muck thought happened today at Target when I bought Olivia and Molly a new scratching post because they have annihilated the one my folks bought them. As I was in the check out lane, I wondered if the cashier was thinking, "Hmm, another single lady with cats . . . pathetic."

Thankfully, I came right home with no plans of venturing out tonight. Due in part to my new ring-less-phobia but mostly because Troy's still healing from his laser eye surgery. Number one errand on my list tomorrow is to get my rings back so I don't look like a crazy-cat-lady-home-wrecker.