I've moved to Wordpress. Effective June 9, 2014, I can be found at www.youmeandb.com.

I've decided to stop posting here on Blogger and move over to Wordpress.  I hope you like the new look of the blog.  All of the post here have been moved over to the new site, www.youmeandb.com.  Come on over!

Television Campaign Ads for Anthony Brown & Doug Gansler

Maryland residents will be voting for a new governor this Fall.  I do not live in the state of Maryland so I have no stake in the election nor can I vote in it.  However, I live in the Washington, DC area and see television campaign ads for only two of the candidates - Anthony Brown and Doug Gansler.

Other than what each has stated in their current campaign ads, I know nothing about them as people nor how qualified they may or may not be for the job.  But what I can attest to is that I love their television ads!  These men are putting out the kinds of ads I have always wanted to see from candidates, but rarely do.

Neither man is slinging mud at other candidates.  In fact, I have not seen an ad in which either man even mentions another candidate.  They just talk about themselves.  Who they are, what they've done, what they believe in, what they want to do for the state of Maryland.  It's refreshing, it's intelligent and I hope candidates across the nation take notice.

I do worry that as it gets closer to the election, the mudsling ads will come.  I hope not.  I feel any attacks on or corrections of your opponents character and/or political qualifications should be saved for debates and live interviews.

***UPDATE 6/6/14 - Aaaaaand, it's over.  Yesterday, I started seeing new ads from both Brown and Gansler supporters, throwing mud at the other.  *sigh*

Words Can't Bring Me Down

I'm hosting Bunco tonight and have been cleaning and food prepping this morning.  As I go around the house, I see our cozy home through the eyes of others.  We rent and are limited in what changes and decorating we can do.

The walls need a fresh coat of paint badly!  We actually put in a request last year to repaint ourselves to freshen it up, but our property manager never responded.  Most of the walls ust have the builder's primer paint on them.  So, when I've tried to clean the walls, the paint comes off.  Lots of marks on the walls make it looks run down and like we don't care.

The carpets, which have been here since the house was built 15 years ago, are worn and stained.  Our furniture is stained and chipped.  The decor includes a skeleton made out of stickers, epic faces drawn by B and homemade Math signs to assist B with his homeschool lessons.

The homes of the other ladies in the Bunco group look, to me, like decorating magazines.  These ladies have taste and know how to put things together and match color schemes.  They have themes and collections on display and I love walking through their beautiful, decluttered homes each month.

I'm walking around my 1st floor with a box under my arm, throwing everything that's on a surface into it and will store the box in the basement until after Bunco is over.  The hubs has to unplug the computer and take it up to our bedroom when he comes home from work because I need the desk to serve dinner off of.

As I clean and clear, I'm reciting in my head, "I don't care what they think of my house.  I don't care what they think of my stuff.  I'm sure at least some of them run around the house with a box under their arm before Bunco, too.  They all have kids!"

I decided to turn on some music to drown out the recitation in my head because it's not going to stop. When I turned the radio on, the first words that came out were, "I am beautiful, no matter what they say.  Words can't bring me down."  It was Beautiful by Christina Aguilera and it was exactly what I needed to hear right then.

I was bringing myself down with words in my head.  Nobody else was there looking disgustedly at my house or making comments.

I love the ring stains where B decided to paint with non-washable paint and put no newspaper underneath.  Looking at the chips on the desk where B ran his 1st pair of scissors to test how sharp they were brings a smile to my face, remembering how cute and small he was.  And although it's not pretty to look at old, dried food particles on the wall above the kitchen sink from a garbage disposal explosion a few years ago, the meal we had that night was fantastic.

My home is beautiful, no matter what I say, and I won't bring it down by dishonoring our memories.

It was a simple "Yes" or "No" question!

Frequently, I ask a simple question that only has two answers - "Yes." or "No."  But I rarely receive one of those answers.  *sigh*

Me: Are we going straight home?
The hubs: Why?  Would you like to stop somewhere on the way?  Is there something else you'd like to do?  What would you like to do, babe?  You decide.

Me: Are you hungry for lunch now?
B: (Long pause while he performs a systems check of his body. We're really working hard on paying attention to our body's needs as they happen.  Unfortunately, those needs usually aren't even on his radar until I ask such a question.)  Uhm...I might be getting theeeere...I'm kiiiiinda hungry...buuuut...I don't want to eeeeat right now....maaaaaaybe....maybe laaaaater...check back with me in a while.

When I ask one of those simple questions and the response starts with, "Weeeeeelllll..." I think, Oh, boy.  Buckle up; this is gonna take a while.  Sometimes I don't even hear the monologue response because I'm screaming in my head, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, IT WAS A SIMPLE YES OR NO QUESTION!!!!!

Once in a while, I think I'm screaming that in my head but it actually comes out of my mouth.  B, however, thinks I am joking and being funny anytime my yelling begins with, "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY/GOD/MY SANITY/PETE    FILL IN THE BLANK   ", so he laughs and doesn't take me seriously.

It's so freaking frustrating!  The hubs finds it ironic that I get upset about this because, according to him, I am incapable of  being short, sweet and to the point.  He says I can't carry on a normal conversation; I talk in stories.  Actually he says I'm an "atmospheric" talker where as he's a bottom-line guy.  He just wants the facts or the end of the story but I have to set the entire scene, describe everything in detail and repeat everything that everyone said, complete with tones of voices and facial expressions.

It is true that we reap what we sow because B is an atmospheric talker, too.  Now I understand what a saint my mom was, sitting there and listening to me recount entire movies to her when I got home from the theater or every, single thing that happened at school that day.

So, I guess the next time someone asks me a "Yes." or "No." question, I need to think long and hard before I answer.

Survival Skills

The above picture is one of our living room windows with cat throw up on the sill and the window itself.  I've kindly added an arrow to point out the bit on the window for you.  You're welcome.  The hubs gave me permission to tell this story with picture as long as I promised not to tell y'all how long this has been there, so I can't tell you that piece of information.

Anywho, cleaning up animal accidents is the hubs job, not mine.  The morning B and I woke to find this, the hubs had already left for work so I unhappily gathered a ton of paper towels and wiped up what I could.  It must have happened right after we fell asleep the night before, because what you see now was already dried that morning.

B cannot stand to hear certain words - vomit, spit, phlegm, etc. - and seeing such items is even worse!  He wanted it cleaned up and he wanted it done before he awoke that morning.  This conversation happened Saturday morning in the room that was the scene of the crime:

B: Can someone please clean the rest of that off the window sill, today?

The hubs: What are you going to do when you're starving and there's no food in the house?

B: I'll go outside and eat the wood pulp from the tree!

Once the hubs knew his boy was resourceful enough to not need regurgitated cat food, he cleaned it up.  Thankfully.

Third Time's a Charm

Third Time's a Charm

The first man

I fell in love with

broke my heart

when he left me.

The second man

I fell in love with

broke my spirit

when he abused me.

The third man 

I fell in love with

broke my walls

when he came back for me.

PJ Friday - Whoop, Whoop!

It's PJ FRIDAY in our house - whoop, whoop!  A day when B and I go no where and do nothing, including getting dressed - unless we want to. After our socializing- and errand-filled week, we are pooped and just stay comfy.  We love it!

Every Friday afternoon the hubs comes home to find us in our PJs.  He hates it!  LOL  He has all these rules of an appropriate life and one of the many, many (illogical to me) ones is that all persons should get dress and be ready to leave the house or receive guests, at the very least in the AM, but preferably within 2 hours of waking.

He's also very distasteful of the fact that I don't necessarily shower every day.  If I take a shower at night before going to bed because I'm feeling dirty and/or sweaty from the work I've done that day, I don't feel the need to take another shower the next day!  Unless, of course, I get dirty or sweaty that day, too.  I hate climbing into my bed all dirty and sweaty.

Weekdays he doesn't necessarily know if I've showered or not, but on the weekends he's all over me.  Once I've eaten breakfast, the question comes: "You going up to take a shower now?"  If I don't smell, my hair isn't greasy and I have plans to do sweaty work that day, I'm not showering until after the work is done.  Showering is not my fav thing to do so there is no way I would subject myself to two showers in one day.

But the questions still comes.  "You going up to take a shower now?"  "You going up to take a shower now?"  "You going up to take a shower now?"  Until he can no longer stand the suspense and has to ask, "Are you going to take a shower today at all?"  If we don't have any plans and are just going to stay home all day, sometimes I'll just torture him by not showering.  That's called "tough love".

IDK why my personal hygiene is any of his business unless he wants a little sumpin'-sumpin'.  And when that's the case, all he has to do is tell me that and I'd be all over a shower like white on rice!