The LBDDiaries.com Blog

OK, I know how that sounds – like I might be cheating on my diet – not! I am cheating on The Peaceful Life because I came across some brilliant advice about 10 Habits of Organized People.  It’s a great blog posting and I’m taking it!

So instead of going to ALL the trouble of creating a new posting about The Peaceful Life (which I will do tomorrow), I will steal someone else’s blog link to Stepfanie’s Time Out blog – check it out here.  I discovered her via a tweet on Twitter which came via The Lady Bloggers.

Then we also have Java over at Never Growing Old and her Meet Me Monday’s 12th Edition.  Check it out HERE.

This week’s questions are:

1. What is your favorite kind of potato chip?
2. Do you make your bed everyday?
3. How often do you go to the hair salon?
4. What do you dip your French fries in?
5 Do you shop with coupons?

1 – Cheeps?  I doan eat no stankin’ cheeps!  Dey are not on me diet, maties.  Oh, you want me to be open and honest?  Why?  OK, honesty forces me to say that yes, I do occasionally eat chips, especially when the Bistro is out of pommes de terre frites.  But of course, I don’t eat them either.

2 – Do I make my bed everyday?  What kind of SICK and TWISTED question is that??  I am a grown up.  I do not HAVE to make my bed and you can’t make me make my bed.  Nanny nanny boo boo.

3 – Hair Salon – *Sigh* – you HAD to remind me that I no longer have a long-term relationship with my former hairstylist.  You HAD to go and break my heart.  You HAD to remind me that I had to go to a STRANGER who gave me the nightmare haircut from hades, didn’t you??  It used to be every 3-4 weeks but I had to leave him.  He was too abusive.  He BURNED the back of my hair and didn’t tell me.

4 – I already told you I don’t admit to eat pommes de terre frites.  I could never admit that since I am focusing on getting back into my little black dresses.  But, of course, IF I did – and I’m only saying IF here – I might have used catsup or the occasional vinegar splashed on those crispy, moist, wonderus bits of hot greasy… *ahem* BUT I AM NOT ADMITTING TO THAT.

6 – Cow Pons?  NO.  I think years ago I tried it, once.  But all that searching for them, cutting, sorting, storing, pulling out of your handy cow pon holder in the store to hearing groans in line behind you – bleh.  I am too lazy to use them, thank you for asking.  Besides, they got in the way of reading the Sunday funnies.

So! There you have it, my brilliant and insightful answers.  If you don’t have a blog, go ahead and answer these super intelligent questions in the Comment section.  Inquiring minds need to know!

Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

(This is part of an on-going series Momma’s Soapbox and I are doing on Keeping Our Inner Aloha/Peaceful Life. See here for the Aloha lowdown and here for the Peaceful Life reason!)

Have you ever taken a $50 and run it through the trash compactor?  Or churned it down the drain using the garbage disposal?  How about taking a handful of money and throwing it in your trash can?  No?  Well I have.

Oh, I haven’t literally taken the actual cash-money and done this but listen to this tale.  It is an on-going one in our household.

I decide to clean the freezers out.  I pull out several containers and zippered baggies full of unidentifiable frozen food objects.  I say to Alpha Hubby, “Do you have any idea what this is?”

His response is always, “No. What does it look like?”

Me: *Huff* of frustration.  

“If I knew what it looked like, I could probably figure out what it is,” I say showing, I believe, great patience.

“Well I don’t know what it is.  Why don’t you thaw it out and see?” he says, wisely.

So we do.  We leave all these containers and baggies in the sink or on the counter.  Much later we will come back to take a peek.

I say to Alpha Hubby, “Do you have any idea what this is?”

To which his response is always, “No.  What does it look like?”

Me: MAJOR *HUFF* of frustration.  

“If I knew what it looked like,” I respond very patiently, “then I could figure out what it is.  Why don’t you taste it and see?”

This brave man who used to say he had a cast iron stomach and could eat anything always replies, “I’m not eating that. We don’t even know what it is!”  

At this point the entire conversation spirals downhill pretty quickly.

Does this sound like a merry-go-round conversation to you?  Me, too.  And we have it every time I decide to defrost the freezer.  So all that food always ends up down the garbage disposal or sealed in the baggie and tossed out because we usually can’t figure out what it was.

When this happens I always think that I should mark the container somehow (ya think???).  I should become organized enough to buy those stickers or use one of my millions of Sharpie permanent markers.  I mean, how hard is that?  It’s NOT!

But I never do it.  Somewhere along the line, I failed Suzy Homemaker* 102, the class about organized freezing of foods.  And the one for sewing.  And the one for organized homes.  I am a Suzy Homemaker failure.  Oh, the shame.  My only excuse is that I am a crossroads generation – raised by the 50′s generation that believed in Suzy Homemaker and living in the 70′s that threw Gloria Steinem, NOW, and bra burning in my face!  I didn’t know who I was.

To save myself a lot of frustration and work next time, I’m just going to take the grocery money and throw it on the burn pile.  It will save a lot of time, trouble and merry-go-round conversations!

And you want to know why Momma’s Soapbox and I are starting a bi-weekly blog about being better organized when there are so many blogs about it out there???  We need it. Desperately.

Peaceful Tip:  Invest in a magic marker or Sharpie pen and write down, ON the container or baggie, the name of whatever food is in it.  Write the date, too, so you will know how long it has been in the freezer and then will understand why there is fuzz and green hair growing on the food.  It will make you feel oh so much better organized!

Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

This is part of an on-going series Momma’s Soapbox and I are starting on Keeping Our Inner Aloha/Peaceful Life.)

Disclaimer: This posting is going to require Alpha Hubby to BITE HIS TONGUE and hold on to his fingers so he won’t comment and comment and comment.

I’ve been systematically getting rid of stuff for several years now. It isn’t that I had a lot of stuff. Really! It’s more that each time I did a pass through the house I’d decide to get rid of something that I thought I absolutely could not stand to get rid of just a month before.

I am a firm believer in donating. When I was a single parent, I lived in Salvation Army (SA). Back then, I had to and SA served me well. But it was so bad there was a time when my son said, “Oh NO! Please don’t tell me we’re going to SA again!” (And he was only 6!) I think the boredom of waiting while I dug through racks and piles and shelves looking for amazing deals gave him SA phobia. It is a testament to his strength that he is now a generous donator, too. I’m so glad I didn’t scar him for life back then.

You would think that after several years of donations I would have this amazingly organized, Zen-type house with no clutter or mess to deal with. Yeah, you would think that, wouldn’t you? It just ain’t so. And I don’t know why (and NO Alpha Hubby I do NOT need your input on this!). Truth is, I know but I am not going to tell-all today. You couldn’t handle it!

One thing that contributed to my delinquency is that I come from a long line of hoarders (& no that above picture is not a house I know, just from internet). My mom rinsed paper towels and dried them on the wood stove.  She had piles and piles of them she’d reuse until they just plain bit the dust.  She had every packet of fast food catsup and plastic wrapped plastic utensils she’d ever not used.  Dad was as bad with his nails, screws, boards, bits, pieces, parts, and whatnot.

The worst were the zippered baggies. We ALWAYS had to wash and reuse them – in the summer hanging them on the clothesline and in the winter, propping them open over glasses to dry. I SWORE when I could, I would THROW AWAY ANY BAGGIE I HAD USED WITHOUT EVEN CHECKING TO SEE IF IT WAS RELATIVELY CLEAN. It is freeing, I can tell you that. I do NOT reuse zippered baggies. Amen. That’s why you see so many in my new pantry. (Below, sadly, are only part of the boxes.)

 
Back to my non-Zen house. I am learning not to hoard. I am slowly learning to let things go and to give away anything I haven’t used in a year or 5. I THOUGHT I was doing a great job until we moved.

Why? Because as I unpacked I discovered everything I had saved and hoarded without realizing it. Take the zippered baggies. I thought I was out so purchased several. Then while unpacking, I came across the ones I’d packed up when we thought we were moving last year. THEN I also came across the ones I had stored in the laundry room in the old house. I don’t want to talk about it. 

This happened with all sorts of products – beauty products, cleaning products, candles (well, you can NEVER have too many of those) kitchen towels, and MORE. It has bordered on the ridiculous which is why Momma’s Soapbox (& her companion posting about this topic) and I decided to take a little journey into developing Better Me’s: get better organized and disciplined, simplify our lives, developing the “less can be more” concept, taking better care of our health, etc.

Alpha Hubby’s saying is, “There’s always another one.” I wanted to hit him when we were first married and he’d say that. It was usually after I lost a bid at an auction or something but I soon discovered, HE WAS RIGHT (please don’t tell him I said that).

The “organized theory” really is that if you haven’t used it or worn it in a year, GET RID OF IT. It may make you feel like you are giving away your first born child sometimes, but you can do it, sniffing and crying. It takes a while sometimes to get into the swing of it but it can be done.

I truly believe that Keeping Your Inner Aloha (see Momma’s Soapbox posting HERE) and living The Peaceful Life require organization and getting rid of excess.

So a little Peaceful Life tip is this: go through your house with an HONEST eye and start boxing up excess and things you haven’t used in awhile, if ever (yes, I had a lot of THAT, too – never used or new with tags still on it).  Remind yourself it is going to a good cause – helping those who can’t afford to shop at regular stores. Been there, done that and am so grateful for places like SA and Goodwill.

I’ll let you know a little more after I’ve finished unpacking and getting rid of as I do! I’ve had to really dig in and get rid of since this new place doesn’t yet have the storage capacity of the old place. It’s challenging but I finally had that epiphany – there’s ALWAYS another one and if I truly need it later down the line, I can buy a NEW one!

Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

Years ago, I heard a description of Alpha Male in relation to wolves and dogs. Every wolf/dog pack has a leader.  This leader is known as the alpha animal who dominates and leads the other members of the pack.  The alpha is the boss who makes decisions for the entire pack.

The alpha must rule with great strength.  Usually the pack will have an alpha male and an alpha female.  Where one male and one female fulfill this role, they are referred to as the alpha pair.  Both male and female alpha dogs exude confidence, maintaining control through body position, facial expression, and the occasional nip or snarl (sounds like marriage, doesn’t it!) at beta members of the pack.

In humans, Alpha Male often refers to a man who is powerful or high on the social ladder, similar to hegemonic masculinity.  Good word, huh?  Hegemonic masculinity, according to widipedia.org, is a normal “idea of masculinity that men are supposed to aim for and women are supposed to want.  Some characteristics associated with hegemonic masculinity are aggressiveness, strength, drive, ambition, and self-reliance.”   

I also read a research paper on the Alpha Male that said, “Humor is sometimes described as a type of social aggression since it can be seen as an application of assertiveness.  Aggression is inherently manly, and thus, attractive.  (Note that humor MUST be accompanied with assertiveness for it to count as an Alpha quality.)”  Who knew?

So here we are with an Alpha Male and Alpha Female.   Of course I suspect that in any pack, being an Alpha Female means you choose to allow him to be the Alpha Male or it’s “let the wars, nipping and snarling begin” time!   The aforementioned alpha dog that will rule with body position, facial expression and the occasional nip or snarl?  Any husband who tries that with an alpha female won’t live long.  They have to sleep some time.  

When I married my hubby 16+ years ago I sure didn’t know we’d become an Alpha Pair.  He did constantly tell me he was drawn to my strength and that he was glad I was a strong woman or he would walk all over me.  

So here’s the point.  One day I asked hubby if he was aware he was an Alpha Male.  He had NO idea what I was talking about.  That was when I made a HUGE mistake in our marriage, huge.  I told him what an Alpha Male was.  And oh yeah, have I never heard the end of that.   For sure he has taken his Alpha Maleness to the extreme.

I gotta tell you, there is something to be said about being married to this Alpha Male.  I’ve never laughed so much in my life!  I enjoy a life that is very rich and passionate.  I have never felt or been more protected, loved, and joyous.  I live in a position of security and strength.  As he told me, unless I allow him to be The Alpha Male, his life would be one of misery.

And if he growls at me?  I send him to the alpha dog house.  Yeah, yeah, you know – the one with the big-screen TV!  Or I growl back.

Yeah, he IS my Knight in Shining Armor.  I wouldn’t trade him for anything!  After all, underneath he really is just a big:

pussy cat!

Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

Welcome to Never Growing Old‘s 11th Version of Meet Me Monday.  Go over and read her reason for starting this “getting to know you” meme.  If you don’t have a website, simply answer the questions here in the Comment section!  It is fascinating what people like and how different we all are!

Today’s questions:

1. What is your favorite kind of doughnut?
2. How often do you pray?
3. What is your favorite kind of music?
4. What do you order when you eat Chinese food?
5. Would you rather snowboard in the winter or swim in the summer?

1 – Favorite doughnut?  Fresh hot out of the grease glazed.  Dunkin’ Donuts in Kansas City, MO.  Open all night. Being there right after they came out of the kitchen.  In my teens and early 20′s, I could get away with that!  Not so much today.  OK, OK, not AT ALL today!  Today it is a fantasy.

2 – How often do I pray?  All the time.  I’m not into formal prayer, i.e., on my knees every night before I go to sleep.  I keep an open diaglog going with God all day long, but do try to meet Him first thing in the morning for Bible study and specific prayers before my day gets going.

3 – Favorite kind of music – oldies from several eras!  I love the 40′s swing, the Rat Pack, 50′s, and 60′s!  I love some “soul” music from later times – smooth and romantic -Barry White anyone?  Aaron Neville,  Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole…

4 – Chinese food – there are huge buffets around here so if we have to go, that’s what we do so we can pick what we want to eat.  We try not to go anymore.  I like beef and broccoli but have a much better recipe without all the chemicals!

5 – Snowboard or Swim – swim.  I love the snow and grew up skiing but love the ocean and playing in the waves with Alpha Hubby much better!  He hates snow.  I would have to drug him to get him to go play in the snow with me ever again!! Besides, I’d never see sandpipers again and I LOVE watching them!

And that’s it for this Monday!  Answer in the Comment section or link up on Never Growing Old website.  It’s a great way to get your blog out there and to meet new people!

Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

My blogger friend Stephanie, over at Momma’s Soapbox, and I are going to start a weekly posting about – hmmm – how should I say this? We don’t quite have a name yet but it will be about our Finding or Keeping Our Inner Aloha.

Steph just spent a month on Maui. Her main goal when returning to the mainland was keeping the inner peace she found living there a month.

We have both been working on improving our lives and becoming Better Me’s – to get better organized; simplify our lives; live the “less can be more” concept; take better care of our health by eating right, exercising, drinking water; get a better handle on finances through budget (and again, organization); protect that romantic side of marriage; and other things.

May sound like a lot to bite off but most topics we are dealing with in our lives are inner-related so when you get the main topic – like organization – it will help fix under topics like finances, housework, etc.

Then I am going to add a weekly thing – don’t know what it’s called – but a blog entirely dedicate to gratitude – thankfulness – saying what you are grateful for.  Too many people focus on the negatives in life and totally miss the most amazing things.  We take so much for granted – our sight and seeing beautiful sunsets – our hearts and their capacity to love so many and so much – our loved ones, and more.  So I want to have one day a week where we simply list things we are grateful for.

I can’t think of any other changes right now – but I hope you will join Momma’s Soapbox and me on our journey to more peaceful lives – and also in thanksfulness! We will be posting our first Aloha posting in a few days! Stay tuned! And yes, all this has everything to do with my LBD journey – didn’t you know? Life can kick you in the teeth and send you straight to the chocolate (unless you learn how to deal with it right)!

ALOHA!


Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

I want you to look at this picture:

Have you EVER seen such a knowing look?  What do you think she’s thinking about?  Perhaps, “Bet you wonder what I’ve been doing!” or “Oh, I am so lucky to have this hot man!”

But no.  She isn’t thinking any of those things.  She’s thinking, “I wish he’d hurry up so I can go eat some ice cream!”  Really!  Can’t you see it in her eyes?  No?  Well OK, I’ll give you that.  She isn’t thinking that. She’s thinking, “Good thing this camera isn’t aimed lower!”

I saw this picture on istockphoto.com where I get most of my pictures that aren’t personal. This just hit me as so… something – hot, romantic, spicy.  I wanted it for the blog just because.  There will be a perfect time to use it when talking about Alpha Hubby and how amazing he is and how wow our marriage is and how we gag people with our relationship.  Except that perfect time hasn’t come yet.

Then I realized something – this picture is hotter to me and much more sexy and appropriate:

I know what you’re thinking - you’re thinking, “What? He’s working? How’s that sexy?”  But you don’t know the whole story – he’s taking this:

…which is a bathroom RIGHT off the kitchen – which I hated from Day 1 – the orangey brown grout and tile just bugged me and I didn’t want to see it from my stovetop.  The shower was too small so he banged his elbows and well, just NO.

He is making me this – the first picture is the opening from the laundry room and those shelves you see?  Shelves will fill the space where the tub and shower were (the water heater goes to the other bathroom):

This is where the shower was:        

Click on the thumnails if you want to see larger “during” pictures – be sure to use the BACK ARROW to come back here:

This makes me very, very, very happy – to have a large and useful pantry area.

Why is this hot? Spicy? Sexy?  Since the day I met him, this man has done everything in his power to give me whatever I needed to make me happy in our home.  No closet space?  No problem; he created a half walk-in closet half make-up area by moving walls and building a makeup table.  No room?  No problem; he eventually enlarged our former house by an additional 1000 square feet.  No patio?  No problem; he created me a 600 sq ft enclosed one with 13 windows.  And no storage space?  No problem; he took out an ugly bath area (leaving the large enough bathroom) and is turning it into a huge walk-in pantry. AND all this is while working at the nuclear plant as an electrical engineer for 50 hours a week.

It isn’t the pantry, sun room, closet, makeup room (well…), or anything he builds for me – it is his heart and unconditional love for me.  After some pretty iffy early years before I met him – those years that make you say, “NO way, never again, not gonna happen, never ever getting involved again” – along comes a Knight in Shining Armor who thinks you’re the cat’s pajamas (No, I don’t know what’s the matter with him!).  THIS is why I’m on this journey.  I need to get back to being that princess he married.

He is my Knight.

Is it any wonder: Je le veux?  I do – I do! I want him. 

Translation: http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt

Copyright © 2010 Nan C Loyd
All rights reserved

I’m sorry for the inside joke the other day.  I had just seen the show the night before and was still snickering over the humor.  I’m sure the joke is probably only funny to me and I can’t tell you WHY it hit me as so funny and seems to apply to a lot of situations in my life, but there it is.  The thing that separates us into individuals – our sense of humor (or lack thereof).

These guys are my big IT!  They have nothing to do with my journey except for the laughter part – and laughter is always good!  Always! 

The one thing I promised Alpha Hubby when we married 16.5333 years ago was that he’d laugh.  Laughter is a given in our household.  Another thing in this household is that we don’t watch regular tv – i.e., series – i.e., no American Idol (I heard that gasp), no ummm – well, whatever; I don’t know what’s big out there anymore. 

When we’d first married, we watch a few months of late evening television, then made the decision that we were wasting time we could be spending with one another.  So I’d say 15.6 years ago, we stopped watching commercial television and spent the evening with one another.  Well… except for recently.

A thing we never started was watching movies that were really curse-filled (hard to do, I know) or just nawsty (by our standards – I’m sorry but I just don’t want Alpha Hubby watching some other woman’s boobs and I FOR SURE don’t want to see any other man’s toot toot.

Alpha Son usually lets us know, “No, you don’t want to watch that one” so we don’t.  That doesn’t leave a lot of movies until we discovered Pixar and Dreamworks (and the like) when they began adding in adult humor (adult like parent not adult like porn) so that the parents didn’t suffer for taking their kids to cartoon movies.  Ice Age, Monster’s Inc, etc. are a few that made us laugh so much!  This is an explanation so you understand why we are hooked on these guys, The Penguins of Madagascar

They were first seen in the movie Madagascar 1 and had a larger role in 2 – then – lo and behold – they now have a weekly slot on Nickelodeon.  I am sooooo happy!

Their bio goes, “…these placid-looking penguins are actually an elite strike force with unmatched commando skills and a secret headquarters. Their mission? To maintain order in the zoo…”  You have to see it to understand it.  I often wonder if kids enjoy them since most of the humor is such that Alpha Hubby and I “get it” (hmmm, maybe that says something about us…  nah!).

Anyway, most adults we know don’t watch any of these type movies.  It boggles my mind because the movies are so hysterical – but I guess the aduts are just too… dull and boring serious and mature to be caught watching cartoons.  They are missing some great laughter -

Slapping a hippie (now I used to be one so don’t get all huffy on me) – Skipper, the head penguin, was told there was a time machine.  He was so glad because then they could travel back and put an end to the hippie movement.  Remember, these are an elite commando team – they wouldn’t like hippies (smile).  When something went wrong with the time machine, his only concern was, “Well, good, as long as I get to slap a hippie.”  That just hit me funny – if you don’t find it funny or think I’ve lost my marbles, that’s OK – just tune in tomorrow when I’m back to norm. Besides, Alpha Hubby likes finding my marbles after I lose them!

Alpha Hubby and I do have a very warped sense of humor together.  We laugh a lot at the dumbest things.  We find humor in the weirdest situations.  We choose to laugh when we could be freaking.  He uses it to diffuse a situation (i.e., when I’m a bit ticked.  Could be why we’re still hot for one another after all these years… but that is tomorrow’s post!). 

*Ahem* anyway, if you have kids and don’t watch Pixar or Dreamworks, you’re missing out on some great opportunities to laugh.  Of course, our kid is out of the house and has been for a few years, and we still love these movies!