I saw a post a little bit ago written by Maggie Mason. A letter to her 20 year old self. When I clicked on the link in her post, I found even more posts write by a bunch of other bloggers. They wrote to themselves in their 20s. There is a whole little collection of them over here. I thought it might be worth doing. (I really am becoming an idea thief these days.)
Dear 21 year old Issa,
Congrats on the marriage….he’s a keeper. At least for a first husband. What? I’m not telling anything. Just enjoy okay? Try to enjoy what you have. Stop looking for the next thing. Enjoy your time with him. Soak it up. Live it up. Don’t worry so much about stuff. Stuff, money…it comes and goes. Time is what is important.
Spend less time at work. Spend more time at home. Don’t check work email on vacations. It will still be there when you get back. Use up every second of your vacation time. Use sick days for stay at home and play days. You work too hard. 14 hour days are okay sometimes, not all the time. There will come a time when you will regret this. So try to slow it down some now. The person who dies with the most hours put in at work, does not win.
Take a cooking class. Yes you live in Los Angeles. But honey? You won’t always. Trust me, learn to cook. Learn to bake. Learn these things now and you won’t have friends making fun of you online later for you lack of whip cream making knowledge.
Congrats on the little pink stick with the two lines. I know it’s fast. Hey guess what? You are very fertile. Ahem. I know it’s scary. I also know that it will be okay. Try to stop worrying. You will make a great mother. You are right, it’s a girl. A tiny perfect, little girl. Be prepared early, because she will be early. To everything, every milestone, her entire life basically. That’s just her way. Word to the wise? When your water breaks? PUT DOWN THE PANCAKES.
Before she comes? Eat out. Go spend days at the beach. ENJOY THE SLEEP. Sleep as much as humanly possible. Know that one day? They all learn to sleep. There will be nights where you wonder later if it was the right decision. Starting so young. That’s the hormones and the lack of sleep.
She’s worth it. Every single day, she is worth it. The two that come after her are just as amazing. I promise. Enjoy them. Enjoy the smell of newborn head. Enjoy the way they sleep in the crook of your neck. Enjoy the time before they learn to speak. It comes quick with the first one. Know that once they start talking, they never stop. With the second? Know she will do everything in her own time. Not her big sisters time. It’s okay. It’s all okay. Don’t be in such a hurry for them to get bigger. It happens way too fast.
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Ice cream can be a dinner food. Late bedtimes won’t kill her. Read an extra book. Let her watch an extra show. Buy that toy. That outfit. Sometimes, let her sleep in your bed. She’ll be better off for it.
Learn to love coffee.
Friends come and go. This I know. You need to start learning that now. Look around. Enjoy the friends you have. Just know that later, when things get tough, you will find friends who truly understand you. The good, the bad and the ugly. Friends who you can show your true self too.
No matter what? Andrew’s death wasn’t your fault. You probably couldn’t have kept him from doing what he did. Let go of the guilt.
Find a therapist. Talk. Don’t stuff everything. Trust me, I know. Stop playing the what if game. It will get you nowhere.
Enjoy your grandparents. I know you will, but enjoy them as much as humanly possible.
Don’t listen to dad or his wife. They know nothing. You are beautiful. Amazing. Talented. They don’t deserve you in their lives. They won’t be in the kids lives, so don’t even bother trying. Save yourself some heartache.
Think about what you want to do with your life. When you figure it out, please write 30 year old me a letter. That’d be dam helpful right now. Snort.
Think before you type a little more. Speak your truth a little more to family and friends. Your words? Are just as important as theirs.
Mostly though? Love hard. Live. Be happy. Have fun dammit.
You are amazing. Please to be remembering.
xoxo, 30 year old me
I’ve always though that these things can tell you a lot about a person.
I see people do posts where they ask their readers questions. I always answer. Mostly because I love to answer questions. I used to buy all those silly teen magazines to fill out the multiple choice quiz’s. I am well known for coming up with random questions and making forcing begging bribing my best friends to answer them. Aren’t you glad I’m not your best friend? Never mind, you don’t need to answer that one.
Have I mentioned I have a problem?
Anyway, I thought I’d give it a try. Please play along if you’re willing. It doesn’t hurt, there are no wrong answers and you won’t be graded. I just sorta want to get to know my readers a bit more.
1. How do you take your coffee?
2. Are you pro or against Blue Cheese?
3. What is your absolute favorite blog to read? Also what is your guilty blog? The one you don’t want to tell me that you adore and read without telling anyone?
4. What would be your perfect meal?
5. If you could vacation anywhere, money was no option, where would you go?
6. Last movie you saw in a theater?
7. What’s a baby name that you have never used and may never use but always wished you could?
8. Favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry’s Ice cream?
9. Last book you read that doesn’t have pictures?
10. How many siblings do you have? Do you get along with them?
11. What is one random thing about you, that I may not know?
Great. So thrilling for you. You are the mayor of McDonalds. Wheeeee. You are now at Starbucks. YAY you. You are at Target. Why is this entertaining? I go to Starbucks every dam day. It’s not tweet worthy. Promise.
FourSquare, for those of you who don’t know, is a form of social media. You sign up for the service and it connects to your Twitter and Facebook. You set up a profile, that is public, (at least for other FourSquare users) with your information. It also keeps all of your previous locations. The more you use it, the more points you get. What they are for, I don’t know. No one seems to know. Why anyone should care? I have absolutely no idea. Doesn’t stop people from playing it.
Anyone remember Mafia Wars? It was an annoying game on twitter. It lasted about two months. This is more annoying and doesn’t seem to show any sign of stopping.
In the two minutes of searching (to give those who have no idea what I’m talking about, an idea) hundreds of tweets kept popping up. Very awesome tweets like:
I’m at Independent Fire Company No. 1 (1601 Burlington Bypass, Wedgewood Drive & Fountain Avenue, Burlington)
I just unlocked the “School Night” badge on @foursquare
I’m at taco bell.
I’m at McD’s.
I’m at Panera Bread 540 East Betteravia Road, College Drive, Santa Maria
Why doesn’t Subway give a discount to Mayors? That would benefit me.
WTF. Really??? We should care? We should need to know this? All of these, by the way, had a link to the location. Hundreds and hundreds of them popped up in seconds.
Normally I find it aggravating. It pollutes my twitter stream. I could care less were anyone is and it’s annoying to constantly see, oh I’m at Target. I find it very stupid and I’ve said it more than my share of times.
Here’s where the issue for me comes in. Someone who I was following on twitter tweeted that they were at an elementary school picking up a kid. A kid that isn’t theirs. It tweets the name and a link to the location every time you use it.
So basically one is publishing their child’s school address. On the internet. For the world to see.
It makes me angry. It makes me sick to my stomach. I am making a big ass deal of it because I think it needs to make into one. It’s not okay. Tweeting names of kids elementary schools and locations is NOT okay. It’s just not. Schools should not be listed in FourSquare. It should never, ever, ever be something that gets randomly tweeted. It’s unsafe.
Lets think about this for a second. You post or tweet your kids names, or you don’t. You post pictures, or you don’t. I don’t really care either way. I used to, I don’t now. Your choice. But you, if you have kids and a blog, probably talk about them. You tell funny stories. If you don’t post photos, as I don’t, you probably have friends you have emailed photos to over time.
Then you tweet the location of your child’s elementary school on twitter. All in the name of a social media game.
Now, instead of being worried about the known dangers, about crazy family and people who pop up on registry’s for sex offenders, you are facing the unknown. Because hey, you wanted a few points or whatever, so why not tweet the location of the school?
Know why you shouldn’t? BECAUSE IT’S A SCHOOL. Where children play. Small, innocent children. That you’ve just put at risk. Maybe I’m being paraniod. I will take that risk. Me paranoid is a fine risk to take. A child’s safety? Is not.
I don’t care who it was, I don’t care if it’s your kid or someone else’s. Either way? I find it deplorable. I have unfollowed people before because of it. Those times? It was their child. What made me livid about it this time, was someone doing it, who was picking up another persons child.
I went so far to say if that was my sitter doing that, I’d fire them. I would. In a heartbeat. Does that make me an asshole? Maybe it does. Fine, hi, I’m Issa and I’m an asshole. Unfollow/unfriend me. I don’t care.
My kids school address doesn’t belong on Twitter and Facebook. Ever. No kids school does. Personally I think FourSquare should take that off. It shouldn’t be allowed to be tweeted. Ever. The end.
I made a blanket statement on Twitter, one that I am sticking too. I am hereby unfollowing any single person who tweets the location of an elementary school.
I think it’s totally irresponsible.
Yes, a school’s information is public record. You can drive by any school and see kids. Pervs can drive around and find schools. But they generally don’t know what your child looks like already, do they? They probably don’t know that you call your son, sport or bruiser. Or that your daughter’s stuffed tiger is named Flutter. They may not have known that before, but they can now.
Do you see where I’m going with this? That kind of information is what predators use to lure your children. Think I’m paranoid. Think I’m horrible. Then go search the web for missing children. Look at the numbers. Look at what happens to children taken from schools, even if they are returned to their parents. Do you see how this could make me angry? By tweeting a childrens school location, you are inadvertently putting children at risk. Mine, yours, all of them.
You may think you are anonymous. But you really aren’t. Not if you use now or have ever used any form of social media.
Why make it easier for them? Why put your kids at risk, for a stupid silly annoying game that most of us wish would die?
I’ve always loved reading. I was reading at four years old. I learned by memorizing words. My mother claims I just got tired of her saying, yes, I’ll read to you in a bit. I absorbed the words. I ate them for breakfast, lunch and dinner and everything in between. I’ve always had a great imagination and reading took me to new worlds. It helped me escape. I was safe, in the pages of a great book. reading was like air. I needed it to live. I’d read anything. Truly. Anything.
When I’d get in trouble, my mom would take away my current book. She knew it made more of an impact then removing my TV, friends or video game privileges. She was a very wise and super mean woman. ha. I do the same thing to Morgan. Well that and her prized possession, the iTouch. I am lucky that all three of my kids adore books.
One of the things that I’ve lost in the past eight years is reading. It’s just the thing that dwindled away until it’s no longer existent. I read to my kids all the time. I read blogs. I read Twitter streams. I read the back of the shampoo bottle as I bathe Harrison. But somewhere along the way, I lost reading books.
I’ve tried many times to get back into it. I’ve joined book clubs, online and off. I’ve bought books that I never read, because I forget to take them some places. I sit in doctors offices, in the carpool lane, in the Starbucks and read my Twitter stream or emails, because I never remember to have a book with me. I’ve probably averaged a book or two a year since having kids. I used to read that many in a single week. Sometimes more.
For my birthday, I received a Kindle. A gift from someone amazing. Something so unexpected and wonderful that four days later, I still have no words.
What I do know is that I’m in LOVE WITH IT. Ahem. It’s shiny and pretty and so amazing. I’d always wanted one. The best thing is? I can take it everywhere with me. It easily fits in my purse.
It took me an hour the first night to come up with a single author that I liked, to see if they had a new book. An hour. An entire hour.
Right now? I need something to be for just me and I think this is it. I’m struggling right now. A lot. I need something to take my mind off of my life and Twitter just isn’t cutting it these days. I spend way too much time alone.
I need help. I need book suggestions badly. So tell me, what is your absolute favorite book of all time? Your current favorite book? The last book you read? If it’s from years ago, it’s okay, I’m likely to not have read it.
I don’t like romance novels and I’m not into vampires, but all suggestions are welcome.
I never used to be a crier. I mean I did cry. On occasion. Normally when I finally did, I’d cry for hours, because it was 8 months worth of bottled up tears. That’s just the way I was. Not so much anymore. Now? I cry a lot.
I’m emotional. I’m depressed. My life has crumbled and I’m trying to pick up the pieces. I’m doing okay despite it. However, I cry at everything right now. Yes, I have good reason too cry. Yes, it is helpful. In fact, some days I’m convinced it’s actually making me feel better. But I cry at EVERYTHING right now. It’s kinda my thing. I’m a crier.
I’d really like to find a new thing. My eyes hurt. All the dam time. It’s tiring to cry all day.
So this is where I ask for your help. See, I have this problem….I listen to the same three songs all day long. Yes, I do mean ALL DAY LONG. Ahem. I told you, I have a problem.
I’ll give you a little sample of the songs and lyrics and you’ll be able to tell why I need new songs.
No this ain’t how it was suppose to be, If you’re out chasin’ all your dreams, Tell me where does that leave me….What about the promise that you made, To stay with me till your dying day, Said you’d never go away, Are they just things that people say…Could I have loved a little deeper, Or did I hold on too strong. – Things People Say by Lady Antebellum
I know there are no guarantees, In love you take your chances, But somehow it seems unfair to me, Look at the circumstances,Through sickness and health, ’till death do us part, Those were the words that we said from our heart, So now that you say that you’re leaving me, I don’t get that part….Well I’m not gonna cry, I’m not gonna cry, I’m not gonna shed no tears, No, I’m not gonna cry, it’s not the time. Not gonna cry by Mary J. Blige
(Even funnier is that half of those lyrics are I’m not gonna cry and I still do, every dam time.)
What about now? What about today? What if you’re making me all that I was meant to be? What if our love had never went away? What if it’s lost behind words we could never find? Baby, before it’s too late, What about now? – What About Now by Daughtry
Yeah, see, hai. Issa NEEDS NEW SONGS. Badly.
Today is National Delurking Day. I understand some of you will still lurk. I love lurkers. My best friend is a lurker. Sadly, right now, I am kind of a lurker as well. But for those of you willing to help me out, I’d really appreciate it. I though maybe if I asked for something specific, it may be a little easier to delurk. It’s a thought at least.
What I need is this:
1. A song that makes you cry, because I’m not done crying yet. I wish I was, but I know I’m not. Not yet. One day. Maybe even soon-ish, but not yet.
2. A song that makes you happy, because I’d like to make a happy song playlist for times when I really need to STOP all the dang crying for a bit.
3. Your current favorite song. Just because I’m curious.
That’s it. If you are willing, I’d love the help. If not? That’s okay too. I still love you for reading here.
Okay, maybe it’s not popular. But it could be one day. Really.
This month is going to be a bit insane for me. We are going to a wedding on Saturday. I really need to finish my Christmas shopping on Sunday. Morgan turns eight on Monday. Her birthday party is the following Saturday. At some point we need to get a tree and finish decorating the house. I have Christmas cards that don’t seem to be writing themselves.
Oh and did I mention that I’m having people at my house from the 16th on? People who will want things. Like clean towels and bathrooms not growing things. Maybe food too. I am hosing Christmas for oh eighteen people. That is the current count at least. This is going to be a crazy month.
Today on Twitter I asked if anyone had any random things I could talk about. Because I doubt you all want to hear my running list of things I need to get done in the next 13 days. I loved the answers and plan on writing about some of that stuff soon.
What I thought I’d do is this: Ask me anything. Any random question, anything you are pondering, what you should get me someone for Christmas, anything you want to know about me. I promise to answer it all. I can’t promise how accurate the answers will be. But it could be entertaining. Think of me as a very talkative imaginative wordy Magic Eight Ball. Give it your best shot.
Question line is now open. Answers will most likely be given next week in a post or two, depending how many of you play along. Monday, I will have a post for my baby girl (dude, who let her get to be eight years old?), but after that, I promise to answer.
We put Netflix on hold about 9 months ago. Every 90 days or so, I’d get an email and it would ask me if I wanted to remain on hold. Somehow I forgot it this last go around. I don’t check the email it goes to very often. Note to self: START DOING THIS.
Anyway, we were charged today and now have three movies that I’ve never heard of coming our way. Which is all well and good. However, I’m at a loss with movies right now. I am sure there are tons that we never saw or ones that we saw in the theater and never thought of again, that I’d enjoy.
This is where you come in. Without you, I will aquiest to my daughters and in seconds my Queue will be filled with Hannah Jonas goes to jail for trying to be too much like Brittany movies.
What have you seen lately that you loved? What have you not seen that you thought looked good by the previews? What is your favorite movie of all time? What is your favorite TV show that is on DVD? I realized today, there are tons that people adore that I’ve never seen a single episode of.
Hook a girl up, will ya? It’ll be cold here very soon, so I’ll likely leave Netflix on until Spring.
ps. No scary flicks please. I mean, you can mention them, but I won’t watch them. Am big wuss.
pps. Yes, I know, two lame posts this week. Promise I have something real soon. Once I get over the plague and can get it out of my head.
Yesterday was a big day o’ Fail. Can I just name it that for the rest of time? August 26th, 2009 can now officially be, the day of fail. Let me start at the beginning and you all can decide if I can claim this.
-Tuesday night, well really Wednesday morning, I sleep from midnight until about 1:30am when the baby started screaming. After finally getting Harrison back to sleep at 2:00am, I fell asleep about 3:15am and managed to sleep until 4:30am when he woke up again. At the time I thought he must be teething. He had a low grade fever and was generally just a big ole mess. I finally got him back to sleep, but then I couldn’t sleep and laid awake looking a the ceiling until Logan’s alarm went off at 6:30am. (We really need to paint our ceiling.)
-After taking the girls to school, where I ended up yelling at them both for things that most days I would have ignored, I went to Starbucks to get my coffee. Unfortunately, I grabbed the wrong coffee cup. Got home before I took a sip of it (What? It’s a weird thing of mine. That first sip of coffee is the best.) and realized it was some nasty vanilla and raspberry flavored caramel machiato or something. I have no idea what it was really, but it’s not coffee. I did the only thing a coffee addicted woman could do. I strapped my crying son back in his car seat and drove back to Starbucks for a new coffee.
-I pulled out a dining room chair, to sit down and pay some bills, only to completely smash it down on my foot. The bruise is killer and I swear to you, I must have bruised the bone.
-I called my mom to ask her what time her flight came in on Thursday, the day before Labor Day, so I could make sure I had someone to pick up the girls from school that day. She was all confused. Turns out, I had my holiday days confused. Labor Day is a Monday holiday, not a Friday holiday. So instead of my husband and I getting a much needed two day vacation, while both of our mother’s keep our kids at our house, we will be hanging out at home with our kids and both of our mother’s. I had completely booked the wrong two days away. It being a…you know, holiday weekend, now there is not place nice to stay. We’ll still have a fun weekend and maybe even get a date night, but still, we needed that time away together.
-Last but certainly not least is my sick baby boy. About four yesterday afternoon I realized that Harrison wasn’t getting any better. In fact he was getting worse. He was lethargic, grouchy and basically a crying sad little smooshy heap on my lap. When I took his temperature, I found that is was 102. I did what any good mom does, I asked the advice of the lovely Twitter peeps. My question was should I take him to Urgent care. The answers were amazing. I have a love/hate relationship with Twitter these days. However I appreciate everyone who answered me last night. You guys were awesome. I hadn’t even considered alternating Tylenol and Motrin. It’s funny how a four year gap in between my last two kids, has made me forget some things. Although, honestly I’m not sure I ever knew that one. Morgan can’t tolerate Tylenol. It’s like giving her speed or something. Makes her jump out of her skin. Bailey can’t tolerate Motrin. I was thinking that Tylenol just wasn’t working on him. But I think it does, I just think it wasn’t capable of making him magically better last night. Ha. (Thank you big time to my friendly Internet Pediatrician for the helpful fever advice. Truly, no one has ever explained fevers that way to me before.)
I decided to go with my mama gut and take him in. Which was a good decision since my ear thermometer is crap. The boy had a freaking 103.8 temp when we got there. Two antibiotics (one inner and two outer ear infections and possible tonsillitis) and some Motrin later and his fever started to go down.
-After I put the baby down and got the girls settled, Logan and I sat down to watch Top Chef, which we had DVR’d. We were ten minutes into it, when I hit some button and deleted it. Now, I have it sitting on there again already, since it was showing again late last night. But still, come on now. Really?
Today, is better. This morning, Harrison is doing a bit better. I slept extraordinarily well, since I slept in the guest room, while Logan was on baby duty. I needed sleep. I can not tell you how much, I needed sleep. The girls both seem to be fine, although I will be Lysoling our house and changing sheets and toothbrushes today, just to be on the safe side. Oh and today, there was donuts for breakfast. But oh boy yesterday just sucked.
What do you think? Does yesterday qualify for the day of fail?
Have you seen my mojo?
Owner: Issa
Last seen: Sometime before BlogHer maybe? Is a rough guess. It’s been gone awhile.
Much loved writing Mojo. Very much missed. Reward given if found.
Hold your head high, don’t ever let them define the light in your eyes. Love yourself, give them hell. You can take on this world. You can stand and be strong. And then fight like a girl. With style and grace, kick ass and take names. –Fight like a Girl by Bomshel
I have always joked about inventing troll be gone spray. In comments for years, I have joked about how we needed this. How awesome it would be to have some sort of spray that got rid of trolls. Problem is, this is the Internet. Obviously a spray isn’t going to cut it. Who’d want to spray their computer? Not me, that’s for sure.
I’d like to do the next best thing. I’d like to start an anti-troll movement. To let them all know that they are not welcome here. Not just here on my site, but on any of our sites. I’d like us to take back our space. To stand up and say, we are not going to let this happen anymore; we are not going to sit here and take your crap. You are not welcome anymore. Shoo.
It’s gone too far. Especially lately. It seems like every day someone who I love is being attacked for no good reason in their comments. I’ve done my share of troll taunting and attacking, this I will admit to. I despise my friends being attacked though. I’ve gone on the defensive more times than I can count. All it gets me, is more trolls attacking me. It has to stop.
I’ve tried the ignore tactic. Heck people, I moved my blog to WordPress, in hopes that would help, but I still got one on my post about my SIL. Yes, I deleted it. No, I didn’t respond first. It’s still not okay. Nothing about this is okay anymore. It was never okay, but it’s gotten really bad lately. Every day it seems someone is being attacked in their comments by trolls.
It used to be where they attacked because you talked about a certain subject. You discussed breast feeding, circumcision, c-sections, your views on the president, whatever. It still wasn’t okay, but it was generally people who were fanatics about that certain subject. Now, they’ll attack just to attack. Just to be trolls, just to see if they can bring you down.
I don’t attack people in their space. If I read something I don’t like, as long as it isn’t an attack on my friends, in their comments, I hit that bright red X at the top of the screen. How hard is that to do?
It seems like it is very hard for some people.
I want to do something about it. The problem is, I don’t know where to start, what to do exactly, but I know something needs to be done.
Obviously we can’t stop people from commenting. But we can stop dealing with them. We can all agree to delete and block and not respond to them, if we see them elsewhere.
That’s my idea anyway. What do you guys think? Are you in? Any ideas?
Grab My Button!
I’m a joiner
