Uninterrupted? Free? - I think not.

The other day, Lettie and I were out running errands, and, as usual, I searched the radio until I found some "fun" music for us to listen to. The station I selected was playing some pretty cool music and she and I were rockin' out - as much as we can rock out in a minivan - and enjoying ourselves. I was pleasantly surprised because there were three songs, back to back, that were all really good. Then, after the third song, came a recorded, spoken announcement - "You're listening to a thirty-minute, uninterrupted block of today's classic songs on [station call letters]." So on and etcetera, blah, blah, blah. This went on for thirty seconds with the message touting the station. Then the next song came on.

Guess what. They lied. I don't know about anyone else, but the last time I checked, "uninterrupted" meant "having undisturbed continuity." That recorded message definitely disturbed the continuity of the thirty-minutes of music. When I'm enjoying whatever radio station I have on, don't ruin it by breaking the flow of some really great songs just to remind me of the name of the station to which I'm tuned. I haven't forgotten. Here's a hint - unless your message is being sung, you're NOT playing thirty minutes of "uninterrupted" music. Do they think there's something wrong with me that I can't tell that they just interrupted their own music block? I guess they do.

The radio station people must be related to, or in cahoots with, those people who produce commercials and infomercials and try to sell me incredibly useless stuff at ridiculous prices. If I act now, they'll send me two ear cleaner/potato peelers for the price of one. All I have to do is call within the next sixty seconds. WOW!! Honey, hand me the phone! Two for the price of one!! What a great deal!! I can get both of them for the low price of only $19.95 plus an additional $9.95 shipping and handling charge - per item, that is. WHAT!?

First of all, if they can send me two for $19.95, why can't I just get one for $9.98? I don't need two - not unless I want to clean my ears and peel potatoes at the same time, that is. And why do I have to pay double the shipping and handling charges? Are the items coming from two different places? I say, stick them both in the same box and save us all some time and money. And, you know what? I don't really need the free gifts that come with it. The super-duper taco holder will only crush my tacos, spilling the contents all over my lap and the floor; and the handy-dandy floor squeegee won't clean the taco mess. I'll still have to get on my hands and knees to get the grease up. Besides, I can really use the additional $9.95 shipping and handling for the "free" gifts to buy band-aids and antibacterial cream for when the super-grip bottom of my new ear cleaner/potato peeler fails and I cut my hand.

Not to mention the fact that, if I have to pay for the second ear cleaner/potato peeler and the free gifts to get to me, they're not exactly free, are they? If they were really free, they'd all be put in the same box as the original item I ordered and would be shipped for the same, one-time shipping and handling fee. Free, to me, means, you give me something, I give you nothing. If money is leaving my hand in order for the "free" item to reach my possession, there's something wrong. I just haven't yet figured out if the "something wrong" has to do with me or the people who sell these products and interrupt my music. Maybe it is me. Maybe I'm interpreting everything incorrectly.

Um - I think not.

(This has been an uninterrupted message discussing the fact that corporate big-wigs have deemed the general public to be somewhat stupid. And, you guessed it, you pay nothing for my opinion. I'm giving it to you absolutely FREE.)

Cluttered mind

Tonight I was IMing with a friend and realized I'd completely forgotten about my blog since I started it last week. The only reason I remembered it was because the friend I was chatting with is the one who introduced me to the blogging scene. She's got a blog and I've always been interested in them so I decided to give it a try. Since one good turn deserves another, I'll do for her, on my blog, what she did for me on hers. Thanks, Tracy, for giving me the idea for this, and for supporting me on your site. I really do appreciate it. I've also added Tracy's blog to my list of blogs - it's the only one so far - that I follow. She writes some pretty interesting things and is well worth reading.

I'm pretty much thinking that the reason I forgot about the blog is simply because I'm so busy lately. I'm in my final two weeks of this school term and that's when all the heavy work is due; I've got a friend staying with me for a short while so we spend a lot of time chatting when I should be working - the distraction from my usual routine is quite nice, though, I'll admit; I had to get the boys prepared for their St. Paddy's Day celebrations at school; and now they're off until Monday for their spring break so I don't have as much free time this week.

I guess everyone knows what it's like to be busy these days. Everything moves so quickly that we barely have time to breathe. That's why I have to write my own little to-do list every night before I go to bed. If I forget the list, I forget many of the things that should be done each day. It stays on my desk, right next to my computer mouse so I can't miss it. I try to get everything on the list done each day, with the most important items getting done first. If I don't get it all done, the leftover items get rolled over to the next day's list. It's handy and helpful. Besides, I find that if I write things down, or ask someone to remind me of something, I'll remember on my own. It's as if I've programmed it into my head once it's on paper or out there in the open. Go figure. I wonder what would happen if, instead of writing my list, I just spoke it out loud each night. Would that help me remember everything the next day? I'll have to give it a shot when I don't have anything pressing to do the next day. Right now I'm too afraid I'd forget something really important and would be kicking myself for it. For now, the list will suffice. :)

What's really funny is that when my kids need me to do something for them - write a note to a teacher or get something from the store - they'll make sure I put it on my list. "Did you write that down on your list, Mom? I don't want you to forget." Good grief! The boys are only 5 and 7 and they're already privy to my secrets. I wonder how my daughter will be when she's old enough to be reminding me of things. Eventually I'll probably have an extra write on/wipe off board on the fridge. I've already got one for shopping needs - one side is for groceries, the other for incidentals that I pick up anywhere that isn't the supermarket. When the kids are all old enough to spell and write, I'll put up a board titled "Things the Kids Need Mom to Remember." I can just imagine how much will be on it in ten years when they're all teenagers.

Well, once I'm finished with school, mid-June, things will settle down and I won't have so much heavy stuff on my mind all the time. That should help me get myself together, and my to-do lists will be much shorter. That'll leave room for me to add "update blog" to it occasionally. In the meantime, I'll just do what I can, when I can, and I won't stress over it. Stress isn't worth my time and energy anyway. I'd rather this just be fun and relaxing, which it appears to be so far. I've rambled on tonight about absolutely nothing and feel really great about it. That's as it should be.

Just Getting Started

Before I started this blog, I spent a lot of time wondering what I would write about; what I could write about. Then I realized that I can write about, pretty much, anything that strikes me at the time - with or without an agenda. I'm a 41-yr-old, divorced, stay-at-home mother of three small children, and the majority of my time is spent in my home, with my kids. I do spend time with friends, and I do spend time working on improving myself. There are endless things I can write about.

Tonight, however, I am at a loss for a specific subject. I spent most of the day trying to get some school work done - an apparent exercise in futility. I'm in my next-to-last semester at Kaplan University, an e-college, where I'm pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Paralegal Studies. Usually I have no trouble getting my school work done during the day because it's just my two-yr-old daughter, Collette, and me at home. Her brothers, seven-yr-old Tyler, and five-yr-old Zach are in First grade and Kindergarten, respectively, and are in school much of the day.

Today, though, I received a call from the school nurse telling me that Zach's teacher sent him to her because he appeared to be taking pink-eye. Even though I explained to her that the boys had been messing around with markers the past couple of days, painting black under their eyes to look like football players, and that trying to get it off their faces may have caused his eyes to appear a little puffy, she asked that I pick him up and observe him at home.

Once I arrived at the school and signed Zach out for the day, we walked back to his class to drop something off with his teacher who, at that point, told me she hadn't sent Zach to the nurse. She had sent him to the office to pick up something I had left for him earlier in the morning. Apparently, the school secretary had sent him to the nurse because his eyes looked red and puffy, but she never bothered to ask him if he'd been crying - which he had. Since I'd already re-arranged my schedule to provide for him to be home with me, we just left and came home.

Once he was here, though, he and his sister spent the day just bugging me left and right. If they weren't asking me for something, they were fighting with one another. It didn't matter that I constantly told them that I had school work to do, they just felt the need to continue pulling me away from the computer. All I was trying to do was get a little research done for my two discussion board posts, and get the posts done - something that should have taken me, at most, three hours. Instead, I only got one of the posts done over the course of five hours. Then we had to go pick up Tyler and that was the end of that. With all three kids running around, trying to talk to me at once, and/or fighting amongst themselves, I can't get anything done. Once they went to bed tonight, I relaxed while watching my three favorite TV shows, and then got the second post done. That one only took me 45 minutes. Go figure.

When I stop and think that I've been in school for three years, and have had all three kids here all the time, Collette was born just before I started, I wonder how I actually got through all those classes while taking care of the kids at the same time. Then I realize that, regardless of what distractions I may have had, or still have, I always get things done. The kids get very impatient with me at times, for always doing school work, but I can't get angry. They just don't understand how important this degree is to us. Someday they will, and I hope that my diligence and perseverance will serve as good examples for them to pursue their own goals.