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Tag: atozblogchallenge

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P is for Perfect – a-to-z blog challenge

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A child walked into a house today and made the declaration, “Oh my gosh, whatever you’re cooking smells amazing!”

It was my house.  This was one of my children.  And she wasn’t fishing for concert tickets, car keys, or a puppy.

My house is cluttered.  Currently, my railing is sporting two weeks worth of clean laundry that somehow made it through the washer and dryer, but failed to hook up with the hangers from whence they once came.  I have unsorted socks on a chair in my bedroom, and while part of me thinks I really need to get them done, my cat has declared herself king of that mountain and I haven’t the heart to dethrone her.

The dresser in my bedroom has three stacks of books on it.  And I have a Kindle.  There may also be a package of unopened Valentine pretzels among those stacks.  Don’t judge.

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More often than not (and especially this week), dinner is supplied from a local takeaway restaurant.  My kids are as familiar with the menus of the local Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and pizza restaurants as they are their times tables (and these are some times table smart girls).

Having a kid walk in this well loved, well worn, well lived in home and claim that anything was amazing?  That’s what perfect is all about.

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F is for Funny – The Passing of John Pinette

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Funny.  There is a huge range when it comes to what people consider funny, but for me, John Pinette was it.  He was a comedian I felt like I could let my girls enjoy, he poked more fun at himself than at others, and his comedy wasn’t pejorative or hurtful.  It was just funny.

Today, the cherubic face that contorted into the face of an angry Chinese restaurant owner or transformed into the face of Hairspray Mom Edna Turnblad rests in peace.  John was found passed away in a hotel in Pittsburgh, after suffering from liver and heart conditions.  He also battled addiction demons – but he battled them with fans in mind first, as he Tweeted his apologies for putting himself first as he sought treatment.

Funny.  John Pinette is the first celebrity to reach out to me through social media avenues – when I was still learning what social media avenues were.  He was gracious and kind, thanking me for following him and saying such nice things about him.  It’s where funny and classy merged together.

Of course there will still be laughter in the world, but in my world, at least for today, it will be silent.

Rest in peace, John.  Your humor and graciousness endeared you to so many, and you will be missed by us all.  You were, at least for me, the very definition of the word Funny, and the smiles in my life just became a bit fewer.

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E is for e.starbucks.com – or Epic Fail, Depending on How You Look at It

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Remember a little while ago, I mentioned the end of my love affair with Starbucks over a little heartbreak we like to call “hacking”?  Someone got into my Starbucks account and began charging Starbucks gift cards to the tune of $100 a pop.  Not that I can blame them, of course, as I myself suffer from an addiction, but as bad as I think I am, I’m not turning tricks on a street corner in exchange for sugar free cinnamon dolce lattes.  Nor am I hacking accounts to get my fix.

We were compensated for our inconvenience in the amount of a $25 Starbucks gift card- and although I don’t know the going rate for hours on the phone with our credit card companies and Starbucks themselves,  $25 seemed like a nice gesture, and we bought back into the security of our card, with the one added security feature on our part that we didn’t reload the card ourselves using the iPhone app, we instead gave the money and a physical card to a barista to reload at the register.

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Epic Fail.

Part 2 of the hacking was detected Thursday night, when we were charged multiple Starbucks charges of $50 each for the purchase of e-gifts.  Jim got on the phone immediately, Starbucks offered another bit of compensation for the inconvenience, and the world continues to revolve, with the one big exception that we are now never going to use our Starbucks iPhone app again.

This comes just as I get an email from “e.starbucks.com” offering me a bonus – if I click the link to reload my Starbucks card using my VISA, they will give me an extra $5 if I load $10 and an extra $20 if I load $40.  I would not have thought twice about doing it before, but if I try to go to e.starbucks.com, it comes up as an invalid address.

Things that make you go hmmmmm…..

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B is for Borrowers

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I was an avid reader as a kid – anything and everything I could get my hands on, I read.  Thousands of books have crossed these eyes, but some “stuck”. They haven’t stuck necessarily because they were my favorite, but because their stories seem to have come to life in my adulthood.  None has rung more true than The Borrowers.

I’m convinced.  They live in my home, prowl room to room as I sleep, and mess up all of my best laid plans for a smooth morning departure.

Socks? Fuggedaboudit. There has not been a matched pair of socks in my house since 1997.  Why the Borrowers can’t borrow in pairs is beyond me, but as they say, variety is the spice of life and the bane of my laundry doing existence.

Signed permission slips? I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had to reprint a permission slip I KNOW I signed, I KNOW I put into a folder, which I KNOW a kid put into a backpack. The Borrowers walls must be papered with my signature and my children’s emergency contact information.

Need a hairbrush in my house? Good luck. You would think an item we use every day at least once a day would be off limits for a Borrower.  You would think they’d be afraid to pinch something we could readily have our hands on because of the frequent need.  Not so.  If I had a dime for every hairbrush that goes missing in this house, I could probably keep us in stock with hairbrushes for a week. Maybe two.

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It’s always the books you least expect that come back and haunt you. I never would have thought as a young girl, mesmerized by the prospect of tiny people living under my floors, that they would eventually become the nightmares that disturb my sleep.

Now where is that yellow sock?

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A is for Awesome

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I have three kids, in case you can’t keep up with the menagerie that is the Beauty Girls household.  Each of the girls has had a nickname – something that we’ve called them, grandparents have called them, or they have called themselves.  It’s the names they’ve referred to themselves as that have always been the most unique.

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Brighid for a while in kindergarten decided Brighid wasn’t a great name.  Among the list of thousands of available names, she chose Pansy.  As in the flower. As in she didn’t know then it was the name of a flower, but we called her Pansy for days on end. Until Brighid was in vogue again. Then all was right with the world.

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Eilis answered only to Super Duper.  As you do, when you’re three.  You could call “Eilis” all day long, until you were that proverbial shade of blue in the face, and she wouldn’t answer you.  Until you called her Super Duper.  She still is, by the way, Super Duper, however, she seems perfectly content to answer to Eilis.

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Then there is Awesome.  I mean Granuaile.  Who is Awesome. Don’t mess with this kid – Awesome ain’t got time for your nonsense.  T-shirts with arrows that point up and say, “I’m with Awesome” crowd her closet – along with sweat pants, sweat jackets, and other t-shirts that refer to her by her chosen name.  Awesome.

You have no idea how hard I pray she will always believe that she is.  Awesome.