"I already told you!"

You would think that I would have learned by now...

Today while paying for a purchase at Ace, I scanned my card and said, "Debit please."

Then I saw that the info on the screen 'thingie' where you make your payments with a card said "credit."

Then I said, "I wanted debit please."

The young female cashier gets exasperated with me and said, "I just already explained and told you that the credit will run like a debit, (talking to me like I was some sort of toddler.....yadayayaydayaydya-I stopped listening at this point, I have heard this conversation before)

*whatever*

So I said, "Oh, so while I was fiddling with my wallet and this machine, you were talking to me the whole time? Sorry. I am deaf. I didn't hear anything you said."

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. You would think I have learned how to sidestep this problem next time.

Next time I go shopping, I think I will tape a big note on my forehead just before I get to the cashier:

"I AM DEAF. Please don't speak unless spoken to and I am looking at you."

This is what I am making next

GO see Brassy Apple Lady at

http://www.brassyapple.blogspot.com/

(photo above is from the Brassy Apple Lady)

I am totally going to copy her idea to make a chandelier for my daughter's room for about 18 dollars using stuff from the dollar store!

It's simply three wire hanging baskets for plants spray spainted and a bit of wire to hold stuff together. Then whatever bling you want.

See her blog for a great pic by pic tutorial!

Speech Therapy

Hi all-

You might have heard before that I have been using Leadsinger 2000 as a form of voice and speech therapy for me.

Last night I was singing the most classic song that every child in America and probably the world knows: The Alphabet Song.

I was scoring about 38 to 40 points out of 100. Most disappointing.

So I stood up straight, took some deep breaths, and tried to push out air from my belly and lungs while singing and opened my mouth bigger.

Then I watched the screen in disbelief: 59, 63, 84, 89, 90.

I scored 93 points. Unbelievable! Felt really good, could actually hear that the song was sung in a pretty decent tone.

Justice Inspired Clothing

Do you know all about Justice?

Not the one about freedom for all mankind and that kind of stuff.

The Justice. The one with the cute swirly heart logo:

Yeah, that's the one I am talking about: the one in the mall that gives you "40 percent off" coupons in the mail all the time.

But their prices are still ridiculous! $16.45 for a tutu skort on sale? $16.45 for a tee shirt on sale big enough to fit my little shiz tzu poo?

Now here is the catch. My little girl loves Justice. No, she {a big fat heart with rainbows and sparkles} Justice.

The latest craze right now is hot pink and zebra prints here and there in the Justice clothing.

So I decided to make my little girl her own Justice clothes with a touch of Mom's love:

Easy Peasy. Go to Michael's and get the pre-made stretchy white top. (I use the 50 percent coupons all the time. I signed up for the catalog that comes in the mail with coupons) Get a few cool fabrics by the yard. I have zebra print, Pink with white polka dots, and Black with white polka dots.

Get what you need for the white smocking by yardage by measuring around your little girls body first. Then sew the smocking together in a straight line so it is like a tube.

Make a skirt, and do a little gathering. Pin on the skirt to the stretchy white thing called smocking and sew. You can even attach an old skirt too! Upcycle your old teeshirts and clothes into something new!

Ta-ta. Done! Maybe make a fabric flower with matching leftover fabric to clip to the hair or the outfit on the belted waist or on top of the outfit. The belt came from my old shirt and matched perfectly!

So, what project that you have done that you can share with me?

Local Oil Spill Warning!!

LOCAL OIL SPILL happened today at 8 am in my entire local neighborhood.

It's oozing smelly, sticky and slimey oil.

Basically there is a sticky, black and highly viscous liquid or semi-solid that is present in most crude petroleums and in some natural deposits sometimes termed asphaltum.

How can total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) affect my health? (That will be the black sludge on my street)

Some of the TPH compounds can affect your central nervous system. One compound can cause headaches and dizziness at high levels in the air. Another compound can cause a nerve disorder called "peripheral neuropathy," consisting of numbness in the feet and legs. Other TPH compounds can cause effects on the blood, immune system, lungs, skin, and eyes. How about this for a night time horror story, only it's true: Petroleum based chemicals are being found to cause significant attritional effects to the nervous system and immune system after prolonged exposure. Illnesses identified in the medical research include adult and child cancers, numerous neurological disorders, immune system weakening, autoimmune disorders, asthma, allergies, infertility, miscarriage, and child behavior disorders including learning disabilities, mental retardation, hyperactivity and ADD (attention deficit disorders). Petroleum based chemicals are believed to cause these problems by a variety of routes including - impairing proper DNA (Gene) expression, weakening DNA Repair, accelerating gene loss, degeneration of the body's detoxification defenses (liver and kidneys) as well as gradual weakening of the brain's primary defense - (the Blood Brain Barrier). Identifying a specific chemical as the "original cause" of these health disorders is difficult and often overlooked as it typically requires years of exposure for the body's inherent defenses to weaken sufficiently to result in observable health problems. Also, many petroleum chemicals appear work in tandem to combine their harmful effects making specific identification even more difficult. However, once a chemically induced illness presents itself, a decline in health status appears to continue rapidly as long as exposure continues. Of significant concern, while petroleum based chemicals are required by the U.S. Government (EPA) to be tested for a variety of health effects, they are currently not required to be tested for causing subtle neurological damage (memory, personality, behavior etc), effects upon the developing brain during pregnancy, immune system effects, autoimmunity and effects upon the brain's primary defense - the blood brain barrier.

It's true.

I looked outside this morning and saw it.

WTH??!!

wth?

what the heck?

actually I meant the other word...no, not really, just wanted to make dramatic impact on the severity on the local environmental poisoning.

The entire neighborhood is saddened to know that our children will be trudging through the oil after school and bring poison into their homes.

On a side note the the state government has been abusing and misspending the financial budget.

Then the state threatened us with a using a Prop 100 saying that our schools will fail. (false threat!) How about getting rid of petty cash, expensive lunches and useless state congress cushy jobs. All the state government officials want to do is to close some of the local city pools so they could swim in millions of dollars seeing how the Prop 100 just passed.

Then they have enough money to willingly pour black poison on my street??? No one asked my permission if it was okay to put that sludge practically at my front door.

Seriously, there are no cracks or potholes in my neighborhood. WTH? Whatever are they re-sludging the streets for?

And here is the horror of it all: today was only day 1. There will be 6 more days of black poison on the streets.

There are oil tire tracks everywhere on our driveway. Pretty soon the sludge will cover the entire walking surface of our homes.

Goodbye bike rides and dog walks. Thank you very very very very much for pouring black crude petroleum poison oil on my street just when summer is starting to be 100 degrees soon for several weeks. I can't wait for the monsoons to wash it away.

Depressing to think that I will be spending my summer break mopping floors, steam cleaning the carpets, and shouting at the visitors to take their shoes off at the front door.

Oh yeah, the pic below? This is just from walking around my driveway and sidewalk AFTER I washed the bottom of my shoes off. This is just the residual sludge slowly creeping up all over the place from the streets:

I am thinking of a neighborhood intervention. Everyone: get a huge bottle of Dawn. Pour it on your "section" of the street. And at the same time everyone hoses off for 15 minutes straight. Then we might have a chance.

Yeah, and let's poison our landscape with the runoff. See? Evil just begats more evil. No one wins.

I Am A Litterbug

Yeah. You did read that one right.

But before you gasp and think so badly of me, please read my story first.

I confess that I have a small litterbug habit. It is done in the name of protecting myself from fraud.

Everytime I go to the bank or other such place that usually gives you a receipt complete with your name, account number, and sometimes your address...that is pretty much playing with fire having pieces of paper like that floating around in your car to land somewhere on the ground.

So I panic and think someone is going to withdraw my entire savings account with hardly any effort...

So instead of my little 2 by 3 reciepts added to the landfill dump along with shredded important documents and files, I tear off about a 1 by 1 inch piece that has my name and account number. Then I rip that tiny square of paper it into supertiny pieces. Then while driving along the road, I let them fly out the window a few pieces at a time.

Now keep in mind: I don't do this with the mail and documents that arrive at my house. Just with the small receipts while in town, usually the bank, the tend to end up in the catch-all "trash receptacle" thingie on the side of the car door.

I don't feel too badly about it. These miniscule pieces of paper will eventually disintegrate into the dirt in a couple days. Okay, maybe a couple of weeks.

Yes, yes, I know. If EVERYONE did it, then our highways will be covered with dirty paper snowpiles.

Do you think I deserve this to happen to me below?

Oh! Did ya hear? I am in a new upcoming movie with Donald Duck:

The good news is that my litterbug habit is more than balanced out with my efforts to recycle. I get mad at my kids if I even see a small cracker box in the trash can instead of the recycle bin. I recycle things into projects. I upcycle old clothes into cute craft projects. ETC and ETC.

Besides the Pima County of Arizona are worse litterbugs than me! This morning I found a big fat phone book on the edge of my sidewalk. I NEVER asked for it! And it was at the sidewalk of every house, including the vacant ones. Who uses phone books nowadays with the choice of using the internet wealth of information at our fingertips?

Well, guess I got to think of something to do to recycle that phone book into something cool!

At the risk of sounding like a buggy hypocrite, here is my good service announcement for the day:

Yes, I know. Craft project coming up. I just need to get my pictures uploaded....

To Thine Own Self Be True

Or something like that from Shakespeare.

I am feeling inspired to write about a lot of things I have been seeing with a lot of gals I know. How much and how long are we going to beat ourselves over for things not always being so perfect and just so?

Why do we sometimes feel lonely in a sea of people surrounding us? When are we going to embrace the sisterhood bonding that should bring us all together despite our differences in personalities and lifestyles?

We've got to learn to love ourselves and accept ourselves. In doing so we need to love and accept others for who they are. We need to reach out a loving and helping hand to those in need, or even just a listening ear. Even if it means talking by the roadside late at night with a good friend.

Yesterday at church was a very inspiring visiting teaching conference about loving our sisters in Christ and being a helping hand to those in need. I had to subtlely wipe away a few moisture drops gathering at the end of my lashes.

So I am going to share a few "Heather Mae is not perfect but perfectly happy with my life" tips:

When I feel a grudge that is lasting too long, I attack the kitchen floor and scrub it until the grudge is gone and my floors gleam, then I have one more thing checked off my to-do list. Besides, it feels good to slam a few cupboard doors. It's harmless.

When I make something for my home I tell myself "it does not need to be perfect to be beautiful." I accept what I have done for me and my family and friends.

When I don't want to do something, I do it anyways and feel better when it is done.

I tell myself to shut up once in a while and listen. Don't give advice.

Then sometimes I give advice, then follow thru by inviting/helping a person implement that advice. "Faith without works is dead." The same goes for help/service/love etc.

Now let's talk about compassion. Late last night my son Seth asked me why I have been listening to different women lately, who pour their frustrations and feelings out. Let's just say I have been where they have been at one point in my life.

And I already know what it feels like to be rejected, beaten, smacked, hit, teased, tripped, spit on, pushed, ignored, ostracized, punched, thrown down the stairs, shoved against fences, stabbed and all manner of abuse on a daily basis. Outside of my home it was one hellacious childhood.

As an adult, it simply just rolls off my shoulder now when I run into any acceptance or friendship problems. After having been through the worst life had to offer me, I have learned to be a survivor and accept myself for who I am. I know who my real friends are, and who loves me for who I really am. I don't keep count. I don't care about the Facebook number of friends I have. If a lady at church decides to ignore me or advert her eyes to avoid saying hi to me, I really don't care at all. I don't need much. I simply do not desire to be a social butterfly, I am more of a busy bee anyways.

So I am asking all my gal pals: do you love and accept yourself for who you are? Life might be difficult, but honestly ask yourself, is it really that difficult? Does life need to be perfect?

So the next time someone judges you, let them. Who cares???? They have no true input on our lives. They have nothing to do to where we want to be. Let it go!! Move on. There's plenty of "fish in the sea."

It's only important how we judge ourselves. How we love and accept ourselves.


To close my post, I found this sums it up perfectly for me:

Yet here, Laertes! Aboard, aboard for shame!
The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
And you are stay'd for.
There ... my blessing with thee!
And these few precepts in thy memory
Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Farewell; my blessing season this in thee!
-- William Shakespeare

Thanks for listening. My next post will hopefully be some sort of fun project or craft.

New Blog for Crafting Fun

Hi all my gals and readers-

I am back!! Hope you will visit my craft/project/DYI/stories of me blog.

Thanks!