Technology is NOT to be trusted

I kept IMPECCABLE notes about Daelen in my phone. The most minute details that probably won't matter a year from now, but matter to me at the moment. Any and every little thing. Literally, every time he ate. Every time he did something new. Any time I felt the urge to just record who/what/where he was at that very moment. And it was so easy cuz I always have my phone with me.

The first two months, I was really good about emailing the data to myself periodically, just in case. Then I transferred that info to his baby book, his first year calendar and/or the notebook journal I started for him while pregnant. Because of the carpal tunnel, I had gotten away from the notebook, but now I see I'm going to have to go back to it. Technology is not to be trusted. Pen and paper, that's where it's at.

I've lost all my notes from 15 August to 31 August. I could cry. Do you have any idea how many truly amazing, wonderful, heart-melting things happen with a baby in 15 days?!

But alas, there is a lesson here, and this time, I will learn it. I am a writer (in my own mind). I am not a blogger, a Facebooker or a technology guru. I am a pen and paper writer. And my son WILL be blessed as an adult with all the letters, notes, stories and information I will record for him over the next 18 years.

posted from Bloggeroid

Heart on My Sleeve

I'm an emotional* person. Always have been. Histrionic** is how a psychologist described it once. If you know anything about a Scorpio***, you know what I mean. Extremely emotional - and in a pendulum swing kind of way. I lack the ability to be lukewarm, apathetic and/or neutral. I do not like anything - I either love it or hate it (and I mean capital L-O-V-E love or I'm gonna kick you in the neck, staple Bacon to your face and piss on your dog HATE). If you look up hyperbole in the dictionary, my picture is totally there.

(Un)fortunately, I am the same whether we are talking about inanimate objects, animals or human beings. If I love you, I would seriously kill for you****. Some people don't participate in relationships like I do - family, friend, lover, whatever - if I love you, you are a priority. Always.

I'm extreme. I know. I try to tone it down. I try to let folks breathe. I really don't mean to smother. (I'm sorry if I've ever smothered you.)

All this to say, when I think a person is cool or pretty or smart or righteous or brilliant or fantastic, I REALLY think they are cool or pretty or smart or righteous or brilliant or fantastic. I don't necessarily want to spend every waking minute with them, but I do want to soak up everything they've got. (Not steal it, just dissect it so I can learn more about the human psyche and possibly become a better person myself.) And I have no problem telling you I think you're coolest thing since sliced bread.

The reason I write all of this is to tell you that I get hurt easily. I wear my heart on my sleeve and often times it feels like it should be the stereotypical heart with a dagger through it. So often I feel rejected or abandoned and it crushes me. I pour my heart and soul into people and relationships and so often (it seems) I get shit on.

Fortunately (for you), I have no intention of changing. I will continue to give my everything to the the people I love, people I adore and people I think are just all-around "good eggs." So, consider yourself warned. If you show yourself to be awesome, I just might try to sit at your feet and soak up your awesomeness.

* I think my husband was uber excited today when my emotional outburst literally had nothing to do with him!

** Google, you never cease to amaze me. There is an actual disorder for histrionic people!

*** It is as if someone described a Scorpio woman to me when I was 2, and I said, "Okay, I can be that."

**** Seriously, I'll fucking kill her and take the rap and be totally cool with it, because I love you.

GOOD

Everything is going so good. And given the circumstances, honestly, I'm surprised that I am saying that. It's been so long since I felt this this way. Honestly, I feel like Pollyanna. I'm so giddy with joy and thankful for all the blessings in my life. My hormones must be changing again.+

My mother- and sister-in-law moved in over the summer. Brytin is slam-dunking the second grade. Chris and I are getting along smashingly. And Daelen, well, truly he is THRIVING.

The truth is, a couple weeks ago, Chris and I fought for an entire weekend. And I mean knock-down, drag-out fought. Mean things were said, feelings were hurt, voices were raised, the tires on the truck peeled out of the driveway a time or three. And every time there was some resolve, it started up all over again about a different issue.

But then, Sunday night (LATE Sunday night) we looked at each other and realized neither of us was leaving, all the shouting wasn't getting us anywhere and really, time was just too precious to have wasted a whole weekend fighting.

But as I look back over the last couple weeks, I see how happy our (crowded) home is, I see how in love with me my husband is, I see how NOT irritated I am. Maybe 2.5 days of yelling was exactly what we needed?! I'm not angry anymore, he's putting forth some effort, and I'm not angry anymore!+

Praise the good Lord God Almighty the Broussard home is healthy, happy and a little wiser!

+Did you read the Female Brain like I told you to?!

+Did I mention I was pissed the F*&$ off?! I mean like SERIOUSLY - about EVERYTHING. Here's an example (that doesn't really shed light on how pissed I was, because I didn't want to actually post on the Internet the anger I felt that morning.)

posted from Bloggeroid

TOTALLY Guilty!

I use almost ALL of these words. I use them in my speech, my texts, my writing and my Internet postings. Oops.

5 Slang Words That May Never Be Legit
by Mark Nichol
OK, like, OMG, I’m totally not bagging on you for tweeting or FBing or blogging these words, but they are so bogus in formal writing. LOL

1. Amirite
This trendy favorite of commenters on pop-culture Web sites, meant to suggest a glibly tossed “Am I right?” — I figured that out after initially wondering what the heck uh-mere-uh-tee meant — has about as much chance of making it into the dictionary as fuhgeddaboudit. Save it for the fanboys — you can do better than that.

2. Craptastic/craptacular
These mash-ups of, respectively, crap and fantastic and crap and spectacular first cropped up in snarky online lambasting of overhyped pop-culture phenomena in the 1990s. I chuckled the first couple of times I came across them, but though they are ideal terms for assuming a sarcastic tone, they are best used in moderation and are not, and perhaps will never become, mainstream expressions of derision. Safer alternatives for general publication include absurd, laughable, ludicrous, preposterous, ridiculous, and risible.

3. Genius
Out of seemingly nowhere, online correspondents began to use this as a short form of ingenious, as in “That’s such a genius move.” It has not acquired legitimacy, and in other than jocular usage, you don’t have to be a genius to avoid it.

4. Ginormous
This collision of gigantic and enormous, dating from the 1990s, is a vivid term, but it is superfluous, considering that humongous, which also seemed to appear spontaneously in casual usage when it came on the scene in the 1960s, has already acquired a respectability the newer term as yet lacks.

Plenty of words meaning “extremely large” exist: colossal, gargantuan, gigantic, immense, mammoth, massive, monstrous, prodigious, titanic, and vast, for starters. None of them has the neologistic cachet of ginormous, but the letter is for now only suitable in informal writing.

5. A Slang Word That Isn’t
The adjective cliche, used in place of cliched, as in “That’s so cliche,” was originally on this list, until I looked it up and discovered, to my surprise, that it is a legitimate variant. Its sudden recent vogue lured me into thinking it was being misused in an affected manner much like the adjective genius (see above) is. It’s correct, but you’re welcome to use one of many synonyms, like hackneyed or trite.