I said TWINE not WINE

Posted on April 11, 2013 by Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

I came late in life to the Facebook party – I’m a FB menopause baby — and it really proved itself as a forum for support and compassion when I was faced with a dilemma. They talked me down off that ledge of compulsive behavior.

A Princess Rosebud Confession
I’m slightly OCD — I emphasize slightly because it’s not something that cripples my daily life, and I mostly kind of love and embrace all my little idiosyncrasies. I think it’s kinda cute to be SUH-LIGHTLEE crazy. It’s what makes me ME. It might be a bit tough to be married to ME, but my tugboat man is pretty cool with it.

We OCD-ers are the ones who love a clean house, am I right? We can’t ALL be slobs, if ya know what I mean…

Hold on a sec, I’ll be right back, I see a picture on the wall that’s off just a skosh, I gotta go straighten it out. ………………………………………OK I’m back. Whew. All better.

See, it comes in handy to be slightly OCD, who needs a level when I’m around? Right? I can eyeball a shelf, a pic, anything slightly askew – I have a built-in level in my brain.

Don’t get grossed out — but a few days ago I was sitting on the….ahem…toilet. Right across from me there’s a floor shelf unit with towels, my hair dryer, iron, straightener — and a ton of seashells. I had lovingly arranged each one in a specific location. I noticed a shell/rock combo shifted and was facing in a less than feng shui direction.

It bothered me enough that I stopped what I was doing — ahem — got up, shuffled over, YES, pants around my ankles, moved them a smidgen, and sat back down. I had a bit of a convo with myself about it — should I get up, should I wait ’til I’m done, does it really bother me, and I remembered what my very patient and tolerant hubs always says to me in similar situations, “Is it something you can live with?” and I told myself, “No, I need to fix it, because that’s what will make me happy” so I did and then I chortled to myself thinking about what my tugboat man would say when I shared the story.

So…a couple days ago my OCD manifested itself again when I shopped for twine. That’s right, I said twine, not wine.

I needed twine for the snowpeas in my garden.
Plain old useful-for-a-zillion things twine.

I went to True Value Hardware and bought a ball of twine for $2.99, did a few more errands, bought a scarf at Marshalls, and stopped at the dollar store. They had twine for ONE DOLLAR. Uh oh. I drove home with all kinds of thoughts fomenting and swirling around in my crazy head. Should I take back the twine I bought from True Value? Those stores are on opposite sides of my city, not a great distance, but more than a hop, skip, and a jump. I got the brill idea to put the power of social media to work and pose the question to my FB family:

I got tons of much needed help, but the consensus wasn’t clear. 50% voted for a return, 50% said don’t sweat it, remember the dollar store for the next time — and I’m sure quite a few were shaking their heads, thinking they were really glad they weren’t married to me and wouldn’t have to deal with this on a regular basis, am I right, y’all?. Ha Ha! The family joke is that I’ll waste five dollars in gas to return a fifty cent item, and that is absolutely true. On the other hand — designer handbags… need I say more?

After my BootCamp class yesterday, I returned to the dollar store and did a twine by twine comparison. Yes, the dollar store offering was only $1 but it contained HALF as much twine as the $2.99 option from True Value — 120 feet versus 230 feet

So… I did my due diligence and felt comfortable with the original purchase and hadn’t wasted any money. I’m grateful to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts and opinions. Social media rocks!

It was a definite burr under my saddle for a while. Prolly should have just bought a bottle of WINE and saved myself and everyone else a whole lotta stress!

And finally, here’s the twine helping my darling little pea plants grow straight and tall!

Are you in the OCD club with me?

Are you special, too?

{diy baker’s twine} (thehagamans.wordpress.com)
Social Media Resource of the Day: Twine (socialmediapower.com)
My Favorite Dollar Store Finds (bonusmommie.com)

The path (or post) not taken

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

Dear Darling WordPress,
You lost another post, probably an award-winning post, full of levity and wit and irony, and all the best things in the world rolled into one post. Ahh, such is life….

So, there I was, in a quandary about what path to take and just like that — click –the old lightbulb snapped on!

Clap on, clap off…

I had to THINK which involves a level of introspection that I rarely attain. Here’s my brain on any given day: “…work out, clean, garden, cook, bake, shop, read, shop…”

Rinse and repeat. Deep thoughts? Not so much.

As I was looking out our patio doors, I noticed all the different paths in our yard.

Curvy paths of rocks

straight paths of pavers to the pond

or a meandering path to the greenhouse and beyond

and the steps that lead you to another level.

I thought about how that’s another one of life’s important lessons.

If one path doesn’t work, you can choose another. And if none of those work, you can change course by moving the rocks or the pavers just a little bit to reflect a different direction or to avoid an obstacle in your way.

It doesn’t really matter where you go, the success is in the path you take to reach your goal or your destination.

Today I wrote about something other than my original idea because WordPress threw up a barricade that blocked my way.

I toyed with the idea of giving up altogether or trying to recreate my initial thoughts, when, for the first time, I became aware of the paths in my yard.

It opened my eyes to a deeper reflection, not unlike the reflection you’d find if you followed the path to the pond and gazed in the water.

So that’s it for my philosophical sputterings, I have no idea what came over me!

Now I have to pack fourteen outfits to accompany hubs to San Francisco for a two-day business meeting. Road trip! And yet another road taken.

Grudge match: the pissed off surf widow versus the good wife (guess who won)

Posted on January 25, 2013 by Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud

That wily vixen beeyotch was in rare form today.

Madame Beeyotch has been elegantly restrained lately except for an errant episode or two. Today, however, she wielded the POWER…

The day started out in an innocuous fashion. We woke up, had coffee–hubs had his portion controlled breakfast of homemade granola and low carb high protein flakes of some sort.

We went to the gym to take a Boot Camp/weight training class. So far, so good. On the way home, we ran a few errands–Trader Joe’s, Target, and stopped to get my glasses adjusted.

Still serene–planets in alignment–all is good. Madame Beeyotch, still restrained, is singing a sweet, calming, and repetitive tune in her head.

Then…Captain Dorko decided we he needed to do a surf check. Stupid ocean. Obviously the waves were looking pretty good as evidenced by the grunts and snorts and exhalations of pleasure that emanated from the driver’s side.

Standup Paddleboard

Hubs just got a standup paddleboard (SUP) and now that there’s no wave small enough to keep him out of the water, he’s gone ALL THE TIME, and right about now it’s kind of getting on my last nerve.

I know what you might be thinking–cut the poor guy some slack; he’s out to sea a lot and he deserves a little r & r. Blah, blah, blah. That’s what I think!

My inner beeyotch can be held back no longer.

I’m thinking of all kinds of painful tortures to inflict upon the surf-obsessed hubs when I realized that he had been talking for quite a while. I only picked up the last part of it.

Him: “… and it’s so cool, I paddled all the way from the power plant past Old Mans and Warm Waters past the jetty to Tamarack. The waves weren’t big, but with that SUP I can have a lot of fun anyway.”

Crickets-Silence-More crlckets.

I’m thinking to myself. He can’t be talking to me. He just couldn’t be sharing all that stupid surf stuff with me.

Him again: “Look” he said, pointing west as we were stopped at a light, “I caught a wave there, and there, and there and…”

Picture this. I’m sitting in the passenger seat. He’s driving. As he’s droning on and on and on AND on about the fun waves he’s been catching every damn day since he got that hateful SUP, I twist all the way around to look in the back seat. I look to the left-I look to the right– I stretch my body as far as it will go and look down with exaggerated movements to see the floor on the back seat.

Him: “What are you doing?”

Me: “I was looking for whoever you were talking to that must give a shit–‘cos I don’t!”
(Whom/who–at that point I didn’t care to be correct.)

Him: {Laughing} “You’re really funny, you know that?”

(He honestly thinks I’m funny, he wasn’t kidding.)

Me: “I mean, I heard your lips flapping, waves, blah blah blah—fun, blah, blah, blah– and I thought to myself, he couldn’t possibly be talking to me because he should know that I don’t give a shit about his stupid surfing experiences!”

“You’re lucky I’m so agreeable to all the time you spend playing in the water and ignoring me.”

“But now that you mention it, you’re really getting on my last nerve, so you should prolly think about cutting back on your playtime in the water or I might just have to run up to South Coast Plaza and see what’s new for Spring. Chanel says tweed and feathers are trending right now.”

“Do we understand each other?”

Him: “Are you threatening me with shopping?”

Me: “How perceptive of you. You didn’t need a crystal ball to see where that was going…do we have a deal?”

Him: Arms folded, giving me that look of having tasted defeat…”Where do you want me to install those shelves?. Muttering half to himself as he walks in the garage, “I know when I’ve lost.”

However, it is now almost 5pm and he ran off to the beach with a surfboard this time for an evening glass off session.