Here comes the sun...do do do do

THIS. IS. THE. BEST. EVER.

It looks like my fellow Oregonians and I will get our chance to soak up a little sun, dry out and scrape the moss and mildew off ourselves. Oh happy day!

I've been waiting for this weather for weeks...no months! MONTHS people! We've only had two days in the 60's this year. It's nearly MAY! We've had the third wettest April on record.

I try really hard not to complain about the rain, but after months and months of it I usually fail. I grew up a sunshine gal. I didn't even know it was possible to get a sunburn until I moved to Oregon and got pale over the course of a long fall/winter/spring. That first summer up here, I sat right down in the sun for a few hours and completely crisped myself up. That was a painful lesson. Two days of missed work and pretty much a complete skin peel. Not the comfy pleasant spa kind mind you.

I'm so happy I could do cartwheels right now.

Mean Girls

I'm going to get just a tad bit serious for a moment.

"There are two kinds of evil people in the world… those who do evil stuff, and those who see evil stuff being done and don’t do anything about it." - Janis, Mean Girls

This week it was brought to my attention that people I know of were being bullies on Face.book. I say I know of them because I'm not their friends and I didn't know them in school, but we have some mutual friends. If they had in fact been my friends on The FB (I heard someone in public call it The FB last week and I did a double take before having a little laugh with Scott about it) I would have unfriended them faster than a greased pig can slip through your hands in the pig pen.

I'm not saying that I'm perfect. I have my snarky days. Heck I even throw a party every year called SnarkFest. Yes we make fun of the bad dress choices the Miss America contestants have chosen as their best outfit forward. We might even make fun of their hair style. The fact is, I say things that aren't always nice, and aren't always constructive. We all do it. If you say that you don't you are truly an example I would like to emulate or you are lying. The difference is that some of us choose to be a bit snarky with only certain people, at certain times, so as not to hurt others feelings. Even so, it's not exactly a trait I'm pleased with. I need to step back and examine my own actions and values. It's possible that snark, no matter how careful I'm being, might still hurt someone.

These people, these bullies chose to humiliate someone out in the open for other to see, knowing it would be relayed back to the person they were talking about. Sounds pretty juvenile right?

These people are all in their 30's.

How sad that they still feel the need to make fun of and attack people to feel better about themselves. Who gives them the permission to treat others so badly. If they were twelve I'd chalk it up to ignorance and inexperience. If they were twenty I might excuse it as general young adult stupidness. But these people, these thirty-somethings are full grown adults with children of their own. Children they certainly don't want bullied. So why would they do it to anyone else?

People forget that other people are fragile. You can't always see the pain and hurt that others are carrying with them. You can't tell just how close the edge they are. You don't know how they cope, how they might handle a blow to an already compromised self worth. You don't know what led them to the point where they are seeking any and all approval and/or attention. It's so incredibly important to remember that about the people you see out there in the world. If you're one of those people it's important to remember that you're not the only one.

With the things we see on the news daily, with the stories of more and more children and adults lost to suicide every year, with entire episodes of well loved t.v. shows about bullying, with songs reminding us that we were born this way, how can these people be so dense? And why doesn't anyone tell them they are?

I know I won't be perfect going forward. I have a tendency to speak before I think. Snarking has been ingrained in me for many, many years. I did survive the life of a teenage girl after all. Teenage girls are awful to each other and themselves. I know I did terrible things when I was thirteen and I had terrible things done to me. But I was thirteen. Not thirty-three!

The point I'm trying to make to my own self is that there is a line you shouldn't cross. A line that intentionally hurts people and damages their self confidence. It's a fine line and it's obvious some people either don't see that line, or don't care. I'm going to try to make that line a bigger, brighter, flashing line of the neon green 80's day-glow variety, at least for me.

As for the bullies, I can only hope they realize at some point that their actions don't make their lives any better. If anything it makes most people thinks so much less of them. I hope someone who they care for and respect calls them out for it someday.

Seriously, to all you jerk face bullies of the world, grow up. That's it. Grown ups don't act like that.

Humpty Dumpty has nothing on my niece and nephew

Tonight we cracked some eggs.

We colored some too.

Five year olds have an amazing ability to drop, smack, and or crunch hard boiled eggs. But it turns out that colored cracked eggs make patterns like spiderwebs so it's like having Easter and Halloween at the same time. Glass half full people!

This is one of my eggs.

It should also be recorded that my niece played Harry Moanie (Hermione) all day. If that doesn't make you smile you must have a heart colder than those snakes Paula Abdul sings about.

Tales of the 4th Grade Something

Today I had the joy of taking my ten year old nephew to his gymnastics class. It's a 45 minute class and the 45 minutes of that class is the only time he was not talking. He loves to talk. Sometimes I catch myself not listening so closely because well, I'm not all that interested in the noises the new Legend of Zelda game makes.

Thankfully the Zelda stuff came later after a few classic Nathan gems of wisdom were shared with me.

#1

"Auntie Erin did you run that marathon?"

"Nope, I ran a 5k."

"Well this kid in my class, at our walk-a-thon, he ran a marathon in 30 minutes."

I tried to explain that this would be well above the world record time for both a marathon and the mile split time. He really didn't want to believe me. I did emphasize that this kid probably ran fast, and ran a long distance, but it was pretty much impossible to run a marathon in half an hour. He still doesn't believe me. The principle said it happened, so it happened. So for all you runners out there, we have a world class marathoner right here in SE PDX and he's only in the fourth grade so watch out world! :)

#2

"There was a birthday party last weekend and they played truth or dare and the question was who would you want to go out with most and everyone said me".

He's ten! TEN! I didn't start this sort of thing until I was at least eleven! Kids are moving faster these days and I'm an old lady.

As he sat down to put his shoes after class on a girl ran up to him and asked him if he had a girlfriend. His answer was "Sort of". This did not deter the girl. She then asked if he would go out with her friend. He said "no". I was pretty proud of him for saying that he "sort of" had a girlfriend. He and this adorable little thing we'll call Amy have kind of had a little thing for a few years and even though it's apparently not official he had her in mind and answered honestly. After the girl ran off to deliver the crushing news to her friend he related the birthday party story to me. He did explain to me in the car on the way home that it would be silly to go out with someone in his gymnastics class because he'd only see them once a week and that's not enough time to spend with your girlfriend. Smart boy!

Hans and Franz mean business...

When I named our veggie/fruit boxes Hans and Franz I did it because they were going to pump us up with healthy goodness. I'm sure they'll still fulfill that prophecy but they've already pumped me up. Turns out dirt is heavy and 4 foot x 8 foot x 1 foot boxes take up a LOT of dirt!

In an effort to not be the wife that constantly asks for help with heavy things I've really made the effort to do as much of this project as I can. I had all these grand ideas in my head that I'd be filling the wheelbarrow, pushing it to the back yard and dumping it into the boxes. Newsflash! I'm kind of a wimpy weakling!

I did manage to get a few half-full wheelbarrows into the back yard but I then have to shovel out the dirt, because you see there is no freaking way I can run that thing up a ramp when it's filled with 60 million pounds of dirt.

Sigh.

At least I got some done. Two more days of the same and I should be all set to plant the strawberry plants that will arrive via UPS on Friday.

I hope they are berry delicious. I think I'll deserve a sweet treat when this is all said and done.

How on earth did my farming ancestors do it???