I have learned...

My entier list of "I have learned's" from 2009.

1. The heater in my car does not double as a hair dryer. No matter how hot and how high I run the fan, it does not dry my hair by the time I get to work.
2. Wet hair freezes on the ¼ mile walk to my office building. Crunchy frozen hair is really cool. Closest I will ever get to dreads.
3. A squirrel cannot run and carry a full piece of bread in his mouth. He trips over the bread. We have a “pet” squirrel. He eats from our hands. He will try to climb your leg to get food. He also likes peanuts, rice cakes, and ritz crackers.
4. My twelve year old daughter’s friends idolizing my son and flirting with him and him picking on them doesn’t bother me. My twelve year old girl idolizing my son’s eighteen year old friend who picks on her and pays attention to her, really bothers me. If that’s a double standard, I’m okay with it.
5. I have never been a fan of grounding my kids, but I’m starting to think it may be the only way to get my teenagers to spend time with me. I have recently even volunteered to help with homework, just for some face time.
6. Pick up lines and the whole act of hitting on someone is hilarious when you are watching it from the next treadmill. I witnessed this at the Y the other night when some old geezer (translated, my age) hit on the 21 (translated, looked about 16) year old girl on the treadmill next to me. She was adorable, he was pitiful, and I somehow managed to hold my laughter.
7. My high school friends can still make me laugh till I snort pop out my nose, twenty-five years later.
8. Not everyone thinks I’m funny. I was somehow shocked and saddened by this, because I think I’m hilarious. My future is looking like “crazy old lady” will be me.
9. Ice cream sandwiches cure depression. It may take 5 or 6, depending on your level of depression, but just keep eating. You will obtain euphoria. Euphoria - a feeling of happiness, confidence, or well-being sometimes exaggerated in pathological states as mania. I think Kansas is a pathological state.
10. The cleaner my bathroom, the dirtier my family. When I scrub my shower, Steve will come home from the gym after running 10 miles and bench pressing 275 lbs. Nate will come home from baseball practice and they will have practiced base running and sliding. In the mud. Ashley will have dyed her hair. Black. Which makes it brittle and fall out. There will be little black hairs, mud and stink in my newly clean bathroom. And, a clean toilet works the digestive system better than fiber. Nuff said.
11. Never lick a paring knife.
12. I learned this from my friend Wendi, not from my own personal experience, (but she did really do this, and it worked) you can close a four inch gash on your leg with super glue. Just stick the muscle that is hanging out back in and fill it up. I’m filing this info for future reference. Not sure if I’m filing it under first aid or never try this.
13. In the absence of a knife, you can cut birthday cake with a cookie. You can then use the cookie as a fork to eat the birthday cake.
14. A 12 year old should not be left in charge of cooking over an open flame grill.
15. Starbucks is not a food group. Mary Kate Olsen, put down the latte, pick up a burger already for crying out loud.
16. Some stains will not come out of the carpet. If you finally get them out, they leave a stain of their own, as the only truly clean spot on the carpet now is the stain.
17. Cell phones should not be washed in the washing machine.
18. I can have ice cream for lunch (Dairy Queen Fudge Brownie Hot Fudge Sundae) and dinner (Cold Stone Sweet Cream with strawberries {notice I said FOR not with}) and stay within my allotted daily calories. If I add exercise, I can even have a Fudgsicle for breakfast. I should add that ice cream is not a food group either.
19. A group of teenage girls will sit in 35 degree weather with 22 mph winds wearing jeans and sweatshirts to watch a group of teenage boys hit a leather bound cork ball with an aluminum bat and run in circles.
20. Arguing with a teenager is useless. If the first sentences out of their mouth do not include “I’m sorry. I was wrong. I won’t do it again”, just tell them they are grounded and be done. It’s like asking “how old are you” and getting the answer “yellow”.
21. My last “things I have learned” post also included ice cream. I’m learning I have a problem.
22. My Spiritual Gift may very well be sarcasm.
23. Solomon knew what he was talking about. Read Proverbs, in the Message version or New Contemporary Version. Wise man. And funny.
24. My love language is cupcakes. I read this in the Gary Smalley book. I read it between the lines, but I’m sure it’s cupcakes.
25. Wearing your hairpins too tight will give you a headache. I would rather my hair look bad than have a headache. This is surprising, because I always considered myself a fairly vain person with a high tolerance for pain in the name of beauty. (If you have never plucked, waxed, had your hair highlighted or cut yourself shaving, you don’t know what I’m talking about). Imagine my shock to learn that my tolerance of pain for beauty translated to beauty treatments, high heeled footwear and set in waist bands, but not hairstyles.
26. Popcorn is not a dessert. It cannot replace a dessert. Unless you pour a bag of M&M’s into the bowl of popcorn.
27. My husband killing a snake in my backyard did not make me get all gooey thinking about how he was protecting his family. It freaked me out that there was a snake 20 feet from my patio door. Even lying in bed last night next to my mighty warrior, I was petrified that a snake might somehow make it into my house. I will probably die of a snake induced heart attack.
28. Bologna sandwiches are not good pre-workout food.
29. Crying at Sonic will freak the carhop out to point that she will offer to pay for your drink, just to get away from the crazy lady. (They were happy tears).
30. That if “God is not the author of confusion” (KJV) or “God is not a God of disorder, but of peace”, (NIV) I Corinthians 14 where did teenagers come from?
31. Shaking your hair and running your fingers through it is sexy. Squeezing a pimple or plucking a stray eyebrow ruins the sexy picture.
32. Raising children is not a roller coaster ride. It’s that ride that you sit down, strap in, and it shoots you straight up and then it drops you straight back down. Over and over and over. And you can’t get off. And it costs $400,000 to ride.
33. If you wear your nastiest work out clothes to the gym and decide to stop for something from the grocery store on your way home, you will run into at least 5 people you know. If you smell really bad, it will be 7.
34. Whitney pointed out all my annoying habits the other day. I learned I have a lot of them.
35. My pet squirrel “Lerriuqs” (pronounced Lareeks, it’s French, okay, not really, it’s squirrel spelled backward, thank Whitney for the name), will now come to the front door and put his paws on the door and peer inside, (and will try to knock) waiting for his dinner. Bread makes squirrels fat. One thing I haven’t learned yet is how to tell if a squirrel is male or female.
36. My whole family probably needs tetanus boosters.
37. You can mark ugly shoes down 80% off and they still won’t sell.
38. Throwing the noodles in the sink before you put the colander in there pretty much ruins the noodles, at least if it’s the side with the garbage disposal, you haven’t cleaned your sink that day or there are dirty dishes piled in it.
39. An 11 mile run on a 90 degree day with 70% humidity is a tough workout. If you stop to use the ladies room after 8 miles, pulling your spandex pants back up over your sweaty body is a tougher work out than the 11 mile run.
40. If there is a personality trait (flaw) that you don’t like about yourself, one of children will have it. If there is a personality trait (flaw) your siblings have that you didn’t like or found especially annoying, ALL of your children will have it.
41. Getting hit on scares the living daylights out of me. It doesn’t happen often. (Twice this year, and once was via Facebook so it doesn’t really count). Last Saturday in the library a guy followed me around for 30 minutes and then finally approached me when I sat down to tell me that I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. I had a “radiant beauty”. (Pretty sure it was suntan glow and endorphins from my 19 mile run that morning). I was scared to go to my car. You can forget how to deal after many years of marriage and parenting. You feel invisible so much that when someone actually sees you it’s frightening.
42. Green beans do not make a good snack. Unless they are deep fried and dipped in ranch.
43. People that make the doors and walls of public bathrooms have a sense of humor. I was in one the other day and they were manufactured by “Hiny Hiders”.
44. Age 41 is better than age 21, even with wrinkles, gray hair and the effects of gravity. I’ve lived through both, so I’m an expert.
45. Being able to eat 2 donuts for breakfast, 2 cupcakes for lunch and a Braum’s banana split for dinner (this is what happens when I’m left on my own for a day) and still have a 2 pound weight loss at weight watcher’s the next day can set a very bad precedent.
46. I can walk 50 feet on a 3 inch wide concrete rail in 4 inch platform oxfords without falling. I did this to keep from getting mud on my light colored leather/linen oxfords. I wonder if that would have been as important had I fallen off and broke my ankle? Hindsight, anyone?
47. Four teenage boys cannot sneak through your living room, office and kitchen behind your back without being noticed.
48. You cannot text in mittens.