Off the Beaten Plan

plan: to devise or project the realization or achievement of

Browsing Off the Beaten Plan blog archives for February, 2010.

Bye-bye, Vancouver

Well, I got to watch the Canada v. USA Gold Medal hockey game today, and loved it. I’m glad that Canada won – they were hosting the games, they should have won. I think if the Olympics had been hosted any other location other than Vancouver, Canada, I would have been all “GO USA!”, but I couldn’t manage it today.

And I don’t think it’s being un-American, as has been suggested. It’s just a game, they’re all NHL players (and even NHL Refs!), and it doesn’t matter that much to me. In the scheme of things, I mean.

But I missed most of the rest of The Games. I didn’t see any Downhill Skiing, nor did I catch any of the really cool looking snowboarding (Downhill Snowboarding?), or the figure skating. I just took a moment to watch some recaps – only about ten minutes worth – and I realize again just how much I missed it.

I want to be in a position, two years from now, to be able to have cable and sit and watch Olympics from the moment they start until the second they finish. To be able to take two weeks off of work, still send the kid’s to daycare, and just veg. Turn up the television and clean in the other rooms when there’s something on I’m not completely in love with.

That would be cool.

So I’ve got some events queued up in another tab, and I’m going to enjoy the things I missed. It won’t be the same, of course. I can see who won already, and I know who crashes and who doesn’t stand a chance. A lot of the fun is gone.

On the other hand, I did finally figure out who that squat little man-figure is supposed to represent, all on my own. Yay, me!

Bye-bye, Vancouver was published on February 28th, 2010, with the tags , , under the Editorial, Financial, Planning category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

Note to Self

Just a memo to me: this is not something I want to give up on. Daily effort is necessary and essential. Stop thinking negative thoughts and ACT. No apologies, ever.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog!

Note to Self was published on February 28th, 2010, with the tags , under the Completely Off Topic category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

No TV Happy Play Day – Yay!

Sometimes you just need a cowboy picture.

So if you read my last post, you read about my zombie kids. And so tonight, as there was no boy scouts to take my son to, I announced to my daughter when I picked her up that tonight was to be No TV Happy Play Day!

She was not amused, in the adorable way only a 4-year-old can be.

But then my son and I talked about how he couldn’t find his toys and how he was angry and sad about it, and I explained to him that he needs to organize his toys. I’m not sure how, but suddenly they were both totally psyched about it. After my son explained that we could pack up the baby toys and then if I forget to take my medicine and we get another baby (!!) we could get the baby toys back out, it was decided. Tonight’s big adventure would be cleaning shelves and taking pictures so we knew where things would be and could find our toys.

Now my daughter whines a lot. Usually it’s because she’s hungry, but today when we got home, it was, “I want to clean the shelves!”

Seriously, she was whining about not being able to clean quickly enough.

But we had to make sure my son had his homework done. After that, they cleaned. I supervised (sore back – honest!), and as my son attacked the book shelves, I saw one of my favorite books – Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back by Shel Silverstein. After cleaning lost its appeal, I was determined to read it.

The kids totally loved it, I finished it only a little bit after bedtime, and I realized where I got my writing style from. Mr. Silverstein likes to ramble, and I like to ramble.

So all in all, our No TV Happy Play Day was a success! I have another book by Uncle Shelby – poetry this time – to read tomorrow night. And if I can’t find the one with the naked butt drawings that  I remember from when I was a kid, I’m totally going to the library.

What a great ending to a suckage day!

No TV Happy Play Day – Yay! was published on February 23rd, 2010, with the tags , , , under the What Happened category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.

TV Zombies and The Zone

When my daughter watches television, she does nothing else. She could sit there for hours and watch Spongebob and then Dora and then Sailor Moon (yay, VHS!), and not complain a moment (except for the traditional V battle cry, “I’m hungry!”).

My son could play on the computer for hours. On a lazy Saturday morning with only half-awake parentage, he could easily kill three hours on Kidzui.

Lately, if the TV isn’t on, my daughter doesn’t want to do anything. And if my son can’t play “something with electricity”, he’s not happy.

That’s not good.

They both have tons of toys, and when we do finally manage to get them to start playing, they get totally into their respective activities – blocks, coloring, playing Spy – and don’t miss the television at all. It’s just getting through the whines and cries of “I’m bored!” and “There’s nothing to do – can’t I play on your iPod?” that’s the difficult part.

My husband had a suggestion – no television for a week. It’s a great idea, and something I want to try as well.

You see, I can’t really complain about my kids’ habits, because they’re my habits, too. When I’m up in the evenings after everyone else has gone to bed, I “have” to have the television on to keep me company. Usually I’ll put in a movie I’ve seen about 16 times. And then I turn on the computer, and start playing games on Facebook, addicted to Farmville and Cafe World (darn you to heck, Zynga Games!).

But when I have the television off, and I’m actually working, I easily slip into The Zone, that place where everything gets done and you lose track of time because you’re so focused on what you’re doing. And that just helps – the pocketbook, the bills get paid, my task list, everything.

So – a week without TV. I’ve got other things for this week too, but I’ll try hard to focus on getting this done.

Wish me luck!

Photo by Wynand Delport

TV Zombies and The Zone was published on February 22nd, 2010, with the tags , , , under the Editorial category. There are currently 1 comment on this article so far.

I Want, I Want, I Want!

We don’t have cable right now, and while I realize how much I really miss it just after I get back from doing laundry at my parents’ house, I’m so glad we don’t. Because when the kids come with me to do laundry, I hear one thing for the entire trip.

“Mommy, come here, quick! I want that!”

Commercials suck. They teach my kids to beg for things they don’t need. An overpriced robe you wear backwards? My son wants it. A machine that squeezes toothpaste out of the tube automatically because the user can’t figure out how to get the last drop out? My daughter needs it. A bunch of markers that change colors? The helicopter that floats around your living room? The latest TV show card game toy?

“I want it! I want it! I want it!”

I’m trying to get them to change their verbiage. “That’s neat! I like that! It looks like fun!” But with kids, it’s hard. I like to get stuff, too, so teaching my kids to not want everything they see is hard. Still, I feel like if I can steer them away from always saying they “want” something, or it’s something they have to “have”, that maybe I can adjust their attitudes a little.

There’s got to be a book out there to teach me what to do. All the advice that’s spread out on the Internet in all the great blogs that I read, all in one spot so I can read it all at once and reference it. Does anyone know where that link went?

Photo by Ivan Petrov

I Want, I Want, I Want! was published on February 21st, 2010, with the tags , , under the Editorial category. There are currently no comments on this article so far.