A holiday wish for everyone I love...I hope you make time to laugh this holiday. There's nothing I want for Christmas besides the opportunity to relax and see smiling faces of people I love. I think that's the best you can hope for at Christmas, and I hope you get it!
Start laughing now: It is better to give than to receive. Which is why I regift all those things I get that I don't really want.
Lots of ha ha's, hee hee's, lol's and chuckles (the clown).
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Mountains...
We live in a world of excess. Of this I am sure. I feel this way because as of late there is too much of EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, and there is no chance in heck of a scale back anytime soon. The reason I say this is because I feel the excess of things has gone beyond my control.
Once upon a time I believed I had control - I was very young then.
People keep giving me things, requiring things of me, and generating new things that I must have. This is not fair because I am now in a situation where I don't have the luxury of walking away from "the way things are." I have way too much debt and responsibility.
When I am at work, there is WAY too much work to do. So much that I can't imagine a time when anything will ever be done. Finishing a project gives me absolutely no satisfaction, because my to do list still has 30+ items on it. And that's just deadlines for tomorrow.
When I am at home, there is too much to do. Too many emails to answer, too much cleaning, too much laundry, too many unpaid bills and unwashed dishes and unfiled papers and untended projects.
When I am at the grocery store there are too many choices, and far too many children with too many snots dripping out of too many nostrils.
There are too many super germs, and too much fear of catching them.
There are too many people I love wanting too many hours of my time. This one really kills me because I hate saying no, and I hate not doing something I want to do, but sometimes you CAN have too much of a good thing.
I have too many phone numbers. Three to be exact. This is ridiculous, because it's very hard for me to tell people how to get in touch with me.
I have too many email addresses (4), too many online "friend" accounts (5+), too many magazine subscriptions (5) and too many books (3 bookcases full). I also have too many CDs, but I am not counting them.
Today it snowed way more than it should ever snow.
These mountains of things, ideas, tasks, and obligations are growing at a rate that puts plate tectonics to shame. And they frighten me. But what do I do? Stop buying books? Quit my job?
As my favorite video blogger said recently about the excess of Xmas, "I like everything about Christmas that was thought up before the year 1800. That said, if everyone felt the way I did there would be a world wide recession and our economy would collapse." He says this in a snide sarcastic tone that I hope you can hear when you read this, and realize that I am not actually having a nervous breakdown.
I'm just wondering why I'm not.
My theory is all these "little things" we are being encouraged to do to cut back on consumption like buy hybrid cars, screw in whirly-gig lightbulbs and stop buying bottled water is a bunch of crap. If the world's gonna explode, it's gonna explode. It doesn't matter what kind of lightbulb you're sitting under while you drink filtered tap water and read "101 ways to save your ass."
And the majority of humans I know feel terribly overwhelmed with all this responsibility to use recyclable tampons and stop buying paper towels -- or else all the penguins will die!
What we need is an environmental dictator who will take away our cars, our lattes in disposable cups, and our electricity privileges. Then we'll be forced to slow down, stop polluting, and stop shopping at Wal-Fart.
And then I can spend as much time as I want with as many people as I love without feeling guilty about all those stupid things I "have" to do. (And our economy will collapse! ha).
Once upon a time I believed I had control - I was very young then.
People keep giving me things, requiring things of me, and generating new things that I must have. This is not fair because I am now in a situation where I don't have the luxury of walking away from "the way things are." I have way too much debt and responsibility.
When I am at work, there is WAY too much work to do. So much that I can't imagine a time when anything will ever be done. Finishing a project gives me absolutely no satisfaction, because my to do list still has 30+ items on it. And that's just deadlines for tomorrow.
When I am at home, there is too much to do. Too many emails to answer, too much cleaning, too much laundry, too many unpaid bills and unwashed dishes and unfiled papers and untended projects.
When I am at the grocery store there are too many choices, and far too many children with too many snots dripping out of too many nostrils.
There are too many super germs, and too much fear of catching them.
There are too many people I love wanting too many hours of my time. This one really kills me because I hate saying no, and I hate not doing something I want to do, but sometimes you CAN have too much of a good thing.
I have too many phone numbers. Three to be exact. This is ridiculous, because it's very hard for me to tell people how to get in touch with me.
I have too many email addresses (4), too many online "friend" accounts (5+), too many magazine subscriptions (5) and too many books (3 bookcases full). I also have too many CDs, but I am not counting them.
Today it snowed way more than it should ever snow.
These mountains of things, ideas, tasks, and obligations are growing at a rate that puts plate tectonics to shame. And they frighten me. But what do I do? Stop buying books? Quit my job?
As my favorite video blogger said recently about the excess of Xmas, "I like everything about Christmas that was thought up before the year 1800. That said, if everyone felt the way I did there would be a world wide recession and our economy would collapse." He says this in a snide sarcastic tone that I hope you can hear when you read this, and realize that I am not actually having a nervous breakdown.
I'm just wondering why I'm not.
My theory is all these "little things" we are being encouraged to do to cut back on consumption like buy hybrid cars, screw in whirly-gig lightbulbs and stop buying bottled water is a bunch of crap. If the world's gonna explode, it's gonna explode. It doesn't matter what kind of lightbulb you're sitting under while you drink filtered tap water and read "101 ways to save your ass."
And the majority of humans I know feel terribly overwhelmed with all this responsibility to use recyclable tampons and stop buying paper towels -- or else all the penguins will die!
What we need is an environmental dictator who will take away our cars, our lattes in disposable cups, and our electricity privileges. Then we'll be forced to slow down, stop polluting, and stop shopping at Wal-Fart.
And then I can spend as much time as I want with as many people as I love without feeling guilty about all those stupid things I "have" to do. (And our economy will collapse! ha).
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
The irony of Christmas
So, if I take it back to it's roots, past the Santa and the tree and "It's a Wonderful Life" and all that, Christmas is really about the birth of Jesus who, according to the story, died so that we may live w/o original sin.
In less fanatical language, he sacrificed himself so others could have a better life. A noble pursuit for any man, right? And darn nice of him.
So, why on Earth are we celebrating Christmas by creating so much waste? We're really blowing the deal here.
According to the US Dept. of Transportation, long distance travel goes up about 1/4 at the holidays.
Over 20 million Christmas trees are cut down every year.
There aren't many statistics about trash out there, but in the UK alone they toss about 8,000 tons of paper and 125,000 tons of plastic following Christmas. And they recycle way more than we do!
Over $2 billion is spent on tech products alone on the day after Thanksgiving.
All I have to say is --- GROSS!
Dude, Jesus was a poverty stricken baby born in a barn. His fancy Christmas presents included incense. Is it a little corrupt that we celebrate his birth by increasing carbon emissions, filling landfills and buying iPods?
And the market's proposed solutions to the problems we've created? Spend more money!
Check out the Terra Pass, a fun pass that allows you to be as decadent as you want in terms of energy use, and then correct the effects of your carbon emissions for less than $30.
Or you can go to Network for Good and get people gift cards to give to their favorite charitable organizations. Well, it's better than giving the thoughtless gift of candles, I guess.
I know when I was a kid it was all about presents, sledding, and a week off from school.
These days Christmas equals "the busy season" at work, huge credit card bills, weight gain, stress, an extremely stretched social calendar, and a bunch of odds and ends I now have to make room for in my already crowded house. I'm not sure what got lost in translation over the years, but I seriously want to move to Whoville where Christmas is all about roasted beast and singing that weird "Dahoo-Dorays" song in the center of town. I don't need any junk (as proven by the Grinch). All I need is some friends, some food, and a blessed day off. Oh, and a little bit of recognition of the fact that the decadent celebration of this holiday will soon kill us all.
Thank you.
Praise Jesus.
Amen.
In less fanatical language, he sacrificed himself so others could have a better life. A noble pursuit for any man, right? And darn nice of him.
So, why on Earth are we celebrating Christmas by creating so much waste? We're really blowing the deal here.
According to the US Dept. of Transportation, long distance travel goes up about 1/4 at the holidays.
Over 20 million Christmas trees are cut down every year.
There aren't many statistics about trash out there, but in the UK alone they toss about 8,000 tons of paper and 125,000 tons of plastic following Christmas. And they recycle way more than we do!
Over $2 billion is spent on tech products alone on the day after Thanksgiving.
All I have to say is --- GROSS!
Dude, Jesus was a poverty stricken baby born in a barn. His fancy Christmas presents included incense. Is it a little corrupt that we celebrate his birth by increasing carbon emissions, filling landfills and buying iPods?
And the market's proposed solutions to the problems we've created? Spend more money!
Check out the Terra Pass, a fun pass that allows you to be as decadent as you want in terms of energy use, and then correct the effects of your carbon emissions for less than $30.
Or you can go to Network for Good and get people gift cards to give to their favorite charitable organizations. Well, it's better than giving the thoughtless gift of candles, I guess.
I know when I was a kid it was all about presents, sledding, and a week off from school.
These days Christmas equals "the busy season" at work, huge credit card bills, weight gain, stress, an extremely stretched social calendar, and a bunch of odds and ends I now have to make room for in my already crowded house. I'm not sure what got lost in translation over the years, but I seriously want to move to Whoville where Christmas is all about roasted beast and singing that weird "Dahoo-Dorays" song in the center of town. I don't need any junk (as proven by the Grinch). All I need is some friends, some food, and a blessed day off. Oh, and a little bit of recognition of the fact that the decadent celebration of this holiday will soon kill us all.
Thank you.
Praise Jesus.
Amen.
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