I started babysitting when I was around 9 or 10. I can’t even imagine my son who is 12-years-old babysitting kids. I grew up with so many nieces and nephews that it just came easy for me. I guess I was mature enough to put kids to bed and extract peas they put into their noses. I was pretty inexpensive too so I am sure that is why I kept busy babysitting.
When I was finally old enough to drive I got a job at the local pizza restaurant. I did have connections there — my brother was the manager and my mom also worked their part-time. My connections really weren’t that great though. To get the job I had to dress up like Lady Guinevere for an anniversary event. Now you should be able to figure out the name of the pizza restaurant.
I spent a day outside in the front of the pizza place handing out balloons to little kids as I sweat like a pig in an ugly blue dress. I even got the made the cover of the town newspaper. Well, maybe it wasn’t the cover, but it seemed like an enormous picture of me at 16-years of age at my first acting gig. And the reward I got for doing this? Well, I think I got minimum wage for the day and then I got the chance to work at the pizza restaurant regularly. I actually enjoyed the job. After getting kicked, scratched and yelled at from babysitting (and those were the parents) I was ready for a “real” job.
Now I could share the lessons I learned from this “real” job but I have already done that in this post. A post, I might add, I wrote much better than this one. It was obvious I was writing more consistently when I wrote it.
This is another entry in the writing challenge.
When I was about 9-years-old my oldest brother gave me a Ben Nye make-up kit. My brother was an actor and thought I would enjoy disguising myself once in awhile. I dreamed of being an actress and used that make-up whenever I wanted to escape reality.
I remember when he first gave it to me he made my nephew (who was only 4 years younger than me) look like an old man. I think he made me into an adult lady.
Throughout the years that make-up kit was ticket to stardom, so I thought. I would shmear it on my face and pretend I was all sorts of things. I really didn’t know how to use the make-up but it didn’t stop me from pretending. I loved practicing an emotional scene that required me to cry in front of the camera. I would focus on something sad and try to cry until my make-up bled. Then I would clean up and give my acceptance speech at the Oscars.
I don’t know what happened to the make-up kit. I guess I used most of it up. I do, however, still practice my Oscar acceptance speech because no one can cry on camera like I can.
This is second in a series of posts I am doing for a writing challenge.
I was the typical American child with the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, actually, it was peanut butter and jam and yes that matters. Jelly is a sugary substance that is a 3rd cousin to fruit. Jam actually looks like fruit was part of the recipe. Anyway, I had the pb&j sandwich, chips, banana, and Holly Hobby thermos for the beginning of my school days.
Around third grade I advanced to the cool lunchbag. I no longer had an aluminum box or zip up bag. I had the first eco-friendly brown bag. It was a tote type bag with the words “brown bag” on them. Crazy, huh? In that bag I had, however, the same pb&j (usually strawberry jam), chips and a banana. I might have purchased milk to drink. I don’t remember a thermos being involved. During this time I also had my banana sticker collection stuck on the inside of my “brown bag.”
When I got to the middle school years my lunch started becoming a yogurt and crackers with cream cheese. After living in Europe, I now know that dairy contraption I was eating wasn’t very close to yogurt. Why I decided that yogurt and cream cheese smothered crackers was the new lunch I don’t know. This lunch, however, explains my lactose sensitivity.
I also bought lunch at various times during my school years. I can’t seem to remember any of them. I remember the little milks, and carrying a tray. I know the lunches were in aluminum little containers not like those horrible foam things they give nowadays. It seems salisbury steak and spaghetti might have been on the menu. Was there a cheeseburger too? Something green and mushy might have been there too–green beans? And now I see it — the fruit cocktail in the little corner. Awww, lunch memories.
anything that might take some effort. For the last–I dont’ know how many–months the most I have written has been status updates. It is true that when you don’t use it you lose it.
The fog is so thick outside. My brain mirrors this fog and the words are just not flowing. Maybe my New Year’s resolution should be that I will write every morning. I hate New Year’s resolutions. How long do most of them last anyway? One month? Two weeks? Why is it that a bad habit can take root in about 2 weeks and yet a good habit takes years to stick? I would imagine that if my New Year’s resolution was to start smoking I could accomplish it in a matter of weeks. I have no desire to smoke but, I bet I would still be smoking by the end of the year; however, if I wanted to start waking up early to write, I would give up in about 2 weeks. Yes, one is an addiction so it isn’t a fair comparison. How do you get good habits to become addictions? I guess a good addiction would be an oxymoron wouldn’t it?
I tend to think if I just had more time in the day then I would… Yet we all have that same 24 hours don’t we? Yet some of us can take those 24 hours and make magic and others of us seem to slowly plough through the day accomplishing very little. It is all in our choices and motivation. What motivates me? Laying around the house eating chocolate does sound nice, but I honestly don’t do that too often. I think the hardest part about writing sometimes is just sitting still long enough to do it and writing even when that brain is a fog.
I made it to my goal of 30 days. Yes, there was a bit of cheating, but not that much. I was able to eat a few m&m’s and not the whole 1 pounder bag! I am not without all grains like I was in the 30 days, but I have decreased my grain consumption so much — especially white flour. I do have an occasional bowl of steeled cut oats (yum) and I made steel cut oat pancakes last night (extra yum) with the added almond flour for more protein.
As far as my love of ice cream, well, I haven’t given up ice cream. I have though made my own with only stevia as a sweetener. It was so good. I made it with blueberry, nectarine crisp. The crisp was great too. I had oats, flax, almond flour, pecans, and grapeseed oil in the topping and was very pleased with the result. My extreme low-carb life is now a low-carb life and I do feel much healthier.
With the decrease of carbs has come a decrease in my humor. Okay, I am kidding. I have been busy. I now have a 7th grader and well, it has been an adjustment. My business (the one that brings in money) has been going well and in turn keeps me busy, but my writing business has been stagnant. I haven’t been as disciplined in writing consistently. I seem to want to sleep more than I want to sleep. I have these grand dreams of waking up at 5:30 am and working out, then knocking out a few children stories in 30 minutes and then having my kids dressed and ready to go by 7:45 am. In reality, I am forcing myself out of bed at 7 am, and trying to get the kids fed, dressed, and with proper backpacks filled with books and lunches out the door by 7:48. How can people function on so little sleep? You are probably thinking that I should go to bed earlier, right? I go to bed by 10 pm most nights! So I must find a way to function on lest sleep I guess or do a better job scheduling my time…
