Boycott Vinyl Blinds

Is anyone else as frustrated with vinyl blinds as I am? I can't stand them! If only I had the thirty bucks or so a window to replace them with big, thick wood blinds I would! Okay, so here's my beef. When we bought the house, it came with vinyl blinds in all the windows. I don't know if the previous owner's had ever heard of dusting (it sure doesn't show or seem like it) because all the blinds were filthy. I'm not talking a little dust, I'm talking never been cleaned in their entire existence, caked-on, disgusting dust. I've run dusters over them multiple times to no avail. I'm tired of trying to clean them that basically I'm ready to not eat for a few days to buy nice new wood blinds. If anyone has any special ideas for cleaning them that are easy and don't include bending over the bathtub for hours I'd love to hear them.

My Strange Halloween...

So my first Halloween in Florida was a little different. The hurricane took the focus of the "holiday" completely until just a couple days before when the government started to go a little crazy and get all concerned about what to do about Halloween. Because of the hurricane, a large part of the county was without power still on Halloween. The cities tried to tell everyone to go trick or treating on Sunday afternoon. The only problem with that was that with no power, most people didn't have cable to watch the news and discover that the cities wanted to change Halloween. Also, how can you mess with tradition? Few other holidays hold the same types of traditions - how can you go trick or treating during the day? The cities thought that it was too dangerous for kids to be walking around in the darkness without street lights, house lights or anything to guide them and huge piles of debris everywhere. I guess I agree with that, but still, I figured it would be a hard change to make. Anyways, Jeff and I went and spent like $30 on a huge amount of chocolate on Saturday to make sure that we had some to give out to all the tons of kids that we expected to come around either Sunday afternoon, Monday afternoon, or Monday evening. So I sat at home all afternoon Sunday waiting to see if any kids would stop by asking for candy - not a single one. Okay, no major problem, people should come tomorrow, right? Well, I sat around all Monday afternoon and still no kids. So along comes Monday night and finally two super cute little kids come asking for candy. Yeah, it's begun! I love watching all the little kids who are timid and afraid to knock on the doors and say anything, dressed up so cute, ask for candy. I figured the night had just begun and my huge bowl of candy would be emptied in no time. Not quite right. By the end of the night I had only opened my door twice. Once for the two little kids and once for a group of four pre-teens. How boring! And I still had a huge bowl of candy and a couple bags left to be added to the bowl. It ended up that I had enough candy to give an entire bag to each kid. To make matters worse, the chocolate is nothing like I remember it being. I swear they make it cheaper for Halloween. Either that or because it's been so long since I last ate a chocolate bar, they're nothing like I remember them being and nowhere near as good. So now I have tons of chocolate that I don't like to eat but still do because it's sitting in front of me (I guess subconsciously I figure that sooner or later I'll get a piece that really is as good as I remember it being). I brought a huge bowl of it to Jeff at work and discovered that he didn't really like it either and didn't really want it there, so now I have tons of chocolate that I don't want, doesn't taste any good, and I spent a ton of money that I could have spent on nice wood blinds (one whole window would be better than the current blinds). So we've decided to give it to the youth group. Who better to fill up with gross chocolate than youth! They'll never realize that it's no good!

Talking To Myself...

So I've always figured I was a little different than most people, but here's one for you. I'm pretty sure that most people don't do this, but maybe some one else does and will be comforted in the fact that I'm coming out and admitting my insanity and they'll feel confident to do the same. While I'm doing menial tasks like vacuuming, washing floors or basically any other cleaning that doesn't take a lot of concentration (pretty much all cleaning) or doing something else boring or that doesn't take a lot of thinking (like taking a shower), my mind starts wondering and writing blogs and speeches in my head. Yeah, I'm crazy. At such strange times I'm thinking of all the best things to say and ways to say them. Sadly, when it comes time to write those things down in places like this, it never comes out exactly (over even close for that matter) like what it was in my head. In my head I'm the best speaker/writer you've ever heard. I have the greatest little quips and one liners. The greatest ways at describing things and even the best words. Earlier today I even thought through this whole paragraph and like always, it's no where as good as it was in my head. Maybe that's why I have such a hard time communicating with Jeff every once and a while. I have the whole conversation planned out ahead of time, but when it comes down to it, it ends up nothing like what I figured or planned ahead of time as it going. Another thing that I've been alighted to is the fact I most likely use a large amount of "Kennedy language" by my cousin Patti in one of her recent blogs. So, Jeff may be having a hard time understanding what I'm even talking about by the language that I'm using. For those of you that don't know, Kennedy language is basically words that the Kennedy family (my family) has made up. I didn't realize how pervasive it is in me until my cousin wrote in her blog about the "Kennedy word" "goop" and I didn't realized that it wasn't really a word until that point. I've been trying to think of other "Kennedy words" that I use on a daily basis or so, but I've come to realize that to make them true Kennedy words (at least to me), they're words that come out in the moment, from deeply ingrained places, not words that you even realize you're using or aren't really words. I hope that makes some sense to everyone. I'm my head when I was thinking about this earlier while showering it came across a lot clearer, but that's how it goes - my pathetic communication shining again.

ER is starting now, so that means that I'm must be done. Till later.