The Complete Idiot’s Guide or the Dummies Book series?

Have you ever read these books? Do you feel like you must really be dumb when you don’t get what they are trying to explain? I do. I have read many of them and am fairly well educated and I still get confused on how to do the things that they are trying to explain.



Take for instance the SEO Idiot’s book I just read. It talks about activating Google analytics; you sign up then are given instructions to cut & paste a given code to paste into your website code…I don’t do code and haven’t the faintest idea where to find it for my website. The instructions say “this code must be inserted into the underlying HTML of each page you want to track”…I am happy to do that but again, don’t do code, so where is the underlying HTML code for my website?



After some searching on the internet, taking with two friends and my mother, I finally find it! Then you are to place the code they have given you in the body text section of the section of your page. The body text section of the section of your page? What the heck does that mean? There is nothing in the HTML code that says </body>…I put it in the search box…it comes up with nothing.



Maybe, they should start from the beginning and tell us where the underlying HTML code is before they have us cut and paste something into it that may or may not work. After hours of searching for an answer, I realized I was dealing with something beyond my education, understanding or comprehension. I lost my motivation to track the traffic on my website. Where is the IT person when you need them?



Silly me, what did I expect from a company named GOOGLE? Or a book with “ Idiot’s” in the title?

Pet Ownership

Statistics show us that about 60 percent of American households have at least one pet. That’s the majority. That leaves 40 percent of people who don’t have a Fido or Fofo living in their home.


Are the 40 percent, the smart ones? I believe we are. We get to sleep without hearing the whimpering of a pet that has been called by nature to empty their bladder. We sleep without worry of being awakened by a pet. We may worry about a burglar breaking in… but our pet waking us up, NEVER!
Some of us avoid pets due to allergies. I agree that wheezing and sneezing are not a good way to live and taking allergy medicine to have a pet seems well…just a little crazy.
 

People that don’t own pets get to walk bare foot in their homes without having to pick pet hair out from between their toes; they get to wear black pants without worrying about pet hair on them; they don’t trip and twist their ankles because they were trying to avoid a pet; they never have to smell that sickening aroma of pet food, wet or dry; they never have to worry about someone staring at them while they eat (unless they are in public); they still live plenty long without pets and parts of their lives are not spent yelling at an animal that doesn’t understand English; they don’t have surprises on the carpet when they have been gone longer than a pet bladder can hold it; they fill their purses with wallets and money, not doo-doo bags and pet treats; and the best reason is they don’t have to clean up large piles of poop in a public place!

Many pet owners will disagree and say that they get so much unconditional love from their pets; it makes up for all the “icky” stuff. I say, you are fooling yourselves: there is no unconditional love in the animal or human world and pets only love you because you feed them…stop feeding them and see if they hang around very long!

 

It’s okay to keep hanging on to those thoughts and PLEASE keep telling yourself that when Fofo poops on the carpet; or gets you up in the wee hours of the morning for a nature call; better yet, hang on to the unconditional love crap when you are smelling and scraping huge piles of dog poop off the grass at a nature park to carry home.

I will be the one staring, pointing and snickering at you. I still believe I am the SMART, no-pet owner!

Having Your Cake and Eating it Too

Recently, I decided that I was done with depriving myself of not having cake just because I am alone. I always felt that it would be a waste of effort and time to make a cake for one person. I like cake. Especially spice cake with cream cheese frosting. I don’t want it all the time, but once or twice a year I do actually want a slice of cake. Why was I not making something I truly enjoyed? That seems more than a little odd, doesn’t it?



I had to change my thinking and yes, it took a while but I managed to turn things around in my head enough to feel good about it…ok, I finally accepted it.


WHAT was I thinking when I couldn’t allow myself one indulgence in life? Good grief! Cake mix has gotten CHEAP! You can make a cake and frost it too for two bucks! What tha…? That doesn’t make any sense in this economy!! Does anyone else know about this??


Anyway, I hid the mix in my grocery cart and got through the check-out stand without being mauled. WHEW!


It took me a few days to give in to the whining and fussing, but I caved. So what! I know you do this too!


In the process of making the cake I remembered giving the batter filled beaters to the children…right now, I was the only person in the room so I was the child and the adult (since you don’t allow children to use the electric mixer) and I was wondering how that might feel (to be an adult and lick those beaters clean, since they were so full of batter and I would go to hell if I just washed that wonderful spice batter down the drain.)


I was punished! I got a phone call within 20 seconds of indulging my tongue on those beaters…I licked quicker but knew I couldn’t lick those beaters clean before it went to voicemail. The rings were annoying me! I gave in! Licked those suckers so clean they looked like they just came out of the dishwasher.


Ahhhh…to nurture that inner child…so satisfying!


If the phone call was you, please call back.

You want what information for a Passport?

For years, I have wanted to get a passport but obviously, I haven’t wanted to badly enough. I have found and maybe created so many excuses not to…then, eventually, I forget about it.

Recently, I have again decided to get one. The excitement this time was overwhelming and I had to have one. I already had a destination in mind…in fact, I picked out many destinations and I wanted to go NOW!

I got on the website and after a long, tedious, time-consuming search; I finally found the form I needed. I didn’t even look at it on the computer screen, I just hit the print box on the screen and my printer was obliged to register my command.

When I looked at the printed form, I was flabbergasted at what it was asking…who knew I would have to know any of this information??? My mother’s maiden name… got it! Father’s name… got it! Place of birth for mother, a little tougher but I got it. Father’s place of birth? A little tougher but once I sent away for and received my long form of birth certificate, I had that too. It was interesting that on my birth certificate, there is no time of birth. Did they not record that back when I was born??? No sense of time back then apparently. I digress.

I had to wonder how someone born in New Mexico meets with someone born in Missouri back then. How were they in the same place at the same time? What happened to get them there? How did they travel so far? Where did they meet? My father was 11 years older than my mother and I can’t help but wonder how well that went over with family. All questions that will go unanswered since anyone who might know those answers has long been gone.

Back to the #$%&! form. Seems fairly easy, so far. Now, that I have received my long-form birth certificate which I had waited two and one half weeks to receive. Now, comes the hard part. Being divorced more than 20 years ago and getting rid of the divorce papers more than 5 years ago, I now need them for a passport. Perfect! I am required to have my former husband’s place of birth, his birth date, and when we were married and divorced. This information will be tougher to find so I will need to go to the county in which we were divorced and pay someone to find these papers for me so I can fill out the paper for a passport. Can you believe this? The government keeps records on all of us and I have to pay someone in the government to find this information for me so I can obtain a government issued passport in the U.S.

This is just plain SILLY! I may be able to obtain all the information required on the form before I have to take my walker with me...then again, maybe not! Wish me luck!!!

Funny Things

We have experts that tell us we are born to move…then we learn that being still is the only way to hear.


As we get older, is it our bodies that fail or is it that we are just suppose to be an enthusiastic reader and a comfy lap for the small grandchildren?

It is the same world, but since we have had many years in it already, aren’t we supposed to slow down and enjoy it more as we age?

I received a joke over the internet the other day poking fun of senior citizens and their lack of knowledge in technology. It was a cell phone with a rotary dial. What the person didn’t realize is that our memories are so short, we have forgotten how to use that dial too.

Funny, how we used the word retirement so often 10 years ago and now we rarely hear the word except for in magazines and books…not in conversation. We know that we are not going to retire but how many of us can be employed as the Walmart greeter…we will continue to have an unemployment issue the rest of our lives.

If sweating is so good for us, why do we have to raise our blood pressure to do it? Why is it so uncomfortable?

If I have so many toxins in my body, I would just as soon let them stay in there where they can’t do any harm!

The sleepless need to go to the doctor!

I have trouble sleeping like so many other people I know.  Just recently, I was up all night painting my garage.  It wasn't so important that I had to go without sleep to get it done, it was just I couldn't sleep so I used the time wisely.  I have never been a really good sleeper and don't think I ever will be.

One thing that is comical to me is that no matter how much sleep I have had the previous night, I can go into the doctors office and within ten minutes,  I fall asleep. 

It is as if they have a sleeping spray they spray in the room to keep us from getting impatient if we have to wait too long!  I tend to laugh when I open the door to the doctor's office just because I know I will be asleep if I have to wait more than 10 minutes. 

I don't fall asleep in the small room they put me in...oh, no, much too cold in there to sleep... but the waiting room...that is a whole different animal.  I see others doing the same thing...their elbows falling off the arm rest then quickly looking around to see if anyone noticed (only the people that have been there less than 10 minutes)...they soon will understand how you can fall asleep in a public place in the middle of the day!!!!!!! 

I simply can't stay awake any longer in the doctor's office.

The Sounds of Life

Have you ever noticed that it seems really quiet until you want to sleep? The day is the perfect temperature, no clouds in the sky, and you have about an hour before your next project needs to be started…what can you do? Sleep, of course. A little nap is so good for your soul. So, you lay on the porch swing and think the movement will lull you to sleep for a quick nap.


You start swinging and within minutes; birds are squawking ; the neighbor decides to use the weed whacker, another neighbor across the street arrives home and has to ensure that the car is locked so they hit the clicker twice; construction up the street begins and you hear the beep, beep, beep of the truck in reverse. You feel your tension rise… then realize all you need to do is breathe deeply.

The peace….the breeze through the trees sings to you and you once again feel you can slip into slumber…you are so close… slipping, slipping almost there….then the phone in your pocket rings and startles you… with one eye, you check the number… no one important and you hit silence; without skipping a beat, you are back into sleep mode.

Ah, yes, you are hidden in the folds of life where you are safe, no worries and no cares. A place where snoring and drooling are allowed.

You are dozing in painless slumber and jolted to an upright position when you hear the deafening clap of thunder and the cold rain starts to slap your bare skin…you immediately jump up and run into the house. That nap was a quick one.

You look down at your phone and realize you were only out for 10 minutes. A power nap. You are disappointed but amazingly refreshed and ready for dinner on the grill.

The rain has cooled the air and you’re famished. Steak anyone?