Hey! Glad to see you back here for Things That Must Go. Somehow I think nothing will ever compare to the great underwear giveaway of 2008, but that’s okay. I have a couple of things I need to get off my chest (no, not those things, though frankly I didn’t like them even before they went saggy), and that’s good enough for me.
This week I’m offering your choice of Nora Robert’s latest, Tribute, or Joan Wickersham’s The Suicide Index. Tribute isn’t Nora’s best (that would be Birthright or Heaven and Earth or Hidden Treasures), but it’s entertaining: a perfect beach book. I reviewed The Suicide Index yesterday. Not a beach book, unless you’re on the thorny Oregon coast, but very worth your while.
To enter the contest, simply leave a comment with your Things That Must Go before midnight Wednesday night. Here are mine:
Things That Must Go
1. Excessive Emotion. I’m wondering if the lower hormonal levels of menopause bring with them fewer emotional storms. If so, it might be worth the risk of osteoporosis and breast cancer. Or maybe not. Sometimes I understand the appeal of being comfortably numb. I hate feeling guilty, sad, ashamed, selfish, etc. Cheerful, I know.
2. Vehicle Repair Bills. I am being suitably punished for risking the second commandment when it comes to my minivan. The other day I found the passenger-side window halfway down. I never roll down my windows, even when it is a million degrees. That’s what automatic sliding doors are for. By the time everyone is strapped in, most of the trapped air has been replaced by fresher air. So when my window fell into the door completely and didn’t respond to the up/down button, driving around was torture. Stinky, loud, hot torture. I know, there are people in the world who would love to be tortured like that, but it was still bad.
Then the Honda people told me that not only was my “regulator” kaput but my “front engine block mount thingie” was shot too. 724 dollars and one laptop fund later, the object of my affection is all better. Please do not write and tell me that I could have driven around with a broken “front engine block mount thingie” for years without a problem. I don’t think I could handle the emotional fallout of such a revelation.
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It’s not to late to vote for your favorite in the Hane’s Giveaway Things That Must Go. I’m gonna announce the winners of the LLBean Tote Bag and the $50 Hane’s prize soon.
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I really hate when I go to checkout at Walmart and there are a million and one lanes and only like two registers open. I mean, really? Why have that many checkouts if you aren’t going to open them? Also, if you have forty items in your cart stop going to the ten items or less register. 11, ok. 15, maybe. If you have more than that, go somewhere else. That’s what must go for me this week.
1. The holes my kids wear in brand new socks.
2. Skimpy bikinis. If you are stupid enough to wear them, I am not going to stop my daughter when she points and says loudly “Mom, look at that!” because she sees your bum before you can pull your bikini bottom back up after coming down the water slide. (The same thing goes for jeans that are too low to sit in properly.)
3. Over loud commercials. Can we please keep it at the same decible as the TV programming?
4. People who take young children (around 4-5 years old) to scary movies and refuse to leave when their kid is crying and asking loudly “Dad, can we go? Dad, I’m scared!”
Scarehaircares last blog post..
[...] Nora Roberts’ Tribute and Jane Wickersham’s The Suicide Index at What About Mom, deadline 6 August. [...]
Awesome I love Nora(and we have the same fav books even more cool) Well lets see things that must go:
1) Friends and Relatives(or complete strangers) who say “wow what a handleful your kids are, you should have had just one it would be less loud and maybe they would listen more” Ok especially if you dont have kids go to h&ll, I mean they might be loud, whiny at times, fighting, and constantly want to play boys, but they are my boys you want to continue being friends or have me stop by on holidays since we are related then back off my kids they arent hurting any one they are having fun isnt that what kids are suppose to do?
2)Family members who think they have a better way of disciplining your kids and then proceeds to do it with out your permission. I still say soap in a 4 yr olds mouth isnt an effective way of getting them to listen.
3) Power companies who have to raise your bill by 15% just cause they need more money. Hello you are the only company we can use so really its not like you need the competion.
Those are my things this week.. Im sure there are more but seems that the Walmart line thing bothers more than just me and the car repairs as well.
Maternity clothes. Honestly, why do they even bother? The things only fit in the second trimester. In the first trimester you hae to go around with unzipped pants and in the third it’s boxer-briefs and XXXL Harley t-shirts.
Memarie Lanes last blog post..Confessions of an Expendable Blogger
One other thing that has to go are popsickle bags that can’t be opened without a lethal weapon (knife, scisors). No clever use of fingernils, teeth, or brute stength can open them. They don’t even leak when the popsickle melts; the sticks float, and the “soup” tastes like Kool-Aid. Such bags have spread to candy bars, cookies, and crackers. Away with such unopenble bags.
Lately with all that’s been going on in my life, I’ve been a little impatient with family members and that definitely has to go.
I’ve also been overly anxious, and I just detest the feeling that I get in my stomach, so I have to do some meditating to get rid of that anxiety because it really has to go.
finally………on a less serious note, the dirt behind and beside the over has to go!!
Rudeness, lack of courtesy and crazy drivers! Whether this rudeness and lack of courteousness happens around me from drivers or in person, I see a real lack of manners and rudeness from many people. I have two teenage sons that drive and it’s not their driving that worries me, it is the other crazy people on the road! Cell phones, running red lights, eating, putting on makeup while driving, etc. Need I say more?! Thanks for letting me have my say! Cindi
– Dryers that sounds like German army tanks.
– People that get upset when you don’t execute sacrament just how they demand.
– Feelings of inadequacy for keeping your kids 100% reverent during church.
– Staying up until 1:30 am and then waking up at 7 am for a morning meeting or to play basketball.
– Leaving your real glasses in the car and instead wearing sunglasses all day and evening in the house, looking like a retard.
– People who think hacking someone’s site and bringing it down is funny.
– Loud, angry voices in any context — at home, church, in the car. (Well, if you’re driving alone it’s okay.)
– Floam. Sounds like a cool idea, until it’s time to clean it up.
Thing that must go: Having to justify to your MIL (who has some hoarding issues) why you’re decluttering your OWN home, and that NO, of COURSE you didn’t throw away ALL your kids’ toys. And sorry, you can’t have any of the trash or Goodwill items.
Good thing: having hubby on your side and admitting to his mom’s scavenger-ish-ness.
Cristans last blog post.."Frisk the Frigidaire, Clean the cupboard bare, Saaandwich, Yum yum yum…"
Spit up. I don’t care about the cute little white drops that get on my clothes when holding my own baby, but the puddles from my friend’s sweet baby that stain my living room carpet must GO.
P.S. I don’t need books b/c I don’t know how you other moms keep up with everything and choose READING as a hobby or guilty pleasure.
Tiffanys last blog post..First Fight
Tom — I think it’s horribly insensitive of you to use the word “retard” in that context.
Cristan — I am so with you on the clutter. We have libraries, schools, grocery stores, museums, and parks all for a reason. And, I have enough trouble trying to keep the dirt out. Clutter just makes it harder!
Tiffany — I sat down mostly to respond to your p.s. As if the hair (perfect blonde), body (size, 2? and toned!), and teeth (perfect straight and white) were not enough to be suspicious about, now you tell me you don’t have any guilty hobbies. I don’t know why I like you.
done with self-criticism, complaining, explaining anything to anyone, all the books that I don’t read, and pretending I will ever read, and my house, which must be sold, so that we can move to Mobile, Alabama.
The woman who posted about the Walmart checkout lanes knows my husband– his favorite rant.
CurtissAnns last blog post..Monday Meditation– Birthday Celebration!
Back to school shopping must GO. I vote to pass this off to someone else. ANYone else. Nothing like wandering the aisles, searching for that right brand of dry erase marker or a backpack that not only fits your kid, but also your budget and their tastes!
traceys last blog post..Like a kid in a candy store…
The “Thing That Must Go” this week for me is a person. It’s the woman from my CHURCH’S Mom’s group who sent an offensive e-mail to eveyone about how horrible illegal immigrants are. And she sent this not a week after our Priest ended a four week series on the church’s stance on illegal immigration (which is the exact opposite of the (mis)information she was spreading in that e-mail).
Karis last blog post..Just a Lot of Pics
I have to say amen to Kari’s comment.
But I’ve an almost equally pressing concern–I must stop tearing my fingernails off so close to the flesh. It hurts like hell, looks even worse, and takes forever to grow back.
One more thing to go : friends and family [and I say this with a wink, a nod, and a kiss on the cheek, because I'm pretty sure some of them read this blog
]who, when I admit that my one-year-old has had 2 (count them: 2) bad nap and bedtime days in the last three months, insist that I must let him cry it out. CIO works for lots of people. It doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t work for my baby. And we are getting lots of sleep around here (for heaven’s sake, he sleeps from 7 pm to 7 am, from 9 am to 10:30 am, and from 1 pm to 3 pm every day without a fight!). I think it’s okay for him to have an off day here and there. I have off days, too, like today, when I tore half my fingernail off.
Carolinas last blog post..Come for the Gasoline, Stay for the Burger.
Darn, wish I’d won the Hanes giveaway! But I can’t beat having someone Wreck-n-Run in my front yard.
This week, though, I can offer this: The Perfect Suburban Yard. You know it, you’ve seen it – the yard owned by folks who fall more on the form side than the function of things.
It is a green carpet of perfection (even if that means using a rototiller at 9:30 at night in a neighborhood filled with small — and one must assume — sleeping children). And nary a stick may disgrace it’s beauty – oh no! Sticks must be carefully piled into a pyramid of exact proportions, and then said pyramid must be moved to different spots on the mulch beds to keep them from discoloring.
Don’t mind me — I’m just the neighbor who gets to watch all this fun from her mostly green backyard, the one filled with kids and dogs (no poo, though; I’m on Daily Doody Duty) and their playsets and all their toys, the one who listens to the complaints about the view and wonders why you chose to live in a neighborhood filled with children if the evidence of said children troubles your aesthetic sensibilities so.
Whew! I feel better now!
Smiles, all!
People with a big loaded grocery cart who see you walking towards a line with your two things, and pratically run to get into line ahead of you, when there are only two checkers open. And equally, people in big freakin’ SUV’s or Hummers who see you waiting for a parking space as someone else backs out, nd then shove their big honkin’ vehicleinto the space – because for real – if they hit you in your 11 year old Sebring are gonna do some REAL damage. . . . Or maybe it’s just these run on over 100 degree days with heat factors of 125 that need to go? At this point I’m not sure, and thank God for air conditioning.
Heather
[...] I was right: people want underwear more than books. Though some mothers don’t have time to read, not one person said they didn’t need new [...]
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