Thursday, August 15, 2013

Know This

I have a lot to say. I always have. I talk all day, every day...a lot. When I explain something I probably babble on longer than the listener really wants me to. When I tell a story, its pretty detailed and when I'm on a soap box or mad, man, then you better just be ready to listen. And truth is, I don't have a lot of important things to say. I mean, when I was working, I sometimes had interesting things to say and here at home, I keep my husband updated on whats going on, but for the most part, the majority of what I want to say is pointless and full of useless facts and information from that day.

The problem with all this random information that I collect throughout the day is that there isn't enough time to get it all out when my husband comes home. Note that my husband is not only my husband, but also my best friend. So he really is the one who can appreciate all my randomness at its fullest. I had to find something or someway to get all my bits of information out in a way that I could get it to him and cut down on how much I was jabbering. So, I created Know This.

Know This is an email that I would create every morning for my husband. Side note: I used to work 4-10's which meant I worked 4 days a week for 10 hours. I had every Friday off, but it meant I worked from 7am-6pm. I am not a morning person, so I would get to work around 7, not schedule anyone to come in until 8 and spend that hour trying to wake up and reading the things I found interesting. END side note. My Know This would consist of the following:

my husband and I's word of the day from dictionary.com. We would read the word and then write a sentence to each other using it.

My gossip news that I felt was noteworthy. (I love my gossip. I love knowing which celebrity is dating who and who is having a baby with who and so forth. My husband, not so much. BUT every now and again he does find it interesting if its given to him in short updates. He's not going to go seek it out himself.)

The news I found interesting. I am a criminal justice major, so I am drawn to the news about criminals. I like knowing who killed who, who was found innocent and I love the crazy crime stories ("Man steals 1,000 twinkies"). I won't lie, I followed the Casey Anthony story all the way through. Along with the news, I like to give my own opinion about it...because I find myself funny and witty.

Lastly, it would consist of anything else that I thought of that morning or that was going to be going on that day at my office.

I did this every Mon-Thurs morning for like 2-3 years. My husband would comment back every now and again and if he was really interested in something, he would wait until dinner that night and ask me about it.

This was an awesome way for me to get to tell him the things that I found interesting. It helped him get to know me fully and it helped cut down the amount of time I talked at night so we had time to do other things like watch our tv shows, play a game or watch a movie. Once I quit to become a stay at home mom and housewife, I ran out of time. It seemed that between getting my husband out the door, getting a baby fed, dressed and fed again and again, playing and so forth that I didn't have the time to sit and read my gossip and news. If you know me at all or have read my blogs previously, I clean or do something for me during nap time (its the only way to stay sane!) I admit that I am totally disconnected from the real world. I do not watch the news, I do not keep up with whats happening and I rarely have time to read gossip. Personally, I feel like watching the news every day is depressing. But, my kids are older now and I am not nearly as tired these days, so starting a Know This 2.0 is about to begin. After I recorded and watched all my shark shows, I was bursting with all this great, random facts about sharks, so I wrote my husband a Know This: Shark edition. Side note: I often had special editions of Know This, such as Know This: The Oscar winners and Know This: Buffy the Vampire edition (yes, I wrote an entire Know This to my husband about the random facts and backstage trivia about Buffy). END side note.

The point is, sometimes us girls have a lot to say. And lets face it, guys REALLY hear about 50% of what we say if its not super important or relevant to anything they are remotely interested in. And sometimes we like knowing the latest on fashion, movies, celebrities or whatever and we want to share that with our best friend. If you're like me and your best friend is your husband, then finding ways to get it all out in a brief synopsis that still conveys your message can be hard. Face it, we need to say what we want to say quickly and in a short amount of time before they start thinking about something else and we lose them. My husband and I thrive on random information. We're the 2 in a crowd that when every one has had a couple of drinks and every one is talking, break out the "did you know that...". This is what works for us. And my husband actually said yesterday that he missed Know This. So Know This 2.0 is about to resurface stay at home mom style and include new categories such as: What your children did yesterday (Your 2 1/2 yr old climbed in his sisters jumper and got stuck), New phrases your son has learned to say ("its boken" meaning its broken), New things your daughter has learned to do (spit her food out for fun and then put it back in her mouth), Misty's random thoughts while entertaining the kids (I wonder how they get this ball popper to work), and Oops's of the day (be sure to supervise your son when you tell him he can taste the chocolate sauce. His whole hand ended up in the bowl) as well as my news and gossip of the day. This is what a great and long lasting marriage is all about...randomness and fun!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Shark Week

I don't know why I love shark week on the discovery channel every year, but I do. Truth is, I am terrified of sharks and yet I want to know everything about them. I guess I figure that if I know everything about them, then I won't be as afraid. I still don't want to get in the ocean...anywhere...ever. Extreme? Yes. Absurd? Yes. But I don't want to even have the possibility of becoming shark bait. I learned that its out in the ocean and off shore that people get bitten more often, which takes scuba diving and snorkeling off the to do list. But I also learned that sharks can go in as a little as 3ft of water to get its prey, so that eliminates the shallow area too. See why getting in the water is a bad idea? :)

Here's what I do love. I love watching how to survive a shark attack. And truth is, once I am in the Caribbean and I have a few Jamaican Smiles (strawberry daiquiri and a Pina colada mixed together with some rum cream! If you haven't had this, try it! AMAZING!) in me, I will probably end up in the water anyway. So I want to know how to NOT get bitten. I also love the show How Not to be Shark Bait too. Those two shows are right up my alley because this helps me deal with my fear in a more rational, logical way. I love learning about the tiger shark, bull shark and the great white (the three most dangerous sharks) and knowing their weaknesses and hell, their strengths too! You got to know your enemy if you're going to defeat it!

Ever since I was a little girl I have been terrified of sharks and I am not sure where this stems from. I have never been bitten by a shark, I have never been up close with a shark except in an aquarium and I loved the movie Jaws! I am also terrified of spiders and tornadoes for very logical reasons, but those are stories and reasons for another blog another day. :) I used to think that if I ever encountered a shark in the ocean I would just give him my head and call it quits. I don't want to deal with a shark biting me and losing my leg or arm. But these days, I am much more practical. The Discovery Channel has helped me with that. I will fight! I will punch that shark in the gills and eyes so hard, he better let me go! And if he gets my leg, well, I'll probably be in shock and won't remember much after that, so it'll all work out.

But heres what made me very angry about shark week this year. The stupid Megaladon documentary. If you haven't seen it, here's the scoop. Some boat full of people gets attacked in the middle of the ocean and all 4 on board die. People research the accident and take a look at the boat thats under water and see that theres a big bite in it. They call in a marine biologist expert who studies strange things and he is convinced this is megaladon (a giant prehistoric shark) and goes on a search for it. I am not going to lie; I sat on the edge of my seat the whole time anticipating what would happen next and planning out my future of never, EVER stepping foot or going near an ocean again in my lifetime as long as this thing is out there. I was fascinated, intrigued, excited, scared and in awe the entire time until....the very end when disclaimers came across the screen stating that this was all fake! FAKE?!?!

Let me explain my outrage. I don't like to learn really. I like to just keep what little I really need to know in my head about history, math, science, etc. and enjoy learning about only the things that I really like (like cooking and crafts). I don't watch the discovery channel (with the exception of one week out of the year every year), the history channel or any other channel thats informative. I like my sitcoms. So for me, to WANT to watch the discovery channel to learn about creatures that scare me and fascinate me at the same time is a really good thing! And thats just it, I wanted to learn. I wanted Megaladon to be real because its scary, and an interesting possibility I had never thought about. It was a creature that up until last week, I didn't even know existed (now or back then)! The only thing the mockumentary did for me was teach me about a really old, freaky gigantic shark. The discovery channel is what it is....something you watch to discover. I didn't want to watch shark week so I could get a big ole heap of crap fed to me. I wanted to watch it to discover things. If this documentary had been on ABC or CBS, I would not have been offended. It would have been a fun, FICTIONAL story. But opening up shark week with something thats a scare and hype thing rather than what people gravitate towards Discovery channel once a year for, is a load of poo. I wanted to learn and for a whole two hours, I thought I was a part of a huge mysterious discovery that would change the way I viewed our oceans forever! Instead, I wasted two hours that I could have been watching Jaws and getting the same result and effect out of. For this...I am mad at discovery channel.

This year, I found myself having a love/hate relationship with the discovery channel. I didn't watch as much as I could have. I recorded a few shows that I wanted to see, but I was just too mad to keep watching. I know this may seem a little over dramatic, but imagine wanting nothing more than to discover, learn and soak in everything and anything about your biggest fear or most curious obsession to find out that all you were being given was not accurate. Not facts, but story telling and fiction. It just got under my skin. So...I say goodbye to shark week of 2013. You pissed me off thoroughly. I will see you next year and hopefully you can deliver some facts and good tips for me on how I can slowly but surely learn how to stop being terrified of sharks and learn to grow to respect them (and maybe learn how to beat the crap out of them if they try to eat me).