Ten things with many things within those things

A friend told me today that writers write, which means I am technically not a writer as I haven't written in quite some time. I haven't known what to write, but fortunately I got lucky today because Julie tagged me so here goes.

Ten random facts about me

1) I used to spend hours and hours reading Vogue in the library when I was a teen. I wanted to move to NYC and become a fashion designer.

2) I didn't really want to go to college.

3) It took me a year and half longer to graduate than it should have, mostly because of number two. I mean number two on this list, not number two as in I had a pooping problem ( although that is also true).

3) Once I got my head on straight I was good student and loved college. I even made the Dean's List. ( But I did continue to almost poop my pants on a regular basis.)

4) I think talking about poop is kind of funny.

5) At some point in my late teens I wondered if I ever would get married or even if I wanted to. The whole thing seemed really unlikely.

6) I put hot sauce on everything, including pizza and mashed potatoes and mac and cheese. Very tasty. You should try it, especially the mashed potatoes one.

7) I hate walking into a crowded room all by myself.

8) Although I have many friends, I consider myself a loner and am quite nervous in large groups, even if I know everyone. This tends to make me babble and make incessantly sarcastic and dumb comments.

9) I'm most comfortable around my family, both the one I was born into and the one I now live with.

10) I am enjoying becoming older and wiser, but I am not enjoying looking older and wiser.

Nine things I do everyday -

1) Wake before the sun comes up. This is a must.

2) Drink a glass of iced coffee, unless it is cold out, then it's espresso.

3) Say my prayers, read my daily readings.

4) Walk my dog

5) Check emails

6) Shower

7) Tell my husband and kids I love them.

8) Read

9) Nap for 15 minutes

Eight things that annoy me -

1) People who drive too slow in the left hand lane

2) Snapping your gum

3) The sound of my kids typing on the computer. I am sound sensitive.

4) Whiny children, especially, but not limited to, my own.

5) Cellulite - just my own.

6) People who don't exercise or eat right and still manage to look good. Rude!

7) People who think poor people deserve it because they are lazy.

8) Waiting in line behind someone who is in the ten item or less line even though the person has about twenty items and then writes out a check.

Seven fears or phobias -

1) Getting lost in a dark and deserted forest in a snowstorm. That's really why we moved to Florida.

2) Snakes

3) Getting attacked by a pit bull

4) Getting hit by a car while I'm riding my bike

5) Being stuck in an enclosed space

6) Farting loudly in public

7) Hotel sheets

Six songs I am addicted to - all by The Avett Brothers.

1) Colorshow

2) I killed Sally's Lover

3) Kick Drum Heart

4 ) Laundry Room

5) Murder in the City

6) The Ballad of Love and Hate

Five things I can't live without

1) The Eucharist

2) Sacrament of Reconciliation

3) My family - (husband, kids, siblings and parents)

4) My friends

5) Humor

Four things I will never forget

1) The birth of each of my children

2) The first time I saw Greg. He was wearing a t-shirt with a picture of The Tasmanian Devil eating a peace sign. Very funny.

4) The time my sister and I got in a fight in the parking lot of IHOP. I remember it because we never get in fights, so it felt very weird.

5) Greg, me and Jane going on vacation to Myrtle Beach with my sister, her husband and their two oldest kids. Yes, this is the same vacation where we got in the IHOP fight, but the week that ensued has provided us years and years of laughter. As a matter of fact, if my sister is reading this she is laughing right now thinking about it.

Three Words I can't go a day without saying

1) Thank you ( I know it's two but come on!)

2) NO!

3) Quiet!

Two things I wish I could do

1) Lose the rest of this five year old baby weight!

2) See my sister more

One person I trust

Cheesy but true - God

But if I have to pick an actual person who I see all the time then it's Greg.

The thoughts I am currently having

Sometimes I try to write but I can't think of anything to say so I stare at the blank screen and start daydreaming and then I get up and walk away. That just happened, the part about me staring at the blank screen, except for instead of walking away from the computer just now I decided to go back and read all my old posts for fun, just to see exactly what Ann Marie Hacic has to say about all manner of things.

Now what I am about to say is going to sound beyond egotistical, although I admit I am not quite sure what constitutes beyond egotistical, but anyway here goes - get ready to roll your eyes... I enjoyed what I read and I kind of amused myself just now and I thought to myself, well now, you are quite entertaining to read. I hardly ever read what I write. I typically write something and hit publish quickly. If I go back and read what I write I know I will just ask myself, "do people REALLY need to read this?" or, "do PEOPLE really need to read this?", or "do people really NEED to read this?" No matter how many variations of that question I ask myself, the answer to it will always be no, so I never read what I write more than once and that's just to make sure everything is somewhat coherent.

Anyway, I can ask myself if people need to read this now and say why yes, they most certainly do because it is so entertaining and brilliant that I almost owe it to you all to write as much as possible. Do you know that I am joking? Because I am. So you can stop looking at the screen and saying things like, "you ain't all that and a bag of chips, Ann Marie."

Does anyone remember me writing about the dark shadow that is appearing above my upper lip? I wrote about it once because it was causing me distress. I must have deleted that post when I was having some sort of nervous breakdown wherein I believed people should not be reading this garbage. That was before I got real full of myself though, so no worries, I will never delete again and you can rest assured that me talking about the dark shadow that is appearing above my upper lip will be here forever and ever.

I went online and discovered that this shadow is most likely caused by a hormonal imbalance and this shocked me as I have no other symptoms related to hormonal imbalance. Just ask my kids and husband. They can relay to you how happy and balanced I am at all times. Anyway, the dark shadow ( which sounds so glamorous, but trust me, it is not) is quite humiliating and causes me a huge amount of embarrassment. Please refrain from leaving comments in which you tell me you've never noticed, because I will know you are lying and I will never trust you again and I'm not kidding.

The worst part about "the dark shadow" is that it is now taking on an Adolf Hitler look. It is so troublesome that I have decided I may never leave the house again, or if I do I may put a Hello Kitty bandage on that part of my face, which I know will be so much less distracting than the dark shadow itself.

Now I have to break here and tell you that I am currently sober. I know someone is reading this and feeling a need to call my husband and work out some sort of intervention, but don't bother. I am sober, albeit not completely lucid and rational and the reason for that is due to my daughters leaving their room in such a state that I can only describe it as a toxic waste dump and the fumes from the room have gotten to me a little. My mother is coming soon and so I decided to go in there and see what was happening, try to work out the sleeping situation and I suddenly realized we need to move out of this house immediately, or I need to clean their room. The latter option seemed slightly more realistic.

I know some smart ass is sitting there thinking, why not have the girls clean it, and I will tell you that me trusting the girls to clean their room has led to this disaster in the first place. The truth is, I have pretty great kids. They love me and each other and they don't complain about having to spend large amounts of time with me and their father, they don't talk back and act like those snotty little teens you see on TV, and they mostly get along and if I can clean their room for them and try and come up with some sort of organizational plan I will do it. Someday they will have children and they will call me and complain about the little pigs and I will remind them that they were blessed with a kind and gentle mother who spent huge amounts of time doing them favors, like cleaning their bedroom, so they need to shut up now and go be good mothers.

Now my mother and me have never had such talks as I was a perfect child who never made a mess so I can't call her and ask her what to do because all she will say is, "Ann Marie, you were a saint, right from the time you were born, and I have no advice for you." My biggest regret in life is that I never caused my mother any stress and now I have no one to go back and talk to when my own kids cause me heartache.

Anyway, where do I go now? Do I talk about the dark shadow and how I'm turning into an older, much more hideous version of myself, or do I talk about my kids and their inability to keep a clean room? Well neither topic is interesting and that leaves me with nothing to say but this - I am getting old and my kids are slobs and my mother is coming and I have no choice but to blare the itunes and put my nose to the grindstone and clean the mess and then go on and on to everyone who listen about what a fantastic mom I am.

Tires and soaps and doctors

I went to get new tires for my van on Friday and ended up spending close to five hours in the auto shop. It turns out there were many more things wrong with my van than it just needing new tires. What kinds of things? I have no idea, because when the nice man came over to sit down and tell me the bad news, all I heard was blah, blah,blah, blah, blah, blah. I tried hard to feign interest. While he was rambling on and on, I was only thinking about how I wished he would just stop talking so I could tell him to call my husband, who happens to find car talk much more satisfying than I do.

As it turns out, being there for as long as I was proved to delightful. I got to catch up on my daytime soaps, which I haven't watched in more than two decades. Rest assured, people are still sleeping with people they shouldn't be sleeping with and babies are still being born to mothers who have kept the pregnancy hidden from even the closest of friends, and no one is really sure who the father is, but it certainly is not the man living with the mother of the baby. Unfortunately no one came back to life while I was watching. That was sad for me as I always love to see a person come back to life after having died in something like a fiery plane crash. It gives me hope that if I ever die like that I may somehow come back to life.

On top of watching disturbingly good looking people overact, I got to watch the Dr. Oz show. Do you know who he is? He's that hopelessly hairy doctor Oprah forced on us several years ago. He likes to talk about bowel movements. Not only does he like to talk about them, he encourages you to go look at yours and discuss it with your doctor. It's all so interesting and educational. He also does programs in which he lovingly spreads fear into our lives by stating, with one hundred percent accuracy, that apple juice contains dangerous levels of arsenic. Hearing that kind of news doesn't bother me though, as I only allow my kids to drink beverages containing alcohol.

On Friday, Dr.Oz was talking about how to lose weight successfully and keep it off. It was almost like I was destined to have something horrible happen to my car, just so I could be present to see this show. Dr. Oz conducted an experiment on this particular episode in which he allowed three women who were on diets the luxury of cheating for one day. They actually received, at their front door, a box in which Dr Oz left a note telling them he was allowing them to cheat. (Knowing his love of all things poop I really was worried that when they opened the box it would contain fecal matter.) Anyway, as you can imagine, getting permission from the one and only Dr. Oz to go ahead and cheat on their diets was thrilling for the women.

The next segment showed said ladies indulging in levels of gluttony that proved to be so disgusting that I promised myself whenever I was about to be a glutton, which is typically everyday between noon and five PM, I would think of these women. The only thing worse than seeing them eat like this was that Dr Oz. kept calling their cheat day, "Faturday." He assured them that they would be allowed to cheat once a week ( that's where his clever name of Faturday came from) , but he was going to show them how to do it properly. See, he really does have all the answers! He used the word Faturday so much and I was so repulsed by it that I am thinking of crossing out all the days of the week on my calendar and calling everyday Faturday, as I truly believe it may make me want to spot eating forever.

Long story short I was so bored and annoyed with Dr. Oz that I went outside and walked up and down Route 19 for several minutes and contemplated throwing myself into traffic just so I would never again have to hear or see the hairy beast that is Dr. Oz. Then I reminded myself that life is not a soap opera and if I did get struck by a car and die I may truly be dead forever, so I went back in and sat down and read The Orlando Sentinel. That just made me want to go run back out into traffic again. Really, how hard can it be to publish a well written and interesting newspaper? Apparently very hard. I am much too tired to complain any further so I'm just going to shut up for now. Happy Faturday!

Life. As simple as I want it.

My fans have requested a new post. Okay, it was only my sister, but she holds a lot of power over me so I caved in and will try to come up with something.

The truth is that my life is humming along a rather boring pace and I have nothing much to blog about. Before you feel sorry for me and my dull life, realize that I work hard to keep things as calm and simple as possible. When I say boring and dull I don't mean that we are doing nothing, I just mean that nothing we are doing is interesting to other people. We wake, we pray, we eat, we do school, we talk, we have lunch, we do a little more school. I take kids to the library or to friend's houses or downtown or wherever. Neighborhood kids come over, ask if we have any snacks, I make something, listen for the thanks, rest on the couch, get up. Make dinner and eat dinner and walk the dog and go to bed.

In between, children leave scooters in the driveway, I run them over, ( the scooter, not the kids), ruin my bumper, empty threats are made, apologies are given and accepted. Laundry piles up, laundry gets done, dishes pile up, dishes get done, I ride my bike, buy some songs on itunes, go to the beach, read to Maggie, clean toilets, pull hair from drains and throw it at the wall and laugh. Wonder if I should leave it there. Who will notice? Only me. I clean it up.

Go to church, leave feeling refreshed. Ten minutes later we are all arguing in the car and I'm asking if anyone listened to anything. Silence, but only for a minute. We go for family bike rides and forget Maggie's helmet and shoes and Greg takes care of it, again. We're off on our way. We go to the park and the beach and for walks. We talk. We laugh. We eat. We yell. We say we're sorry.

I check in bedrooms and see piles of messes and am told to stop saying we belong on Hoarders. But we do belong there. I empty the fridge, I clean the fridge, I wonder why no one throws out empty containers and I leave some in there just for fun, just so I can say "see, how do you like it?" And they never like it.

Friends come over for lunch, children play, cry when they have to leave, we assure the little one she will see her friends again and very soon. I take a walk with a close friend. We laugh till we can't breath. We talk about our kids and school and life. I get in my car and am happy. Realize it's late and dark and I may run out of gas on the way home. Panic. Make it to the station, promise I will never do that again. But I will.

Think about my sister. Miss my sister. Send my sister an email telling her I will buy a new phone this week so I can call her. I said this last week, too. And the week before. Assure her I have nothing exciting to tell her anyway.( Write this post to prove my point. )

Take Buster for a walk at night. Warm and quiet and peaceful. Almost start to cry over the embarrassment of riches that is my life. Try to remind myself not to take it for granted. Dull, boring, quiet, whatever you want to call it, I'll take it as long as I'm given it. I've been blessed and I know it.

On being humble

Several months ago I was reading an article about Mary, about how she "kept all these things in her heart," much preferring to ponder things, rather than talking about them endlessly and with everyone she came into contact with. The article was encouraging the bizarre notion of quiet contemplation. I cringed a little, as I am one for telling my close friends just about every thought that comes into my mind. Pondering things is strange and difficult. How will everyone know how I've been wronged if I can't tell them? How will everyone know how wonderful my life is if I don't talk about it? How will people always have me on their minds if I am not constantly inserting myself into their thoughts?

After I read the article I decided I may need to work on humility, on keeping things a little more to myself, on not making things about me all the time, maybe even pray and contemplate things before going to people first. It was all a very novel idea for me and quite difficult to manage. My friend Terri can attest to this, as she is often the recipient of hundreds of my text messages and emails each week. Yes, most of what I have to say is vitally important, but every once in a while, one or two messages slips through that are perhaps not critical.

The reason I'm writing about this now is because I was thinking about my Nana last night. I think about her as much now as I ever have. I walk in the evenings and when I look up at the stars in the sky I know she is up there, cheering me on and that never, ever fails to make me smile. Last night I was thinking about how on the surface my Nana didn't always seem like a humble woman who kept things to herself.

My Nana was not shy about telling you how beautiful she was, or how lovely people always told her she looked, or how when she went to people's houses they were always amazed at the small amount of food she required..."and they said, but Barbara, is that really all you're going to eat? My granddaughter, they couldn't believe it!" The truth is, my Nana was beautiful and she honestly never overindulged in food, so she knew herself quite well and you can't really call that bragging, can you?

Last night I was thinking of the time we somehow got on the topic of abortion. Current events were not typically discussed between me and my Nana. Her stories were much more captivating than anything I could have read in a paper or heard on the news, but for some reason this discussion came up and I wanted to hear what my Nana had to say. Along with being beautiful and having a small appetite, she was brilliant ( which she would also freely tell you) and I loved hearing her insight. She looked at me and then she looked down. She was shaking her head and she had one of her hands propped on her cheek, a gesture she often took when she was about to say something full of thought. "Ann Marie, you can't imagine years ago what girls used to do when the got pregnant. You can't imagine. Oh those poor girls!" She looked like she may cry. And then she said, "I don't know, I don't know. You pray, my granddaughter, you pray!" No judgement, no harsh words, nothing more than compassion and sorrow for other people's suffering and an awareness that even when you know the correct answer, sometimes you have to leave it up to God and prayer. True humility. On the big things, my Nana was indeed humble, just like Mary, whom she happened to be extremely devoted to.

I've read this post through and I realize it isn't particularly well written or cohesive - it's sort of all over the map but these thoughts were going to escape me if I didn't get them down and I can't let that happen and I don't have time right now to write well. Sorry about that.