Laurie's life-lessons...

Can I just say... as a group, teenage girl shoppers suck!

There was sale going on at Victoria's Secret Pink this weekend... the panties are usually 5/$25 but were on sale 7/$25. This turns the already rude and thoughtless teeny-boppers into shopping lunatics! How do I KNOW this is exclusive to the teeny-boppers? Because when the same sale is going on at the Vicky's cotton panty table at the other side of the store, it NEVER looks like this. *groan*

Now this really isn't such a big deal in the larger scheme of things... but let's face it, the small practical things have to get done... life can't always be about what's big and important. So, I should also mention that I consider this table MINE. I know where everything belongs.. I know how it's structured, I'm the one who makes any modifications. The department manager discusses all changes with me. We sell more of these panties than any other item in the entire Victoria's Secret store... more Pink panties than bras! But beyond that, there is a calm that comes over me when straightening these trays. The associates that work in Pink HATE this table... they say it makes them feel anxious to work on it.. But for me... it's mindless... I enjoy taking the chaos and creating order. There are no big decisions here.. no stresses to take home... just a start at chaos and an end at order.. it satisfied me... makes my head happy at the end of the day. lol

HOWEVER... THIS kind of chaos is unacceptable! THIS kind of chaos takes 6 HOURS (I do NOT exaggerate) to straighten out. And there is only so much one can take when it's after midnight and you've been fondling panties for hours! This takes it way past OK. *sigh*

  -always get me down."

Even worse though... when the rainy day IS Sunday, that means we'll be SLAMMED at Vicky's.  *sigh*  Since when does the Christmas season start October 15th? (Did you know that most retailers make the bulk of their sales between 10/15 and 12/31?)

I don't go in 'til 3:30 but I'm already anticipating 4 hours (probably 5) of utter Pink Panty chaos.



FOLLOW-UP:  We WERE slammed, and it WAS 5 hours. Can I just say that teenage girls are the most inconsiderate shoppers of all?  Even their boyfriends harass them for being so rude.

I had no choice but to hear you
you stated your case time and again
I thought about it

You treat me like I'm a princess
I'm not used to liking that
You ask how my day wasYour love is thick and it swallowed me whole
you're so much braver than I gave you credit for
that's not lip-service


You are the bearer of unconditional things
You held your breath and the door for me
Thanks for your patience

You're the best listener that I've ever met
You're my best friend
Best friend with benefits
What took me so long

I've never felt this healthy before
I've never wanted something rational
I am aware now
I am aware now

I have quite a few work clothes... the only real requirement is that they be black and "not casual". But, I've been so out of it lately that all but the pants pictured below are in the laundry. It's too late to wash the others for work this evening because they can't be dried in the drier, and they won't air-dry in time.

No biggie.. I have these. However, the hem has fallen so I go to grab my sewing kit. It's a large and rather extensive kit... I do that stuff you know... I don't talk about it I guess, but I knit, crochet, macrame, embroider, quilt, craft and SEW. So imagine my surprise when I can't find any black thread... not a spool... not even a tiny sample hank from the mini kit I used to keep in my purse. Then, imagine my horror when I couldn't find a SINGLE needle. I mean, not a single one, of ANY kind. Granted, it's been a while since I've sewn a thing... but I used to have them kind-of stashed all over the house... and today I can't find a single one. If I was working a floorset, I'd be wearing yoga pants, but tonight it's a closing shift and I'm dealing with customers.

My solution? STAPLES! of course... I thought if I used them from underneath they'd be practically invisible... but nope, they are glaring, shiny silver beacons on the hem of my slacks... may as well be part of the silver accessories I wear. *groooooooan* Any ideas on how to minimize their appearance would be much appreciated. =)

Well... they're not all brown yet. This is usually my favorite time of the year, but this Fall, instead of enjoying the crisp air and the wonderful smells, I'm just especially aware that everything is dying.


...and my garden seems like the perfect metaphor for all that matters to me. *sigh*

My mom grew up in the South-- Alabama and then Florida... you'd think fried green tomatoes would have been something we ate often. But I didn't even try them for the first time until I planted my first garden and had green tomatoes. I was probably in my early 20s then-- but I was hooked!

They are somewhat labor intensive, requiring dipping in seasoned cornmeal and then frying in a pan of bacon grease. If you want to get fancy, you can dredge in flour first, then egg wash, then the cornmeal. Still though, they are cooked maybe 4 or 5 slices at a time turning when golden and draining on paper towels. They take some time to prepare and by the time the last ones are done, the first ones are cold and soggy.

I do something different now.

First, if you live in New England, it's close to impossible to get green tomatoes unless you grow them yourself. *sniff* But this year, I devoted two (yes TWO) entire 4x8' raised beds to the most amazing tomatoes-- one of them for the sole purpose of eating green.

We eat bacon all year. It's uncured bacon from naturally raised pigs. I cook it in the oven on a cookie sheet and then I simply tip the sheet up and pour the rendered fat off from a corner into a glass jar. I store it in the back of my fridge. By summertime, I usually have 3-4 lbs in reserve.

I don't do the slicing/dredging/individual-frying thing anymore. Instead, I make them in a fashion similar to homefries. I melt a dollup of bacon fat in my 14" cast iron skillet, I put 6-8 tomatoes, cut into homefries-sized chunks, into the hot fat and I sprinkle a tablespoon or so of non-GMO cornmeal over the top along with sea salt and cracked pepper. I stir it once to coat the tomatoes and then I leave it alone until the bottom crisps and browns up some. Then, I turn it all with a spatula and I let it brown again. If there are LOTS of tomatoes I may break it up some to expose the inner tomatoes to the direct heat on the bottom for a little more crisping. The final product is a delicious fried-green-tomato "hash" with all the properties and flavors of the original, but with far less labor, less grain, and less waste. And OMG it's paleo-nirvana! (we're ignoring the tiny bit of cornmeal here, lol)

Somewhere I have a photo (found it! Click the cut below) ... but I made them last night with dinner and they were so good that I was inspired to share about them. =)


( Click for photos... )

This is the final product of a new method for curling my hair. I'll be posting to the long-hair community when I have the how-to pics uploaded from the camera. Neat, huh? =D

It's just after 8am and my baby just got on his school bus. Yesterday, he and his older brother started school (in new schools for them), and today the oldest started. Hubby has been semi-back to school since last week and his students don't start until tomorrow, but he's on a full-time schedule already.

Except for the hum of the appliances, my house is silent... it's both disconcerting and liberating.

I have SO MUCH TO DO!!  There are so many things I put off "until school starts" and here I am with several hours, plenty of quiet, and a good caffeine buzz going on... and still, I'm rooted to the spot. lol  Time for a list I think.. something I can prioritize... cuz it won't take me long to fill this time with minutia if allowed.

So, this morning, I'm free at last! And I'm enjoying it. =)

I haven't been scheduled to work for more than a week... so that means I haven't been into work to see the new schedule. This is the last week of school vacation and we have only TWO things planned that were set in stone--

1.)  Tuesday-- the first and only day at the beach this summer.

2.)  Saturday-- "Couples" thing at 10:00 am


So today I get my schedule for the week and check this out... (wait for it...)

I'm only scheduled for two days this week. (Yup, you got it...) The first is tonight, OVERNIGHT, from 9:30 - 6 am-- and the second is Saturday morning, from 6-10 am.

What are the odds?  *groan*

Don't count on 'em to let you know if someone responded to your posts or comments. The system is out of whack today.

For the third time this week in LJ I bumped into a giant ego masquerading as modest individual. It's not that the masquerade is an unusual phenomenon-- it happens rather often on the net. The other day I was reading a question in Yahoo! Answers from a someone carrying on about the grotesqueness of intact European penises, claiming to be a female American biologist sickened by the appearance of her uncut ex-boyfriend's penis, but whom backed up 'her' claim with the little factoid that her course study was the "Cancer of Biology". lol  It turns out that the individual was an ignorant young man hoping to sway opinion by claiming to be a college-educated woman who hates intact penises.

We can be whomever we choose to be online- we can make claims about who we are and for the most part those claims will never be challenged. (By the way? In case you don't already know this, I'm a [VERY interesting] gay intactivist man maintaining an extensive blog for the sole purpose of backing a pretend identity as a married mother and wife of intact sons and husband. *smirk*) I'm not talking about the overtly fantastic personas though-- I'm talking about the regular folks who pretend to be modest. These folks slip little inferences into their comments so that the reader will extrapolate that they are indeed 'great' but they rarely outwardly make claims about their supposed accomplishments... the intent being that we will assume they accidentally let their "greatness" slip. "Now that we know how great you are, let us defer to your brilliance!" *bowing deeply*

I am definitely fascinated by human behavior, at one point thinking psychiatry or psychology would be my study of choice... but then I realized that what is shared the most with those practitioners is a person's darkness... I was already struggling with assuming others emotions-- eventually discovering my intuitive empathy and learning it had a name. Fascinating or not, peeking into what makes people tick in their darkness was never going to be good for me. Still, I love to poke around in the collection of "stuff" that people display online. What they choose to hide is sometimes more telling than what they choose to reveal and it is always entertaining to watch the human psyche in action. I even go back to my old journals sometimes... the distance of a few years gives me a fresh perspective into the perception that *I* was trying to craft at the time.

Crafting perception.

It's an art, and it involves many layers for some individuals. The obvious layer, then the implied obvious layer, the (hopefully) subliminal layer.  lol  One needs to have a decent understanding of basic psychology themselves in order to successfully create an intended perception. And to the casual reader/observer that perception will probably be accepted as truth. But for some, those craftings become more obvious-- the support structure or 'works' are easier to see. And too, one can over-analyze most anything so it's not impossible to get into the "he knows that I'd know that he knows" trap. Sometimes what we perceive first off really is the truth.

This weeks observations include an anthropologist who was unfamiliar with several large studies and articles published on the diets of 'primitive' people and continued to argue, hinting at her expertise, until she was linked to the publications. A peek into her "stuff" showed she displays being passionately vegan, outwardly feminist and very outspoken... and I "see" that she is awkward and somewhat timid and that her sense of her own value is rooted very deeply in her intellect. In the "real world" I probably wouldn't notice her.

Number two was a nutritionist vehemently against removing grains from the diet. A peek into her stuff showed she displays being a deeply religious woman with a history of eating disorders, illness and obesity which she has conquered. I 'see' that she is still struggling with them and that she is dismayed that her expertise on the subject of nutrition and the 'importance of whole grains in the human diet" don't appear to be helping very much. (she never actually says she's a nutritionist in the discussion, but she uses the language of the science and mentions some of her course studies) I also see that she is depressed... hopeless... with the almost blind insistence of the 'rightness' (like that of religion) of the dogma of her antiquated nutrition education. (not that she is older but that nutrition education hasn't caught up with current science or recent discoveries) There is a desperateness in what she shares.

Third is a guy who replied to a comment I left in a friend's journal last night. He has the distinction of being the most interesting of the 'crafters' I encountered this week. I have to say.. I am often awed by the individual who can make deliberate inferences and then scold you for your "assumptions" when you're sensitive enough to pick up on them-- this guy is good. lol  Anyway, his expertise hint came in the form of a boast disguised as a self-deprecating comparison, the intent being that the reader will assume he had no choice but to share his greatness if he was going to make a convincing counter-argument. What did I find when I peeked into HIS stuff? I found a guy who wants people to know he has something they don't. He wants them to want to be part of his inner circle.. he makes it look all shiny. He also wants them to feel badly that they aren't. How do I know this? A very simple truth... if you don't want someone to know, you don't tell them. A person intent on suicide doesn't leave any hints. A person planning a robbery doesn't share any details. And a person looking for privacy doesn't tell the world he has a journal they are not allowed to see.  What he does instead, is he writes in that journal and the world is none-the-wiser. I also see that he has the need to be  perceived as a hero.

So, it's been an entertaining week for my amateur-psyche self. lol  Seeing as I'm no "expert" though I may simply be full of shit. Either way, I'm a fellow crafter whose 'perceptions' are just as likely transparent to those who read me.

VoicePost 990K 5:04

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The link to the Yahoo Group I mentioned is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mothersandcircumcision/  You don't have to be a mother or even a woman... you just need to have something to say about circumcision.


And here are my veggies beds! Yaaaaaay!  --been working on them all week. I can't WAIT for that first ripe tomato!

poor little guy.. I really feel for him, lol

Not 100% paleo, the rangoon is wrapped in dough, and the shrimp were breaded with something- but the sauteed bok choy, shrooms, and salmon made it all too good to resist!

(Friends)

I've been working my way through Atlas Shrugged for several months now. This passage from Part II, Chapter IV had me stopping to reread it over and over. Ayn Rand had a unique way of looking at things.. a unique way of of expressing sexuality. Her writing is full of the erotic and a great deal of it driven by the most basic elements of D/s.

"The men who think that wealth comes from material resources and has no intellectual root or meaning, are the men who think—for the same reason—that sex is a physical capacity which functions independently of one's mind, choice or code of values. They think that your body creates a desire and makes a choice for you—just about in some such way as if iron ore transformed itself into railroad rails of its own volition. Love is blind, they say; sex is impervious to reason and mocks the power of all philosophers. But, in fact, a man's sexual choice is the result and the sum of his fundamental convictions. Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life.

Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself. No matter what corruption he's taught about the virtue of selflessness, sex is the most profoundly selfish of all acts, an act which he cannot perform for any motive but his own enjoyment—just try to think of performing it in a spirit of selfless charity!—an act which is not possible in self-abasement, only in self-exaltation, only in the confidence of being desired and being worthy of desire. It is an act that forces him to stand naked in spirit, as well as in body, and to accept his real ego as his standard of value.

He will always be attracted to the woman who reflects his deepest vision of himself, the woman whose surrender permits him to experience—or to fake—a sense of self-esteem. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer—because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut. He does not seek to gain his value, he seeks to express it. There is no conflict between the standards of his mind and the desires of his body. But the man who is convinced of his own worthlessness will be drawn to a woman he despises—because she will reflect his own secret self, she will release him from that objective reality in which he is a fraud, she will give him a momentary illusion of his own value and a momentary escape from the moral code that damns him.

Observe the ugly mess which most men make of their sex lives—and observe the mess of contradictions which they hold as their moral philosophy. One proceeds from the other. Love is our response to our highest values and can be nothing else. Let a man corrupt his values and his view of existence, let him profess that love is not self-enjoyment but self-denial, that virtue consists, not of pride, but of pity or pain or weakness or sacrifice, that the noblest love is born, not of admiration, but of charity, not in response to values, but in response to flaws—and he will have cut himself in two. His body will not obey him, it will not respond, it will make him impotent toward the woman he professes to love and draw him to the lowest type of whore he can find. His body will always follow the ultimate logic of his deepest convictions; if he believes that flaws are values, he has damned existence as evil and only the evil will attract him. He has damned himself and he will feel that depravity is all he is worthy of enjoying. He has equated virtue with pain and he will feel that vice is the only realm of pleasure. Then he will scream that his body has vicious desires of its own which his mind cannot conquer, that sex is sin, that true love is a pure emotion of the spirit. And then he will wonder why love brings him nothing but boredom, and sex—nothing but shame."

Interesting.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/a-cure-for-the-common-cold/#more-1213

		My aura is... blue Are you blue? No worries--having a blue aura does not condemn one to a life of sorrow. But those with blue auras are some of the most emotional people on the planet. Blues are quite sensitive to other people's feelings-- they can cry at the drop of a hat even if they just sense another person's pain. They use their incredible intuition to help other people whenever and however they can--by feeding their bodies or lifting their spirits. If you are an empathetic people person who finds satisfaction in giving love and caring for other people, you may be surrounded by a blue aura. What color is your aura?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston   You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
The West
The Midland
North Central
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

So kewl when the little jeans become the big ones! I expect the boob-age to catch up with the rest of me soon, lol. I'd never be so lucky as to get slim and keep my bust.

Mother's Day breakfast-in-bed of uncured, organic bacon & free-range eggs, and coffee with raw cream & stevia- Yum! The boys gifted me with a hand-decorated pen (with a silk daffodil), pansies and sunflowers and a bunch of packets of veggie seeds! We went to the botanical garden in Boylston for a couple of hours- it was a lovely day. =)

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

I've been asked several times in the last few weeks to see photos from my "fat" days. It isn't easy to share them, I keep them around for inspiration, but I don't recognize the woman in them. She had PCOS, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, high triglycerides, low HDL and high LDL cholesterol. She was depressed, had severe acid-reflux and bad acne... and was so fatigued she was almost debilitated with it. She took three different daily prescription medications. THIS is what a low-fat/low-calorie diet did for me- 300lbs! on 2500 calories/day.





Low-fat/low-calorie doesn't work... at least not for most.

I'll take my sirloin tips, warm spinach salad in olive oil and feta, organic bacon and eggs with hollandaise, coffee with REAL cream and seafood/tuna salad LOADED with real mayo.. along with MOUNTAINS of buttered and sautéed veggies... and THIS body any day.





Low-carb (or in my case, sugar/starch-free) WORKS. :D I'm still a work in progress, but I'm medication-free and all my "ailments" have vanished... aaaaaand as many already know since I talk about it LOTS. is that with all this fat I'm eating, my lipid profile IMPROVED! and continues to. Counterintuitive I suppose, but true nonetheless.

(Yahoo 360° is closing and I don't want to lose track of this... It's June 10, 2009 and I am backdating this post to the day I found it.)


SUBJECTION and SUBMISSION

Some women want and need to be brought into subjection. They crave the man’s control and respond positively to active control, but without active control on his part, submission is impossible. Such women cannot fake submission; it must be real. It cannot be a pretense, a role-playing game or a lifeless cardboard cut-out imitation. It must be from the heart and soul, no hint of artificiality, acting or mendacity. But when a man brings such a woman into subjection and thereby releases her delitescent submissiveness, the power and reality and unforced naturalness of her submission can be awe-inspiring.

Such a woman might feel the need to be controlled whether she likes it or not - constrained by an unstoppable force; restrained; bound, reined in; no choice; no decisions, hers; under his authority, his lordship, his control. Not because of incompetence, emotional liability or any lack of desire to take responsibility for her own actions, and not because she needs a man to make decisions for her.

But just because that is the way it has to be, because it feels right and proper, because primal forces compel it, because she wants it and he relishes it.

Because to worship his power and strength, she must feel his power and strength even when her own is undiminished. Her full self in all its strength, overpowered, conquered, in subjection. Resisting, and finding that resistance futile, she can finally relax. She needs that safety. She needs to be sure he wont crumble under her strength. She needs not to be in control, not to have a choice, not to place limits on a man’s power. No list of rules for the man to follow, no “shoulds”, no ifs and buts, and no 'NOs'.

Men who have brought a woman to that state - that melted, peaceful, dreamy state, that state of grace - have spoken of it with awe in their voices and echoes of ecstasy in their eyes. They have talked about the delectability of it, the life-changing power of it, the intense eroticism of it.

(by Sarah Cavendish From TakeninHand.com)