Me?! High Maintenance?!

For some inexplicable reason being a redhead automatically classifies me as "high maintenance".  I really think it's a bit of a stretch to call me high maintenance.  Ok, so I can sometimes, on a few rare occasions, be difficult, sassy, hard-headed, cheerful, temperamental, zany, and bewildering, all at the same time.  I don't think that classifies me as high-maintenance though.  I think I am more along the lines of............ animated.

I'm definitely not like Meg Ryan's character Sally in the movie "When Harry Met Sally".  No, I'm usually a regular old "order it like it's on the menu" kind of person....... aka low-maintenance.  I don't even ask for dressing on the side of my salads. 

Now, as for some of you who call me high-maintenance but like to call yourselves low -maintenance?  Well, I got behind you at the Taco Bell drive-thru window the other day, and let me tell you, you were soooooo not low-maintenance.  Three separate cars who had 1 female driver alone in each vehicle (2 blondes and 1 brunette), and yet it took over 5 minutes per car to place their orders because of all the special requests and substitutions.

By the time the third car pulled up, I was ready to smack the woman with her "bean burrito, no cheese or onion."  When she got to: "a meat only Cool Ranch taco - which means no lettuce, tomato, cheese, or onion.  A large soda with half Diet Pepsi and half regular Pepsi and no ice. Did you get that?  No, you did it wrong.  I want a bean burrito, no cheese or onion....." I was wishing I had a Sherman tank to move her out of the drive-thru lane.

For myself, I ordered a burrito supreme.  The order-taker asked "Just a regular burrito supreme?".  Yep, a regular old mystery-meat supreme.  When I drove up to the window to pay, the person looked shocked that I was a redhead ordering something simple.  Really?!  They are going to give me that look when the real high-maintenance women, who weren't redheads by the way, came through the line before me?

This experience reminded me of my last experience at the M-A-C Cosmetics counter at Nordstrom's.  As I sat there and dutifully waited for the makeup artist to find the right type and shade of foundation for my whiter than a Saltine cracker skin, I listened to the woman next to me give the makeup artist her list of "wants".  She was searching for the "perfect" eyeliner.  I gathered from several remarks she made to her salesperson that she thought she was low-maintenance.

Well, Ms. Low-Maintenance wanted a waterproof eyeliner that could withstand sweating while working out but came off without eye makeup remover, and it had to be hypo-allergenic and not tested on animals.  The liner had to go on smoothly, had to be a different shade than her mascara but not make her look like a peacock, doesn't drop down under her eyes when she blinks because she doesn't want attention drawn to her under-eye circles, but it must smudge nicely when eye shadow was applied.  Oh! And she had to be able to apply it without stretching the skin of her eyelid in any way because she didn't want to encourage crow's feet.  But she's low-maintenance and I'm high-maintenance?

Ok, I will concede that I do like to keep my gray hairs dyed.  I guess in this area I am high-maintenance.  I guess my high-maintenance side doesn't appreciate  looking like a contestant in a beauty pageant for skunks. But in my high/low-maintenance defense, my family is quite verbal in letting me know that it's time for me to get my roots done.  Heck, there are days when my son purposely parts my hair just to see if he can spot my gray roots.  So in all fairness, I'm really going to the hair salon as a benefit, or even as my duty as a wife and mother, for my family.

And if I was truly high-maintenance then I don't think I'd have clothes in my closet that are so old and out of style that even Goodwill rejected them.  Not to mention my shoes.  I have had more pairs than I can count which have disintegrated into a puddle of material and leather on the floor of my closet due to old age.  Every time I find another pair which have self-combusted, I feel the need to say a quick prayer over them before I vacuum up their pieces "ashes to ashes and dust to dust....".

I'm no Imelda Marcos or Ivana Trump though.  I don't have people waiting on me hand and foot (although I wouldn't mind getting used to that), and I don't have multiple closets full of clothes............ anymore.  Yes, I used to have 3 closets full of clothes.  Having children moved me from high-maintenance to low-maintenance very quickly.  The number of clothes I wear in my closet now probably wouldn't fill up 1/4 of my closet.  It's a sad, sad low-maintenance wardrobe, to be sure.

But now that I think of it, what if people are actually telling me I'm high-maintenance in the hopes that I'll actually become high-maintenance because my clothes are so old?!  Wait.......... if I spend money on me, then I might have to reduce my chocolate budget.......... which could have the unintended consequence of weight loss.  Hmmmm.............. Which could mean I could fit back into some of those clothes in my closet.

Oh, this is going to be a tough decision.  High-maintenance or low-maintenance.  Which way will the pendulum swing??? ............. I guess we will have to wait and see which direction I go but now that I've thought about it this long, if I'm going to automatically be classified as high-maintenance, I do think I should practice giving people the high-maintenance redhead they expect.  Now, how did Meg Ryan order her food in that movie?????

Boy and Clothes

Getting dressed is an every day occurrence and something you'd think that a child who is going to be heading into middle school next year should have well under control.  But, as some child psychologists have theorized, boys seem to mature later than girls.  

I would tend to agree as our daughter is quite capable of putting her shirt on with it facing the right direction.  With our son, it's a hit or miss proposition.  Some days he lucks out, but 9 times out of 10, he's coming in to breakfast with the tag and collar of the shirt directly under his chin.  I've asked him several times "Son, can't you feel how uncomfortable that is?".  His reply is usually "well, it did seem a bit odd.".  

Does a child really need to "mature" to understand which is the front and which is the back?  If this is indeed a fact, does this mean that my son will be in college before he learns that the side of his shirt with the tag imprinted on it is actually the back of the garment and thus, that side should be worn on the back?

I should've seen this coming though.  One day when he was 5 years old he decided he was old enough to dress himself without the help of Mom or Dad.  We backed off and allowed him this opportunity to grow and mature as all of the so-called "experts" suggested.  When he came downstairs dressed for Kindergarten with his blue jeans on backwards and his shirt not only backwards, but inside out, we tossed the child-rearing book in the trash and went with common sense.  Common sense says that if you have to zip and snap your pants using moves that were invented by Houdini, you might be getting dressed incorrectly.  

I do have to admit to using some of those moves back in the late 70's and 80's when skin tight jeans were all the rage.  Of course, they weren't really skin tight, they were much, much tighter than skin.  If they'd only been skin tight, I probably would've just had to suck in my tummy a bit.  With the tightness of the jeans back in the 70's and 80's, you would have one person hold the jeans open and then you would get up on your bed and take a running start so you could leap into the jeans while hoping that your weight would be enough to carry your feet all the way down the pants legs.  We'd heard that you could get stuck halfway and that would require a call to 9-1-1 and the thought of that conversation was almost too much.  We theorized the call would go something like this "9-1-1, What's your emergency?".  "Ummm, my friend was trying to put on her super-skinny jeans and has gotten stuck halfway".  And then the 9-1-1 operator would guide you through the many different treatment interventions which started with baby powder, then soap and before paramedics were called, they had you try baby oil.  If that didn't work then you ended up the paramedics with a pair of scissors and jeans that were now only usable as quilting quarters.  

When your friends weren't there to help, then you'd have to get a family member, like your mother, to hold the pants.  Kind of awkward having your mother holding your pants for you in high school or college, but the things we would do all in the name of fashion.  Once you were in the jeans there was no time to celebrate because then came the incredibly difficult task of actually fastening them.  

My personal favorite was to attach a wire hanger to that little hole on the zipper handle and then lay down on the bed, exhale all air from my body while simultaneously sucking in my belly and then yank, tug and pull on that hanger until I heard the telltale "ziiiipppp!" of it having closed securely.  Other people used pliers or screwdrivers.  Even heard of a few girls who put soap on their zippers so they'd go up easier, only problem with that was they would go down just as easily, but I probably shouldn't get into that.  And then the battle to close the snap or button began.  

Snaps were easier but had the nasty habit of coming unsnapped at the most inopportune times ......... like as soon as you tried to get up from the bed where you'd just spent 5 minutes trying to snap them to begin with! 

Once you got them snapped then it could take another 10 minutes trying to  get up off the bed using every means possible including trying to raise yourself up in a rigamortis pose, using the roll off the bed method, to holding your hands out for someone to pull you up. Anything to get up, so long as it didn't cause the jeans to unsnap. 

And later on, heaven forbid you walk through the cafeteria food line at school and see something you wanted to actually eat.  There was no room for food, beyond a bite or two, when wearing those jeans.  Nothing like being around 200 of your nearest and dearest high school classmates and have your pants come unsnapped because you had 3 or 4 bites of food.  Everyone would say "oh, poor Lottie.  She should've known she can only have 1 or 2 bites with those jeans on.  This is a really tough lesson to learn.".   The only thing worse than that was if they came unsnapped and unzipped due to the stress of the PSI they were under.  You weren't so much horrified that your pants came unzipped as you were that you didn't have a hanger with you in order to zip them back up.  After you and a couple of your friends would go to the bathroom and spend a fruitless 10 minutes trying to get your pants closed, you'd resign yourself to having to go to the school nurse and borrow a pair of pliers to get that sucker closed.

I always thought the school's custodian should carry a pair of pliers and watch for a surprised expression to come across some girl's face.  He could then discreetly walk over to them and hand them the pliers under the table, while acting like he was picking up/sweeping up someone's mess they'd made on the floor.  They could be slipped back to him just as covertly and none would've been the wiser......well, except for your friends who wouldn't say a word because they knew it was only a matter of time before they would be the one with the zipper issue.

All in all, I guess a shirt on backwards, and quite possibly inside out, isn't that big of a deal these day though.  I bet if I stand outside the school's doors at release time, half the boys would walk out with their shirts on backwards or inside out and their mothers are standing there probably sighing just like me and asking "Isn't that uncomfortable?  Didn't you notice?  I hope Mary Alice's daughter didn't notice or I'll never hear the end of it at book club."......

by: Christie Bielss

Shopping Smart

This year I have been reading so much about "shopping smart" and "shopping with a plan/list" on the internet, in the paper, and hearing about it on tv, etc., that we made the choice to try to create, and stick with, a budget. 

Being a redhead, shopping "smart" or with a "plan" is generally outside my area of expertise, but always game to try something new I decided to give it a go.  Mind you, I LOVE organizing, and shopping like this is really just about being organized, but the thought of not straying off the "plan" for a bag of chocolate or a cute pair of shoes - well, the thought gave me the cold shivers. 

Recently though, both kids' child-sized clothing hangers have either been hanging up on the closet rod so long they've learned to pole-dance or their clothes have gotten too big for the hangers. If you so much as open the closet door, half of the shirts either drop a shoulder and hang there half on and half off the hanger, or the clothes hit the floor faster than a stripper's. 

Well today I finally decided to tackle the problem. K and I, armed with our "plan", went to Target and "shopped smart". We entered the "Home Organization" section (which, by the way, I've discovered is just a way of saying that everything is over-priced) and immediately saw the hangers sitting on the aisle endcap in a wide array of deliciously delightful colors - and then I noticed the price: $2.99 for an 18 pack. What?! It's PLASTIC! Are they made of some special non-breakable plastic or reinforced with steel?! What happened to a 12-pack for $1? 

After looking around a bit and having to search several aisles, we discovered the good old white plastic hangers tucked away so as not to readily draw attention. A 10-pack for $1.17 or 2 packs of 10 for $2.34 - a $.75 discount over the delightfully colored 18-pack. That seemed much more reasonable considering the thinness of the plastic and inflation over the past 30 years. So yes, much to K's misery, my childrens' closets are now full of new, plain white plastic hangers and not the delightfully colored ones. But now when I open their closet doors, the clothes have given up their partying ways and are hanging there with all the modesty of royalty......... and, I stayed within my budgeted allowance for this project..... maybe I'll celebrate this victory by looking at some shoe sales.....

by: Christie Bielss