PonderEthereal

I wrote before about using paypal and usps in conjunction with selling on etsy. However, I also use paypal for my day to day business transactions too, which are mostly services. Today, I needed to run reports on paypal for a profit and loss statement and I had the information I needed so quickly and painlessly that I felt the need to sing paypal’s praises once again.

I run a small, service oriented business. I teach classes, offer alternative healing services and write. Small businesses take lots of effort and a small business owner wears lots of hats, including accountant. I’m not an accountant. So, in an effort to achieve effortless financial management, I’ve been through three banks, Wamu, Chase and Navy Federal, all which failed miserably and I used two banks with a former business, neither of which were all that great either. And through it all, paypal stood quietly by functioning effortlessly,…

This morning, I woke the boy up and then went back into my room to finish getting ready, just like most mornings. While I’m busy convincing myself that it’s worth it to keep my eyes open, he usually gets up, puts some clothes on, does some sort of magic that makes it look like he’s always been this awake, brushes his teeth, takes his vitamins (mostly) and waits impatiently by the door for me to finish whatever I’ve forgotten at the last minute before he finally grabs my keys and goes to the car to wait.

This morning, however, was different. I rolled my eyes at myself in the mirror, flipped the light off and left my bedroom. I meandered towards the kitchen in that way I have in the morning where any given stimulus between the bedroom and the kitchen could convince me to turn tail and RUN back…

Ethan : Somebody told me that you have a boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend…
Me : …that I had in February of last year.
Ethan : *amazed look* Morning, mom.
Me : Morning, babe.
——————–
Ethan : You left your cup out!
Me : Mine was in my bedroom.
Ethan : That’s no fair - there is nowhere I can leave mine out.
Me : In the sink.
Ethan: But that’s impossible!
—————————
Ethan: The depressed kids are the popular ones.
Me: Oh?
Ethan : Yeah… have you ever seen the kids with the hood pulled down and their hands in their pockets?
Me : Yeah..
Ethan : Those are the cool ones.
(Hm.)
———————
Me : They say when someone is going to die, their life flashes before their eyes.
Ethan : Well that doesnt make sense. Because if you’re 10 and your life flashes before your eyes, it would take 10 more years and you’d be 20 before you died.

…

Being a single parent means that all of the job stuff, all of the household stuff and all of the parenting stuff gets done by one person - me. And sure, kids are great for slave labor around the house but I can only beat him so much before he cries uncle - and the tub STILL isn’t really “clean”. And were I to delegate meal planning or cooking, we’d have Ramen every night with mac and cheese once in a while for good measure. And maybe some fruit loops.

I’m not a very good cook. I mean.. I AM when I try - but for me, it’s SO MUCH EFFORT and time. It’s not something I enjoy. When I am very organized, I use my gtd friendly meal planning system :
1) I have a list of all of the meals that my family likes. If we try something new…

Online dating kinda has a reputation for being a little bit scary. You get to hear what they SAY they are like and maybe see a picture or two - and then you are face to face with them at possibly one of the most wonderful - or horrific meetings you’ve ever had. But, if you use face reading, there is a whole lot you can tell about a person before you ever decide to meet them.

I took a class by Barbara Roberts on face reading a couple of years ago and what I learned from that one class has been invaluable in online dating. That said, one picture is only one moment in time. Some of the more changable features might only be indicitive of that moment. I want to see more than one picture of a person and I really only read for the things that are most important…

True story :

I once was a king of a far away land. We rode horses through fields of purple flowers, we sang songs around campfires and we slaughtered pigs for dinner.

There was a girl who lived there and then. She was beautiful. Blond hair to her waist that blew in the wind when she stood at the top of the cliffs over looking the ocean. Her name was Marabelle and we were married for many years.

On the outside, she was shy and quiet, but on the inside she was laughter and joy. We had two children… Desmond and Harold. They grew up to be hunters.

Yesterday, she cooked a pot roast that was horrendous. I didn’t tell her that but it was really gross. She gets really pissed off and says nasty things when I don’t tell her it was wonderful. The other day? She called me a pig’s ass…

Don’t just go on a date with everybody who crosses your radar. How miserable would you be on said date if he were a total loser? Here are 10 ways to pick the losers out before you wind up on a date with them. And I suppose these could be used for girls too, to a certain extent… but girls have a different set of warning signs, really.

While emailing/talking, listen for these warning signs :

1. He is over the age of 25, doesn’t have a job, lives with his parents or doesn’t have a car. Or he has a job but he hates it, doesn’t make much and doesn’t know ‘what he wants to do with his life’. While we all have periods of time like that, but if you’re looking for quality, by 25, he should have a pretty good idea of where he’s headed and should DEFINITELY…

As a girl who uses dating sites, I find it extraordinarily difficult to weed through all the crap. However, there are some really easy ways to weed out the obvious ones. If you have any interest whatsoever in landing a female with a brain, here are 10 things you should not do.

1. Choose a user name with the words ’smooth’, ‘jerk’, ‘psycho’.
2. Add no information to your profile or put some trite message there like “I cant sum myself up in a paragraph” or “just email if you want to know”.
3. If you are 30, still live with your parents, don’t have a job or a car - just give up.
4. Email her in txt speak, with lowercase I’s or with no punctuation or proper capitalization.
5. Use a picture of yourself that you took on your webcam in your bedroom with your dirty laundry in the background
6. Post a picture with your ex obviously…

Could I just say that I am on the tippy, tippy edge of this thing we call preadolescence and I’m already wishing for a swift blow to the head?

He had sex ed a couple of weeks ago. And apparently the sex ed was very detailed because he got to see a picture of a vagina (insert mysterious oos and ahs here) and he got all of the details about a period and how exactly babies are born. And now? Sex is ALL he thinks about. EVERYTHING now is a sexual innuendo… and I’m his mom. I can’t imagine what it’s like with a bunch of 9 year old boys.

And? The meltdowns are so much worse. He is on the autistic spectrum so we’ve always had meltdowns… but these? These are like nuclear disasters. Re faced screaming and tears over how MEAN mom is and weepy, the sky is falling,…

Ethan : He’s working like 24-7.
Me : No… he works but he’s got a social life too. A social life is good.
Ethan : Well, YOU don’t have a social life!