No Fruit and Dress Socks

You know what? I'm not perfect. I know, I know. I just blew some minds just then. I'll give you a moment to recover...

Okay, now that you've taken me off that shiny, tall pedestal you had me on, let me tell you why I know I'm not perfect.

1. Yesterday I forgot to take Yemi to choir practice at school. It's only the third week and it didn't even occur to either of us that we missed it until well after we were home from school doing homework. Memory fail.
2. We ran out of fruit at our house yesterday and I have yet to get any more. No bananas, no apples, not even a fruit leather. The closest thing my daughter had to fruit or vegetables in her lunch today was the peach jelly she put on her sandwich. Healthy lunch fail.
3. Yemi just left for soccer practice wearing a pair of John's dress socks over her shin guards. Because she asked me to do laundry on Sunday and I still haven't done it. And she only has two pair of soccer socks and wore them both last week. Laundry fail.
4. My sister's and my nephew's birthdays were Tuesday. My mom's birthday was today. I bought all of their birthday presents to mail two weekends ago. They are all still sitting in a bag on my desk. Birthday fail.

I'm sure the list could go on and on but I have some sort of reputation to uphold here. Lucky for me, I'm an eternal optimist. I look on the bright side of life, pretty much always. And also, I read this blog post today and it reminded me that, actually, I'm pretty awesome. I mean, I'm nothing special, but also, here's why I'm awesome:

1. My house is clean enough for people to be in it. I know this standard is different for everyone, but there are people coming over in a few hours and I'm not embarrassed for them to see it. A nice, homey, clean-but-not-too-clean feel going on. Maybe I'll light a candle and it will just push it right over the edge.
2. My child has been on time to school every day this year. (Not to choir practice, but to school). That's the important thing.
3. I made a healthy dinner tonight all by myself. And it tasted good and even though the smoke detector went off, I didn't actually burn anything.
4. I enrolled my child into soccer to help her get more exercise. So even though it's a hassle to take her and I don't know why six-year-olds need a twice a week practice, I know that it's good for her. So I did it.
5. Yesterday, I paid all my bills. On time. No late fees, no pink envelopes from TEP, no telephone reminders (not that I would know that those things come when you pay your bills late or anything. I'm just assuming).

So, if you're feeling like you haven't done enough today, just remember, most likely, you're awesome. And if you don't believe that, give me a call and I'll tell you a few reasons why I think you're awesome.

What awesome things did you do this week?

Cc is for...

So, my original goal on the whole Alphabet posts was to do one a week. I would never have said that out loud of course, but that was a vague goal for myself. Seeing as my last post was a month and a half ago, I think my first Cc is appropriate.

Consistency- The online dictionary (I don't know which one. This is a blog, not a research paper) defines Consistency as "conformity in the application of something." A quick scroll through the archives here will show you how good I am at this one. When getting ready in the morning I almost never do things in the same order and in the Myers-Briggs Personality Test, I am very strong in Perceiving, which means I don't necessarily need closure or plans. And while the practical side of me likes lists for the sake of not forgetting things, To Do lists are useless because I literally don't care if something, or everything, is left undone. If I can do it tomorrow, I probably will. Or the next day. I think my friends Tori and Jen G just had mini-panic attacks reading that. Sorry ladies. Remarkably, I still manage to be a productive member of society that has a job, a happy marriage, and am attempting to raise a future productive member of society. There are a few things I'm really consistent at though, and we should all celebrate small victories, right? Like, I'm a really consistent dessert eater, I regularly throw theme parties for various unimportant holidays (International Star Wars Day, Valentine's Day Sing-A-Longs, my birthday), and, and, actually I can't think of anything else that's not food related. However, I understand that my daughter needs a lot of consistency and I strive to give her as much of that as my soul can possibly handle. And as she becomes more healed and secure in our family, there becomes a greater amount of flexibility and freedom in schedules. But I'm not sure I'll ever be able to put her to bed without kissing all around her face. We might be doing that every single night until she's 28.

Choreography- I'm not a dancer (oh, how I wish I was a dancer!) but I really, really enjoy watching good dancing. That being said, I think most people know my obsession affinity for So You Think You Can Dance. (I'm very consistent in watching it every week.) It's wonderful. So, so wonderful. But, since this post is about Cc's, I'm going to highlight one of my favorite choreographers of late, Christopher Scott. His specialty is hip hop and not only is he not bad to look at, he is a genius. Just watch this, this or this if you want some convincing. But under no circumstances are you allowed to watch his starving children dance from a few seasons ago. I'm not even going to link to it, mostly because it's terrible and took me several years to recover from the horror, but also a little because I can't remember the song title, making it difficult to find on YouTube.

Catkins- This is our nickname for our cat (whose real name is Benny). It comes from the cat version of the Atkins Diet for humans. Now, I'm generally not a believer of any diet that completely cuts out a whole food group (hey, what do I know?), but I think the person that thought of this pun is remarkable. They deserve an award. So, while I'm not necessarily a proponent for a obese cat going on said diet, the name has stuck with the Weatherfords for about a decade now, ever since John and I saw it on the cover of a magazine in Lincoln, NE. A friend once told me she thought it was funny how we picked out little things in life and hung on to them for a long time. I think she'd probably consider this one of those things.

Chiefs- I always miss Kansas more in the fall. September in Tucson is the worst. Not because it's actually worse than the rest of the summer, but because it's when I'm so ready for a chill in the air and pumpkin desserts and long sleeves again. And football seems less fun when it's still hot. And we're still at least 6-8 weeks away from weather you can actually justify wearing a scarf in, but if we turn the air conditioning down a little and turn a Chiefs game on, we can almost pretend the leaves are turning beautiful colors outside. Growing up in Kansas City meant I was born a Chiefs fan. Sometimes it's a hard lot in life, but I'm in good company. I truly do love professional football, but no matter how you feel about it, I think most can agree that there is something lovely about laying down on the couch under a blanket on Sunday morning and falling asleep the the commentary of a game you care nothing about. That wouldn't be the KC game for me, but we don't get a lot of those down here anyway.