My Blah-Blah-Blog

February 26, 2010

About those forwarded emails…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , , — mswiggie @ 3:32 pm

Oy. I posted this blog (below) once before and have forwarded it to several people who continue to send me STUPID and LAME CRAP email. It’s driving me crazy. I’m pretty sure I’ve developed a nervous tick. To top it off, I’m being invited to join a million a lot of groups on Facebook, promising me that if I join their group and invite all my friends, then I will gain treasures untold. Truth is… wait let me repeat that: TRUTH IS you don’t HAVE to join the group to see what link they are promoting, and you don’t HAVE to be a genius to know that it’s just a bunch of crap spam anyway!!!!!!! SO STOP IT!!!

*hem*

Here it is…

My email box is frequently cluttered with various emails from well meaning friends and relatives who desire to pass on “vitally important knowledge” or “incredible information” to me as well as the rest of the world. These friends and relatives practically insist that we must all forward this one email for “a child sick with cancer who wants a world record for the most emails sent telling his story.” We must forward another email because “Bill Gates wants to give everyone money each time they forward information about a new program’s beta testing.”

Today I was urged to join the ranks of terrified aunties and uncles who will now – at all cost – avoid using restaurant bathrooms because of the venomous ‘South American Blush Spider’ which lurks stealthily beneath the toilet seat, gleefully anticipating his next victim so he can munch on their exposed…selves.

Unfortunately, most of these emails are untrue, outdated and outlandishly exaggerated. Take, for example, the creepy Camel Spider who lives in Iraq and wants to eat our American Soldiers. People, people, people! Puhlease! Did’ja LOOK at the picture?! It’s a close-up of the spider, and the hand which holds it. Notice the spider is as big as the cufflink. Geez. *Note: If I ever saw a spider even HALF the size of my cufflink, I’d run away as fast as I could!*

It is a shame the time and effort wasted by these folks who have sent me (and everyone else in their over-used email address book) their panicked emails. To this day, they await a check from Bill Gates which should by now bear an amount well into the thousands. Some of these email writers are incredibly and immediately convinced of the ‘truth’ in the email they received, most without question. How many of us have received the “You are the last heir to King So-and-So who left you millions of dollars. Just send us your bank account and routing number and we will immediately transfer the funds to you in America”!? Even with all of the news reports, commentaries and exposes, there are still people falling for these rouses.

And now people are falling for texts on their phones, asking to call a number right away because of some alert on their bank account. Jeez! Do you remember signing up for something like this? Do you NOT KNOW that your bank DOES NOT ask you for your password or social security when THEY call YOU!?!?!?!?

Much grief, hurt, anxiety and inconvenience could be avoided by a simple internet search on the subject at hand. There are many websites which list the thousands of internet hoaxes, scams and urban legends that circulate round and round the internet. If you receive an email which promises a fantastic return in exchange for some work, or an email with an outlandish and almost unbelievable story: take a second to research it. In as much time as it would take you to hit “forward” and select everyone in your email address book, you could also check into the email and perhaps save yourself future embarrassment!

It is safe, ladies and gentlemen, to use the toilet at your local favorite feeding hole.

PS – before you send me an email telling me I will have bad luck for 10 years if I don’t forward it on to 10 friends…well let’s just say Friends Don’t Send Friends Stupid Emails.


When in doubt, check out www.snopes.com – this great site dispels many-a-myth!!!

On surviving a break-up: it’s possible.

Filed under: Breaking Up =(,Relationships — Tags: , , , , — mswiggie @ 9:27 am

It’s happened to all of us I’m sure: breaking-up. I broke up with my first beau in kindergarten, but we exchanged fat pencils and were still friends after all was said and done. My most recent (and probably most painful) just happened within a week.

So, how ’bout you? Gotta make it through a tough break-up? It’s possible to do, even though right now you probably feel like climbing into a hole and crying your eyes out for the rest of your life. I know I do.

Just take a deep breath and from here on out think with your head more than you think with your heart. And maybe take in a little of what I have to say.

First of all, remember that a relationship – romantic or otherwise – is based on emotions.  It only stands to reason that all of the emotional buildup and bliss and romantic giddy feelings leading to your relationship has to come down the other side of the hill. It’s painful, heart-wrenching, and it hurts oh-so-bad. This is one of the times in life where you really have to buckle down, prepare yourself for the torrent of emotions that are going to come up (and may be worse on some days more than others). I gotta repeat a concept for you here: you absolutely have GOT to do your best to think everything through with your head to get through this! You cannot rely on emotions to define your reality.

The next important thing to remember is this: be mature about the break-up. Sure, your feelings are probably hurt. You may be really mad at your new ‘ex’. But listen: it wasn’t so long ago that you loved this person (and probably still do). Remember the good things about your ex, the things that made you enjoy their company and your relationships. Don’t focus on how or why you broke up. The fact is, none of those things matter now as you walk through this initial phase of your break-up. Honestly, thinking about the negatives will only hurt you and draw out the process. Trying to figure out the why or the how of the breakup could set you back: you will want to try to get him or her back even though you’ve reached the conclusion that you shouldn’t be together, or you may manipulate your ex to take you back just so you don’t have to experience this pain (or allow yourself to be manipulated!).

Along the lines of being mature, don’t bad-mouth your ex, regardless of what he or she has done. Take the higher road and leave it be. Any potential future dates don’t want to hear you badmouth your current ex. He or she may take that as a big red flag. Avoid the drama, let it go. Stop contacting your ex, even if it’s an amicable split. This doesn’t have to be permanent, but you really do need a few days to get all of these emotions out of your system!

And lastly, take some time to let those emotions out. Cry a few nights in a row, be sad about whatever you want to be sad about: the loss of the relationship, loss of a friendship, all the good memories you had. You may feel like you’ll never love anyone this much ever again. You may feel rejected, betrayed, angry. Allow each emotion to surface, take a look at why you think you’re experiencing it, and let it be for a few minutes. Trying to stuff your emotions to just move on may help you for the short-term, but in the long-run it will reach a potentially explosive level and you might find yourself having a melt-down in the middle of the grocery store or at work.

Oh there’s so much about life that is good and bad. Take the bad in stride and look for what else is out there that is good. More on that in follow-up posts.

Sad today? Find something that brings you joy and go do it. Have lunch with a friend, do some retail therapy, go for a jog. Make sure it’s something that you really enjoy and can do without pining or wistful thinking.

*hugs*

February 24, 2010

On breaking up.

Filed under: Relationships — Tags: , , — mswiggie @ 11:15 am

Yeah, it’s hard to do. I mentioned that in my last post. I’ve been listening to break-up songs all morning and I’m finding that I relate to a lot of the emotions and feelings written into the songs, but not always the situation behind the meaning of the song. In other words, many of those tortured-souls wrote about the loss of love usually because someone cheated or left them or just went plumb-crazy.

My situation is different. I *love* my newly “ex” ex-boyfriend. As in, a lot. And unfortunately for both of us, he still loves me too.

You know that Shakespearean phrase “star-crossed lovers”??? Look it up in the dictionary, our picture is there next to it.

Let me tell you a little about this awesome ex of mine: he’s awesome. He’s adorable. He’s thoughtful and romantic and damn funny. I’ve dated him longer than I’ve dated anyone else in my life, and I’ve had beautiful, wonderful experiences with him that I’ve not had with anyone else. Ever.

You’re probably wondering “What the heck! Don’t break up! True love is hard to find! Make it work! Sacrifice for it! Do anything for it! Too many people are lonely and looking for love and you found the real deal!? You are an idiot to walk away!!!”

I’m thinking the same thing, trust me. But don’t forget that star-crossed thingie. The cheated by the cosmos, God played a cruel trick on us realization that we’ve both had on-and-off the past few months.

See, this awesome guy is quite a bit younger than me (hold off on the cougar jokes. I’m sensitive right now). He’s not been married before and is currently enjoying his life as a successful entrepreneur working on his own terms, going out when he wants, where he wants, spending money on what he wants, when he wants.

Me? Single mom of two. That should stir up enough stereotypes for you to now say “Oh, I get it.” Don’t get me wrong, my kids are GOOD KIDS. They’re well behaved, respectful, empathetic and good kids. But they’re still kids which means they demand a lot of energy, attention and focus. So when an awesome guy is dating an awesome gal who is also a mom, he’s gotta be ready and willing to share the attention, love and focus.

Awesome ex guy has done a great job of that, really. Especially since he’s never really hung out around kids. He’s been open and honest with me at every step of the way and we’ve worked so hard to tweak things here and there to make sure everyone all around is happy and feeling like they’re getting their fair share of the mom/girlfriend attention.

But it all comes down to this: I don’t want to just date people for the next (insert unknown number of weeks, months or years here).  While I’m not looking for a new dad for my kids (Lord knows I’ve spend their entire lives caring for them solo, and I can do it all by myself tyvm) I do want someone who at least GETS kids, and is okay that sometimes I can’t be available to them because I have a kid puking on me or needing help with homework or just needs some extra mom time because of a bad day.

We went into this relationship knowing what each other wanted: me, to settle down at some point, maybe have one more little bundle of joy in a loving, caring, secure relationship and experience parenting with a partner. Him: well those sorts of things aren’t out of the question, but they aren’t something he wants to happen in the next 5-10 years.

I sort of realized that things needed to come to a halt sooner rather than later this past Superbowl Sunday. It was a catastrophe of the most uncomfortable proportions that made me realize that I can’t always be me and the kids and my guy, that I have to (more often than not) put them in the background, or the bottom of the totem pole, to give 100% to this relationship. It made me feel like I had to be two people: Victoria the girlfriend and Victoria the mom.

Don’t get me wrong: us women SHOULD keep that separate ‘identity’ for times we’re with our spouses or partners otherwise we may as well wipe their bottoms, too. What I’m talking about here is being TWO different people and the two aren’t allowed to mingle or meet. It’s hard enough to switch gears after a day of working, mothering, cooking and cleaning and then be cute and energetic in a relationship. It’s not just single moms that struggle with burnout at the end of the day, my married gal-pals do, too.

Anyhoo. it’s an impossible situation. One of us has to give up and sacrifice BIG time: he’d have to give up his single carefree days of bachelorhood. Me: I’d have to wait 5-10 years to get married or maybe have a baby IF we stayed together that long, and by that time I don’t know that I’d be able to or want to anymore.

So you see, it’s just not gonna work out without some major undertakings that neither of us are 100% sold on doing. While I’d do just about anything for the awesome ex, I don’t know if I could give up ME. And I don’t want to ask him to give up, well, HIM.

Sucks.

February 23, 2010

Would you rather… (Love and relationships edition)

Filed under: Ramblings,Relationships — mswiggie @ 3:21 pm

So, let’s say you are dating someone who you’ve been with for almost a year. And one sad day you both realize that while you truly and honestly love each other, your relationship just won’t work out and you both decide to call it quits.

But breaking up IS hard to do you know – they write songs about it all the time – and you’re no exception to the rule. It seems silly to break up JUST because things won’t work out in the next year or two for you (because you are in different stages of life and you aren’t both going in the same direction) but the sacrifice either one of you would have to make to keep it together would just be hurtful in the long-run.

Do you cut it off cold turkey? Wean off your relationship (especially if you are used to hanging out every single day/night!) or just push through until someone else comes along?
Help a friend out. What’s your advice?

Powered by WordPress