When I grow up....

We all watched Home Alone with Macaulay Culkin... at least I hope you did or I'm going to assume you missed the entire decade of the 90s. One of the funniest lines from that movie is, "When I grow up and get married, I'm living alone!" I do have a point. The coolest thing about being a grown up is actually doing some of the things you always wanted to when you were a kid. Now I never had any plan to " get married & live alone," but there are other things. Sometimes I think Jon and I are just reliving our childhood, but without as many rules.
Can you think of any parent in their right mind that would sit down and cut open 6 Popsicles for their 5 year old to eat before brushing their teeth, and going to bed??? No way, but that is exactly what I did tonight! LOL! :) My teeth started hurting from my braces, and the cold really makes them feel better, so I had two of these babies.
Those two tasted, and felt so good that I proceeded to eat 4 more! As a kid I must have consumed hundreds of these things. I hadn't had one in 14 to 16 years until earlier this summer when I was visiting with my little cousins. When Addison came out bringing me one, I was a bit hesitant because who knew if the company might have been bought out, or changed the formula, or even worse... Added Splenda (gag!). I was so happy because, believe it or not, they still taste the exact same as they did back in 1986! In a world full of change, this is one thing that has remained the same, and I'm pretty glad about it.
Tonight while I was eating my 4th Popsicle I got this warm fuzzy feeling, that if the 7 year old version of myself could see me now, I think she'd give me a snaggle tooth grin, and a thumbs up! That's a pretty cool feeling.

Childhood Ambitions

How do people decide stuff like, "gee I want to be an accountant or a high school superintendant?" How on earth did I end up with a masters degree in interprofessional health and human service administration? I was sitting on my porch swing this morning letting the dogs do their thing, when I began to think about the things I used to want to be when I grew up. Do you ever wonder what the child version of yourself would think about how you've ended up?

Once upon a time I had some really "high and lofty aspirations" I remember when I was little I wanted to work at Sam's or Sonic and wear roller skates when I grew up. That should start dating things for you, yep we're talking 1980s. I remember this one woman who used to work at our Sam's that had what I thought was a really pretty perm and some really cool white and pink roller skates. Anytime someone needed a price check at a register, off she'd fly. My cousins and I used to play Sam's skater in the garage. We'd gather up some stuff from the house, and strategically put it all over the place, and then we'd see who was the best Sam's skater. I guess someone filed a lawsuit, and put an end to that career. I'm glad Sonic has brought back the roller skates, even though the first few weeks they were doing it here this spring there were a few busts, and it was pretty obvious most of the car hops hadn't touched a pair of roller skates in over a decade, maybe two.

The other job that I thought would be really cool was making pizzas. One time when we were in kindergarten Emily Burns-King's dad, Dr. Burns came to school for some sort of show and tell day, and made pizzas because that was how he worked his way through school, then the did a quick physical on everyone. I couldn't understand for the life of me what would make him decide to abandon the fine art of pizza making, and be a pediatrician (those people give kids shots, and shots were NO fun). Everyone was much more excited about the pizza making, he even threw the dough up in the air, which made him the uncontested coolest parent in kindergarten. My dad used to be a full service gas station attendant, then he worked in a lumber yard so I could understand why he decided to be a doctor, but I remembered thinking Dr. Burns had made a mistake. LOL!!!

I have a feeling the childhood version of me would be really confused about how I've ended up, but the plus side is I do teach at a college, I have my own boards that no one else can write on, and I get to use dry erase markers A LOT! I even use different colored ones when I change topics. I guess that is how I'd have to explain my job to a bunch of kids in order to sound sort of cool. I'll have to keep these things in mind for when I have kids one day, especially if they decide to take me to show and tell.

Southern Fun

Regardless of wealth, age, gender, race, religion, or orientation there is one thing that all Southerners can agree on.... MOSQUITOS... they are the bloody devil! There are people who make fun of us Southern people with our OFF and Bug Zappers. Anyone that thinks we're crazy has obviously never dealt with anything like the attack we had last summer. We had to get out of our cars and run to get in the house before we were carried away! I had several friends in college from Australia that would rant and rave on and on about how they had never seen so many dang mosquitos, and we oughta sleep inside of "those nets you see on movies about Africa."

With all this said, I must add that there is something rather gratifying about zapping the rotten little beasties. A couple weeks ago I bought Jon a tennis racquet mosquito zapper from Ross's dress for less, then he went and found some more cheaper and more powerful out at Harbor Freight Tools. We have been like two kids with a great new toy! Tonight we turned on the front porch light, and the back porch light, and we waited for the sun to go down. Then one of us would shake the azalea bushes while the other swatted the ones that flew up out of them. Between the two of us we cooked about 100 of the little blood suckers tonight. I feel like we both made our own small contribution to humanity :)