Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Pass The Compound W

I was reading The Pioneer Woman the other day, fascinated as usual by the goings on at the cattle ranch but curious about her relationship with Marlboro Man. She loves her cowboy but never mentions anything annoying he does and never talks about the stuff he does that ticks her off. Surely, there’s something he does that drives her crazy. It can’t be all roses and sunshine over there. I love Ree and her website, but I’m thinking the stress of ranching for a living, maintaining a famous website and home schooling four kids has got to be crazy. Really crazy. Somebody has to be yelling at somebody every now and then. Maybe not, but I know if the Hula-gen’s lived that life, we’d be less than perfect. There would be lots of “Get your butt down here right now and sweep this manure off the front porch like I asked you to do three hours ago,” and “Stop throwing calf nuts at your sister,” and “Who left the back door open and let all those flies in here?” Somebody would be leaving the toilet paper roll empty for the next person, someone would spill milk at the dinner table every night and we would all be cranky after a week of being cooped up together during a snow storm. Oh, and the swearing. There would probably be swearing. (It’s why Hubby and I can’t be on The Amazing Race.) Mayhem would be around every corner. That’s just family.


I don’t blame Ree for not sharing those moments with the world. Some things are personal. Those of us who blog have things we choose not to share with everyone. We self edit, and that’s okay. I do it, too. We do it to protect our privacy and our relationships. We do it to keep from embarrassing our families. Sometimes we do it because stuff is just too painful to share. We all have our warts, and we have the freedom to reveal as many or as few of them as we desire. The downside to that is that it often leaves our readers with the impression that our lives are jolly and great and that we’re better at handling life than they are. While it’s purely unintentional, it does strike me as a little dishonest. We are all human. We have failures. We have hurts. We make mistakes. We yell at our kids and regret it. We treat our spouses with disrespect and fail to apologize. People in our lives do bad things. We lose our temper and act like an a** in the line at the grocery store (or so I hear).


In the interest of honesty today, I’m sharing a few warts with you; nothing that should embarrass my family (much). Some are silly, and a few are big, but they are enough to show you that it’s more livin’ la Vida loca at my place than it is wine and roses. Tomorrow? We’re back to self editing then, because frankly, when it come to the Hula-gen’s, YOU CAN’T HANDLE THE WARTS!


-I lost my patience and my temper with Teen Angel on the phone the other day and used a pretty ugly tone of voice. I hate it when I do that.

-I forgot to tell Hubby Happy Birthday on my way out the door this morning. He would never forget to tell me that.

-The state of my bras is so bad I would be embarrassed if I were in a wreck and someone had to cut me out of my clothing.

-Running has left calluses on the top of the second toes on both my feet. They are ugly.

-I got so mad at Mama J. last night that I wanted to yank her hair. I’m still mad at her.

-Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be content in my relationship with her.

-Papa T.’s care is wearing all of us out, especially Hubby and Mama J. It’s been a rough week with him, and I don’t know how long we can keep up with his needs.

-I live with the fear that we will find Papa T. or Mama J. dead in their bed one morning. I’ve had two nightmares that involved CPR.

-A crazy woman who got the wrong cell phone number and mistook us for a criminal kept calling us the other night. Near the end of a lengthy conversation with her I told her, “Woman, you have lost your mind.” You’d think a year and a half of Al-Anon would have kept that from coming out of my mouth.

-When Hubby slurps his soup I have an irresistible urge to scream.

-I think I’m on the verge of needing reading glasses. Crap, crap, crap.

-I’m fed up with the dysfunction in Hubby’s family. Seriously.

-I can’t seem to work the DVR correctly every time I record something, and it makes me feel like an idiot.

-My library books are overdue…AGAIN.

-Apparently, I am not responsible when there is leftover butter cream frosting in the fridge. It could account for the five pounds that showed up on my butt recently and refuse to go home.

-I have secretly and slowly eaten all of the pecan perks in that big box of chocolates Hubby got for Christmas, and I am delighted he hasn’t noticed.


Hmmm. That wasn’t so bad. Now then, if you’d care to share one or two of your own that’s okay, too. If not, I’ll just assume you’d rather not tell about the calf nut flinging going on at your place. In the meantime, I’ll be picking up the birthday card I forgot to buy yesterday.

9 comments:

Kelley with Amy's Angels said...

There isn't enough room in a comment box to tell you about all the warts in our family! GOODNESS!!

However, I'll share a few....

*I realized today that after a relationship that ended 9 years ago, I still try to "prove" things to that guy. And I'm no longer with him!

*I hate the fact that the Big Guy will eat almost all of something and leave a little dribble or scoop in the container. His reply, "I didn't want *all* of it."

*I worry about my parents getting older, and they're only 60 and 62 years old.

Oh, the list can go on...and on...and on...

I apprecacite your honesty, Hula, and I'll still be your bloggy friend. : )

Rink's Ramblings said...

Better to pass the Compound W than the Preparation H!

But while we're at it:
"My wife makes me crazy because she is obsessive compulsive. She will pick and pick and pick on an issue or worry herself to death about something and do her best to make me crazy in the process. Thank God I have my years of AA to fall back on."

"I hate losing my hair and being 30 pounds heavier than I was 15 years ago. Why can't some damn scientist come up with a gene therapy to regrow hair!?! Why can't I run enough damn miles to get rid of this freaking tire around my mid-section!?!"

"I'm tired of manipulative GMs and news directors. Most of them are clueless twits who are so out of touch with the viewers they serve that it's a wonder they have any ratings at their stations at all."

Gail Dixon said...

Thanks for this post! I was JUST thinking about Ree and her perfect life the other day. How in the world does she manage everything with such grace and perfection? How does she hold it all together? That perfection vibe I get from her blogs makes me feel a little less than adequate. Okay, a lot inadequate. Then again, I guess I could get off my arse and rise to the challenge. But as a famous southern belle once said, "Tomorrow is another day."

oreneta said...

This is why your site is better that PW's. Love the list, and I've got a bunch of them on my own. I hope you and I aren't the only parents that sometimes speak to their kids in not nice ways. Makes me sad when I do it.

Living Life said...

LOL - So glad you got that off your chest, Hula!

I love Ree too and I often visit her site.

I do lead a perfect life, as it shows on my blog - - NOT!

In fact, my husband said that I should change the name of my blog from "Diary of Church Lady" to Diary of a Sinful Church Lady!" Ha!

We attended the Ash Wed. service at church last night and my kids asked what I was going to give up for Lent. I said, cussing and then I asked them if they thought I could do it for the 40 days and they replied, "no way". *sigh*

A New England Life said...

First and foremost PW is a business woman. She knows if she posts a bunch of normal annoying stuff people will be less likely to find her blog appealing. It's marketing, kind of like Martha Stewart. Plus I think she is a very positive, energetic, look-on-the-bright-side kind of person.

I also believe that even though her blog is a full-time job she has help behind the scenes. With 4 kids there's no way she couldn't. Maybe one day she'll bless us with a 'tell-all' book about her dark days. Ha ha!

Warts ... oh yes, we have 'em, but things could be worse. Seriously my biggest wart?

*Helping my daughter find her way in life. She dealt with mental health issues in her early teens but she's made huge strides and at times I'm so proud of the young woman she is becoming!

Honestly, besides that, I feel fortunate to have married such a great guy, have two beautiful girls, plenty of food and a roof over our heads. I know life could be much worse if I chose to view it as such, but I saw enough negativity growing up and I just can't deal with it as I grow older.

Of course hit me up when I'm PMS-ing and you could get a totally different answer ; )

A New England Life said...

Btw, I started buying cheap reading glasses from Walmart months ago. I just couldn't fight it anymore. Go for it!

Mia said...

I have often wondered the same thing as I read PW. I love reading your blog cause you are just so gosh darn real!! Nuts and all!
By the way I started it again....
http://www.mynameismamie.blogspot.com/

janjanmom said...

I agree with you on the PW blog...I always feel hopelessly inadequate. She cooks and schools her children so lovingly.

I am working on being civil to my kids with a side of fix your own damn breakfast.