Category Archives: Tuesday on the Soapbox

Anything from politics and current events to strange and beautiful life philosophies.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Exercise Has Been Divorced From Reality

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Would I be completely in the wrong to say that exercise has been taken out of the context of our regular daily activity?

I don’t believe so, given the fact that most people’s exercise now takes place in gyms and home workouts rather than actual, useful activities. Exercise, far from being part of our chosen trade or part of our recreation, now is done in front of other, usually more fit people, at a gym or on a workout machine. It’s often regarded more as a status symbol than anything these days–if you have time to work out, you must be in a good job.

But what about exercise that MEANS something for your life, other than fitting into a smaller size or being healthier? Sure, those are worthy goals to have, but I would prefer to actually do something useful while exercising. Exercising just for its own sake is boring and lonely to me, and it feels useless; when in real life are we really going to lift weight in exactly the same pose for a certain number of times, or walk exactly a mile, or use just our abs to do anything besides laugh?

Modern “Exercise”: Movement without Context, without Purpose

In principle, this is the same problem I always had in math classes–being assigned 30 naked, context-less problems in a math book to “practice what we just learned” felt like a waste of time and effort. It always left me thinking, “I do all this problem-solving work, but it’s not really helping anybody. How about giving me 30 real-world problems that other people need solved right now? That way, I practice AND I help somebody out.”

Exercise, in my opinion, should be a fun activity that accomplishes a real-life goal outside of physical fitness. Yes, yes, I know, exercise for itself is great, but it bores me and makes me feel like I’m just wasting my time. I want it to multi-task.

Example of Purposeless Exercise: JUST Walking on a Track

Walking around and around in a pointless circle on a track for an hour? BORING. In fact, I’ve written a couple of times about exercise, including just how much I hate walking for no reason. Makes me want to tear my hair out. I’ve tried doing just walking as exercise several times, and I just can’t stay with it. Not only does every joint in my lower body hurt more with every step, but I’m wasting an hour just walking around when I could be getting stuff done at home, or running errands. It’s not “peaceful” or “relaxing,” as other people have told me it is for them–I find it maddening and painful.

Example of Purposeful Exercise: Walking as a Way to Get Stuff Done

Now, contrast that with activities that just involve walking: walking pets, running errands in town without using a car, or taking the kids on a nature hike. This is the kind of walking I can get behind–walking for a PURPOSE!

For instance, letting pets get out and about with you is a great way to bond with them, as well as to let them do their business outside (always good for the ol’ flooring). Parking your car and walking around in uptown saves gas, gets stuff done, AND gets you exercise. Getting the kids out of the house, away from computers, TVs, and video games, can be an important family bonding moment as well as family exercise. They can learn from you that exercise doesn’t have to be something regimented and divorced from their reality.

I Want This Kind of Exercise–the USEFUL Kind!

This is what I’m talking about–making exercise a seamless part of everyday life instead of a status symbol. Lifting weights 20-reps-at-a-time in the gym is pointless and means nothing for my everyday life; however, lifting junk down out of the attic and moving it out of my house is a weight-lifting exercise I can appreciate. I’ll be sore after doing both types of exercise, but only one type of exercise gets something done besides building up muscle.

Zumba, strangely, fulfills this “useful exercise” requirement I have in a unique way; it is based on dance moves, so I feel like I’m performing with a group of people rather than just “working out.” Not only that, being with the group of people and directly interfacing with the group leader helps me feel more accountable, like somebody actually gives a rat’s rear end that I’m doing this. It’s useful exercise because I love to perform and I love to socialize–it kills three birds with one stone, giving me new friends, a new “venue” to perform in, and a healthier body over time.

I know there are people out there who really enjoy the nitty-gritty training of exercise for its own sake. But I think if we’re ever going to be a healthier, fitter nation, we need to make exercise an integral part of life’s other activities rather than making it something we have to do outside of normal activities. Let’s make it not so lonely, boring, and horrible to try getting fit, and maybe more people will do it!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Content, not Perfect

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I am generally happy with the course of my life thus far, though I might not seem like it in most of my Tuesday on the Soapbox posts.

Dealing with The Negatives

By most people’s standards, my life is definitely not perfect. I’m overweight, and I don’t have a lot of friends I routinely visit, nor too much nightlife going on. I don’t have a paying job, and my parents and I all suffer crippling ill health–arthritis, severe headaches, and old, unhealed injuries run rampant, forcing us all to be more bedridden than we should be. This leaves our house in a shameful state most of the time. (There are rooms in my house which I haven’t been able to walk into in literal years. Yes. OCD hoarding + family illness = housekeeping? What’s that?)

Celebrating the Positives

But I do have a lot to be thankful for. Quite a lot, in fact. I have a stable roof over my head and enough food to eat every day. I have a wonderful, loving, supportive boyfriend of several years; he and his family are awesome. Both my parents are still living–I can depend on them for advice and love, and I can also reciprocate the care for them that they lavished on me in my growing-up years. I have a great church family that accepts and loves me, and has helped me to grow more spiritually in the last 4 years than I did in the first 23. Plus, I have the free time to do a lot of creative projects, like this blog, that help others, even if I’m not getting paid for any of it. There’s a great emotional benefit to doing something that others enjoy, and while it’s not a paycheck, it fulfills a creative need in me.

Perfect Lives =/= Happiness

Many times we get wrapped up in how terrible our lives are when we start looking at the negatives of our lives, all the things that shouldn’t be happening to us but are, all the illness and emotional garbage, all the family and friend drama, not to mention workplace drama and unfairness. We get all torn up about our lives’ quality, wishing for the financial, romantic, and familial perfection we see pictured in movies and television.

I am not immune to that, any more than anybody else. I will say, personally, that it’s very easy, especially in the darkness of the wee hours of morning, to get depressed over the circumstances of my life, homebound and job-frustrated as I am.

But I am CONTENT. I am not living a perfect life, an ideal life. There are conditions I’m dealing with that I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could walk without pain, and I wish I had a job, for instance. But I am blessed to have the talents I have, and the amount of love that pours into my life from others helps to drown these relatively small pains. There are people in the world who would covet my life as it is now; the best thing I can do is to praise God for all the blessings He’s shown me, and give others an opportunity for similar blessings through outreach work and giving as I am able.

Though there’s a lot of junk in my life, literally and figuratively, the positives of my life balance the negatives. I am not living an idealized life, but I am much better off than I could be. Realizing that I am much more blessed than I even imagine can, in itself, lift me up. Knowing that I can help others because I am blessed lifts me up, too.

A Challenge for You

I challenge my readers (all 10 of you, lol) to think of three areas of your life which are going well. For me, my church life, my relationships, and my creative life are all going very well. The areas of your life can be big or small, but think of three. Write them down so you remember them, and look back at the list when you are feeling terrible.

Trust me, it works: even when all else seems to be failing in another area (like health, for me), I can look to my successes in three other areas and think, “Well, things could be much worse for me–I am blessed to have what I have.” We all need some practice at feeling content with our imperfect lives…this is one way to do it.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Christmas Glassics: Tuesday on the Soapbox

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Today, I’ll review the social commentary and philosophy posts I’ve made on Crooked Glasses since July 2011. I’ve written about a wide variety of topics this fall and winter, so there is much to read–but it won’t be a textbook, I promise!

If you’re interested in seeing more posts from this category, my first Tuesday on the Soapbox Glassics post can be found here.

The Lighthearted Writing

Laughable life anecdotes, favorite fashion/hairstyle and beauty product preferences, and not being afraid to say “Woot!” have graced this category over the last few months.

I’ve also written about taking just 5 minutes to relax, enjoying perfect little moments and favorite times of day. Other humorous articles include learning how to drive like a ninja, the strange “cage shoe” fad, and hilarious typo/autocorrect fails.

Srs Bsns (Serious Business): Eye-Opening Articles

I’ve literally covered a lot of mental ground this fall and winter…everything from the pathetic lack of empathy in today’s society to the difficulty of forgiveness.

Personal anecdotes (perhaps a little tirade-ish) dot this category a little more heavily; I wrote a good bit about my beefs with forgotten spelling, modern TV shows’ quality, and politicians talking over each other without listening. I also spoke about my frustrations with handicapped parking being taken by non-handicapped people, still living on dialup internet, getting healthy without emotional support, and the physical pain I endure daily.

Combining anecdote with universal insight, I have also written articles on living without a laptop, epic math hatred, feeling alien to this society, missing the company of furry friends, and dealing with mental clutter.

Dive In Anywhere–The Reading’s Fine

Though I do not claim to be an accomplished commentator, I know that I can at least put forth an opinion decently. My hope is that you gain something positive from these articles, even if they are more solemn than LOL-inducing.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

This is What Happens to Robin without a Pet

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I’ve had pets most of my life, from cats to dogs, from turtles (Mr. Koopa 😛 ) to rabbits (Mr. and Mrs. Bunny). Both my mom and me are animal-lovers. (I regularly swerve out of the way of animals in the road, and have been known to weep if I can’t swerve out of the way in time.) I also like to cuddle and pet animals…but the pet store is an exercise in both fun and masochism. I love them, but I have to leave them all there. ;_;

I Apparently Cannot Haz (Living) Petz

Why do I have to leave pets at the store? Unfortunately, we live in the middle of a big forest which is simultaneously a little too close to the roadway–most of our pet animals end up navigating straight into traffic and being killed. We also suspect that other people nearby may have ended up accidentally “adopting” our pets, since many of “our” animals were half-wild and we could never catch them to put collars on them. Not to mention that the pound has likely been called by to pick up “strays” that might not be stray.

The dangers from humans isn’t the only danger to our pets. Wild animals, like raccoons and feral dogs, have killed many of our smaller animals (poor Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, and all the little kittens that have disappeared over the years… :C ). Heck, even some of our own pets have fought or preyed on each other–two of our otherwise nice dogs absolutely loved killing and eating many of the kittens that were born on the place during their lifetimes. (Is it any wonder I’m a cat person?)

After the disappearance of my last cat, Stacy, and her unnamed kitten, I have been loath to get another pet; my mom feels the same way since our last dog, Big Sam, was hit and killed in the road. As horrible luck as we’ve had keeping pets over the years, it just doesn’t seem right to subject another pet to that, or to get attached to yet another pet that will just get killed or disappear.

The Great Indoors Ain’t All That Great, Either

And if you’re wondering why we just don’t keep them indoors, it’s not because we don’t love them, but because indoor animals are just not an option right now, due to ill health. Keeping a pet inside is more responsibility than any of my family can handle right now with all the health problems Mom and Dad and I all have. Ill health has also led to lots of human junk and mess scattered about our house (you don’t move home six times from college without junk accumulating everywhere). This would not be a healthy or safe environment for a pet. And since outside is just as unsafe for pets as inside, it pretty much means no pets for us.

;_; I Miss Fuzzy Furry Friends…

But knowing all this doesn’t stop me from missing the company of a little animal (most especially a kitty). There’s just something about having a pet around the place…it’s comforting to know that I can go outside and just relax while petting a sweet kitty or doggie. Without animals around the place, I get nervous when I hear nighttime sounds around the house (it ain’t my animal making that eerie crying noise, so what is it?)

Knowing that pets help reduce blood pressure and stress, and knowing that I find myself stressed out more than usual these days, makes me know I could likely use a pet of my own at some point. Till then, I’ll content myself with keeping my boyfriend’s family pets entertained…after all, throwing a ball for a severely ADHD Dachshund does have its perks. XD

Tuesday on the Soapbox

The Long-Standing Feud Between Math and Me

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For much of my school life, I have hated math. It was the one subject I didn’t always do very well in. The studies of literature, social studies, and science came easily to me, as did the studies of foreign language, music, and drama; they were like favorite cats, purring in my lap and winding lazily around my ankles. Math was a different beast entirely–learning math was like trying to catch an eel with Vaseline-slicked hands.

And yet, strangely, I remember a time when I didn’t hate math. I would ask my father to come up with adding and subtracting problems with big numbers when I was first going to school, just to show how I could do it. But that was within the safety of my home, where I knew I wasn’t going to be teased within an inch of my life for being wrong.

First Problem with Math: I’m Either Right or I’m Wrong (and Usually, I’m Wrong)

At school, I didn’t feel I could afford to be wrong in front of everyone else. If I called out a wrong answer to a math problem, I heard about it for the rest of the week in vicious taunts and insults (more than normal ribbing)–the other kids couldn’t get enough of me failing, because usually I did so well in classes.

And, unluckily for me, wrong answers just became more and more common on my math tests and homework as I grew up. Soon, math wasn’t just adding and subtracting anymore, but “multiplying” (something I barely wrapped my brain around before the end of third grade), not to speak of the devilish art of “dividing”. (I believe long division is practiced most often in one of the circles of Hell described in Dante’s Inferno.)

Multiplying and dividing were longer, more involved processes, which were harder for me to concentrate on anyway because they were a pain to learn and a pain to remember. And because they took longer to do and I didn’t like focusing on them, they were harder to get right. Moreover, I didn’t understand WHY I had to do them. Adding and subtracting were easy because they were quick to do and I could easily see where they were used in the “real world.” Pardon the Southernism, but I thought, “When in tarnation am I going to have to know how to divide 256 by 8, or know the result of 12 x 17?”

As I got into these somewhat higher realms of math in upper elementary school, I was at the same time studying more advanced literature, social studies, and science, since I was in the Academically Gifted program. No one, not my teachers or the other students, could understand why I was so good at everything but math, and I could not tell them why either, but I could tell them exactly how frustrated it made me.

Second Problem with Math: It Makes Me Look Stupid

Much later, I was able to understand what it was about math that drove me nuts. Math proved to me how imperfect I was. The subject of math showed me that no matter how hard I tried, I was always going to be stupid and wrong at SOMETHING, and that other people would likely focus on the one thing I did WRONG rather than the 99 things I did RIGHT. We, as a society, focus on errors in someone else’s performance much more than we focus on their successes. (Can I get an AMEN?)

As a perfectionist, math and its nearly-inherent difficulty infuriated me beyond reason; I, too, focused on the one thing I did poorly on versus the many things I could do well. How could I spend literally HOURS working and working at a problem and get it WRONG? Was there not credit for effort, for the number of times I had to erase and start over? (I hate erasing almost as much as math–you never quite get the paper clean again!)

Not to mention that there was no way to “skip a step” to make the process of each problem faster; if I tried to make it go faster, I ended up getting horribly wrong results. To do it right, I had to do it slow, and I hated going slow. I wanted the answers yesterday, and I wanted them to be right, too, but my brain just wouldn’t do them. The processes I was asked to use were always so long and drawn-out and boring to my mind, and you had to do them JUST SO or everything would tumble down like a house of cards you breathed on too hard.

Third Problem with Math: It Became the Largest Source of Anxiety in My Academic Life

By fourth and fifth grade, math became a seat of anxiety in my mind, and anxiety, as I now know, “locks up” my thought process. All I could think about while trying to work on math problems was how much of a pain the problem was, not how to do it, and I ruminated around and around in circles till I couldn’t focus anymore. Even multiple-choice tests were no help; I often came up with answers that weren’t even LISTED. I could work myself into a nice big crying fit just trying to do five math problems, because each of them made me look stupid and helpless with every fruitless minute I spent on them. The other students’ teasing voices and laughter only served to heighten my anxieties even further–not only was I having trouble with math, but my troubles were public knowledge. The shame of it!

The Math Hatred Flowchart

The only thing this flowchart doesn’t show is that my math hatred was cyclical–once I got to the “math hatred of epic proportions,” problem-solving got longer, and longer, and longer. This, as you might imagine, led to more anxiety, more teasing, even more anxiety, and even more of a sense of futility. Why even keep TRYING to do well at this subject, when it was obviously in God’s will that I keep failing?

Fourth Problem with Math: It Was the Only Way to Be Respected Academically

By “failing”, I mean getting less than 90% on tests and homework. I was supposed to be one of the “smart kids,” but math threw me into emotional tailspins and locked me on a straight downward course with the ground. I was supposed to be a “smart kid,” but I was hamstrung when it came to math. It dragged down my GPA and made others doubt my gifts in other areas.

And of course, in the mid-to-late ’90s, being hyper-good at math meant you were considered a genius, while being hyper-good at everything else BUT math meant there was something wrong with you. All the “math and technology” special schools and the math competitions that sprung up everywhere told me that. Math was how you “got ahead” academically, how you got respect from other kids (and teachers!), and I just COULDN’T DO IT.

The frustration I experienced! I coveted that respect more than anything–I sure as heck wasn’t getting any friendship at school, after all. If I was disrespected and generally repudiated by most of the kids I went to school with, where did I belong in the academic society? Nowhere, and I wanted to belong, very badly.

Fifth Problem with Math: It Threatened to Ruin My Fragile Social Status

Other than my academics, I really didn’t have much going for me during much of my public schooling. I had no friends, no social life; for much of it, I had nothing else I did that was just mine, like a special gift of any sort. I was just “smart”, but I didn’t feel I deserved the label of “smart” because I stunk at math. My social status in school, for much of my public school life, rode on my grades, and those darned low B’s in math made me feel worse than average–again, like there was something wrong with me because I wasn’t good in a subject full of absolutes and just numbers.

Up until 7th grade and the discovery of my musical and written gifts, math kicked me in the shins over and over again, making me feel that no matter how old I got, I’d never get any respect for my intellect. I’d always be judged as lacking, by both my peers and my authority figures. To the boys, I was just another “stupid girl” who wasn’t good at math. To the girls, I was some unpopular whining thing who cried over her math books all the time. And the teachers just couldn’t get a handle on WHY math made me so angry. At the time, I could not tell them all of this, because I couldn’t self-analyze. All I knew was that the sight of numbers on a page with the instructions “Do 30 of these problems” locked my brain into obsession with my imminent failure.

The Math Feud, From Middle School to Present-Day

All of the above problems and fears popped up at irregular intervals throughout middle school, high school, and even up into college. I began to see myself as a complete failure when it came to math, so I didn’t expect hardly anything of myself when working with the subject matter. Though I hated seeing those B’s in math appear next to my perfect record of A’s in all the other subjects, I knew it was no better than I could do. I was stupid in math, and the sooner I realized it, I reasoned, the sooner I could perhaps get over this crippling anxiety and fear of failure.

But it rankled in my gut that I couldn’t do any better, and occasionally anxiety still gripped my mind again when faced with problems I just didn’t know how to do. (Example: my College Algebra midterm, in which I stared at the paper for about 10 minutes before bursting into tears. I think I hate solving for x, y, and z just a wee bit more than scrubbing tile grout with a baby-sized toothbrush.) I struggled with math as long as I had to, and as soon as my college credits for math were satisfied, I avoided it as much as possible.

These days, math and I are not on speaking terms. I imagine if I saw math coming down the street on the same sidewalk as me, I’d switch over to the other side of the road, much as I avoid the real-life bullies I went to school with. I do as little with it as I possibly can, to keep from the feelings of futility and fear that ruled me in public school and college.

(I’ve also found that other highly-technical, absolute right-or-wrong subject matters, such as dynamic website coding, sentence diagramming/explicit grammar rules, and music theory are also difficult for me. An overly-long, involved process with lots of itty-bitty, easily-mistaken steps, leading to a result that might or might not be right, seems to be the perfect recipe for a Robin meltdown. PHP, MySQL, I’m lookin’ at you. :P)

Will There Ever Be a Solution to the Math Problem?

Math still means failure, anxiety, and tears to me, and I think it always will, just as literature and music will always mean success, comfort, and smiles. Even now, I kid that my brain is just “not wired” for math, and I willingly leave mathematical operations to those who wish to do them.

However, I do not believe that there is absolutely no hope for me when it comes to math. Perhaps, if I had a very understanding teacher who could help me gain more positive psychological associations with math, I could potentially break down the centrifugal anxiety ride long enough to actually do stuff with it. The curiosity about math that I once had as a child is still there, because it’s a mental frontier I have yet to conquer; it’s, however, a frontier whose native animals have bitten and stung me more times than I care to admit. 😛

Tuesday on the Soapbox

I Heart Typos

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Typos are just funny. When you know what the person meant to say, and yet it came out so differently…it’s hilarious. That’s probably one reason I love sites like Lamebook and WTF AutoCorrects–the funniest moments come from those inadvertent mistakes in a status message or a comment, and it renders the whole sentence as nonsense. Both sites, as well as thousands of others across the Internet, are brimming with typo examples that make me giggle.

But it’s not just online that typos appear for a quick laugh. Signage, especially handwritten signs or movable-letter signs, can be just as full of errors and lead to a snort or snicker while driving down the road. (I actually had to pull off the road into a parking lot one time because I had driven by a prom dress shop whose sign read “BUY YOUR WHOLE PRON LOOK HERE.” I was laughing so hard at the unintentional Internet porn reference, I was crying and couldn’t drive. XD)

As a former English teacher, I’ve seen my share of typos and their written counterparts in student work, and I see a lot of them online. I know I really shouldn’t laugh at typos, but should madly correct them with a grumble and a swipe of my red pen. …but I DO laugh. Often. And without holding back. Each typo I see is a little unexpected jolt of “LOL” in the middle of a day of “BLAH” or a session of “OMGIHAVETOREADTHIS???REALLY?!”.

I think typos and autocorrects give us all a little mental break, even if we have to go back and fix them. It’s fun to realize everyone’s still human!

Examples of Typos that Make Me Laugh

For each of these, click the image for a larger picture.


I love it when people confuse hungry with Hungary. Then I can come back at them with a joke about heading to Turkey if you’re Hungary. XD


Typo + irony. Guaranteed to make a Robin laugh.


“Carpet the day,” hmm? LOL


Both the typo and the commenter’s response give me fits of the snickers.


Homophones are hard to tell apart, aren’t they? (I should know, I had to teach and reteach about how to spell different words that sound alike while I taught school…)


The graffiti itself is merely laughable. The reply is delightfully snark. XD


Hilarious (and somewhat accurate, considering the state of Myspace?) autocorrect.
Autocorrect + lots of win in reply. XD

So…much…fail…can’t breathe from laughing at the multiple autocorrects!

Credits to Lamebook and WTF AutoCorrects for the pictures and the hundreds of hours of LOLs. 😀

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Cage Shoes and Bootie Heels: Like Wooden Clogs, Only Weirder

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There’s a new trend in shoes that I just really don’t get: the trend of caging one’s foot in fabric or leather, either in straps or in larger pieces of fabric, that come together to ALMOST form a boot shape, but not really. I’ve seen it referred to as a “bootie heel” or a “peep-toe bootie”. I call it like I see it–a “cage shoe” or “clog.” And even real wooden clogs are not this odd.

First, we have the “cage shoe” look, in which thick straps of fabric are woven or stretched across the foot, sometimes almost-completely encasing the foot, sometimes not.


Your feet ain’t goin’ anywhere.
Now you see your foot, now you don’t
Trying to be a sandal?
Going for the woven look?

Strange cutouts in the toe area…painful to look at
Stuck between a cage sandal and a bootie wedge

Then we have the “peeptoe” bootie, which is almost-but-not-quite a full boot, except without the fabric rising above the ankle that would make the shoe actually look nicer on the leg.


It might have been cool if it was just a high-heeled ankle-high boot
Not really a “bootie,” but not really a wedge heel either. And that color combo… :/
Almost a feminine boot, but not quite

Thirdly, we have the “full-coverage” bootie, which isn’t a style of pants but a style of shoe, covering the whole foot but forgetting the flattering ankle fit.


Clogs with leopard print on them. Really?
Clunky in the front, spiky in the back–the shoe version of a mullet.

We also have the “hiking-boot” style bootie heel, which attempts to blend feminine and masculine shoe styles together…um, yeah.


Clomp, clomp, clomp.
It has Grandpa’s laces, but it matches the granddaughter’s wardrobe better.
Strange angular shape to this bootie…

Strangely over-masculine…I think it’s the leather color and the laces that makes me think that.

And lastly, we have the “backless” bootie, which might be the strangest-looking shoe of the whole bunch:


The shoe version of a backless top, I guess…?
WHAT. In the world. Is this. I don’t even.

The above photos show the variety these strange shoes come in–they are in all colors and all fabrics, and either high-heels or wedges, but they always look like a hiking boot or clog gone wrong. They manage to make even the thinnest of legs look violently cut off at the bottom of the ankle; they somehow strike a horrid balance between strange couture and vagrant chic.

Is it just me? Is it a marker of my growing-up years and my culture, that I prefer shoes that DON’T look like cement blocks made in fashionable colors? I’m not sure. All I know is that these styles don’t flatter any woman’s legs at all, and they don’t look all that comfortable, either–I’m all too familiar with how multiple straps, thin or thick, can bind swelling feet when you’re standing in heels like that. And the peep-toe cutting straight across cramped toes–ah, the red marks of pain!

Basically, these styles of shoe offend two of my long-standing rules of fashion:

  1. Wear shoes that flatter your legs, whenever possible;
  2. Wear shoes that are comfortable to your feet, whenever possible.

Comfort and style are often at odds, even for me, but even the original Crocs boat-shoe look is better than this (and more comfortable to boot–pardon the pun).

Just thought I’d share this bit of fashion weirdness and ask your opinion on this kind of footwear. Are they more comfortable than they look? Are there instances where this style actually looks good with other items of clothing?

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Driving like a Ninja

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In my little Ford Focus ZX3, I usually tool around town driving as defensively and carefully as possible. Of course, there is the odd moment where I am not focused on the road (phone ringing or preventing things from taking a tumble into the floorboard), but for the most part, I do my best to stay alert. This is very difficult in an age where we are all supposed to be hyper-accessible to other people no matter what we’re doing, and we’re all supposed to stay updated on absolutely EVERYTHING that happens every day.

Not only that, I use my car’s small size to maneuver in and out of traffic a lot more easily. Even though I have been in a couple of minor accidents (very, VERY minor–no injury and only a bit of damage), through God’s grace I’ve been able to avoid thousands more accidents. Sometimes I wasn’t sure whether I was going to be able to stop in time–and sometimes, I’ve thanked God that I looked up or noticed something when I did.

This is what I call “ninja-driving”–scooting away from danger and getting where I need to be as safely as possible. It involves quite a bit of alertness, a large helping of creative driving skills, and lastly (and most importantly), a lot of divine blessings. 😀

An Old-School Example of Ninja-Driving from My Family

I suppose ninja-driving runs in the family. A funny family anecdote goes something like this:

My grandfather was driving my grandmother, mom, and dad to a backyard barbecue in the community. They arrived, and he was trying to park in the hosts’ car-crowded front yard. The only way to get to the last piece of usable yard space (it was a BIG barbecue!) was to drive straight between two other cars, which at first looked too close together to get through.

Without a pause, Granddaddy slowly advanced toward the cars, and the narrow space between them. Gran and Mom were in the backseat of the car and saw what he was intending to do–they both gasped.

He laughed. “I’m not gonna worry till I hear my son-in-law holler.” And the car slid straight through without a scratch or bump on either side. 🙂

I don’t know if I’ve inherited much of Granddaddy’s abilities, but I do like to call my little car the “ninja car,” because its small size and decent pickup speed has helped it escape much danger (and thus, I stay safer, too).

How Do You Define “Ninja Driving?”

I like to think driving like a ninja includes the following:

  • Aggressive use of brakes (i.e., not being afraid to brake if it will avoid an accident). If the person behind you is too distracted to stop or too busy tailgating you to pay attention to your brakes, that’s not your problem. What would be your problem is if you let yourself be intimidated and ran into the back of someone else.
  • Tapping brakes to alert drivers behind you–flashing red lights usually attract attention, and it’s easier to hit than your hazards. I use this when I’m coming up on a traffic situation I’m unsure of, just in case the guy/gal behind me isn’t paying much attention.
  • Using the side of the road (carefully) as a way to avoid an accident–just don’t hit the brakes when your tire goes off-road, and don’t rush to get back on the road. Let off gas, glide onto side of road, then glide back on when it’s safe. Easy does it. Don’t get too nervous when you hear and feel the noise of your tire being off-road–trust me, your car will survive it much better if you don’t get nervous.
  • Watching your mirrors, all the time. I watch my rearview mirror (out of peripheral vision) almost as much as I watch what’s coming up ahead of me. Keeps tabs on tailgaters, rapidly accelerating people, people who don’t know what “STOP” means, etc.

    (This saved my life at a stoplight late one night–a transfer truck blew through a red light that I had been stopped at, until I looked in my rearview mirror and thought, “That guy doesn’t look like he’s going to stop.” I inched over into the left-turn lane instead, and a few seconds later, the truck barreled straight through the intersection. He would have totaled me and my little car both had I not seen him and moved.)

  • Taking back roads if it would mean avoiding a very difficult intersection or difficult turn.
  • Avoiding driving at night unless I have to–people seem to “forget” how to drive at night.
  • In very heavy rain, using hazard lights. Sometimes, that’s the only way people can see you in their rearview mirror when the world around their cars is veiled with a gray curtain of rain!

Summary

Driving is not just a skill, it’s an art…and like any art, it takes practice. Though I know I’ll never be as awesomely ninja as a stunt driver, a girl can dream–while avoiding accidents!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

5 Minutes to Relaxation

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I have a hard time relaxing. Even when I sleep, I stay tensed up in my neck and shoulders. How do I know that? Because I wake up with killer tension headaches. :C

I don’t think I’m the only one who suffers from chronic tension. In fact, I’d wager that many of us walk around with so much everyday tension that we’ve honestly forgotten it’s there. This tension is not only painful (mentally and physically), it eventually eats at our health. I’ve seen my father suffer the effects of long-term stress, with chest pains, swollen legs and feet, breathlessness, and painful joints; I don’t want to end up in constant pain like he has.

Why Traditional Methods of Relieving Stress Don’t Always Work

I don’t know about y’all, but I find traditional methods of stress relief to be BO-RING. Meditation is great; meditation works for some people. For me, it’s 10-15 minutes of letting my brain run absolutely amok–it will not shut up, and it requires something else to focus on besides my guilt and worries. Meditation, for me, causes more tension than it relieves because I am alone with my thoughts…and that’s not a good thing.

Writing things down sorta-kinda works for me, except for the fact that handwriting takes soooo veryyyy lonnnggg when I’m used to typing almost as fast as I can think. In this case, my frustration with the medium (pen and paper) stop me from relaxing, because I hate the slow pace of my handwriting. (I definitely don’t think I’m alone in that, LOL.) I wish I could write faster, but as my hand cramps very badly from long years of not using my handwriting, I end up scripting words at a snail’s pace, often making stupid and obvious spelling mistakes because my brain is light-years ahead of my pen. (One more frustration!)

The 5-Minute Methods that Work for Me

  • Focused, deep breathing.

    Yes, I know, this sounds weird. Why would deep breathing work for me and not meditation?

    I think it’s because deep breathing forces me to focus on a task (breathing in so deeply that my belly expands, and then letting it out through pursed lips). With something concrete and simple to focus on, my brain momentarily pushes away all the other junk that would normally be clouding my thoughts.

  • Tensing and relaxing muscles.

    I read this in an old-as-grass health book back in middle school, and I’ve used it to good effect since then. Basically, you lie in bed, and squinch all your muscles up as tightly as you can for at least 30 seconds. Then, starting with your feet and legs, relax all the muscles, moving up through your body until you’ve relaxed everything.

    This always leaves me feeling pleasantly warm and relaxed, as if I’d had a brief massage…and it makes you realize just how much tension you’ve already been carrying around!

  • Rural driving at dusk.

    For me, driving on an unhurried evening with a beautiful vista surrounding me (and very few cars around) is very, very relaxing. You would think driving would tense me up, but in fact, moving through the landscape at 35-45 mph, watching the shadows slowly lengthen and the colors slowly change toward night, is quite lovely. Now, I do need a rural setting for this–having to deal with sudden brake lights ahead of me and annoying tailgaters behind me isn’t relaxing at all–but if I can find me a nice, empty road to drive on, it works.

  • Eating pasta–any kind.

    Fettuccine alfredo? Oh yeah, I’m there. 3-minute mac’n’cheese heated up in the microwave, with a little garlic powder added to taste? Sure, bring it on!

    No matter the price point, pasta always relaxes me. Perhaps it’s the heaviness of the meal or the fact that it feels so good to eat something so non-diet…but it’s definitely “comfort food.” 😀

  • Turning a fan on and wrapping up in a blanket.

    Sounds counterintuitive, but for some reason, feeling a breeze on my face while being otherwise snuggled up is relaxing for me. It’s just cool enough that I can unwind, but I’m not tensed up and freezing my fat off.

  • Smelling lavender and/or vanilla scents.

    This has been scientifically studied and proven over the last century–these two fragrances are most calming and stress-relieving. I scoffed at this until I started cooking with vanilla extract one day and found myself in a much better mood, despite having to deal with some iffy burners and an almost-epic-fail or two on the stove. Since then, I have begun using vanilla and lavender around my home to subtly affect the air, and combined with a good movie, a warm blanket, and a full tummy, this sends me into relaxed sleep in no time.

    Vanilla and lavender both are pleasant scents and are easy to come by in body fragrance, home scents, and even in cleaning products, as the Essential Oil Use Chart for Cleaning will attest.

    Other links for learning more about these scents:
    Vanilla and Aromatherapy
    The Sensational Power of Scent
    Uncommon Scents Love Nose Best

How Do YOU Relax?

In the end, these ideas of mine are simply that–ideas, presented as options for you. If you find that these work for you like they have worked for me, then that’s wonderful. But if they don’t, you might just need a little more research into what might relax you most. It took me years to find these tricks…yours might be hiding and waiting to be discovered, too!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

“Woot!”

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I say this often and about the most random things. Someone just got through a terrible traffic jam without getting hit? WOOT! I just found out one of my Sunday School class is out of the hospital and resting well at home? WOOT!

Some might think it’s weird for me to holler “Woot!” about small things like this. After all, the saying “WOOT” supposedly came from gamers saying “We Own the Other Team” (which I highly doubt because “Woot” is clearly a celebratory noise). But I use it like I think it means–a sound of joy, celebration, happiness restored. And I’m not shy about using it, even though I’ve had people tell me I need to be quiet or I need to stop using it because it sounds stupid or childish.

My opinion is, if we don’t celebrate the small things, praise God about all the little things He’s done for us, then we won’t be used to praising Him when the big miracles come our way. “Woot” is simply my way of praising with joy and abandon. If we forget how to be happy and instead practice complaining, soon there won’t be much for us to “woot” about in our whole lives. Being more childlike, being willing to shout for joy rather than clamming up just because it’s “not proper” to hoot and holler, is how I’d prefer to live.

I’m willing to look a little stupid in front of others, if it means I praise God, Who has done the wonderful thing I’m shouting “woot!” about. Sure, in that moment I don’t sound like a woman in her late twenties who “oughta know better.” But maybe I don’t have to “know better.” Maybe I’m perfectly okay allowing myself to celebrate even small victories. …And maybe we’d all feel a little better if we let out a “woot” or two about our own small wins.