Sugar Sugar Honey Honey

I'm not the sweet type. Sugar, that is.

I have fairly simple tastes: Black coffee, plain cake, plain vanilla ice cream, unsweetened tea. Don't get me wrong, I can devour a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups like the best of them. 

That's normal.

The irony of a Krispy Kreme cooking up gluten overload within five miles of my house is not lost on me. On the rare occasion I do eat there, and it is rare, I get the plain, non-glazed donuts. Mr Coffee, however, makes a concerted effort to consume four days of his sugar intake in one go. The man has been blessed with some inhumanly sick ability (read: enviable) to devour half a dozen double-frosted, sugar-bomb, raspberry-filled, double-chocolate something-or-others and not slip into a sugar coma.

Mr Coffee inherited my portion of the sweet tooth. Fortunately for him, he also got my portion of keeping it off the scale. 

The hot, brilliant, sugar-eating jerk.

After consuming trace amounts of sugar, I feel like my vital organs are shutting down and I'm fully cognizant of my body's equivalent of vibrating bubbles out of a concrete foundation. All this aversion to sugary sweetness has turned me into one of those label readers. 

Sodium content, high fructose corn syrup, and how many servings they sneak into a pint of Haagen Dazs. It's criminal that you can devour 220% of your daily fat intake in one of those little Tardis like "four servings but are really one serving" pints.

Who in their lactose-fueled mind can stop half way through one of those? Not me, and that too is normal.

At a young age, and by young I mean still in diapers, society is indoctrinating and molding us into becoming label readers. Doctors, media, parents, school, government-subsidized farmers monetarily motivated by the US Department of Agriculture. The USDA is paying off wheat farmers, who in turn, encourage us to eat 6 to 9 servings of bread. NiNE SeRViNgS of bread. That's a round of sourdough in one day.

Since the government tells us how to eat, it's only natural that movies and TV would follow. I remember those 1980s-era Skippy peanut butter commercials getting in on the action. Don't even start with TikToks about those peanut butters with pistachios and chocolate.

My 2nd grade sister holding up a jar of peanut butter at the grocery regurgitating through a Vanna White grin and modeling her best Annette Funicello, "Buy this, Linda! It has good nutrition!"  

On top of this, with my label reading and natural sugar avoidance, could someone please, then, explain to me why, oh why, my teeth are falling out? Do your teeth just start to revolt once you turn 18? Have a baby? Once you start paying your own bills? Or do they wait until you start getting crows feet and a mustache just to mix things up? And it's not just us girls.

It wasn't until I was 24 and knocked up with my first child that I began to have teeth issues. Forget the other dangers of unprotected sex. They never mention a tooth revolt with pregnancy. Not once. Nor do they explain when you are 10 years old that one slip of proper hygiene is akin to ping hammering your teeth once you turn 25.

Brushing away a few, slacking, bedtime habits the night before a dentist checkup doesn't count.

Fast forward to adulthood and compulsive flossing. I have flossing picks everywhere. I'm the OCD of the dental world. Little hand flossers packed in my purse, in the van, in a bag in front of my computer. My compulsion has paid off and my hygienist loves me. However, I still need root canal, crown, have a cracked filling, blah, blah, blah. My front teeth repair is another long story involving roller skates, a blanket, and ramming my 7 year-old face into a steel pole.

I've motivated my kids in the past, sporadically inspiring household hygiene with the Billy Bob teeth angle. I sputter out through fake plastic, black, misaligned teeth in my best redneckerson, "SMOOCH! Youse want some teeth like me?! Don'cha ever brush...hey, give yer mama some sugar."

Not that uneducated or poor means bad hygiene. Kids with parents with money to burn just have better dentists.

Armed with good dose of fear, my adult kids have good hygiene habits for life. I also have label readers that would make even Linda cry into her recommended servings of protein-filled TikTok peanut butter.

~Bee may or may not be approved by the American Dental Association
Listening to: Smile Like You Mean It by The Killers

 ░B░e░e░ ░R░e░p░a░r░t░e░e░

Oregon Is Pink and Florida Is Orange

How are you at puzzles? 

I remember growing up, we had a United States map puzzle. Every parent and grandparent in the world needs one of these. 

My sisters and I took turns putting each state carefully together. We'd spend hours doing our USA puzzle. Then we tried timing how fast we could go. We were competitive and home-schooled. It was bound to happen.

Without realizing, we learned all the states and capitols. Immersion teaching. Although, I think this was my kids version, I remember the colors. Somehow blue is missing. I have to ask my sisters.

The pieces were paper on cardboard. California and Washington were yellow, as was Texas. 

I forget the colors for Hawaii and Alaska.

Maine and Oregon were pink. 

Montana was a lovely purple. 

Florida was a garish orange. 

What baffles me is I can't remember where my coffee cup is, but Oregon is pink?

I think my parents had some realization of how I was wired. I did my puzzle by color and alphabetically. The orangey-brown color I solved these first because I disliked that color the most. After some time, I had to glue the pointy tip of Texas due to peeling cardboard paper. New Mexico squished it all the time. 

Of course, it did. New Mexico was pink, too. 

Puzzles have a way of calming me when I'm hamster-wheeling in my head. My kids are the same. I bought them the same map puzzle I had as a child. Now they are adults and that puzzle lost its life in a juice incident years ago. 

I use a website. Sheppard Software. I've mapped out their puzzles online for literally 20 years. I don't know if they offer software but their online world geography puzzles are amazing. Homeschool parents, take notes. 

It should be noted, I found this picture after I wrote this post. Not bad for someone who forgets where she left her glasses 2 minutes ago. On her head.

 

 -Bee knew the whole time they were on her head.

Listening to: Neighbors power washing their walkway.

 ░B░e░e░ ░R░e░p░a░r░t░e░e░

Shuck It Bucket

 Are you still here? I'm thankful for you.

I told myself, "Self, you need to get things out of your head. Why don't you write on your blog again? Not just the negative, but take a breath and clear the gray matter"

My self is so smart. To catch you up, things have changed over the last few
years.

My kids are grown. Like, grown-grown. Only two-left-on-my-insurance grown. One married off and the other three making their way.

I have a four year old grandson who loves cars and abandons all sense of self preservation when he can. I'm certain his goal in any given room, is to find the highest point and find a way to get there. 

I am starting a new job. One in HR/Benefits. My antiquing business has been reduced to hobbyist seller. I like that I can come back to it, giving as much time as I want to.

I'm hiking now. Doesn't everyone say they love hiking? Those trails would be so much fuller if everyone hiked that says they hike.

Hubs is still in construction. He's been working a few months at a house on a hill out in the boondocks. I've visited the homeowner and they have about 40 chickens and lots of eggs. Their place looks like a whimsical Swiss Chalet. I understand the homeowner has a saw mill. The property is idyllic, nestled into the hill on a long, long back road. I can only imagine the peace they experience being 10 miles out of town. Wind gently blowing in the breeze, the smell of sawdust, and birds crapping all over the porch. 

I'll take it. Crappy birds and all.

I've been watching more TV and learning to crochet. Tik Tok watching. Book reading. Doing adult things like jobbing and buying houseplants. Getting a job. Getting a different job. Finding a groove in life (not a rut).

You don't realize that how you spend your days is how you spend your life. I've reached a more peaceful place in my life. An OCD diagnosis in 2023 and year of messing with medication came to a head. More obsessive than compulsive, I've learned a lot about mindset. I never really gave it much thought but I'm training my brain. Recognizing more and more when something derails me. 

A beach whale parking job. A loud neighbor. Spices in the wrong cupboard. That one comment that had me gerbil-wheeling in my head. Kids leaving trash in my van. Still.

I recognize things better now and focus on the good stuff. The positivity. The resolution to the plan. This has made me an expert in how to find the most efficient way to do something. I regularly use this to my advantage.

Will I ever shake myself of overthinking, over analyzing? I can't go back on medication (it causes tremors and makes me feel crazy) I don't expect a cure but I can channel my cyclical thought to be someone who lives with OCD instead of someone who suffers from OCD. I know I see things others don't. Perhaps that is part of comedy. Relating to observations of others or yourself that others may not see at first. That's why I write and that's why I like to laugh. Relating is a big one.

It also helps to analyze perspective to put it on proverbial paper. Like yesterday at a drugstore, an employee told me, after nearly hitting me with the door, that the lab was closed for lunch. She was rude and loud, "Um, we are at lunch." 

No hello. No sorry. No apologies for the wait but we'll be back in an hour. I wasn't even looking at her. I was busy trying to read all three signs.

I half smiled and looked up. Signage was everywhere so I was quite aware. "I understand. I've just been given the runaround on your hours." I admit unnecessary information but an explanation of why I'm hanging out next to the lab door seeing when I can return.

I kid you not, the woman makes her eyes wide and rolls them with her entire head, grimacing like I'm ridiculous. "Awesome", with her sarcastic reply, she should be employee of the month by now.

"Not really," I stated quietly looking back at my phone. She kept walking.

I'm ridiculous? This coming from a lady "helping" without being asked or even given eye contact, irritated I'm bugging her lunch break, and sucking on a $50 sippy cup while wearing giant eyelashes like an awning is attached to her face.

I didn't say another word and getting mad wouldn't change my trajectory. Who knows. Maybe Starbucks gave her decaf coffee.  Maybe she was late that morning or her giant eyelashes made her 90% blind. 

Either way, I'm proud of myself for not ruminating for hours on end and writing it out makes it sound even more ridiculous and innocuous. Its also far less emotionally exhausting to let it go. My friend calls it throwing it in your "you-know-what bucket". I call it the Shuck It Bucket and so far so good.

~Bee's favorite place is not the lab

Listening to: The Joke by Brandi Carlile 

 ░B░e░e░ ░R░e░p░a░r░t░e░e░