Jezebel Ruined My Childhood

Today while scrolling through my Facebook I came across an article about back to school items that 90s kids loved and spent a happy 10 minutes reveling in memories of Trapper Keepers, gel pens, erasable pens and Lisa Frank. One of my biggest memories from childhood was hunting the aisles with my mom for the erasable pens to send to family overseas. We had an elderly relative who loved crossword puzzles and was losing her eyesight, erasable pens made it possible for her to see her puzzle and still fix her mistakes. They weren't available outside of the U.S. so we had to ship them to her.

For me the best part of back to school was the school supplies! My mom was very frugal and didn't believe in anything unnecessary, but her one weakness was office supplies (still is). It was the one time of the year I was guaranteed to leave the store with something awesome. Now as a teacher I'm still a school supply junkie-no boring pens for me! I stock up on fun colored pens, pencil pouches with cool quotes and ridiculous folders. My husband says my design aesthetic is that of a 12 year old girl (I highly favor cartoon prints, pink and green, and animals). As a teacher I'm famous for wearing stupid socks (think socks with jellyfish or unicorns on them) almost daily and I proudly own a dress printed with rubber ducks (one of many novelty print dresses). I like color and I like quirkiness and I finally have the self confidence to wear all the things I couldn't in middle school (and I've moved on from an unfortunate phase of only wearing black and vintage band t-shirts. It looked wonderful with my blonde hair and pasty skin). 

Even as a kid I loved Lisa Frank and I usually had one of her folders at the very minimum, but usually I had more. I had tons of her stickers and I can assure you none of them were ever used. I hated using my stickers so I kept them all pristine and stored them in a box. I would just take them out and look at them. Why yes I was a strange kid. I still remember my gifted teacher in 3rd grade bought me a little Lisa Frank notebook with unicorns on it to keep my book ideas in. I still have it and I still use it. Every year I look for Lisa Frank folders in the school supply aisle and I never find them. 

After I reveled in my 90s memories for awhile I saw the recommended article and my heart sank. A piece by Jezebel called "Inside the Rainbow Gulag: The Technicolor Rise and Fall of Lisa Frank" with a cute picture of a unicorn being smashed under a rainbow. I clicked the article with trepidation and read through stories of drug abuse by the founders, abuse of employees and financial woes. With each line of the story my mood darkened just a little bit more-to me Lisa Frank meant hope, cheer and optimism. Hope that this was the year I was going to finally fit in (spoiler alert: I never did), a cheerful reminder on the worst days of middle school drama and optimism that the adult world would treat me much more kindly than the kid world ever did (and it does for the most part). Lisa Frank meant that heady time of the beginning of a new school year-part of a time in my life where you felt so different after 3 months off and where you could be anyone at the start of a new year. As a kid you measure your life around the school year and shopping for school supplies meant I was a year older, a year closer to being who I wanted to be, a year closer to the adulthood I so desperately craved. In my misguided youthfulness I thought the right Lisa Frank folder or sticker would let me fit in and finally be the ticket to my acceptance. I loved the start of school so much I became a teacher so I could hang onto that feeling of optimism and change. 

I would make up stories about the character on my folders-each of them had a name and a backstory. These were my first attempts at writing and shaped me as the writer I am today. I still remember some of the stories I made up about the unicorns and dolphins that danced across my math folder. 

Reading the article I was appalled by the allegations and saddened by the downturn for the company. It seems I had finally found the reason why I couldn't find any Lisa Frank products stocking the back to school shelves. The article was beautifully written and well researched, but it hurt. It hurt because in my mind I was still that kid who thought the adult world was my ticket out. In my 12 year old mind the adult world was a Lisa Frank world-she was an adult who lived her life being creative and surrounded by cheerfulness. I thought when I grew up my life would still involve rainbows and unicorns and I would be free to be who I wanted to be and people would love me for it. The article exposed the truth-a truth I know but I desperately tried to avoid. The adult world isn't pretty, it's sometimes hard and people are still just as mean as they were in high school if not meaner. Life gets more complex every single year and money and material things still don't make people happy. 

I still haven't found acceptance and I'm still an outsider in most social situations, but I have found an amazing husband who loves me for every single part of my craziness and I have found a small group of friends who love the same things I do. I no longer feel the need to have everyone like me or feel hurt when people don't accept me. 

I have the self confidence to laugh off the mean actions of others. When a co-worker accidentally sent me an email making fun of my outfit instead of sending it to her friend I laughed. I was hurt for sure, but I was able to laugh it off and still love myself.

I have the self confidence to be who I want to be. I'm no longer trying to fit it, but rather I'm trying to stand out. 

I have a life that makes me happy and let's me be creative on my own terms.

I no longer believe the adult world is all rainbows and sunshine because I've seen both the good and the bad. Now I can see that Lisa Frank's life wasn't ever easy and that the hard times were always there. However, she kept looking for the unicorns and the joy in life even as her world was falling apart. Am I sad that my childhood was tarnished? No, because I know now that no one is perfect. I still admire her for influencing an entire generation and for providing me with hope during a dark time in my life. I still love her designs and I still hope for the best for her company and for her personally. I've also discovered that Amazon stocks her products so I'll be shopping up a storm and relishing in my adulthood freedom to like what I like! 

The Great Couch Debacle

Recently DH and I decided to bite the bullet and buy a new couch-our first purchase of furniture EVER! A bit of backstory: DH graduated from college a year before me and set off to his first grown up job while I stayed in school. It was a week before his job was to start and he had made no progress on actually finding a house to live in or furnishings to put in it (DH is brilliant but he tends to procrastinate about domestic chores-and he's ridiculously forgetful so he tends to forget important things). At this point his mom took over; she picked out a townhouse and headed to the furniture store to fill it. DH never actually saw the apartment before he signed the lease.

His mom did an awesome job! We loved our townhouse (until the lady who taught piano moved in next door-but that was 2 years later) and we loved most of the furniture she had picked out. The whole house matched and was tastefully decorated in a beautiful western theme. 6 months later I moved in and the nicely decorated house began to take on more and more of my decorating style. I'm not sure you can actually call it a style though, if you were going to it would be a cross between a 12 year old girl and a hobo who lives in a box. I buy what I like and don't worry if it actually matches anything else I own. I'm messy and cluttered, but I have early stage hoarding disease so our small town house was suddenly decorated with Snoopy stuffed animals, hot pink throw pillows and piles of dirty clothes and books I had yet to read.

DH tolerated me ruining his artfully decorated home with surprisingly good grace for someone as OCD as he is (that's when I knew it was true love). The one thing we both agreed on was that we HATED the couch his mom had picked out. It was a very expensive couch, it matched the theme of the house perfectly and it looked very nice. However, sitting on it was less comfortable than sitting on a bed of nails. It had wooden arms, a wooden back, super hard cushions and it wasn't wide enough for us to cuddle on. You couldn't lean on the arms (even with a throw pillow behind your back) without them stabbing you. However, it was brand new and it looked great so we kept tolerating it as we waited for it to wear out.

This year I realized we were going to wait forever-this was a solidly constructed couch and it was never going to wear out. Our new house has a massive living room and our tiny couch looked a tad bit ridiculous in such a big space. Plus, on the rare occasions we had guests everyone ended up sitting on the floor since we didn't have any seating. We came up with a plan to move the torture couch to one side of the room and buy a nice comfy couch for us to actually sit on. We would double our seating area, not cause offense by getting rid of the evil couch and make our living room look less ridiculous.

Over Christmas my parents decided they were going to buy new furniture as their couch was worn out and sagging at one end-I decided that we should take their old couch. We agreed to come back another time with a trailer and pick it up-it didn't look too great but it was comfortable! Once we were back home we headed to town to run errands and we happened to drive by an Ashley Furniture that was having a grand opening sale. We stopped in to take a quick peek and we were pretty disappointed by the offerings. However, we did find the most awesome and comfortable couch in the world. It looked amazing, it matched our house, it was big enough for DH and the dog and myself to sit on it all at once and it had recliners. It was on a super great sale that day so we jumped on it and purchased it (paying in full and in cash).

One thing you must know about DH and I is that we are not impulsive people. We are of the generation raised to read reviews and carefully consider each purchase, I'm ridiculously high strung and we both tend to end up with paralysis by analysis. It took us almost 2 years (and the viewing of hundreds of houses) to pick the house we wanted, and the only reason we bought it was because my mom talked us into it. By nature (and as a product of the teachings of our parents) we are careful with our money and one of the ways we live such a comfortable life is to be very careful.with how we spend our money. The $600 dollars we were spending on the couch (and the extended five year warranty) wasn't a ton of money, but it was a decent chunk of change.

I don't know what came over us that day, but we jumped right into the couch purchase. We didn't read any reviews or have one of our marathon debates over the pros and cons. Within 20 minutes of entering the store we were $600 poorer and I was starting to question if we had made the right decision. We were told that we could take the couch home that day-after we paid (and they spent 10 minutes trying to talk us into a ridiculous financing deal) we were told that they would have to order the couch and it wouldn't be in for 2 weeks. That was annoying and frustrating but we could live with it. In fact, it worked better for us since we wanted to clean the carpets and reorganize the living room before setting up the couch.

My mom was really surprised when I sent her a picture of the couch and shocked that we were making such a quick decision. We waited and waited and finally right as the two weeks were up the couch arrived! I happened to be away visiting my parents for the weekend so it fell to DH to go pick it up (they wanted $180.00 to deliver it!). He drove down to get it and spent almost 30 minutes in line at the distribution warehouse waiting. He was already pissed off because we had been told we would be able to pick it up at the store-that wasn't the case and he had to drive an extra 20 miles to the downtown warehouse (when you live in the country picking up something on the other side of a major city is a HUGE undertaking and adds a lot to the 30 mile drive you've already made).

He finally got the couch home and went to take the back off so it would fit in the door-we were told the back just lifted off when we purchased the couch. He spent almost 2 hours (and several Google searches) trying to figure out how to get the stupid back off the couch. It's at this point I must point out that DH is an engineer-he regularly takes apart very expensive machines and puts them back together-he's very good at his job but he was no match for this couch.

He finally gave up and decided to wait until the next day when his friend was coming over so he would have some help. At this point Ashley had told us several lies and we were thinking some pretty nasty thoughts about them as a company. The next day DH got the couch all set up and made a very interesting discovery-one of the bars under the reclining portion of the couch was mangled and therefore it wouldn't work. Essentially we paid for a whole functioning couch and received half a couch. DH was too pissed off to call so we waited a couple of days before calling them.

DH is NOT nice to customer service people if he feels they aren't doing their job correctly so I was the one who ended up having to call. I'm usually a pretty nice person since I've worked retail and I understand how sucky it can be to get yelled at for something that isn't your fault. I called and the first gentleman was very rude-he kept insisting that we had somehow broken it while we were bringing it inside the house. I kept explaining that the non-broken side had wood screwed underneath it to protect it during shipping while the broken side did not. I also kept explaining that we had purchased the extended warranty so that should be covered even if we had broken it. He finally ended up saying to me "It's your fault for buying the couch" and hung up on me.

I called back and got another rep who was much nicer. I felt bad for him since I was still smarting from my run in with the other rep and he got an earful (I can be quite angry when I need to be). He agreed that they would order the part and send someone out to fix it. I was happy until I discovered that it was going to be two weeks for the part to arrive and another two weeks before a repair team could be dispatched to our rural town. By that time I will have spent 6 weeks of my life waiting on this couch! I asked if we could be given our money back and return the couch-I liked the couch but I was done with the frustration. I was told that they didn't allow returns, but that I would be given store credit minus a restocking fee. The refund wouldn't be enough to buy a comparable couch (since we had bought it so heavily discounted) or even a comparable chair. Plus, I wasn't about to lose 20% of my money for them to restock a broken couch.

I finally agreed to the repair but explained that I would need a Saturday repair time. I was told "Saturdays are really busy and you're so far away so you can't have that". I explained that I couldn't take time off work to deal with this and I was told I could just sneak out. I'm sure that my 8th graders won't notice that I'm missing right? I was about to go all Incredible Hulk again so I asked them to call me when they were ready to set up a repair time and we would deal with it then.

So far I'm not too happy about the way we've been treated and I'm regretting jumping in so quickly. After the fact I checked the reviews for Ashley Furniture and they were overwhelmingly negative-lots of people seem to be experiencing the same things we are. I should have listened to my gut and been my usual cautious self-if I had we wouldn't be experiencing all the aggravation and lost time. I will say that I love the half of my couch that isn't broken and I'm pleased with my purchase. I just wish I had given another company my hard earned money-like our local furniture store. I probably would have paid another few hundred dollars but I wouldn't spend a month sitting on a broken couch or have to take a day off work to wait for them to repair it.

Even though people may make fun of DH and I for being cautious we usually don't have to deal with a lot of frustration. We take our time and make sure we like what we're purchasing so we don't lose time and money to the returns process. I regret not doing that in this case. My overall conclusion is that you should always listen to your gut-even if people laugh at you for doing so. I can safely say that when it comes time for DH and I to upgrade the rest of our furniture we won't be spending our money at Ashley that's for sure!

What was I thinking?

DH left today on a boy's weekend trip. Since the weekend was going to consist of looking at farm equipment I wisely made the decision to stay home with the dog. This choice also makes me look good so I can leave town next weekend without guilt-he really owes me one!

I had planned a relaxing spa day today and I was going to do absolutely nothing! Unfortunately my type-A took over and I spend about 5 hours stripping our house of Christmas decorations. It felt good to have it done (even though DH weaseled out of helping again-I'm pretty sure he does this intentionally).

My spa day was wonderful-at least until the masseuse burned me with a hot towel-I still have a nice burn mark on my shoulder.  I left totally relaxed-except for the slight burn. However, I've developed quite a high tolerance for pain and injury since I seem to do some sort of deadly injury to myself about once a week, so no harm done.

After I got home and had dinner (and took a shower to rinse off all the sticky oil) I jumped right into my next project. Over Christmas I went on the hunt to buy a new iPod since my 8 year old iPod Touch had finally died (probably because I left it in my car for two years). As I was trolling eBay I discovered that the iPod classic came in a 160 gb version and I was sold. I had already loaded all my music on it (all 15 gigs of it) so I decided to finally begin the task of digitizing my CD collection.

I've discovered that between 1998 and 2009 I fell into some sort of strange vacumn where my usually impeccable taste abandoned me. The first two CD's were JaRule and Nelly-I was a white girl from the suburbs why on earth did I think I was cool? After listening to a few of the songs again I realized that I TOTALLY get why parents get so upset about their kids listening to this type of music. All the stuff I didn't understand in the 8th grade I get now. I'm quite glad I didn't take life advice from this music or I would be a VERY different person. I remember thinking I was a gangster back in the day-now I look back on my middle school self and think about building a time machine so I can punch her in the face. I want to tell her "In no way did you look cool strutting by the lifeguard station blasting a song about a drive-by shooting in your one piece TYR swimsuit-you looked like a complete and total idiot. No one thought you were a gangster-they thought you were mentally insane".

Does this mean I'm actually grown up now? (Oh wait-I'm still enjoying my collection of gangsta rap....along with some Conway Twitty thrown in-now people just think I'm insane)

Happy New Year!!

Well, we survived the drive home and made it safely into 2015. Now I get to spend the next 4 months writing the wrong date on my checks, forms and on the whiteboard every day (inevitably one of my 8th graders will point it out and my kiddos will mercilessly make fun of me....until they right the wrong year on an assignment).

Yesterday we left my parents' house about 1:00 in the afternoon-it was so tough to leave. Every visit, no matter how long it is, seems too short. When I visit them I have so much fun and it makes me realize how much I want them to live closer. My awesome dad spent about an hour loading up the SUV with 2 weeks worth of stuff-somehow he managed to fit everything in. I was pretty sure we would have to leave something behind, or tie the dog to the roof, but he managed to fit it all in. We couldn't see out of the rear view mirror, but who needs that anyways. 

The ride home took about an hour longer than it was supposed to. This is all because DH was driving. When I drive I follow the GPS and take the shortest route possible-I don't want to spend any more time than necessary in the car. DH, on the other hand, likes to take a new route each time and see new things (even if it's longer). He has no problem stopping at a gas station 3 miles off the interstate, whereas I try to stop only when my bladder is about to explode and only at a gas station right off the interstate. I run in and out without browsing and get back on the road. 

DH also tends to get distracted when driving; fun signs, interesting machinery, other vehicles etc are all apt to catch his attention. This tend to cause issues-such as missing our exit in Kansas City and driving an extra 25 minutes. 

We finally made it home and unloaded all the stuff. For the amount of stuff we had shoved into the car it only took us 2 hours to get it all unpacked and put away! 😃 We chowed down on a Tarte d'Alsace from Trader Joe's and watched some of the New Year's show in Miami (since we couldn't find the New York one on antenna vision) while sorting through all our mail. We finally got to see all the Christmas cards people sent us-I was surprised that we didn't get any letters this year only cards. It made me wonder if letters were passé (I sent one this year along with a cute photo card from Shutterfly-it was my first year sending Christmas cards so maybe I'm not up to date on the etiquette). DH went to bed shortly after midnight, and I stayed up until 2:30 reading.

We kept New Year's Day pretty relaxed-we both slept in and we let the dog sleep in bed with us last night (a rare treat for her when DH is home-standard when he isn't) so we had some family cuddle time. After we got up and around we headed to town to do our grocery shopping and to make a stop at Petco. After Christmas Petco puts their Christmas packaged toys and treats on sale for 50% off which means it's a great time to stock up for the year. My puppy LOVES rawhides-she gets a big rawhide once a month or so and she makes it last until she gets a new one. Raw hides are ridiculously expensive (10-15 bucks EACH) so we would be spending 100-180 bucks a year just to satisfy her need to chew. Rawhides are the only thing that she doesn't eat through in a day and she has so much fun carrying them around, burying them in one of her many hiding spots around the house and chewing on them. Plus, if she's chewing on a rawhide she's not chewing on my walls so that's a plus. Petco puts the Christmas rawhides for 50% off just because they are red and green, have holiday packaging or have cute bows. I'm pretty sure the dog doesn't care if her bones aren't seasonally appropriate so I buy a year's supply during the after Christmas sale and dole them out throughout the year.

We picked up 13 large rawhides and a package of treats for 53.00! Plus, the dog had fun on her outing to Petco (and she actually behaved on her leash! Score!). After grocery shopping we ran up to school to drop some stuff off and do some work in my classroom-DH got enlisted to do some heavy lifting and carry some boxes of books up to my 4th floor classroom! We grabbed some Taco Bell for a late lunch to celebrate our anniversary. It's really not as white trash as it sounds, when DH proposed in the middle of a massive New Year's party he handed me a Taco Bell sauce packet that said "Will you Marry me?" (Wait is that white trash?). Now it's tradition and a special reminder of that night!

We came home and did some work around the house which included cleaning the oven (and I managed not to set off the smoke alarm! Winning!). One of our friends came over in the evening for a dinner of cornbread muffins and black eyed peas and ham (according to DH if you don't eat black eyed peas on New Year's you will have bad luck). We all played Monopoly and watched some Big Bang Theory. I won at Monopoly for the first time in my life (well technically our friend and I decided that we tied)! We haven't seen this friend (he's my husband's best friend, best man in our wedding and a close friend of mine too-we usually see each other a couple of times a week) in about a month so it was awesome to get to catch up!

It was an awesome and relaxing day-just what we needed after a CRAZY two weeks. I realized I'm old when I enjoy a day at home more than any crazy party! How did you celebrate New Year's?

Days in my life that I've felt grown up

By all rights and purposes I am a grown up. I can smoke, drink, serve in the armed forces, make decisions for myself and rent a car without the underage penalty. Someone also thought that I was mature and responsible enough to be in charge of 120 8th graders for 8 hours a day. However, I usually don't feel grown up, more like a kid pretending. DH and I lived together for almost 4 years before getting married and for most of that time I felt that we were just playing house and my real home was in my childhood bedroom. There has only been a few times in my life that I've kind of felt slightly grown up. In no particular order:

1. Signing the closing papers on my first house. There is nothing more humbling than signing the papers to owe the bank more money than you've ever owed anybody. My hair was wet from an ill-timed shower and DH was late after getting lost on the way to the bank. I had to go home because I forgot to bring the checkbook and I couldn't find a parking space. 

2. The first night I spent in my first house: the day my then-fiancée (now DH) and I finally moved out of our rental was a freezing cold January day with a sprinkling of snow on the ground. Both sets of parents came to help us move and we took everyone out to Chilis for dinner. That night we announced our week old engagement and after celebrating we returned to our first grown up house. My parents snapped a picture of us standing on the front porch with our arms wrapped around each other. We look terrified and much too young to be homeowners. That night we curled up together in our brand new queen size bed (a gift from Grandma) and tried to adjust to the strange noises that an old house makes.

3. The first day of my teaching career: I was 21 years old and four months removed from the college lifestyle. I had been hired a week before the first day of school and I was woefully unprepared for my first crop of students (I taught 7th grade at a different school from my current one for one year). I stood up before my first class and launched into my first day presentation while trying to keep my voice steady and quell the butterflies in my stomach. It was absolutely terrifying to realize that I was solely responsible for these kids and their success or failure. I was a terrible teacher that first year before I finally learned everything I should of learned during 4 years of college.

4. The day we adopted our dog: I had been begging for a dog for quite awhile and on a bright June day we picked out our sweet puppy. The adoption went quick and before we knew it we were loading her up in the back of my SUV and taking her home. She puked all over the backseat less than a mile from the shelter and it was the first time I'd ever cleaned up anyone's bodily fluids without gagging. After we got home and got her settled in DH went back to town to get some sorely needed dog supplies and dinner for us while I stayed home with the new addition. Once he left she followed me from room to room and I ended up sobbing in the bedroom because I was afraid I would never love her and that I would never be alone again. She was so clingy it scared me, but within a week we were inseparable. 

5. The first time I was sick alone: My junior year of college I got pretty sick and was confined to my apartment for a week. I lived alone and my parents weren't nearby so this was my first time being truly alone and sick. Due to the nature of my illness people couldn't come over so I was really alone. When I was hungry I couldn't rely on mom to make me food, it was up to me to check my temperature, make myself food and keep myself in a steady supply of Gatorade and trashy tv. I lost 6 pounds in a week, but I learned how to take care of myself.

7. Traveling in Europe by myself: Last summer DH had to go to France for work. For the cost of a plane ticket I got to tag along and crash in his company paid hotel room. During the day he worked and I was on my own. I roamed all over the Loire Valley on the train and tried to make myself understood by the locals. My French is atrocious and I had no fallback plan, my cell phone was turned off and I was alone in a foreign country. The most marvelous part of the trip was roaming through Paris alone and eating dinner under the Eiffel Tower all by myself. I gained so much confidence in myself and my abilities to communicate and navigate. Prior to this trip I tended to rely on other people to plan my trips for me (namely my mom and DH) and to take care of me. I had never been to Europe without my mom and she lived in Germany and Italy and speaks eight languages fluently so she has no problem getting around. This trip was the best trip because I made the schedule (or lack thereof) and decided what to do and where to eat. I could sit on a bench reading my book for an hour and watching the people go by instead of rushing to activity after activity. I was able to absorb the true flavor of the country instead of just the stuff tourists see. It was a truly inspiring trip that made me more confident and inspired me to take more risks (my type A personality is totally against risk) and live less of a scheduled life.

Every time I have a new experience (writing my first thousand dollar check, buying a car, setting up a retirement account or writing my will) I feel just a little bit more grown up, it's like it sinks in just a little more that I really am a grown up. You may have noticed that my wedding didn't make the list, I really didn't feel grown up after marriage. DH and I had lived together for 4 years and the wedding was just another day in our life. He makes me feel like a kid (and he acts like one a lot) and he just completes me-it would feel unnatural not to be with him so marriage didn't really change our lives. However, when I look around at friends who are my age (or younger) that are popping out babies I shudder to think that I'm theoretically old enough to be someone's mother (other than my puppy). What experiences make you feel like a "real" adult?