Words and Phrases

 

This is probably a list I will add to as I think of them... words and phrases that drive me crazy, make me cringe, or I just don't like.

Chunky/Chunker in reference to books.  "This book has 800 pages, it's a chunker."  Ugh. 

Babe referring to an infant or a hot person in a bikini. No idea why this particular use bugs me, but Babe the Pig and Babe Ruth do not...

Obese

Tea towel The husband has started calling dish towels, tea towels... we don't use them for anything tea related, stop calling them that!  Also they don't go upstairs in the linen closet, they go downstairs in the kitchen hence the word dish.  Dish=kitchen.  

Crotch goblins  Ew.

Wafd  This is the name of a bank... Pronounced Wah-fed.  It looks like a typo, and until they add in the missing 'e' I won't bank there. I just can't.

Most acronyms that I have to think about to figure out  IYKYK is the most recent offender.  

Spigot

Phlegm

'Beat a dead horse' Please don't. 

'Get off your high horse'   

'Rode hard, and put away wet' Way too many words used for what it actually means.  Apparently phrases having to do with horses irritate me...

Crick  The word has two e's therefore it's creeeeek not crick, dagnabbit!  

Chide The H uses this one frequently with the kids... like nails on a chalkboard. 

Dongle Stupidest made up word ever.  There's nothing like having to send an email that says 'my dongle is broken,' to customer service. For the record, Fitbit didn't give a dongle, and I ended up buying a different brand of fitness watch... 

Qwest We no longer have phone service with them, but when I did, I died a little each time I had to write a check, and put that stupid name on there.  

'In these uncertain times.'

Glamping

Cray Cray

Amazeballs

Awesomesauce

Peeps

Yassss and Wassssupp add more annoyance for each extra 's' in both of those words.

And a whole long list of swear words, and names for body parts that I will leave to the imagination... 

To be continued.

The Quietude Life

Photo coming soon.

The things I have to do to get some privacy in this house.  Yes, I do sometimes sit behind a giant piece of cardboard when I'm writing.  My artsy kid painted it for me, and now it has rainbows.

 I might need to choose a different 'tude' word for my Instagram and blog.  Quietude seems to be not happening very much lately.

The Fortress of: 

Attitude, that might be fun, I do have teenagers so have plenty of that to go around.

 Promptitude. Well, I am punctual...

Ineptitude.  Yes, I am very inept at many things, sports anyone?  

Crassitude.  That ones just a fun word...  

Turpitude.  No idea what this one actually means.  What's a turp?

Vicissitude (an unforeseen change in circumstances) Yeah, no, none of that please.  

Finitude (the quality of being finite) well, there is only one of me, so yes.

Incertitude (absence of confidence, doubt)  Yep.

Pulchritude (great physical beauty and appeal) Nope, and that word looks hideous.

Hebetude (mental lethargy) Sometimes... until the coffee starts to work.

Hermitude.  Self-explanatory.   Possibly... I do love a good hermit.

Suckitude I can't even... this might be my new favorite word.

Anxietude-- My life story.

Longitude: it's 122, but that isn't a very exciting name for a blog...

Pinguitude.  That's a word?  Trying not to be, thank you very much.  Stupid delicious food.

Crapitude.  Now we're just making words up, are we?

Wedgitude.  Huh?

Solitude.  Let me tell you about solitude! I was going to use this word originally for my Instagram/blog because of-- (I think I know what photo I'm going to use for this post now, if I can find it...)-- but turns out Superman already used it... it is a nice word though.  

Because of Covid, the husband working from home (they keep postponing him going back in), and four kids it has been 864 days since I have been alone. Someone is always here, needing something. Occasionally, I go to pick up groceries and get 1/2 an hour in the car by myself, but that's about it.  To just sit and do whatever I want... I don't remember what that feels like... Solitude is underappreciated.   

Humilitude.  Who me?

I think I'll take my attitude and my anxietude and my ineptitude, and go be a hermitude... in my Fortress of non-tranquility.  Maybe my quietude will return someday...  

Getting to Know Me

Stolen from Booktube because I don't have a channel, never will have a channel, I cannot watch or listen to myself, it would be torture, and watch too much of other people's channels.  I'm in awe that other people are able to put themselves out there, on video... 

1. What's your channel blog about? Um... me, books, me reading books. My quest for inner-peace and quiet?

2. How old are you? 44, maybe.

3. What's your relationship status? married with too many children.

4. Did you go to college/occupation? Yes. I majored in art and English. Current occupation: mom.

5. Where are you from/live? The Pacific NW.  I've never lived anywhere else. 

6. Looking back what would you have told your 10 year old self? So many things... mostly along the lines of hang in there! Maybe, don't take Spanish in 9th grade, just don't. Also, there's this girl who has lived two blocks from you most of your life, maybe go meet her now instead of on accident when you're fifteen. I was a lonely kid... it would have been fun to have a friend in the neighborhood...

7. Tell us about your family I have four kids ages 8-17, a husband, and three guinea pigs.  

8. What’s your favorite holiday? Thanksgiving. We don't usually spend holidays with family (it's complicated) so we cook everything ourselves and I don't have to cook again for three days, plus there's pie which is my favorite dessert.

9. You have no budget what is your dream vacation? I have never really been anywhere, so basically anywhere that is not the Pacific NW.  North Carolina is what popped into my head first.  Vermont is up there on the list... Alabama for genealogy reasons...  

10. Name your biggest pet peeve’s? Walking into a room and no one has bothered to open the curtains. It's daylight, open the damn curtains we're not vampires! 

11. What book changed your life? This Can't Be Happening at Macdonald Hall by Gordon Korman. It was introduced by the school librarian when I was nine or ten as, "this book written by a thirteen year old." And I thought I'd be able to have a published book at thirteen too, no problem. Ha ha ha. Friends and Neighbors (short story book for kids) because I'm 99% sure it's the book my grandma used to teach me to read.


12. What simple invention improved the world? I don't know but I'm always curious who thought "hmm I'll take two sticks and some string and make some loops over and over.' They must have been really surprised when all of the sudden they had knit a sweater...

13. Favorite movies/TV shows? Back to the Future, always. Fringe. The Office.

14. Describe yourself using three fictional characters? Umm... no idea. Molly Weasley? Overwhelmed mom with a crazy house... Chandler Bing? Humor/sarcasm as a coping mechanism--check. Chidi from The Good Place? Can't make a decision to save my life. Done.

15. What was your dream job? As a kid? Architect. Right now: I want a job that stays at work and doesn't intrude on my non-work time and I don't want to come home smelling like anything.  If you're currently hiring, and your job description fits these two things, let's talk.  

16. If magic was real what spell would you learn first? Houseus Cleanus.

17. Share a favorite Childhood memory All my best childhood memories are either at my grandma's house or at summer camp. Some kids get homesick, I didn't want to go home... 

18. What is your favorite social media platform and why? Instagram. I like photos... I'd like it even more if they'd get rid of the stupid algorithm.  

19. If you could pick any book character who would you spend the day with? Si Morely from Time and Again by Jack Finney. I'd like to hear more about time traveling to 1880s New York...

20. What's your spirit animal? I really like bees... but probably a hamster. Today, this wheel is going somewhere!

21. What "old person" thing do you do? Everything? My spirit age is an 90-year-old grandma. I wake up way too early in the morning, I knit, I cook, I feed hummingbirds, I'm sure there's more I'm not thinking of.    

22. Do you have a hidden talent? I have no talents, hidden or otherwise, whatsoever. If there was a talent show, I wouldn't be able to be in it, I am that untalented.

23. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?  I have no idea.  I'm just trying to get through this year...

24. Share an item and tell us its significance.  

Randomly scanning the photos on my computer...  and since I mentioned her two or three times in this post... This photo of me and my grandma.  She was my person... if I would have asked, she'd help me bury a dead body, and then helped me escape the country.  We just got each other.  If she were alive, she would also yell at me for posting this photo... sorry Grandma.  

25. Now tag some people No one reads this blog so I tag no one.

Unrest in Quietude Land

 Or this blog is not appropriately named at the present moment.

Photo from July 12th of last year.  I took the older kids to a local landmark to walk around, which is next to the local airport so there are often planes landing and taking off right over your head.  We should go again sometime this summer...

Today:  I'm feeling all the things.  

I want to write on this blog and delete it at the same time.

I would like "readers" but then when anyone reads anything I write, not so much.

I want to buy books but also want to use the library more.  

I want to own all the books, except I don't like having a ton of stuff because then I get overwhelmed.  I'd rather just be whelmed... is that a word?

I want to go to all the places because...summer, but I don't want to be near people that are at all the places because ew germs. The C-word is high in my county right now and it's ticking me off.  How long does "immunity" last because it's only been two months since my entire house had Covid ...

I would like a clean house, but I don't want to clean it, as attested (is that a word?) by the state of my kitchen.

I would like a photo to go with this post, but that would require finding the thing to attach my camera to the computer or emailing myself photos from my phone and I don't want to do that either.  

Update: just use an old photo that is already on the computer, lazy Brianna.

Basically, I don't know what I want and it's not very quietude-like inside my brain at the moment.

Life as of July 13th, 2022 8:36 am.

Home Sweet Home

 It's the day after a vacation and all through the house...

It's quiet.  The H is working but otherwise everyone is asleep.

Four days with the in-laws, 12 hours in the car, two hotel rooms (on separate floors, annoying when you are sharing a phone charger), three trips to the pool, one weird awkward barbecue with my brother-in-law and his new girlfriend and her kids and my niece, one "date night" where we went to dinner and to the local board game store, one rainy 4th of July with no fireworks (because we had to get up at 5 am yesterday), I read 1.75 books on the trip, and a partridge in a pear tree was hit by a semi on our way home: feathers were everywhere...

Came home to ripe cherries on my tree, the kids' pool is leaking (very slowly), my computer keyboard is not lighting up and I can't see what I'm typing (I Googled how to fix it, it didn't work), no food in the house (going to take care of that shortly), and someone left the door on the camper wide open for 5 days and no one messed with it.  

Also, the woods behind our old house burned down while we were gone...  I always hated living in that house on the 4th of July.  No one was hurt. 

Glad to be home, but tired...

I did not take a lot of photos on the trip.  Weird.

I will post something about the two books I read eventually...  they were both pretty good.