Inbox Invasion

I get the best emails.  Not because I'm popular mind you, but because I'm a sucker.  My latest favorite is:

"$20 for $40 of Spider Vein or Stretch Mark Cream" 

Seriously, how do they do this??? How did "they" channel  into my inner woman and know that "hey, this one is bound to be an emotional train-wreck and self-conscious enough to need this stuff!!! We've got a live one here people!" (I didn't buy it, just to clarify...) I mean, I log onto Facebook and there are 12 different advertisements touting diapers and maternity clothes, careers and baby bottles.  Jeez. What do they think I do in my spare time anyway? It's amazing to me that my inbox can fill up so quickly with random crap.  If I thought I was terrible at housecleaning...well lets just welcome in Cyber-cleaning. Yikes! Can anyone say new email account? Yeah. That's how I deal with it alright.  Out with the old, in with the new.

I try to filter the important stuff. Like, what if there is an amazing bra sale somewhere and I were to miss it just because I shut down my old email address??!?? That would be seriously disturbing...especially if you read my last post and remember how desperate a girl can get for great over the shoulder-boulder holders (Quit Slacking...Read it Here) I mean, to quote How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days "this is death kong 5!!!" (probably one of my most favorite girl movies of all time...just sayin') The world of great support is no joking matter.  That being said, I've never actually deleted an old email account, I simply keep them and check them periodically but move on to bigger and better things for those totally random but really important friend emails that I get one, maybe two, times a month.  Being frivolous is not my normal approach to life, I'm usually not so wasteful and much more conscious of my footprint; however, the thought of cyber-cleaning really makes my skin crawl...It's just not fun.  In the words of little bean, it's a bit winky (aka: sour or in this case a sore subject).

 Then to dive into the world of cyber-organization (forget cleaning, how about just putting things in the right place to begin with)...Oh, forget it! I think that if I understood fully what HTML meant and how to actually put things in their proper place, I could excel in this arena.  I mean, who doesn't like having their ducks in a row? Then again, that's when I start to lose stuff and my passwords freak out on me and I have to start all over again.  It's unreal the amount of things that can suck away your time on the internet.  Really...How did I just lose six hours trying to find out how to add a pin it button to my blog???? Yikes! (yes, this really did happen...tips and advice are appreciated)

Everyone has something to say.  I can hardly drink a cup of tea without being told what a wise old sage used to say, although that is hands down my favorite part of drinking a cup of tea.  Seriously, who doesn't love looking under the cap of their Nantucket Nectar and finding some useless fact about Nantucket that makes you instantly feel smarter and cooler.  I love that! Or learning that "body language is the universal tongue: (I kid you not, that's what my tea bag says right now!).   Some folks use their bodies for billboards (yes, I have tattoos. Plural.) and some people just plaster their vehicles with a million and two bumper stickers.  Yet, their is nothing more crazy then opening your inbox and seeing that in the last five minutes you have received twenty emails and they all have to do with selling you something and usually something that will improve you in some new-fangled manner.  Good thing I don't look to my computer for self-confidence because it really doesn't seem to think very highly of me. 

Ah well, I guess maybe I could use some spam filters but I always feel so guilty doing that! Does someone get in trouble if I report their message about spider veins as spam?  For that matter, who named it spam anyway?  I thought that was the disgusting blob-by meat that came in a can and made up part of my childhood that I refuse to touch with a ten foot pole now.  Or is that maybe the point? Probably.  I know there are ways around receiving two-hundred and fifty thousand useless emails, but it kindof just makes me feel important.  That one a month from a friend that isn't a forward or just for laughs type email has special abilities to be at the top of my email list no matter what, so lets just keep the junk coming and feel good about having a full inbox.  I think I've requested half of them anyway, although I couldn't even begin to tell you why.  Maybe this is a sign that I need to choose wisely when it comes to plugging in my email address, or maybe everyone has a junk-mail email address.  Either way, I go there when I need to feel better about my lack of socialization. 

For now, I'm going to go revel in my fake popularity and probably investigate my spider veins a little more closely to figure out how that weakness is doing these days.  Maybe it will be enough inspiration to get organized and conquer the inbox invaders once and for all!

Bibbidy Bobbidy Boo

Have you ever looked through your closet and realized that you've outgrown your own fashion.   That sense of style that you were so immensely proud of is actually just ridiculous for a 30-something professional with a baby on her hip??? Seriously, hip slung jeans that show your butt crack are just not cute any more.  Those tank tops with the built in shelf bras don't support anything that gravity has decided needs to touch the floor without the miracle of a water bra insert...in fact, when you greet the UPS dude in the tank w/shelf bra remember he's not ogling your breasts, he is shocked and appalled at the fact that they stretch that far!!! PUT ON A REAL BRA!!! (this is really just a reminder to myself...anybody who feels comfortable letting their boobs hang low, by all means, sing it sister!)

Not only has your skin changed, your hips expanded, your boobs shrunken, your belly taken on a new layer of dough, but your clothes just do not fit right.  They just don't.  I could blame little bean for this but really who can blame the kid for craving M&M's and ice cream every night while taking up residence in that sanctuary inside mommy? Nope, can't blame the kid at all for that.... So, my theory is 9 months on 9 months off and the leftovers are just called reality.  I'm not defeated, I know with some hard work and dedication I could change my body, solidify the dough, >tighten< the not so tight. I just haven't gotten there and really I'm not all that worried about it. It's the clothes that are really starting to tick me off. When did I suddenly become an adult? I went out yesterday in a t-shirt that I've had since my late twenties, cool at the time. I felt like a moron when I realized I look like a 30-something trying to hard.  I was comfortable mind you - until I was extremely uncomfortable sitting in the dentists office with little bean and a shirt with a skull and flowers on the front.  Yeah....maybe shoulda gone for a polo or something. 

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

I forget passwords.  It's what I do.  I think I'm being all mysterious and creative and make different passwords all the time...yeah, really good idea when your memory bank equals that of the fly buzzing around your head repeatedly because it forgot it's done it 60 times in the last two minutes.  In the words of Charlie Brown, "Good Grief." You would think that by this time in my life I would have some sort of system figured out in remembering such things.  I even once worked for a giant company that shall remain nameless but rhymes with DAY-OF-Hell....resetting passwords for idiots who couldn't remember such a simple thing.  Yeah. Pointing at self...idiot.  

I was always told, never write your passwords down, someone could steal them.  I'm sure little bean would find them quite tasty but I sincerely doubt anyone is going to come looking for my scribbled passwords on my pathetic excuse for a desk (aka, piles of papers that I move from one side to the other and clear an itty bitty living space for my computer from time to time).  So...I attempted to write them down.  I lost the first attempt, so I wrote another.  Then I lost that one to, so there are multiple copies of these lovely passwords just kicking around, but don't worry - by now, I've had to reset each and every one because I can't remember what they are.

Why don't I make them all the same you ask? Well, that is a wonderful question.  Lets face it, every single company looking for you to make a password has a different set of rules.  This one won't take any characters, that one is case sensitive and that one is not, this one wants you to have capitals, numbers, letters, and characters but only the characters %$~@& and nothing else.  That to me looks like a disguised cuss word and you can bet your bottom dollar that is EXACTLY what I am doing when I go to log into your stupid account and can't remember my ridiculous password and need to spend an extra 15 minutes figuring it out! UGH!!!! 

I blame who for this? The hackers? They are freakin' geniuses! I imagine them sitting in some dark basement surrounded by crazy amounts of machinery that could probably stop another country in its tracks, but they are using it to hack my measly bank account for the five bucks sitting in there.  Awesome.  Good for you.  I hope your day is complete because you read my emails from my idiot ex-boyfriend who thinks that I should be driven off a cliff and you are five dollars richer then when your day began.  Of course, I imagine hackers stumble upon some amazing material...to vast for my imagination to drum up, but it must be fulfilling.  Do these people even need real jobs??? I doubt it!!!  Genius.  

Do I blame the companies who are trying to protect me from the hackers? Can't really do that now can I? They are trying to make it so my five bucks remains in place and I don't have to share the idiocy of the man I used to date and rarely lay claim to (although...he is little beans dad, so maybe one day I'll have to own up. That's an entirely new blog).  They are trying to make my life better.

It must come down to my utter lack of organization.  My brain is full of filing cabinets.  If only I could add a file-o-fax so my brain could just flip to the little insert for each account and shout "BINGO, YAHTZEE, DING DING DING!!!! WE HAVE A WINNER HERE!!!" I guess I'll have to settle for prying soggy post-its with scribbled text from little beans hands so that I can try to guess what the mangled password may be.  One day I'll have it figured out, but for now...mommy brain 0, passwords = to many to count.