Thursday, February 10, 2011

How I Wish I Could Quit with the Whining

I'm tryin' ya'll. I feel like every time I open my mouth (or fingers - which just sounds wrong, but you know, to type) I end up whining. Like a whiny little baby.

Yesterday I was trying so hard to be funny about the dryer. Mainly because after I was done hyperventilating and screaming about how I would never, ever, ever live like normal people and waking everyone up in the house with my hysterics, it was funny. Okay, well, after a good night's sleep it was funny. In that laugh or cry kind of way. My point is that I was trying to be funny when I was telling about it because someone should get some enjoyment out of my misery, right?

But it wasn't funny. I see that now. It was "Poor, pitiful me. You should worry about me and my horrible, ridiculous laundry issue." I try to maintain some perspective in life. You know, with a few exceptions, bad stuff just avoids me. I'm incredibly blessed to be walking around without a horrible disease, or a missing limb. I'm incredibly lucky to be sitting in my kitchen, rather than out in the street, to be feeding my kids decently nourishing food (when they will deign to eat it) and to be trudging to work instead of the unemployment office. I got it good and I got no room to whine, is what I'm saying, here.

Also, I went home last night and decided I didn't trust the husband to fix the dryer and took apart what he had done and found some type of animal nest in my dryer vent and once I ripped that all out and re-attached everything - guess what - my dryer's not even broken. All that angst over nothing that was really ever a problem.

It turns out that God doesn't want me to wear dirty clothes, He wants me to quit being such a damn drama queen and fix something instead of worrying about how it'll never, ever be okay. Which is good advice. (Of course, God doesn't typically give crappy advice, it's misinterpretation.) He probably also wants me to remember this the next time I'm lecturing Brynna about being a drama queen and telling her that defeatist attitudes like that are like poisoning yourself. She gets that from somewhere, you know. Also my grandmother, who I am always lecturing about being a pessimist. I guess I get it from somewhere, too.

In any case, I need to find my happy, or my funny or something. I'm not nearly as miserable as I sound.

And on a completely unrelated note! Take this here survey:


4 comments:

Jenn-Jenn, the Mother Hen said...

I whine on my blog all the time. It's therapeutic, yo.

Suze said...

Honestly, it IS kind of funny imagining you wringing out all your clothes individually because the washer won't spin.

Our dryer sucks. It works well enough not to pitch, but oy, it takes forever. There was a time when it seemed to be working just EXCELLENTLY and then my FIL discovered that the vent to the outside had become completely unhooked, so the dryer was just venting all that hot air and lint straight into our basement air. Once he fixed that, it started taking 2 hours to dry every load again (one reason we use a clothesline in the warmer months!)

About the fiction: I love it. And have you ever considered entering those 3-minute fiction contests on NPR? You totally should.

Joni said...

I didn't think you were whiny. You were honestly telling us what's going on with you, and I did see the humor you were trying to put in. I, in fact, admired you for be able to find the humor! But I agree with Jenn- even if you WERE whining, that would be ok with me because we all need to do it occasionally. You're safe here.

ann said...

Love this: "It turns out that God doesn't want me to wear dirty clothes, He wants me to quit being such a damn drama queen and fix something instead of worrying about how it'll never, ever be okay. Which is good advice. (Of course, God doesn't typically give crappy advice, it's misinterpretation.)"

As far as the fiction, I love reading your blog for two reasons: I care about your life and I love the way you write. So, it follows that I enjoy the fiction but don't want to see less of the rest of it. (The fiction seems very very publishable to me in that it looks like many books I read when I was younger--when I read fiction. So, all of those books were published...see where I'm going here? Just saying your writing would probably appeal to a large audience.)