The Mother's Prayer for her Daughter {By Tina Fey}

An excerpt from Tina Fey's new book Bossypants.... looks like a must read book! I wonder what other genius she dishes out? Right now I am reading Super Rich by Russell Simmons (of Def Jam Records fame and a great book so far about being spiritually Super Rich - not money rich),Tina Fey will probably be next on the reading list.

This ‘prayer for a daughter’ isn’t just for her daughter. It’s for anyone who has a daughter, thinking about having a daughter or has been a daughter. I think it applies to anyone with a child, boy or girl.  Fun and worth the five minutes.  It certainly is making the rounds on the Internet, but I wanted to share.

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her
When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen. Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short - a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day - And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget. But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

iPhone and iPad tasks

I have an iPhone and an iPad... which by the way I only received in February, which made me just outside the line of returning for the new iPad 2.  Why don't they tell you these things before you order them?!?! I mean at least then I could have decided to maybe... oh wait a few weeks since I use a lot of the photo functions on my iPhone for my store and we use the iPad as total store scheduling backup.

OK, that is not my point this morning.  My point is... the iPad and the iPhone crash and lock up on me all the time AND my phone puts people on hold randomly, drops calls and butt dials people non-stop.  So when the iPad wouldn't turn back on that was a big problem (I can deal with some butt dialing here and there but the iPad not turning on, not so much).  So I got my appointment at the "genius bar" (and I LOVE the fact that their business cards actually have their name and title as genius!).  So once I got there, luckily I am close to a mac store, I felt far from genius.

He plugged in my iPad and low and behold, I had no ram.  What? I just got the thing? SO people, there is a trick to ALL iPhones and iPads that if you have a current (or somewhat current) update you wouldn't know unless you are a person that reads all the instructions, which I am not.  It turns out that every app, every icon you press on and look at continues to run invisibly on your ram, sucking out the battery life, speed and quality of your loading on your device.  Yup, I had no idea and maybe you don't either.

So in order to get rid of these battery sucking, ram eating apps you have to do just a few simple steps and all will be well. 

Click the round button twice on the bottom of your device. A "task bar" of sorts pops up on the bottom of your screen and you can scroll to the right and keep scrolling to see all the apps you have open and running. In my case... because I have kids that play a bazillion games on my phone and iPad, I had about 50 of the stupid things running in the background.  Hold one of them down for a few seconds and they will start to jiggle around and there mill be a red minus sign in the upper left corner.... hit them all, sadly one at a time.  It doesn't remove them for good, it just takes them out of the task bar and frees up all kinds of ram and stops them from running in the background, giving you more memory and most important on these particular devices battery life.

I've just done my good deed for the day. YAY!

and I'm confused.... again

My figure out list is getting bigger and bigger.  I want to add photos to my blog from my iPhone without having to go through these steps.

1. Take a photo with my iPhone
2. Edit the photo with a handy dandy iPhone app
3. Email myself the photo
4. Save it to my computer
5. {If I didn't edit the photo on my phone then I upload to Picnik and edit there, save the photo back to my computer}
6. Sign in to blogger, then write a post and upload the photos

Isn't there a step that will save me all the extra steps and just let me upload my photos and blog?

Oh, and how do I post photos straight to my Bella and Max facebook page, not my personal page?

How do I add my twitter and facebook feeds to my sidebar of my blogger blog? In typepad all those little widgets were right there and I could just add them.  But then again, I logged on to typepad for the first time in I have no idea how long.... the dashboard was so confusing to me it took me five minutes to figure out how to write a post. I'm too old for all this complicated technology stuff.  It takes me back to the day when I took a photo, dropped the roll off at Fotomat and after waiting a few days got whatever I took... back.

There was something else, but I forgot because I didn't write the list down before I started typing this. Maybe I need lists.  I need lists.

Operation Airlift Japan - Delivering

Thank you... thank you... THANK YOU!!  Well we did it! I am so blessed to know such amazing, giving people! We took one HUGE delivery on Sunday afternoon only to return to the shop and have yet another super big delivery waiting to go. So yesterday I loaded it all up and made the deadline with only five minutes to spare.

I need to say a big thank you to Carl (Katy's husband), Isaac, Steve (my husband), Bella, her friend Kennadi and Mia were amazing delivery helpers! Carrie and Alison were awesome sorting queens! Hopefully when our things get to Japan they will be able to go to a bag of gloves, or a bag of blankets, a box of shoes, art supplies or food.... it will be sorted and ready to go to.  I'll bet these folks are going to be happy with the hundreds of pairs of underwear and socks they are about to receive!

Here are a few photos I took so that you can see what amazing things you all did!

Operation Airlift Japan

Well, things are winding down to an end with our collection efforts for Operation Airlift Japan. Can I just say how astounded I am at the generosity of people?!? I know I've said it over and over, but I am so happy and so, so so grateful at the around 30 or so people that managed to pretty much fill up half the store with donations. 

I went in yesterday, on a Sunday and we sifted through all the bags dividing them up as best as we could.  Big garbage bags full of blankets, gloves, underwear, socks... then even down to smaller bags of hair clips, toothpaste, diapers, art supplies and soaps.  We wanted our things to be easy to find, easy to distribute and clearly marked. Had we just taken things to them on the various bags there would be so much figuring out what was in each bag it would have been a long process (it was for us) so I wanted it to be easier to get to what they needed the most.

Anyway, we made a big run to the Mercedes dealership in Lynnwood, a main drop off location around 2:00 yesterday. We filled up a large truck (Katy's husband's truck), my car and Carrie's car.  When I returned to the shop there was another large grouping of donations, so I will make another run this morning.

I will post photos later, but here is one from Friday night to give you a small idea of where we started from  A bunch more came in Saturday so this isn't even all of it.

The newsletter

So I finally sent out a newsletter last night.  I was a little scared to do it, I wasn't sure if what I had to say was too honest and to up front about what I was feeling when I wrote it.  I mean, first of all it took me forever to get around to designing a template that I was happy with (I hate using the stock ones that all the service provide) and with so much on my plate I never seem to have the time to sit down and write one.  I had to design the template, design the punch cards and I had to get everything to match and to look "just right". But I did it.

I wrote it because I wanted to get the word out about the punch cards.  But more importantly, I wanted to get the word out about the 97.3 supplies drive for the Bikou-En Orphange in Japan.  If I could go there and help, I would. If I could snatch up the pain away that everyone over in Japan is feeling, I would.  Being half Japanese (my mom is from Japan), I have this connection to Japan and what happened to them more than I might have if I wasn't I guess.  I have family there, I have roots there. If I could foster an elderly couple for six months until they could get on their feet I would, I would give them a room in my house so they could be warm and comfortable until some kind of decent shelter or housing was made available to them.  When I see kids it breaks my heart and when I see older people in their 70's and 80's I see in them my mom's face and I want them to come sleep in my house and  be warm and have more food than a rice ball and water full of radiation.  I will probably sign up for a mission group for this summer and go help as best as I can.  I'll let you know, because if I do I want to bring some of that love that my customers have with me.

I am so grateful.  So, so so grateful that the people I have been able to connect with, build friendships with and have the total pleasure and honor to call my friends... all because I've meet them through a tiny little clothing store and hair salon I opened four years ago, that I am able to call them my friends.  And that these people, almost all of which I do call friends (a few strangers that will become friends, I just know it), brought in three or four bags of clothing and supplies for these people in Japan when we called out of one blankets or a pair of gloves. The things brought in were just like new, if not totally new.  As we sorted through and tried to divide out what would be most important... blankets, gloves, food etc to get off the plane first for warmth I found bags stuffed full of brand new gloves and hats, brand new blankets, unopened crayons and packs of paper.  Children's vitamins and cans of tuna and full cases of peanut butter from Costco. 

You've shown me the powerful gift of what a good heart is and the compassion and will and goodness that you have.  I am so blessed to know such good people. I am.  While Bella and Max is a business, it really isn't to me. It is like a house, that my friends stop by with their kids to get a haircut or to grab a gift. But I realize now that this store, this little place... it has connected me to some amazing people. It isn't a chain get 'em in get 'em out place.  We get to know a lot of people really well and we build relationships not customers.  If for nothing else, I am grateful for that.

Moving a blog

Ok, so this is a test. I am moving our blog from typepad to blogger since I've had this account for about six years and it is free. And I'm not a great blogger. So I pay $15.00 a month for a typepad blog, but I haven't written anything in over a year because I am always using my gmail. So maybe now that I have designed (yay!) my own blogger blog, I will be motivated to write, take photos and post on a daily, or semi-daily basis. 

I have a habit of writing whatever comes to mind, so if you read my blog when it was on typepad you know that you might not know what will come out of my writing from one day to the next.  It might be personal, it might be a special, it might be a little venting or a little praise.
This should be good.