Here’s a short list of some of the hated acronyms turned words:

OMG
SOL
BFE
LMAO
WTF

I just think that some of the people who use these “words” don’t understand what they actually mean. I’m pretty naive, but I know what they mean and deep down everyone else does too.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that no one should use these “words” (it would be better but everyone can choose). If you would normally say the phrase without editing it, then go ahead and say the acronym. I actually prefer that. But it makes me absolutely crazy when people who wouldn’t normally say the phrase without editing use these “words.” And don’t even try to say that to them it means, Oh My Gosh… No where in the whole world besides Utah Valley and Rexburg, would anyone even cosider that you were saying Oh My Gosh.

Isn’t it about avoiding the appearance of evil? If you don’t swear, then don’t use acronyms that are representative of swear words.

Tonight when my handsome, handsome husband and I came home from work, we decided it was probably time to do the dishes (sadly, we don’t do the dishes as often as we should, because there is only two of us, and we don’t make that many dirty dishes so we wait until we have more to do.  By time that happen though, we have a huge pile.).  So we went in the kitchen and got to work.  Then, I guess we got in the mood and our kitchen cleaning turned into entire main level cleaning, which then turned to master bedroom cleaning and ironing.  It was a very productive evening.

While I was cleaning tonight though, I was thinking a lot about the cleaning as I did as a child.

I am very thankful that as a kid, my mom made sure we always had jobs to do and she taught me how to clean.

Tonight, I was vacuuming the living room and I remember as a kid when we had to vacuum the living room, my mom insisted that we move the piano bench out of the way and vacuum everything.  So now, when I vacuum the living room, I make sure and move our ottoman so I can vacuum everything and not just around things (I don’t move our love sac out of the way often enough though, it’s a pain to move).

Then, when I was dusting, I moved everything off the end table and bookshelf and dusted the surfaces while they were empty.  Then as I put the items back in their places, I ran my dust rag over then to make sure they were also dustless like the shelves they sat on.  This practice was also something we were instructed to do when dusting the piano when we were little.

Another thing my mom taught us to do when we cleaned that I still do is after loading the dishwasher, you rinse out the sink and faucet.  Then dry the inside of the sink and buff faucet so there are no water spots.

While I know these type of things are standard things that people do when they clean and I complained about when I was little, looking back now, I’m so thankful that my mom taught me these things and got me in the habit.  I know sometimes when I am being lazy in my cleaning and don’t move the things when I dust or something like that, it’s never really the same.

One thing that my mom did though and taught us, that I DO NOT follow her lead is ironing.  (Her method is better than mine, but I hate it so much, that I just can’t do it).

My mom irons like this: when she does laundry, if there is something that needs ironing, she puts it in “the ironing basket.”  This included all kinds of things, like my dad’s dress shirts, polos, her shirts, our shirts, pants, pillowcases, table cloths and sometimes even sheets.  Often, one of our jobs for the week was to iron 5 things — not a lot, but considering how much I hate it, it was torture.  We would sift through the basket to find the pillowcases and table cloths.  If you were one of the first to do your 5 things, you could normally get away with only having to iron the easy things.  After the pillowcases and the table cloths the next easiest would be shirts not belonging to my dad (so mom’s t shirts or one of the kids shirts).  Then if you had to, you’d move on to dad’s polos.  Then if you were really unlucky, you’d end up with dad’s dress shirts.  Which were just such a pain because they were hard to iron and if we did a bad job, dad wouldn’t look nice and he was a CIO and needed to look nice. After we did our 5 things, mom would finish the rest.  Now, this system was a great system for my family.  It helped us learn how to iron (even though we didn’t want to) and we had lots of really nicely pressed things in our house (pillows do look nicer on beds after they have been ironed. Try it if you’ve never done it).  Don’t get me wrong, our system had some flaws, but we won’t go into that.

So if I don’t follow my mom’s system, what’s my super awesome ironing system, you may ask?  I don’t have one.  I hate the chore so much that I would rather wear wrinkled clothes than have to iron.  This isn’t a problem for me, because I’ve come to terms with it.  It is a little bit of a problem for Bryan though, because his Sunday clothes really do need to be ironed.  The system is probably something I should try to adopt from my mom, but it’s just so hard. For a good portion of our marriage so far we didn’t even have an ironing board. My cousin Brandon and his family came to stay with us once and he was amazed that I didn’t have an ironing board.

So here’s my question to you.  How do you iron? How do you make sure everything that needs to be ironed gets ironed? And it gets done in a timely manner?

I know part of my problem with it is my attitude, but still, there has to be a way to do it that makes it less horrible, or maybe not less horrible, but so that my husband can look nice (because really, even with a good system, I’ll still only do my hubby’s clothes so he looks nice and I don’t feel like a horrible wife). He’s pretty awesome and deserves a nicely pressed shirt.

( ha ha! That turned out to be a really long article about cleaning. Wow.)

Even if you no longer need this product, the letter is a hoot!
This is an actual letter from an Austin woman sent to American company
Proctor and Gamble regarding their feminine products. She really gets rolling after the first paragraph. It’s PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’
choice for best webmail-award-winning letter.

Dear Mr. Thatcher,

I have been a loyal user of your ‘Always’ maxi pads for over 20 years and I appreciate many of their features. Why, without the LeakGuard Core or Dri-Weave absorbency, I’d probably never go horseback riding or salsa dancing, and I’d certainly steer clear of running up and down the beach in tight, white shorts. But my favorite feature has to be your revolutionary Flexi-Wings. Kudos on being the only company smart enough to realize how crucial it is that maxi pads be aerodynamic. I can’t tell you how safe and secure I feel each month knowing there’s a little F-16 in my pants.

Have you ever had a menstrual period, Mr. Thatcher? I’m guessing you haven’t. Well, my time of the month is starting right now. As I type, I can already feel hormonal forces violently surging through my body. Just a few minutes from now, my body will adjust and I’ll be transformed into what my husband likes to call ‘an inbred hillbilly with knife skills.’ Isn’t the human body amazing?

As Brand Manager in the Feminine-Hygiene Division, you’ve no doubt seen quite a bit of research on what exactly happens during your customer’s monthly visits from ‘Aunt Flo’. Therefore, you must know about the bloating, puffiness, and cramping we endure, and about our intense mood swings, crying jags, and out-of-control behavior. You surely realize it’s a tough time for most women.

The point is, sir, you of all people must realize that America is just crawling with homicidal maniacs in Capri pants… Which brings me to the reason for my letter. Last month, while in the throes of cramping so painful I wanted to reach inside my body and yank out my uterus, I opened an Always maxi-pad, and there, printed on the adhesive backing, were these
words: ‘Have a Happy Period.’

Are you [stinkin'] kidding me? What I mean is, does any part of your tiny middle-manager brain really think happiness – actual smiling, laughing happiness, is possible during a menstrual period? Did anything mentioned above sound the least bit pleasurable? Well, did it, James?

(I did edit it just a little bit…) Anyway. After I read this I had to just laugh. Is it really that bad? Always is trying really hard with their current tag line, and I think it’s probably important to remember, it’s really not that bad. Have a happy period!

Later that day, my friend Andrea brought me home from work.  I knew that I had to see if I could get the door fixed because we really don’t need that car to break right now.  So I played with the little hook thing again then closed the door and it closed!  I fixed it!  HORRAY!  As soon as Bryan got home though, we did a little more investigating and discovered that it had frozen open earlier and it wasn’t broken at all.  It was just stickin’ cold!