Great 80s website

Here's another fabulous website for reminiscing about the 70s, 80s, and 90s...vintage commercials, tv shows, movies... Click here.

Do you remember...Care Bears?

I was just watching a 1986 episode of The Care Bears (What? Is that weird at almost 33 years old?).  Man, I remember how popular they were back in 2nd-3rd grade.  I remember going to the Care Bears Movie with my mom, my cousin Laura and her mom.  As a little girl, I was so drawn to them because of the rainbow colors, hearts, rainbows, clouds...all the stuff a little girl loves.  I got a Care Bear for my birthday.  I had wanted Cheer Bear or Bedtime Bear...one of the pretty pastel colored ones with either rainbows, or hearts, or moons and stars on their belly.  Pink, lavender, turquoise...so pretty!  I was so excited to open mine on my birthday...I already knew what it was from the shape of the box.  But alas, I was so disappointed to find that I got Friend Bear...the peachy-gold colored bear with the gold and orange marigolds on his belly.  Um, I got the ugliest one.  For a little girl, when all her friends have the pink one with the rainbow on its belly, or the blue one with the moon on its belly, or the mint green one with the stars on its belly...an orangey peach bear may as well have been sh*t brown.  Technically Friend Bear is supposed to be "orange" according to Wikipedia (Care Bears character list), but the stuffed animal was definitely not.  I would've even preferred Funshine Bear...at least he was bright yellow with a sun on his belly.  And Tenderheart...he was brown like a teddy, but at least he had a heart on him.  Marigolds with dark green stems are yucky in the pinky purpley world of a little girl.

But even as a kid, I had empathy.  I saw that my parents were excited to watch me open it.  I thought about my mom picking it out at the store.  Why she chose that one, I don't know, but she picked it out and gave it to me, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her she picked the ugly one.  Actually, I just told her about all this recently...25 years later.  LOL! 



There's Friend Bear, top center. Actually,
he doesn't look that bad now.

I never got another Care Bear, even though it was "customary" in my school to have more than one.  So about 5 years ago, when Care Bears started make a comeback, they were all over Seaside Boardwalk.  I was so excited when my brother (or was it my bf at the time?) won me Cheer Bear, which was THE one I wanted most of all as a kid...pink with a rainbow.  Seriously, I slept with the thing on my bed that night...I was about 27 yrs old.  After a few years, the novelty wore off and Cheer was sold at a garage sale, probably for a dollar.  But I had had him, finally.  As for Friend Bear, I don't know what ever became of him...possibly another garage sale or donation.  Or he could've been one of the victims of the "toilet training phase", during which time my little brother was toilet training, and thought it would be fun to train my stuffed animals too.  One of my Cabbage Patch Kids, Hollis Jenean, to this day has a water ring around her waist, thanks to my brother.  But CPKs are a whole other post...





Puppy Bowl!

Februrary 6, 2011... Super Bowl?  Well, my G-Men aren't in it this year, so I couldn't really care less.  But, when the Giants don't make it, there's still a reason to break out the chips and beer... PUPPY BOWL VII!!  Has anyone seen this mass of cuteness??  I actually own the DVD of PB V.  If you're ever having a bad day, youtube yourself some Puppy Bowl.  How can anyone NOT love a dozen fuzzball puppies rolling over themselves and tugging on rubber toys?  My fave is the water bowl cam, shot from under the bowl.  Licka-licka-licka!

The Making of Puppy Bowl!

Love this pic...and follow me on Twitter!

I dunno why I love this pic of my brother and my dog so much, but I do. 

Took it on my iPhone and edited with Adobe Photo Express app using a black and white glow and border, plus a little contrast adjusting.

You (anyone who comes across this blog, as I have no actual followers yet!) can follow me on Twitter.  I'm @twiddlebugger.

And if my brother looks interesting from this pic, you can follow him @OfflBrainOfEric.

Do you remember...Christian Children's Fund commercial?

One of those Christian Children's Fund commercials was on in the background today, and it made me remember watching tv at my grandma's house, and the Bonnie Franklin commercial for Save the Children (it's not that entertaining, but if ya wanna see it, ffwd to the 7:25 mark ---> a buncha 1983 tv commercials .  The old Milford Plaza ad is in this mash up as well...you know you remember that song!).  I remember her saying that for 52 cents a day ($16 a month) you could save a child.  "Imagine, the cost of a cup of coffee could help save a child..."  Man, those companies couldn't use that as a selling feature today.  For Starbucks drinkers, that would be about $4/day, or $120/month!

Zzzzz.

Soo sleepy.  I guess that's what you get for staying up til almost 3am on a "school night"...2 nights in a row.  Sometimes I miss the structure I had as a kid...a definitive bedtime, whether you liked it or not...a time where you had to turn off the tv and do your homework (usually at 4pm in my house growing up...enough time to come home, have a snack and watch some tv).  As an adult who lives alone, I'm not good with structuring myself or giving myself rules.  I go to bed too late.  I start my "homework" (lesson plans, report cards, etc) at 11pm though I've been procrastinating since 6pm.  I rarely eat well-balanced meals.  I wake up late since there's no threat of getting yelled at and having the covers ripped off.  I put off chores until they all build up, since there's no one to say, "Turn off that tv and come unload the dishwasher NOW!"  Hmmm, I got yelled at as a kid a lot for not doing things the first time or ON time...I sense a behavior pattern here.  But since I'm now the "responsible" adult, and, like I said, I don't set schedules or rules for myself (not ones I actually follow, anyway), I'm always behind with stuff.  I think somewhere in my growing up and maturing, I got stunted.

I'm the type who waits til the last minute to do most things.  And then I have to work like there's a fire under my butt.  I do get things done that way, but it's obviously at a stressed, frenetic pace.  I've had to pay lots of late fees, because I push off paying a bill one more day.  I often stay up late doing teacher work that could've easily been done between the hours of lets say, 5pm and 10, or spread out over a few days.  This of course leads to 3am bedtimes, and then feeling like I do now...where I just wanna show my students a video all day.  Of course, I won't do that, but I might make snack time last a little longer, or drag out silent reading time.  And then I start to feel stressed because the other teacher is accomplishing more in her week than I am.  Gee, I wonder why.  So then I'm back to that frantic catching-up pace.

You'd think realizing and knowing all this about my behavior pattern would be the catalyst to change it.  But...I'm 32 and have been this way all my life.  In the rare times that I do get a lot accomplished in a day, or finish something ahead of a deadline, it feels fantastic.  Ah, so THERE'S the incentive to keep it up...right?  Nope.

I read my friends' statuses on Facebook.  They've had a full day of work/taking care of house/kids/errands/cooking, etc.  And now it's 9pm and they are curled up on the couch with a glass of wine watching a movie, relaxing.  I get so jealous, because though I may be on the couch watching a movie, its with a cloud of a million other things I know I should be doing hanging over my head.

I would love to know what other people do to conquer procrastination.  I even bought a book .."Procrastination for Dummies" (seriously).  It was really good, for as far as I got in it.  But I guess I never got the the part with the real solutions, cuz I never finished the book.

Figures.

SNORG! How can you not smile at that word??

Short post, no time but...
I want half the merchandise on this site! SnorgTees!

Newbie

I created this blog a week ago, but haven't written anything in it, because I've been stuck on what my flagship entry should say.  It should be a foundation for all that is to come.  It should be meaningful.  It should sum up what all future entries will be about.  Then I realized I can't do that cuz I'm not sure where this is going.  At first I wanted to create a blog about the 80s...my nostalgic decade.  I would post links to 80s toys, commercials, and everything else I remember from my childhood.  And if anyone should happen to read it and want to comment, it would be fun to reminisce together.  Then I thought I'd make it more personal about my childhood, sort of like the 80s blog, but also with more memories and anecdotes, and maybe some people could relate.  Memories of my childhood, for the most part, comfort me and they are where I escape to in times of "adult life" stress.  Just watching old clips of tv commercials on youtube, or looking at pictures of toys I had, thinking "Oh my god, I TOTALLY remember that!" make me feel better.  It's escapism, and doesn't solve any of my current problems, but it's what I do.

But I have so many other interests.  I'd like to write about my interest in photography, scrapbooking, my dog.  I'd like to share cool deals and coupons I find.  I'd like to post links to funny or amazing things I find online.  I'd like to write about my "shower thoughts".  Sounds dirty, its not.  Sorry.  I just happen to do my best thinking, therefore having my best thoughts while in the shower.  I'd like to bitch about all the things I KNOW I should be doing more (like sleeping, drinking water, reading...).  I'd like to chat about how my god-awful procrastination issue holds me back from so much (you'd think that just realizing this is an issue would be at least a start to fixing it...not for me).

I'd like to get feedback on all these things.  Does anyone out there think my latest photo is good or cool?  How do other people cope with their procrastination problem?  Is there anyone out there who also remembers the 80's McDonalds's commercial where the girl is at her piano recital playing Fur Elise, singing, "And I will eat, the fries myself, and not give any, to my dumb brother...".  Ya know, the imPORtant stuff.

So, I clearly have no idea where I'm going with this blog.  Thus ends my "flagship entry".