What's in your disc player?

I think my daughter is actually excited about our vacation.

It was 'touch and go' for a while there. She wants to see the ocean. We're not doing that this year. We're going to see hills instead. Which did not please her at first.

However, the other night, she had an attitude adjustment.

It all started at dinner, when we were discussing some of our plans for the trip. At one point the topic of music came up.

"I could make a mix CD for us to listen to on the way there!" my daughter said. My hubby, (whose musical tastes are NOT the same as those of a fifteen year old girl) promptly piped up with, "I ain't listening to that stuff you listen to the whole way there!"
(He doesn't have the grammar skills of a forty two year old woman either!)

My daughter cracked up at his statement. And she determined then and there that "I ain't listening to that stuff!" would be the title of the mix CD. She's been working on it for the past 3 days now. I think she said yesterday that it would actually be a boxed set of three CD's. Vol. 1-3 of "I ain't listening to that stuff!"

I gave her some suggestions for songs that her father would listen to and it's been funny watching her select the music for our vacation.

Music has been a vital part of my life since I was eight years old or so. That's when I got the 45 record player and my Mom's collection of 45's. I hadn't heard of any of the artists before, and didn't know that there was an A side (the 'hit song') and a B side of a 45. I played the songs with the most interesting titles.

I distinctly remember coming across a song called "Chicken Necks". It was by two guys called Don and Juan. I put the needle on the record and in an instant was captivated by them. The lyrics were incredibly funny to me. "...chicken necks is all I eat!" was just one phrase in the song.

I loved it. It made me laugh. And so I played it a lot.

One day I'm in my bedroom, singing at the top of my voice with Don and Juan about their precious chicken necks, when Mom walks in.

"What are you listening to?" she asks.

"You should know," I reply. "It's your record!" She goes over to the record player and picks up the 45. "I never listened to this!" she claimed. "I listened to the song on the other side. What's Your Name. That was their hit song."

I had no idea I wasn't listening to the 'hit'!. Friends, I listened to the 'hit song'...and I must confess...Chicken Necks was WAY BETTER! The other song didn't make me laugh. And, it did NOT have a beat you could dance to...

Lately I've felt that I've been listening to the 'wrong side of the record'. I've been struggling with some big changes in my life, and not handling them as well as I'd hoped. The '45's' in my head weren't the music I needed to hear. We can get so caught up with the negative side of life that we have a hard time focusing on the positive. When I heard my husband declare, "I ain't listening to that stuff!", it made me remember that I have a choice regarding the 'voice' I listen to each day. I can listen to the 'stuff I don't want to listen to'...the negative one...or I can choose the positive B side of the 45.

My friends, choose wisely in your circumstances. You can choose to be upset with your family because you can't go to the ocean or you can turn that frown upside down by finding something to focus on that gives you joy. Like making a mix CD for your family. You can go with the crowd and listen to the boring hit song or you can dance the day away to a rousing rendition of "Chicken Necks". It's up to you.

Plant Pondering

I have several things planted in my vegetable garden. There's cucumbers, tomatoes and weeds. I've got onions, peppers and weeds. Oh, and some green beans, lettuce and weeds.

Okay, so I didn't technically plant weeds, but for crying out loud! How do they get in there?! I did not put them there! And how do they manage to grow so quickly when the rest of my garden seems to take YEARS to grow?

It's a mystery that my little Nancy Drew brain can't seem to get a clue about weeds.

While we're on the subject though, here's another thing I can't stand about them. You have got to keep pulling them or they'll take over the garden. Some weeds, I've noticed, are somewhat easy to get rid of...but others are tough! I've tried pulling some weeds that I would swear have been taking steroids and have a greater muscle mass than I do!

Weeds are sneaky as well. Some of them disguise themselves to look like a vegetable plant. I pulled one the other day that had a reddish root on it and thought I'd pulled a radish up! Conniving weeds...trying to trick us into thinking that they are 'good' for us...when they're not.

Ask any of my gardener friends and they'll tell you to get rid of those weeds when they're small. Because once they're well-rooted, you have to really work to pull them out. Sigh. Some days it's almost discouraging for me to go out to the garden because the first thing I'll notice is the weeds. Not the plants. I sigh heavily as I consider the hard work ahead of me. I'll think, "Why did I plant this stupid garden in the first place? It's WORK!" Sometimes I think that my garden is the ONLY one out there with weeds. Some days I just want to think about eating those Big Boy tomatoes with some bacon and lettuce. I don't want to think about putting on gloves and getting dirty pulling weeds. Where's the fun in that?

You know, our lives could be compared to a vegetable garden. Let me ask this: How do you handle the weeds in your life? Are there some little, niggly weeds that you find you have to routinely pull out? Are there some that look like they're beneficial plants but aren't? Maybe you've got some really tough, tall weeds in your garden that you can't seem to pull out on your own because the roots are so deep. You might want to get the help of another gardener for those. One thing is for sure: regardless of the size of our gardens, or how long we've had a garden, we all need a weed whacking system in place!

Because every garden has weeds...I'm off to my garden now. You know, maybe I'll try pushing those weeds instead of pulling them. I might get a better workout that way!!