Are You with Me?

I've posted two new entries since moving over to my new site. Come and see! SuburbanRantings.com

I'm Moving...

No, not from the suburbs...just from Blogger. Suburban Rantings is now its own site, suburbanrantings.com...so follow me! (But please be patient with the site...I have a lot to learn.)

Cabinet-Painting Hell

I am seriously in I'm Sorry I Ever Started This mode.

Have you ever been so sorry you started a DIY project that you wanted to kill yourself with your putty knife? Email your story to me (with pictures if you have them). If it makes me laugh, I'll post it here so we can all enjoy your misery.

The Power of Facebook

OK, so a few days ago I wrote about my introduction to Facebook and said it was silly. It is a little silly, but...in less than a week I have reconnected with almost every best friend I've ever had.

I am particularly giddy about finding a friend I haven't spoken to in nearly 30 years: Regina Lemke. In the early 70's, Regina and I lived across the street from each other on Center Avenue in Libertyville, IL. I don't remember actually meeting her–because I was probably in kindergarten–but some of my earliest childhood memories are the years that followed when we were practically inseparable. And this week all those sweet memories have come flooding back.

Regina was a year older so, of course, was much more grown up than me. Her mom worked outside the home (a foreign concept to me), had perfectly coiffed red hair and always wore lipstick and nail polish. She was my definition of glamour.

Regina was an only child who lost her father at an early age, so it was just her and her mom. Their home was quiet, clean and well-decorated; she had her own room (something I could only dream about) filled with matching white furniture that I coveted.

This was very different from my home, which was in a perpetual state of chaos because it was always filled with small children: three younger siblings and innumerable neighborhood children that my mother cared for during the day. Being at Regina's was like being in another world.

Our family left Center Avenue in the summer of 1975 when my father took a job in New Orleans. Regina and I saw each other exactly twice over the next few years; by the time we both started high school we had lost each other.

For me, reconnecting with Regina is more than just finding an old friend. I have found my first true girlfriend, my original bff. All because of a silly website.

What's In Your Junk Drawer?

My favorite part about redecorating and renovating is that everything gets cleaned up and cleaned out. While cleaning out the kitchen drawers, I inevitably came to the drawer every kitchen has: the junk drawer. I actually have three junk drawers (scary) but two of them are used nearly every day and so are cleaned out on a regular basis. But the third? Rarely used, it contained some very interesting items, which can be organized into three categories:

Stuff I don't use but can't seem to throw away:

• 10 refrigerator magnets
• 3 old cell phones
• 1 electric hair trimmer
• 1 film camera
• 6 undeveloped rolls of film (does anyone even develop film anymore?)
• 3 unused rolls of film

Stuff I thought was lost forever and has already been replaced:

• 1 staple gun
• 1 stud finder
• 3 wine bottle openers
• 1 jeweler's screwdriver kit
• 1 paint can opener
• 1 stapler
• 1 vacuum cleaner belt

Stuff that's garbage--why was it put in there in the first place?

• 1 2005 calendar
• 1 2006 calendar
• 3 school permission forms, circa 2006
• 12 holiday cards, 2005-2008
• 4 owner's manuals to things we no longer own

The chances that all this stuff, which is currently placed in neat little piles on the living room floor, will end up back in the same drawer are approximately 98.3 percent.

Fun with Facebook

In an effort to take another step into the 21st century, I created a Facebook page. Perhaps "created" is too strong a word, as I have no idea what I'm doing there. It's more accurate to say I signed up with Facebook, just to see what all the fuss is about.

On first glance, it seems to be a silly, guilty pleasure--a way to give into our narcissistic tendencies. We can write whatever we want and "talk" about ourselves endlessly without interruption. And the best part is we don't have to listen to anyone else talk about themselves unless we want to.

The part that freaks me out a little bit (beyond the fact that I don't know what I'm doing) is the popularity aspect. It's all about how many friends you have. I had an intense high school flashback as, upon signing up, there appeared the blaring sentence, "You have no friends." So the race was on to get someone--anyone--to be my friend. Of course, that's what the site is all about--ways to find friends. So now, about 24 hours after setting up my page, I have 9 friends--although five of them are related to me. My sister-in-law, on the other hand, has 381 friends. How is that even possible? I'm sure I haven't spoken to 381 people in my entire life.

So, if you're on Facebook and haven't done so already, will you please be my friend? My self-esteem depends on it.