Tick Tock

TICK! TOCK!  Putting things off until the last minute... that's how I roll.  Here are some examples where I fail miserably and that often prevent me from getting to bed at a reasonable hour.

1. Meals, my eating habits are all over the place lately (Does two years fall into the "lately" category?)  Breakfast is hit and miss, Lunch falls between a handful of nuts or a tortilla with butter.  Dinners are slightly better planned, I just have to consult with Bookstore Boy as to what he has on the weekly family meal plan based on our lastest grocery shopping run.  I still feel somewhat lost about dinner as we are all walking in the door at the end of the school and work day. I really need to get a handle on this because planning used to come so easily to me at one time..
2. One thing that regularly get's right down to the wire is my daily post when I participate in BlogHer's NaBloPoMo challenge.  I really enjoy this activity and wish I had better content.  But, I'm just someone who uses blogging to hash things out that are going on in my life at the moment.  I have no clue who reads my posts, and when I see visits to my blog from other countries I wonder what exactly they got out of the time they took to read my stuff. After all, my writing pretty much can be described as merely typing exercise. Nonetheless, the fun I have, and sense of accomplishment do provide a rewarding feeling.
3. Another thing I'd like to re-establish is regular visits to others' blogs. I get so much insights and enjoyment from so many talented writers.  But my daily routine has taken a bit of a back seat to YouTube videos.
4. Which brings me to my last reason for failing to get to bed at a reasonable hour, and that is YouTube.  I have a list of subscribers that I receive emails indicating the latest posts, and I save them all and make it a priority to watch each video.  YouTube has, in fact, taken the place of network and cable television watching.  Goodbye, Live with Kelly and Michael; Hello Good Mythical Morning and Good Mythical More with Rhett & Link. I love easy access to learning channels like Sci Show, and Crash Course; As well as enrichment content as provided by Health Care Triage and The Art Assignment.  My news sources are Source Fed & others that don't come to mind at the moment.  Delightfully mindless fun, interesting facts and human interests comes by way of Grace Helbig & friends, Flula, Mental Floss, The Fine Bros, and Soul Pancake (especially Kid President) among many others.  So that's what keeps me up until 2:00 or 3:00 am.. But I wouldn't miss this for the world.  This makes me happy, and  happy is good, right. 

I can't even get into how neglected my YouTube channel creating has been lately.  I do have videos recorded, but my memory cards sit around waiting for me to do something worth watching.  The last few published on my channel, THIS IS FIFTY WITH LIL, have been spur of the moment and very rough. My hair isn't even brushed. Oh, well. I'm finding it enjoyable anyway and hope to have much improved content someday. The learning experience has been so much fun that it doesn't matter that only one family member and one friend have actually watched my videos.

Well, The Daily Show and Colbert Report hour is nearly halfway through, and I need to set myself up comfortably in my chair to enjoy many of the YouTube channels that I mentioned above.

Now it's time to edit this post and hope that it is not rubbish, but time well spent for my regular visitors.  So with that, have a good night, and until tomorrow.

~ Lil

Salud. Gesundheit. Salute! Prosit. Sat'yam. Santé, Bless You.

*UPDATED 12:11am 8/27/14

There's a lot of sneezing going on here at The Place today, and cough & cold relief remedies abound. So, may health and wellness soon be with us all. Also, may you all be spared the misery.

Okay, enough of that because I'm losing steam here and am seriously thinking about taking a lie down. Pretty sure this was coming on last night due to the fact that I have no idea what last night's blog post was about. I was in a stupor by the time the Emmy's were over, and remember feeling super tired and wanting to go to bed around 10:30 pm... everything is fuzzy after that.

Was there mention of routine? Hmmm.  I don't know.  Anyway, since it has come up, this is my new, soon-to-be implemented "Me, myself & I" routine.

In the old days - over decades - my go to morning news show was the Today show. Then the switch over to CNN happened in 2000. Lately I pretty much avoid televised morning news all together and rely on Twitter to keep me posted on world events via +apnews brk +Reuters  +CNN +PBS +PBS NewsHour  +NPR/Vermont, +9NEWS +mydesert.com  +Circa +The Verge  +Slate +Grist +Mashable +BuzzFeed, +The Texas Tribune, +The Weather Channel and of course, +Comedy Central's +The Daily Show and +The Colbert Report  heck, even +Mental Floss & +SourceFed serve as a great current events sources; on occasion +Mediaite.  Yes, this is how I get my news of the day, every day.

Another weekday standard for years and years was a long, and still running, popular morning talk show, but that began to stale as soon as their politics and lack of grasp of the real world - you know, for us non-millionaires - became apparent. The show lost me when one of the hosts could not understand why college graduates couldn't make it out in the "real" world; on their own, and commented that returning to live with parents seemed nonsensical. She would not allow that in her home. Same thing happened with certain afternoon talk shows... you know the kind, all they want to hear about are puppy dogs, cupcakes, and rainbows. Ugh.

Anyway, these days my entertainment comes via YouTube videos by creators that my kids have turned me on to, and I am thoroughly enjoying the refreshing content and absurd antics of these kooky kids.  I'll even admit that I, in turn, turned my kids on to some channels... that's you, +Grace Helbig and +markmalkoff. One channel which has taken the place of R&K, as far as random topics and subject matter go, is Good Mythical Morning, followed-up with Good Mythical More, by Rhett & Link.  Here's a sampling:

o

Coincidentally, today's Good Mythical More is one of my favorite episodes.

*Wait... update:

THIS is my favorite Good Mythical More episode EVER!

Every night after I've posted my blog post, I head on over to +YouTube for my "must watch" channels: +vlogbrothers and all their other brilliant contributions - +SciShow +CrashCourse +hankschannel, and by extension, +PBS Digital Studios +theartassignment and Healthcare Triage. Followed by - for absolute sheer entertainment - +Grace Helbig & friends, +markmalkoff from +My Damn Channel   +SoulPancake, Kid President, +TheFineBros +WheezyWaiter  +Flula +SORTED Food Guys and the ever brilliant +OlanRogers.  Although their content is aimed at a much younger set, I find it worth the time to tune in as often as I can. So, check 'em out if you ever have time to spare.

Now, if I also included favorite and worthwhile blog recommendations, this page might get way too long. I'll save that list for later this week. So, I'll just end here... Aaa-haaaa-CHOO!

Until tomorrow ~ Lil

  

***

This post is written for Day 26 ~ Creating Memories with August 2014 NaBloPoMo

13,337

Nine... Eight...

How many minutes I have to write my August 6, 2014 NaBloPoMo.. seven now.

What to write?  All day today I had stuff floating around to choose from, but I didn't write anything down to help me get this post done. Story of my life.

Six minutes: If only the idea of a nm... Ack! How's it spelled?

Five minutes:  ... mnemonic device! If only I could figure out how to make one work for me.

Four minutes:  My son seems to be the one who keeps his dad and I on our toes.  He's good at it.

Three minutes:  That said, seems we've lost the ability to apply memory and planning skills to use in our daily routines. My husband has it better than I do, being as he has a job to go to every day.  I'm here at home, where my brain gets mushier and mushier by the minute.

Two minutes: You know that knuckle trick to help you keep track of which months have 31 days?  I can't even do that!

One minute:  Tips to help me with memory improvement welcome here.

*****

And now, won't you join me for an Italian minute:

Again, thank you, Fluenz on You Tube

Questo caffè translates to This coffee

Piatto translates to Dish

therefore

Questo piatto translates to This dish

Until tomorrow ~ Lil

***

This post is written for Day 6 ~ Creating Memories with August 2014 NaBloPoMo

12,907

Did I Mention...

I started a hobby.

It was fun. So fun I stopped.

What can I say, life.

You know the drill... taxiing a husband and a son to and from work, school carpool, elderly parent watch , husband health watch, car problems, elderly diabetic parent meal management, husband ER visit, elderly parent emergency surgery, bailing on carpooling because that one nightmare kid, more car problems, more driving, more Mom (elderly parent) stuff. The list goes on and on. Oh, and let's not forget coordinating college kid's travel plans for visits home, including that extra stressful task of making arrangements for everything that needs to be taken care of (from opposite ends of the country) before she left school for Summer break.

Anyway, I hope to return to creating new vlogs... that hobby I was telling you about.

#ThisIsFifty

#InTheKitchenWithLilOnWednesday  #FiveOnFriday

&

More!

Vlogs by Lillian Carilo

Until tomorrow. ~ Lil

This post is written for Day 5 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge for July 2014 and NaBloPoMo.

June 28, 2013 ~ Good Morning Sunshine

This what I have to contend with each morning that I don't keep the car...

the flipping sun beaming through the seams in the bedroom door blinds!

Currently, mornings after getting up to fix my husband lunch and sending him off to work with a kiss and a "Have a good day" I try to catch a few (or loads) more winks before taking on another uneventful day.  I climb back into bed and do everything I can to avoid the glaring sun coming in through the blinds. This unrelenting glare does all in it's power to keep me from falling back to sleep, but has yet to force me to move over to my husband's side of the bed.

This morning I changed up my ritual - falling back to sleep and waking up annoyed that no one wakes me up earlier. Most days that's well past 9:30 am. I know... embarrassing. What I did different this morning was bringing my mini laptop into the room with me to read the news and watch a fun YouTube video series by Hank and John Green from 2007... It's, well, great.

So I did that, and then fell back to sleep around 9:30 only to be jarred awake by an earthquake at about 10:45 and conveniently centered just a few miles up the hill! NewsFlash...I hate earthquakes.  Feeling the ground trembling beneath me is not my idea of a "good morning."  And, in actuality, it's my least preferred kind of morning, mostly because I'm reminded of the time my mom left me alone in bed to go check on my sister during the 1971 Sylmar quake in Los Angeles - also known as "One of my least favorite days ever."

Fingers crossed for a non-shaky wakey Saturday morning.  Uneventful is what I'm aiming for here.

It is now 1:42 am, Saturday, June 29... I have terrible sleep habits.