Author: Jen Rios

Make it a Good Day!

My Mom had a story for me this morning when I awoke! As she started telling it to me, I instantly thought of this song:

I have never seen this video before and I cannot believe how young Beyoncé is, but all I saw in my head was Mr. Latour coming into my classroom singing it. I can’t remember the funny circumstances or the joke around it but I know that I laughed!

Rather than re-counting the story, my Mom told me this morning, I am just going to live in my memory of Mr., LeTour, singing Beyoncé even though I don’t really remember the exact circumstances, but I know at that time I was teaching English, still walking, and still on crutches? Or I hadn’t been wheelchair-bound that long yet.

I will write the story about what happened today, tomorrow. For today, I am just going to live in my more able-bodied time and make it a good day!

Method to my Madness…

I think that I have finally accepted that I am homebound. My life is 100% routine and it does not vary. So I only leave my house for doctors appointments, haircuts, and the dentist. We are going to the dentist on August 1. Because I do the same thing every day, I have noticed that in my humdrum days, there is a message to my madness.

For example, this is how I spend my attention:

So, this happened yesterday and it got me thinking…:

So, this is my spring flavors of Chapstick. I left the pomegranate on the left because there’s just a little bit left and I wanted to start my cucumber mint chapstick. I will save it for after my PCP doctors appointment that’s at the end of September, so I can be ready to unveil pumpkin spice on October 1 when I watch Hocus Pocus.

I only have one tube of cucumber mint, and I have one tube of strawberry sorbet that I only use on Saturdays because I tried it out last year because I liked the name of the chapstick but it does not taste as good as I thought it would. But I have to use it all up!!!

I have thrown out only three completely unused chapstick tubes since I started keeping it in these gum containers that my brother bought me in 2020 because the chapstick tasted too waxy and the first unused chapstick I threw out tasted a little bit rancid.

It looks like I will need to buy another box of spring flavored chapstick, but I won’t do that until NEXT spring I think.

28 Years OR “Eagle Help my Feet to Fly!”

My Mom left to get her hair done so I am at my house alone. I thought to watch Love and Other Drugs because that’s really not a movie for my Mom but I love it!

Sadly, it is not available on any of my streaming platforms and I don’t own it yet, so then I thought of the next best thing I have been thinking about this recently so I decided to watch it, even though I am 41 years old and by myself. I HAD TO watch Pocahontas!!!

Sean butt dialed me while he was working and I texted him this just the same once the movie was over, and I sang the entire time that I watched the movie!:

I was home alone, so it does not matter how I sounded! I still know all of the words and I have for 28 years now!

It was so familiar to watch, and I found myself sitting in my Parents’ house watching it. It has been a while since I watched it so watching the ending and hearing her sing the line, “Eagle help my feet to fly! Mountain help my heart be great! Spirits of the earth and sky, Please don’t let it be too late!”

I am not even ashamed to say that I cried while singing it because I did! I say those lines anytime I am in a hurry, and I need something to happen quickly!:

When I turned my TV on, it was on the Hallmark channel and I saw the last 20 minutes of the second movie to the Nine Lives of Christmas! I’ve seen that movie so many times, but I had to see the happy ending where they get engaged and adopt the kitten together!

I guess that ‘Christmas in July’ movies is a thing now?!

Change of Plan

My Mom told me that we would watch Chicago today but today she decided to change her mind so it is a change of plan.

We watched Last Christmas. I know that it is NOT Christmas time but the whole ‘Christmas in July’ thing and I watched the tail end of Nine Lives of Christmas on the Hallmark channel the other day. Everything’s crazy now, so it doesn’t matter!

I really dug hearing this song:

Magnificent

My Mom and I watched the first Narnia movie a few days ago. I haven’t seen it in so long that it was like watching a brand new movie. I liked it because I remember watching this with Sean when he was 7 or something?

But at the very end, when Aslan is giving everyone their crowns, he crowns Peter last, and he says that he crowns him, ‘Peter the Magnificent.’ When I heard that you know that I thought of our second apartment and when u2 was on Letterman all week:

But here’s the thing, on Monday of that week, I stayed up to watch letterman, even though it’s past my bedtime because I had to work the next morning but that Monday I realized that at 26, I am too old for their target audience, and I didn’t find it funny at all!

So, I just had to adjust my game plan. I set my alarm for 10 minutes before the show was over so then I could wake up and just watch them perform and then go back to sleep.

Unsubscribe Already!

I got this email a few days ago and let me ‘splain ya:

I have been shopping at Kids Footlocker since I started buying shoes for myself in high school. I didn’t get this email address until after Sean was out of kid’s shoes.

But, after problems with my feet in 2022, I changed to a different pair of shoes. I think that will be my last pair of shoes because I’ve had them for over a year and they still have not been on the outside sidewalk.

I clean out my email folders every morning when I wake up and I got a different email from kids footlocker but I just put it in the trash. When I see emails with Shelltoes on it, it makes me feel nostalgic and I remember rockin’ those shoes for years! I tell myself every time, “Unsubscribe already!” But I can’t seem to bring myself to do it…

Just for Show

I changed my bag of floss packs the other day. At the beginning of the year, I bought four of them because I cannot control my hands enough to use bag of 150 floss picks (because my hands are small) so I change them out every time I change out my toothbrush head I am changing out tomorrow morning.

So a few days ago, I ran out of floss picks, so I got a new bag of 75 because I will change out the head to my toothbrush tomorrow because it will be three months tomorrow. I cannot control my hands enough to use a manual toothbrush anymore.

My Mom knows that I have to have things done a certain way so the other day when I was changing out my floss pick bag, I was making sure that it would tear open at the perforated line. A few months ago, I tried doing that and I couldn’t so my Mom had to open it for me. Then, I keep my bag of floss picks semi-opened in the box with the remotes for my TV because that’s where I sit to brush my teeth because my chair won’t fit in my bathroom.

She tore off the top of the floss picks bag at the perforated line and handed it to me. I tried opening it up, but I could not even do that. I squeeze my therapy putty every day for 17 minutes and I think at this point, as much as it pains me to say, my hands are just for show.

Ned’s Declassified

I heard this sound coming out of my kitchen a couple nights ago, and I started to laugh, and immediately thought of Ned’s Declassified!!!

let me ‘splain ya:

I read this article a few days ago and sent it to my Mom:


I sent that article to her because she was talking about an increase of drain flies in both my kitchen sink and my tub. She told me something like “Well that’s in New York.” I told her that we are closer because we are five minutes away from Canada!

That statement made her think and she decided to do something about them a few days ago. My Mom knows that I am chemically sensitive so she decided to do something natural. She decided to pour a mixture of baking soda, salt, and vinegar. She started it in my kitchen, and as soon as I heard the fizz, I thought of Ned’s Declassified!:

I started to laugh when I heard her yelp! Baking soda, salt, and vinegar, is a science project!!!

That’s what made me think of Ned’s Declassified! Sean and I used to watch that all the time on Nickelodeon when we lived in our second apartment!

As for the drain flies, my Mom is going to do another science project tonight. She has done it for two nights, and the flies are lessening. I was looking for a picture for Ned’s Declassified. And I think it’s crazy that they are so old now.! Well, Sean was like 6 and he’s 21 now?!:

Big Brother is Betting 1000!!!

The writers strike is taking too long and last night while perusing YouTube, I watched this interview:


She has been popping up recently in my feed, and I waited a moment after watching that video and then I scrolled a few videos down and big brother is betting 1000!!!

I don’t know how many times I sang in this song in the bus with Girl Scouts or basketball, but we sang it all the time!!!