I Get My Affirmation from Strangers (And the Strangest Places).....

Like most people in the free world who have internet access, I read The Pioneer Woman's blog every day. I'm pretty sure she invented blogging. And cowboys. And butter.

Lately PW has allowed her husband, known affectionately to the whole world as Marlboro Man, to do some guest posts. They are incredibly well written, and I am pretty sure the voice is his, not something PW has written and passed off as being written by a man wearing Wranglers and chaps.

I rarely comment on PW's blog, because it's like sending a tweet to George Clooney or something. I'm pretty sure she doesn't bother with peons (did I spell that word correctly?) such as myself, and while she would love to respond personally to each and every comment, the fact that somewhere around a billion people read and comment on her posts (and that's not even counting when she has a contest or a giveaway) probably deters her from attempting it.

Yesterday Marlboro Man wrote a post about wild horses, and while I got lost in a lot of the details and the incredible photographs of the horses, the author's (correct - yay!) use of the word "exacerbating" caught my eye. (I used to love teaching that as a vocabulary word in the traditional school setting. It got giggles from ninth graders every. single. time.) I couldn't resist commenting on his use of the word.

And I'm not sure why, but something compelled me to go back and look at my own comment later. (I guess it's sort of like baking a beautiful cake and going back to the kitchen to look at it again. Did I mention I might have a tiny bit of an ego problem?)

What I found there made me smile.

Bragger On Monday, May 21 at 1:11 pm

Chaps aside, I have a soft spot in my heart for a man who uses the word “exacerbate” correctly. I know of a (now former) college gymnastics coach who said an athlete wouldn’t be doing a certain skill because it “exasperated” her injury.
And that exasperated me.
Good work, MM.
Signed,
Soon-to-be-retired-English-teacher-and-boy-aren’t-the-students-glad
Reply

Kath On Monday, May 21 at 5:03 pm

This is the funniest post I have seen in a while. My mother was an English teacher so I feel for your students. Have a happy retirement.

ann On Monday, May 21 at 5:34 pm

As a retired teacher and certified “word nerd” I got a big chuckle reading your post. I find myself constantly mentally correcting what I read and hear that butchers the English language.

 Perfect strangers, commenting on my comment, made my day. 


Headed off to my therapist (or another drink called a frozen buttery nipple, whichever comes first),


Bragger

Feeling Inferior.....

I was going to write a whole post about how much I hate Pioneer Woman, but then I had to be honest and admit that I don't really HATE her. She's impossible to hate. But she makes me feel so.........darned inferior.

I would love to be the photographer that Pioneer Woman is. She just knows so darn much about it. I have a big honking digital SLR camera that I paid mucho dinero for, and I still use it like it's a point-and-shoot. It doesn't help that Pioneer Woman also apparently has a bottomless pit of a money source, and she has all the best toys and gadgets for her cameras. Even after I retire and have gobs of time to spend learning everything about photography, my brain will never hold one millionth of the information she knows. That's hateable.

Anyone who has read Pioneer Woman's blog knows that she is also an amazing cook. Not only does she devote an entire section of her blog to her cooking, she has produced a COOKBOOK, for God's sake. And I'll probably feed her damn legend and buy a copy, hoping against hope that I can duplicate.....maybe just ONCE.....her success in the kitchen. But I know I'll never measure up, and I'll go on flippantly saying I hate cooking anyway, when I know the truth of the matter is that I'm just not good at it. And not interested in getting any better. But Pioneer Woman can cook in her sleep. That's hateable.

I could aspire to reach her level in photography and cooking, but I have to admit that matching her parenting skills is beyond me now. My Sweet Girl will be 25 in 13 days, and any hopes I had of becoming a better mother went by the wayside years ago. I've always said that parenting is nothing but blind luck. Pioneer Woman, then, should go to Las Vegas and spin the roulette wheel. 'Cause she got really lucky four times.

I can't even write as well as Pioneer Woman, and I've got three college degrees. One of them in English. Maybe I can -- I found a grammatical error in one of her posts when she said something about "laying by the pool." Everyone knows it's "lying by the pool." So maybe I do have one small thing on her. Never mind that only six people in the world, the ones who read this blog, know that I have one tiny bit more of intelligence as it relates to English grammar than the paragon of blogging, Pioneer Woman.

One area where I DON'T feel inferior, however, is comparing Hubby to Marlboro Man. She can have MM's forearms and chaps. I'll take Hubby's legs over MM's forearms any day.