I swore I'd never

 I swore I'd never blog. Too self-involved, too navel gazing for me.

Yet, here I am.

I swore I'd never join Facebook. Too many people wanting to be friends with someone (that'd be me) who's not really all that friendly.

Yet, you can find me on Facebook...in not just one place but two: personal and bloggy FB pages.

I swore I'd never join Twitter. Too silly and psycho with all that personal disclosure of little import streaming by.

Yet, you can find me there daily, tooting and tweeting as @GrandmasBriefs.

I swore I'd never post videos on YouTube. Too many bad videos of kids hiding out in their bedrooms creating snippets of stuff their parents should ground them the rest of their lives for doing.

Yet, I not only visit it often, I regularly share videos from there and, get this, even have my own YouTube channel.

I swore I'd never join Pinterest...mostly because I didn't understand what the <cuss> it was.

Yet now I'm pinning and pining away on Pinterest...far more often than I should be...am far more in love with it, am more obsessed with it, than I should be.

I swore I'd never win Publishers Clearing House.

WAIT! That's not true! I've sworn again and again and again, for years and years and years, that I was going to win PCH!

I think I get it now: All these years, I have taken the wrong route to reward with PCH, using positive declarations and visualization techniques in hopes of seeing the Prize Patrol Van show up in my driveway.

High time to change all that.

I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...I swear I'll never win PCH...

Today's fill-in-the-blank:

I swore I'd never ____________, yet now I'm _______________.

Tweeting without Twitter

I never thought in a million years I'd say this, but I use Twitter. Daily. Sometimes hourly.

After several years of saying how stupid the social networking site seemed to me, I'm now a tweeter. Which is kind of like a tweaker, as it is rather addictive, but it costs far less. In fact, being on Twitter pays me -- in the form of new followers and friends. Some of you reading this may have even followed me here from Twitter. (Welcome, SITSGirls!)

Anyway, so I tweet. No big deal.

Apparently it is a big deal to my daughters, though. A laughable big deal.

My daughters don't tweet; they think it's silly (like mother, like daughter, I suppose). They text, they're on Facebook, one even has a blog. But "I'd never tweet on Twitter!" is pretty much the common refrain from all three, incredulous that their mother -- a grandma, even, and someone they thought was intelligent ... on most days -- would actually participate in such drivel.

Funny thing is, my daughters do tweet. All the cussing time! Just not on Twitter. They send me little chirps and shoutouts via 140-character-or-less texts and 140-word-or-less phone calls and voicemails all day long. Which, in my opinion, puts them firmly in the "tweet" category.

The girls call or text to tweet about their trip home from work, the weather, what temperature you preheat the oven to for banana bread and on, and on, and on.

Don't get me wrong; I love their pseudo-tweeting. I truly do. I love that my daughters are comfortable calling and texting any time, any day, any night, for any reason whatsoever, however inane that reason may be.

Here is a small sampling of the pseudo-tweets I've received from my daughters just in the last two days:

"I finally feel like I have friends again!"

"What do I do if the power goes out?"

"Have you accessed my bank account for any reason?"

"Yay! I signed a lease!"

"I've never hated a job as much as I hate this one."

See what I mean? Those are tweet-worthy texts and telephone calls. More like Twitter direct messages, but Twitter talk just the same.

The one serious difference between tweets from my girls and tweets from my Twitter pals? No matter how often they tweet, no matter how often they bug the cuss out of me with the chirping, I can't unfollow the girls. There's definitely no "unfollow" button when it comes to my lovely offspring. And in all honesty, I don't want there to be. (Some folks on Twitter? Well, that's a different story. And I do use the unfollow button.)

Oh, and another big difference: Retweeting certain tweets from the girls is bad. Very, very bad. And may result in a total lockout of the service.

Which means this post will likely get me a big 'ol #mymomdoesntknowwhentokeephermouthshut mention.

If only the girls knew what that means.

And how to do it.

But they don't.

Because they're not on Twitter.

Ha!

Today's question:

Do you find it easier to form new friendships online or in real life? Why?

Never say never

Saturday I did something I said I'd never do: I joined Twitter.* I've made snarky comments about Twitter since its inception as I think it's rather stupid. But I joined it anyway ... despite having said I never would.

It's another in an ever-growing list of things I've said I'll never do, then I do them. Here are just a few examples:

• I said I'd never blog. And I do ... often ... obviously.

• I said I'd never join Facebook. And did. And have a profile for myself as well as a fan page for Grandma's Briefs.

• I said -- along with Jim -- that we'd never move from the house that we lived in for nearly 20 years, in which we raised our three daughters, completed beau coup improvements and enjoyed pretty darn low mortgage payments. And we did move ... to a house double its size. (So much for downsizing as empty-nesters.)

• I said I'd never be able to learn how to give myself shots -- with a needle, not a shot glass. And I did. And I do ... every darn day.

• I said I'd never know how to read music. Then I took piano lessons and learned. So now I do -- even though I still have to recite "every good boy does fine" and "all cows eat grass." But that's okay.

• I said -- again, along with Jim -- that I'd never visit Megan and Preston during the summer when the decided to make their home in the crazy hot desert. Then Bubby was born in June, so we visited a couple times that summer. Then again the following summer for his first birthday. And now we're looking at visiting again this summer for his second birthday.

I've obviously not done what I said. So I hereby swear that I will never say never again.

Maybe.

*You're welcome to follow me on Twitter: @GrandmasBriefs. I'll never guarantee the quality nor quantity of any tweets that may come your way courtesy of me. And THAT never I totally completely stand by.

Today's question:

How about you? What's something you said you'd never do ... then did?