{walker whimsy}

The Bright Side ...

2012-06-01T11:45:00.000-07:00

It's unfair to post pictures of ugly carpet without sharing a few snapshots of the lovely things around our new residence.

Standby for photobomb in 3, 2, 1 ...

One of the many (really old) outbuildings on the property. They are perfect for photo ops and hiding notorious criminals. Yeehaw.

California poppies in the front yard (and random other places). When I was little I used to pretend the dead ones were fairy wands as I flitted about the yard (did I mention we moved back to the house I lived in from age two to age seven?).

Fifteen years later, it's a poppy EXPLOSION.

The headlight on a Chevy Luv ... not sure this would qualify as "lovely" unless you're a Luv lover.

Or a "Luv-er".

Boo ya. Horrific pun.

Wood grain from an old juniper tree.

My favorite - yellow primroses. The smell is divine.

A dugout from pioneer times. SO COOL.

More wood grain.

A mama horse and her baby.

T's reaction to the horses. He thinks they're giant dogs (he repeated "gog" over and over). I think he was a little frightened by their enormousness.

I would be frightened of a "gog" 50 times bigger than me, too.

The little red house. It's so very Little House on the Prairie, don't you think?

And finally, one of several insanely beautiful views.

There are so many places to take awesome pictures, I may stoop to begging my friends to let me do photo shoots.

Seriously.

First person who asks gets a free photo shoot.

How sad and desperate of me.

Anyhoo, have a nice weekend! Relax, enjoy the weather, and steal a spot in your great grandpa's hammock.

Evidently it is an extremely entertaining thing to do.

:-)

You're stranded on a deserted island ...

2012-05-30T13:17:00.002-07:00

The scene:

While scuba diving in the Pacific, your oxygen tank gets snagged on the tail of a rainbow-striped whale. Helpless, you are carried along for hundreds of miles.

Okay, maybe five. But still.

When you finally manage to wrangle yourself free, you surface to find you are completely surrounded by water. You have no idea where you are and the only visible land is a tiny speck to the south (or maybe the north ... ). You swim frantically, hoping to reach it before you are eaten by a giant shark or mutant piranhas. After several hours, you finally make it to the island. It is completely deserted, but there seems to be plenty of fresh water and food.

Also, TiVo.

What is the first thing you do?

A) Scream, "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!", then throw yourself down on the beach and cry buckets and buckets of tears.
B) Immediately try to remember every detail you can from Man Versus Wild ... realize all you can recall is the guy pronounces crevices "crev-ASSES" and drinks his own pee.
C) Find a volleyball. Name it Wilson.
D) Take off all your clothes and use them to make a fishing net.
E) Try to spear a monkey through the eyeball with a sharpened stick.
F) Find some fresh running water for drinking, make a shelter, and gather driftwood. Use your emergency stash of matches to light a fire before it gets dark.

If you answered ___, you are:

A) A drama queen. It's not that bad. There's TiVo, remember?
B) Me
C) Tom Hanks
D) Sunburned in places nobody wants to be sunburned in
E) A moron
F) A better question ... just where were those matches?

That's So '70s

2012-05-24T08:49:00.000-07:00

I picked up my camera for the first time in a few weeks just to take a picture of this:

If you stare at it longer than 7 seconds, the pattern will permanently damage your retinas.

Well, probably.

Now that I'm looking at it on screen, "psychedelic" doesn't seem to be the right word.

Maybe "groovy"?

Or "far out".

Or "hideous".

You know what's funny? Somebody used to think this carpet was amazing. And in the next fifty years, it will probably be considered the pinnacle of floor fashion once again. Maybe we should just leave it, pop a disco ball on the ceiling, buy a ton of stock in polyester and wait 50 years.

You thought this was the future?

THINK AGAIN, SUCKA.

In the words of Solomon, "There is nothing new under the sun."

Or as Justin Timberlake says, "What goes around, goes around, goes around comes all the way back arrrouuunnnddd ... " Slightly less eloquent, but still catchy. Especially since it's repeated five hundred times.

Anyhoo, I don't think I can handle looking at this carpet too much longer, so we're thinking of finding some Faux-go (that would be Pergo for poor people) to lay right over the top of it. Possibly something like this:

ahhhhh

We'll have to get some swatches and see how it looks with the rest of the house colors. Which would be wood, wood, navajo white, wood, orange, puke green, naugahyde, wood, cheetah print (really), beige-ish and wood.

Despite the decor, I must say I am SO HAPPY to finally be moved! I just want to get down and boogie.

It's a disco inferno, peeps.

And not just because I want to burn the carpet.

Bubble Wrap

2012-05-22T15:52:00.000-07:00

Jello, peeps!

I have been staring at psychedelic carpet way too long to put a rational blog post together. More on that later. And geez-o-friday, it is hard to spell "psychedelic".

We officially have a toddler. T Dubbs has decided walking is better than crawling. Which means his head looks like an apple someone who doesn't know how to juggle tried to juggle with. Got that?

New parents, invest in three things now:

1) arnica
2) baby ibuprofen
3) bubble wrap

Why bubble wrap, you ask?

To make your child a bubble wrap turban.

You think I'm kidding.

I'm not.

Maybe even a whole bubble wrap suit. It would keep them relatively safe. It would wipe clean. And you would always be able to find them ...

I'm liking this idea. Shark Tank, here I come.

Socially Unacceptable

2012-05-17T14:44:00.001-07:00

I bumped into a former classmate at a restaurant the other day. We didn't speak. I'm pretty sure it's because of the nasty note I wrote about her in fifth grade comparing her to a sea creature.

I'm sorry, okay?

Looking back, maybe it wasn't a coincidence Mom started homeschooling me after that.

Hmm.

Anyway, she (and the rest of the peeps my age) are home from college on break. I would describe her as a typical American college student.

So there's her.

And there's me.

Same age ...

Except I am five months pregnant (not yet whale size, but probably up to small orca classification), sweating profusely due to another Hoover Dam hot flash. And I am VERY uncomfortable. Mostly because I unknowingly dropped a gummy bear down my cleavage during second breakfast (it's a thing) and it is starting to melt ...

I am also holding a cracker-covered one-year-old who appears to be having an intense conversation with the window valance.

I feel ... embarrassed. Not just because my lady lumps are getting stuck together with lime green gelatinous goop, but because of the unconventional choices I've made. The BIG choices. Getting married, having a kid, having ANOTHER kid, et cetera. I didn't do the "socially acceptable" thing, and that scared me ... for a minute.

So I thought about it and I came to this conclusion:

The only thing that is going to matter when you reach the end of your life is that you can live with the choices you've made.

I'm happy with my life.

So, be forewarned, next person who says to me, "You're pregnant AGAIN!?! Oh my GAWD."

I won't hesitate to chase you around Wal-Mart with pool noodles whilst screaming "THIS IS SPARTA!"

Really.

If I'm going to be "socially unacceptable", I'm gonna do it right.

She's got a mind like a steel trap. Or possibly a rubber band.

2012-05-04T21:59:00.001-07:00

I don't know if it's the impending super moon or that HUGE brownie I just ate, but I've got thoughts bouncing around in my head like ping pong balls.

Like perhaps someday I should take a picture of myself with my new (again) hair cut and color instead of masquerading as a blonde.

Or that maybe I should restart the creative ~~torture~~ process and attempt to get my ideas featured on crafting sites so people will lurve me. Because rejection was just so fun the first 700 times.

Or that maybe I should open an etsy store with crocheted creations ... once I finish the projects I've been procrastinating.

Or that I am now the parent of a one year old. Complete with tantrums, teeth and toddling.

Or that in 18ish weeks, I will have two children. *GULP*

Or that this lingering stupid cough makes me feel like I may need Depends.

Or that I have a tendency to over share.

Some things will never change. I am not perfect. Life is not perfect. And that is what makes it fun.

And in case you were wondering, it wasn't a hash brownie. I don't need drugs to be peculiar.

It just happens.

have you seen this movie? it's a GREAT movie.

Words that should NEVER be used together

2012-05-01T20:31:00.001-07:00

When it comes to parenting (and life in general), there are some words you hope you never have to use together. "Explosive", for instance, is not something you want paired with ANY bodily function. Ever.

And yet here we are ...

I do-ed it. Hoo-rah.

Yup. It appears we are working on two more teeth. With the disgust-o diapers to match. There's only a bazillion million more to go ...

Okay, I'm exaggerating.

But it feels that way.

On a completely different but kinda similar note, there are two other words that should never be used together.

NASAL and IRRIGATION.

SO. WRONG.

Who smiles when they're irrigating their nasal passages? *points to self with thumbs* Not this girl.

Who does it wrong and ends up puking salt water? Explosively?

This girl.

Won't Get Fooled Again

2012-04-29T20:01:00.002-07:00

Whew.

We survived!

The shindig was quite fun, just not what I imagined. I gave myself about a third of the time I needed to prepare, so I was still frosting cupcakes when guest started to arrive. Thank God for family members willing to pitch in!

What did I learn? Hmmm. Let me see.

1. Lavish birthday parties are not my style. Don't get me wrong; it was a lot of fun seeing family and friends and planning and decorating, but that was far outweighed by all the self-induced stress. Plus, it ended up getting really expensive. I have no idea how that happened ... *innocent blink*.

2. It's very difficult to fit three days of work into six hours. In other words, I (still) don't have very good time management skills.

Duh.

Maybe now that I've accepted this character quirk, I'll stop trying to fit REALLY BIG projects into really small time frames.

Maybe.

3. Getting sick doesn't help anything at all. Mostly because it's not very attractive to hack all over your party guests (and their food). I'm feeling a bit better after 16 hours of sleep. Sixteen hours I could have been using to end world hunger or something. Possibly with all the leftover cupcakes ...

4. Always listen to your mother. How many times am I going to have to learn this lesson?

She suggested I call everyone and cancel when I woke up on Saturday and felt like I was dying. But, noooo, that would have been positively preposterous. I had already, you know, made cupcakes and ... stuff.

4. Things never turn out like they look on Pinterest. I partially blame the Internet for my disillusionment about this whole thing. I searched and searched for ideas and came up with all these blog posts of perfect parties with perfect people and perfect decorations and I started thinking, "Surely this can't be that hard."

Well, it is if you're a normal human being. It's kinda like thinking you can look like a magazine model.

Just. not. possible. Especially when you're five months pregnant ...

5. It's really hard to make Sesame Street characters look like Sesame Street characters. They kinda look more like deformed Veggie Tales characters. Obese deformed Veggie Tales characters. But they tasted delicious and best of all ....

I CONQUERED HIGH ALTITUDE CUPCAKES!!!

Thank you, Duncan Hines.

6. We ~~may~~ will be doing something less stressful/expensive/messy in the future. It was fun and Talen had fun, but again, not my style. I am not Superwoman, and that is okay.

And oh yeah, happy birthday to T! 365 days ago I was thinking my insides would fall out if I stood up ...

Hooray for happier memories!

The Birthday Party

2012-04-26T21:24:00.001-07:00

Talen's birthday party is this Saturday and I have been busy preparing for the Sesame Street-themed bash ... and by preparing I mean sampling different types of frosting with a spoonful or five.

I'm going to attempt to make these cupcakes from Annie's Eats:

found on Pinterest ... of course

Hopefully this is not my reality on Saturday morning:

close enough

Oh well. T Dubbs won't remember it.

Then all I'll have to do is drug the party guests ...

You have been warned >: ]

Excuses, Excuses

2012-04-23T05:30:00.000-07:00

Hiya, peeps.

Sorry for the blogging dry spell. Seems I'm full of excuses about those lately. Reasons this time? Let me see here.

In the past few weeks we packed up our house (in three days), moved all our crap to the new house, moved the rest of the crap to my parents until the final exodus in June, I'm training a replacement at work, and T Dubbs has been sick, sick, sick. We actually ended up in the ER a week ago because he was breathing too rapidly and drooling excessively. They were afraid it was epiglottitis (very serious) so they had to take a chest x-ray and then diagnosed it as croup (not so serious). The doc gave him a steroid shot which turned him into a horrible tiny monstrosity. I kid you not. I know steroid shots aren't supposed to have any side effects, but they did.

Anyhoo, I'm happy to report he is completely recuperated. The rest of us, not so much. We will never catch up on sleep again. It's hard to really communicate the horrible-ness of croup. Imagine having your fingers and toes smashed by a meat grinder one by one while your eyelids are being ripped off in tiny pieces. It's kinda like I imagine that would feel. I can't even imagine how bad it must have been for T!

And I've been pregnant the whole time.

Hooray for crazy.

Hooray!

2012-04-22T10:20:00.002-07:00

I interrupt whatever important thing you happen to be doing to bring you a special announcement!

The little wiggle worm is a:

T Dubbs was seriously excited. About the Scrabble tiles, that is.

I would have taken a picture of him, but I was busy trying to fish the letter "E" out of his mouth ...

Hooray for pink and bows and dress-up clothes!

Whoops

2012-04-10T13:52:00.000-07:00

Just clarifying what I meant by "move". We're still in this tiny town, just hangin' at my parents house until the first weekend in June when the BIG move occurs. Sorry for the befuddlement :-) Now you know how I feel pretty much all the time ...

Mawage

2012-04-05T10:11:00.001-07:00

Mawage. Mawage is what bwings you this bwog post today.

It was recently brought to my attention (by my husband) that I do a whole lotta husband bashing on this site. I had no idea he actually read my fripperies (is that a word?), so when I found out how he felt, I figured I should set the record straight.

My husband is an amazing man. Why? Because he puts up with me. And that is a big deal because I am occasionally a sarcastic b*tch.

Okay, most of the time.

So, thank you, dear husband, for putting up with me instead of shooting me in the head. That's probably what I would do if I had to live with myself.

I can't promise I won't occasionally lament about dirty socks on the floor, but I will do my very best to present the good more often than the bad and the ugly.

Hooray for marriage licenses and possible heat stroke!

Sometimes creativity sucks ...

2012-04-03T13:31:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the posting shortages. I have a good reason, I promise.

We're moving a bit earlier than expected (like 6 to 8 week earlier ... ). I turned on the outside faucet Sunday so hubby could wash the patio. I went in the house, walked through a gigantic puddle, kept going, stopped, thought for a few seconds, yelled, turned and smashed my face into a cabinet, then ran outside to turn the water off. The landlords came over to have a look-see and evidently the break is behind a beam or something (carpentry expert I am not), so they're going to have to tear apart the kitchen to find the problem.

Which has led to a major packing spree. Have you ever packed a house in two days? I have. Twice. Last time, I did it by myself the while hubby went to the movies.

Can you tell I'm still a bit annoyed about that?

All this stress has led to a gigantic pimple and a to-do list a mile long. Plus, I'm finding all kinds of things that are "messed up". Being renters, this is a BIG DEAL.

For example, I spent an hour carefully scraping hot glue off the bottom of a cabinet. Bursts of creativity must shut off the common sense part of my brain. I mean, who hasn't thought, "Of course I can cut out 15,000 elf feet in two hours"? ... maybe that was just me.

Anyhoo, between the hot glue and the millions of tack holes in the wall and the pink wax spot on one of the (custom) honeycomb shades and the floor stains, it will be a miracle if we get our deposit back.

Oh, woe is me. WOEEE IS MEEE.

Whining to no one in particular is good therapy.

Puff and Pterodactyls Really Have Nothing to Do With It

2012-03-30T00:05:00.000-07:00

It's 11:22 p.m. T is finally asleep. If you were sitting here in my dark little living room with me, you would never have guessed what just went down in this house. You would also most likely be a creepy weirdo.

I attempted the cry method (pretty sure that's not the scientific name) of putting T to bed tonight. The whole process started out great. I didn't even think I would NEED to use it at first. I gave the baby a bottle, he fell asleep and I put him in his crib. Voila.

I should have know it wouldn't, couldn't be that easy.

T has been sleeping fitfully ~~since he was born~~ for the past few nights. I'm almost certain it's because he's teething. Not like normal baby teething, either. More like, "Hey, I think I should get ALL MY TOP TEETH AT ONCE" teething.

This is also known as the seventh circle of hell.

It probably wasn't the greatest idea to try out a new method on an already cranky child who's been rocked to sleep every night of his 11 month existence. Yeah, rookie mistake. Or whatever comes in below rookie status. Dummy? Dolt? Blockhead? Pick one.

About five minutes after I lay him down, he starts to fuss. So I go in and pick him up and sit down in the rocking chair like I usually do. He is not cool with this plan. He starts tossing Mickey onto the floor (that's his "lovey"), slaps me in the face several time, pulls my hair, fling his arms around, fusses, does the "I'm not a baby, I'm a 2x4" thing, kicks his feet, rubs his eyes and generally carries on.

I'm finally like, "That's it, I'm laying down the law" ... and the baby.

Bad puns are a specialty of mine.

I set a timer for two minutes.

After some mild to moderate crying, I go in and calm T down by rubbing his back whilst draping my tired old self like a used dishcloth over the edge of the crib.

He settles down after five or so minutes and goes back to sleep. I leave. And the screaming begins again. This time it's amped up a little. I set another timer and go scrub my sink with baking soda,

I'm a stress cleaner. I'm also a stress eater. That could very well have been the reason those pretzels tasted like bleach.

Anyway, I finish that and go back in to "comfort" my now hyperventilating child.

He's snot having it.

Yay. Two whole puns. There is still hope for my sad, sorry sense of humor.

The hubby comes in. "What are you doing?"

"I'm, uh, I'm trying the cry method. We let him cry so he learns to go to sleep by himself."

"So he screams his head off and then magically falls asleep?"

"Um, yes."

He looks at me like I've spent a little too much time with Puff the Magic Dragon.

Sheltered? Me? Nawwww.

Confession Time: I did not know that song was about marijuana until I was 18.

Confession Time Part 2: I thought you smoked marijuana by making a nice little fire-like pile of it on a flat surface, lighting it with a match, and letting the smoke waft around you.

Confession Time Part 3: I've never actually seen marijuana. If somebody substituted it for one of my dried herbs, I'd never know. Except there's a very good possibility I'm allergic. So I might die. Other than that, I'd never know.

Anyway, the hubby does the comforting this time. Once T's asleep, we lay him back down.

Anyone wanna guess what happens?

His little eyes pop open and he stands up and says in a British accent, "You blokes officially suck as parents".

Oh wait, that's a TV show.

His little eyes pop open and he starts screaming.

There we go.

We let him scream. For five whole minutes. Then my husband is like, "This is not good. He's HYPERVENTILATING." And I'm like, "Fine. You deal with it." So he does. T falls asleep again.

We try to lay him down. And the cycle continues (if you weren't paying attention, that would be: he wakes up, he screams, we wait a few minutes, I vigorously scrub something, we attempt comfort, he achieves dream state, we lay him down, repeat.)

Every time this happens the screams get louder and longer and more horrible than I ever could have imagined.

Which leads me to briefly ponder the link between babies and pterodactyls. Perhaps the stork isn't really a stork at all, but a gigantic prehistoric creature who teaches babies to make horrific sounds that can turn their parents into mushy-brained morons ...

Behold, the face of evil.

... yup, that's definitely it.

Finally, Chance lays down with him on our bed.

T keeps wailing. I come in.

"THAT WAS A TERRIBLE IDEA," he yell-whispers.

"WELL, HE HAS TO LEARN SOMETIME," I yell-whisper back.

"HE WOULD HAVE BEEN ASLEEP TWO HOURS AGO IF YOU HADN'T DONE THAT STUPID THING."

"IT'S NOT A STUPID THING. IT'S A PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY."

"IT'S RETARDED. EVERY TIME I TRY TO LEAVE, HE SCREAMS. HE'S TERRIFIED OF BEING ALONE NOW AND IT'S YOUR FAULT."

Consequently, my husband also has a terrible fear of being alone. He can also sound (and routinely acts) exactly like Grover, which makes the video on the right even more apropros.

But back to the whisper fight:

"NO, HE'S NOT. HE JUST DOESN'T WANT TO GO TO SLEEP."

"WHATEVER."

"WHATEVER."

Have you ever had an entire conversation in yell-whispers? It does some weird things to your vocal chords. So I go get a drink of water. Fold the laundry. Read some blog posts. Steam a bit.

And come back an hour later to find my husband and baby curled up on the bed (my side of the bed) snoring away.

I guess Daddy's going to be in charge of bed time from now on. Otherwise, mommy could do irreversible damage to the poor child's psyche.

It's all the pterodactyl's fault.

I told you they were evil.

The Sheet Saga: Why Satin Sheets Should Burn With the Fire of a Thousand Suns

2012-03-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

This is more like a novel than a blog post. You have been warned.

About two weeks ago, my husband and I went shopping together. This tends to be a very bad thing cuz I'm always like, "Ooh looky, something shiny" and he's like, "Buy it" and I'm like, "It's not in the budget" and I put it back and then he puts it in the cart anyway and we end up getting it. It's all part of his master plan to ~~take over the world~~ get video games because when we end up in that department he pulls the, "Well, you got your shiny thing" card and I'm like, "Hoover dam it. Fine." and we end up spending twice as much as I would have if I had just shopped ALONE.

Did you catch all that?

Anyhoo, whilst shopping, we somehow ended up in the linens aisle. Well, really I was trying to sneakily wend my way to the shoe department. Shoes are kinda like my version of crack.

All of a sudden my husband was like, "STOP THE PRESSES!"

I thought I was busted. But, no. It was worse. Much worse.

He wanted to look at sheets.

We have this problem, you see. Sometime during the night an evil alligator (named CHANCE LEE WALKER) creeps into our bed and does the macarena, causing the fitted sheet to slip off the mattress and crumple up right underneath my butt. When I get up to feed the baby I'm like, "ARRGGHHH" and I wake up the ~~evil alligator~~ hubby and make him get out of bed and stand there holding the screaming hungry baby while I fix it.

Of course I have never been accused of having OCD. To what are you referring?

Anyhoo, the hubby apparently doesn't like standing in his underwear holding a screaming infant for 10 minutes at 3 a.m., so he decided getting new ones would solve the problem.

And they had to be satin.

I was a little leery having never been a satin sheet owner before, but he really, really, REALLY wanted them, so we ended up buying a set.

In case you're wondering, I never made it to the shoe department.

We get them home and hubby immediately strips the bed and I'm like, "Maybe we should wash these first. They smell like the frog I dissected in eighth grade." Hubby sighs heavily, but puts the sheets in the washer.

One hour later: The sheets are washed and dried. Hubby has fallen asleep watching TV, so I end up making the bed.

The first thing I realize is that it's no easy task making a bed with satin sheets. The slippery little buggers have a mind of their own. Every time I try to put the quilt on, the fitted sheet somehow migrates to the top/side/bottom/other side of the bed. I finally figure out that if I fold the blanket into fourths, gingerly place it on the bed in the correct position, and then unfold it like it's covered with explosive foam, the sheet stays mostly in place.

After all that, I am sweaty and huffing and puffing and all I can think is, "EFF YOU, CREATOR OF SATIN SHEETS ... "

Which brings me to the first reason satin sheets are not sexy:

Making your bed should not be an aerobics workout.

(because then you end up looking like Richard Simmons ... or maybe that obese lady in the very back)

Fast forward to 11 p.m. The bed is made, the baby is asleep, I am ugly-fied (ugly-fied [verb?]: the process of removing all makeup from one's face), and I am TIRED.

I pull back the covers and climb into bed. And promptly shriek and hop back out.

Them things are cold, peeps! It was kinda like slipping between two ginormous sardines. Without the slime and creepy eyeballs. For clarification purposes, I was fully jammified [jammified (adjective?]: the state of wearing jammies).

I get out of bed and put on two pairs of socks, a long sleeve shirt and a sweater.

And that leads me to reason number 2:

Eskimos are not sexy.

Five minutes later - I feel like I'm roasting in a pizza oven. I jump out of bed, strip off all those layers and crawl back in.

Which is reason number 3:

Heat stroke. 'Nuf said.

After a few minutes the temp regulates and I finally drift off to dreamland. I am awakened sometime later by a weird sandpaper-y feeling. I realize my not-so-fabulous feet are catching on the satin, so I groggily get out of bed and search for the socks I had previously stripped off. I find one. Better than nothing. I crawl back into bed and fall asleep again.

Reason 4:

You have to use a cheese grater ... on your feet.

By 3 a.m., the husband has managed to toss and turn so much the entire quilt has slipped off the end of the bed. He, of course, is oblivious. I'm freezing. I get up to throw it back on and hear, "WAHHHHHHHHH".

(insert long string of expletives here)

I get the baby a bottle, feed him, put him back in bed, and then get back under the covers. By this point, the fitted sheet has once again slipped off the upper corners of the mattress and is halfway down the bed.

Problem NOT SOLVED.

I am incredibly irritated by this, but so exhausted I decide to just rip the satin sheets off the bed and get under the regular blankets on top of the bare mattress.

I sleep peacefully for about 2 hours. Hooray.

The next morning, I wake up to find a big, huge, gigantic stain on my (satin) pillowcase. I must have been sobbing hysterically in my sleep about the incredible difficulty of my life, right?

Wrong.

I was drooling.

And that, my friends, brings me to reason number 6 satin sheets are not sexy:

You realize you have the saliva glands of a camel.

I theorize men think satin sheets are sexy because of racy movies. Have you noticed they ALWAYS have satin sheets, usually red?

You weren't looking at the sheets? Oh.

Unfortunately, people in racy movies don't sweat or get hot or cold or have to use a foot cheese grater and they sure as heck don't drool swimming pool-sized puddles onto their pillows. At least not in the movie, anyway.

The moral of the story? There's three.

1. Get separate beds.

2. Buy different sheets.

3. Strangle the evil alligator.

Problem solved :-)

Tra La La La Laaaa ...

2012-03-19T14:53:00.000-07:00

I have news! Real live actual news! The kind of news that makes me want to dye myself blue and skip around town singing that really annoying Smurf song at the top of my lungs.

We are MOVING at the end of May! HOORAY! After 14 years of dealing with cretinous, asinine, sophomoric, ludicrous, backwards, obtuse small town politics, we will be free.

Oops. Didn't mean to sound horrid. There are some genuinely good people in this town. I will truly miss about 19 of them. Which is like 0.0076 percent of the population, so that's sayin' something.

However, the general air of hostility tends to overshadow the small pockets of niceness you may encounter. You see, in a small town (or at least in this small town), you're somehow "special" if your family has been here for at least four generations and you're related to the other "special" families (read: inbred). I call it the redneck aristocracy.

To the rest of the universe, the attitude is this:

did you catch that? universe? star trek? get it? me FTW!

I kid you not. There's even a special annual party for these "special" people. It's called the Old Timer's Dinner and Dance.

Really. It's a thing.

I must say I like the name better than that of the Afterbirth Ball. Which is also a thing.

I, of course, have never been (you must have lived here at least thirty years), but I imagine it might be something like this:

did i mention you must have strange facial hair?

Mixed with this:

or that you must know how to boogie?

With a little bit of this:

or that you must be related to everyone else? oh yeah, the inbred thing. think we covered that.

Followed by this:

although I'm pretty sure whatever foreign sh*t that guy's been drinking would NOT be allowed ...

Just a guess ...

A Bit O' Green (and orange and blue)

2012-03-14T14:02:00.003-07:00

sorry for the weird orange-y tinge. my camera is being obnoxious. also, the card was made by my aunt ...
just in case you were thinking I was a total genius or something ...

Sooo, I finally got around to putting together a shamrock garland. I'm actually pretty stinkin' proud I got it done before St. Patrick's Day.

All I did was make 10 or so shamrocks with this pattern. It rocketh.

Then I did a simple chain and slip stitched them to it.

Voila!

and this picture looks like it was taken underwater ...
ARGH, camera. why must you torment me so?

I apologize for the strange colored photographs. I think the white balance on my camera is set for florescent lighting. I attempted to fix it in the bottom photo, but that made it look like some weird blue alien landscape. Where they have crocheted shamrock garlands. Riggght.

Oh well. You get the picture. Ha. Ha. Ha.

Ya see what I did dere? :-)

Spring Has Sprung!

2012-03-12T18:13:00.000-07:00

Spring has temporarily sprung in Northwest Colo., and though it looks nothing like the picture above (think more mud and less green ... and no little duckling), it has been around 50 degrees! Can you believe it?

I've been feeling rather "listy" lately, so here's another one just for you. I call it, "Things To Do When It's Weirdly Warm In March".

1. Go for a walk.

2. Remove last year's toe nail polish.

3. Repaint toe nails with a color you can live with for another six months.

4. Sit on the front porch and contemplate the meaning of life and the deliciousness of milkshakes.

5. Shave legs.

6. Buy more razors because you murdered an entire package on aforementioned fuzzy appendages.

7. See how many car accidents you can cause with your (freshly shaved) blindingly white legs.

8. Get a sunburn on the tops of your feet.

9. Pick up the dog poo.

10. Realize some of the dog poo is still frozen to the ground. Give up and hope it snows again soon.

9. Dig the aloe vera out of the back of the bathroom cabinet. Realize it has changed color and smells kinda like blue cheese. Use it anyway.

11. Get a milkshake.

Hooray for Spring!

From a mother to her son

2012-03-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

Dear T Dubbs,

1. Please stop using your head as a battering ram.

2. Please stop trying to pee in my mouth when I change your diaper. Contrary to popular belief, this is NOT the baby version of skee ball.

3. Please stop doing alligator death rolls when I try to get you dressed. I would totally let you be a nudist, but that is not socially acceptable.

4. Please stop pulling daddy's armpit hair in the middle of the night (even though it's hilarious ... )

5. Please stop trying to meet all your nutritional needs with dog food.

6. Please stop getting stuck under the table/chair/baby gate. Babies do not have four-wheel drive and reverse only works occasionally.

7. Please stop trying to eat those toilet bolt cover doo-dads. Despite daily bleaching, I'm pretty sure they're not sanitary.

8. Please stop trying to escape from your walker. I don't like coming around the corner to see you dangling perilously by one foot.

9. Please stop stealing the TV remote and hiding it under the bed.

10. Please don't grow up too fast, even if it means you have to keep doing all these weird baby things.

I love you, little baby munchkin :-)

What do you mean, "Crayons are not for eating"? They taste pretty good to me.

30 Day Photo Challenge ~ Day 12

2012-03-07T07:41:00.001-08:00

Day 12 ~ Hands

T Dubbs "helping" with the love letters

DIY Love Letters

2012-03-06T17:07:00.003-08:00

Hey peeps,

Just dropping in today with a quick tute for scrapbook paper letters. They are incredibly versatile as you can choose any paper and any letter combinations!

I can spell "Love", "Vole" or even "Ole". Pretty epic, no? I bet you've always wanted to honor your favorite blind rodent or Ricky Martin with giant letters.

Make yourself a whole alphabet if you want to!

You will need:

Mod Podge OR the cheap version - a mixture of equal parts white glue and water
A paintbrush (you can also use your tongue if you like the taste of school glue ... KIDDING.)
Cardboard
Scrapbook paper
Pencil for sketching your letters
Utility knife

All you do is:

Glue/decoupage your scrapbook paper to the cardboard. Let dry completely. Sketch your letters. Cut them out.

Hang them up. (I used yarn. Those classier than I may use ribbon or other string-like substances ... )

Ole, ole, ole!

Because I'm Actually Irish

2012-03-02T06:04:00.003-08:00

I love March for three reasons - my birthday, the beginning of spring (which means nothing in CO, but still), and Saint Patrick's Day. I'm assuming no one wants a (really long) list of all the things I desire for the anniversary of my birth, so instead I offer some kick ants St. Patty's Day crochet patterns and a couple o' Irish proverbs:

"May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live."

"Don't break your shins on a stool that is not in your way."

And my personal favorite:

"Never bolt the door with a boiled carrot."

That may save your life one day.

Here's the links. Enjoy!

A Crocheted Pot O' Gold

I would skip adding the handle and fill with
gold candy (so I have an excuse
to buy chocolate)

Adorable Shamrock/Clover Pattern

I love the shape of these; I'm planning on making
a garland with them.

Leprechaun Hat Candy (or other small object) Dish

Hooray for another excuse to buy chocolate!

Supa Cute Shamrock Bookmark

These would be lovely gifts.

Rainbow Coasters

Stick your pot o' gold nearby and use it as
an excuse to act like a stingy little green person!

Shamrock Lariat Necklace

The perfect amount of green for your
St. Patty's day ensemble ... and I can think of
at least three ways it would help you
survive a zombie apocalypse.

Credit where credit is due: None of these patterns are mine. All oohing and aahing should be

directed towards the original creators.

Differences the Second Time Around

2012-02-29T08:22:00.000-08:00

In case you missed the announcement, we are expecting bambino number two in September! I've got lots and lots to tell you after 8 weeks of secret-keeping.

There are quite a few differences the second time around. Here's what I've noticed:

Don't forget some kick ants band aids
for your fake paper cuts.

> You're achier.
I sat down at work around 8 weeks preggo and a random and extremely painful twinge in my rear caused me to yell "YOWCH!" rather loudly.

My coworker: "Are you okay?"
Me: "Yeah, I uh ... just paper cut my neck."

Golden Nugget of Wisdom: To hide a pregnancy, blame everything on paper cuts.

>You forget you're pregnant.

I was hyper-aware of my first pregnancy, especially during the first trimester. I was constantly checking for any signs of ANY thing that could be wrong. Wait, what was that? A weird pain in my heel???

CALL THE DOCTOR, QUICK!

This time around, I've forgotten I'm pregnant several times. The good side is that it's making everything speed by, even the 8 weeks of being sicker than a circus peanut eating elephant. The bad part is that I get in trouble for things like this:

The setting: Husband is sitting in the recliner watching some random action movie on TV. Puffy bloated woman (that's me) walks in and picks up hubby's beer off the end table.

Husband: "Um, what are you doing?"

Me: "Taking a drink. Duh."

Husband: *horrified look*(punctuated by gunfire from the blaring speakers)

Me: "Oh yeah."

Puffy bloated woman sheepishly sets beer down and exits to kitchen to find some fried chicken and/or chocolate.

End scene

Lest you think me an unfit mother and decide to call child services, I invite you to try waking up four times a night with a screaming, teething 9 month old while trying not to blow chunks all over the opposite wall and we'll see how well your brain functions in the morning.

> You pooch. Excessively.

I was pretty concerned people were going to guess I was preggo due to the seemingly gigantic bump I acquired during the first trimester. Fortunately, people didn't seem to notice. Or if they did, they just though I had consumed a few hundred donuts (or Jimmy Dean sandwiches ... ).

This is what I mean by "excessive pooch".

> You're not so crazy about sharing the news.

To me it seems like there is some type of stigma about getting pregnant again, especially if your kids will be close together. I mean, it's embarrassing the first time around because everyone knows you, you know, do it. Or at least did it once. But if you get pregnant AGAIN, it's kinda like, "Fool me once, shame on you ... fool me twice ... YOU SEX ADDICT. What is WRONG with you?"

It's a curse.

Okay, okay. I'll go to sex addicts anonymous.

> You forget how far along you are.

See aforementioned note about sleep deprivation ...

"You're pregnant? Oh congrats (you evil sex addict). How far along are you?"
"Uhhh, maybe like 12ish, 14 ... a few months."

I might just be "a few months" along until I have this kid :-)

DIY Wax Seals for Envelopes and other Pretties

2012-02-27T14:34:00.000-08:00

>>> Ze Back Story <<<

(if you'd rather not listen to me babble, skip down to Ze Instructions)

Two and a half years ago, I was in a wedding planning frenzy. Pretty much everything that came out of my mouth was wedding related. My conversations went kinda like this:

"How are you today?"

"Oh, I'm pondering the difference between ballerina or cotton candy pink ... "

"Did you want fries with that?"

"I don't know. Will they lead to wedding dress zipper not zipping up DISASTER?!?"

It was pretty bad. But I really enjoyed the process, even if everyone around me did not.

One of my favorite parts was creating wedding invitations. My very talented aunt offered to calligraph (is that a word?) for FREE, so I decided to go all out. There were multiple inserts and ribbons and little golden aspen leaf charms and vellum envelopes and best of all, a gold wax seal on each one And lest you think I was an evil money-eating bridezilla, we only sent out sixty of them. (Our whole wedding was less than $3,000, in fact. Someday I need to write a post about how the heck we managed that.)

Anyway, the task fell to me to search out special gold wax for the seal and a low-heat glue gun (I had no idea those even existed) and the little stamper doohicky. I spent hours searching and finally came across a crafting site (whose name I do not recall) with everything I needed for $50. It was kind of stupid to spend $50 just for wax seals, but my self-induced wedding craziness blinded me to that little bit o' common sense.

I was not as amazingly amazing back then.

When I was creating the melted heart valentine, I had an epiphany. What if I used the same method to create a wax seal on an envelope? I could save another bride (or other crafty person) money! I could help them add a little something extra to those beloved invitations! I just had to try it out, and unlike J Lo's cleavage tape at the Oscars, it WORKED!

>>> Ze Instructions <<<

Materials:
crayons in the color of your choice (they come in every hue, so be specific!)
a candle
matches or a lighter
something to stamp the wax with*

*I used the stamper doohicky left over from my wedding. You can either buy one at a craft store, use a cute stamp, use something random you have around the house like a piece of jewelry, or make a personalized one using this tute.

I recommend practicing this technique first so you don't ruin any of your precious invitations. It truly is so easy a caveman could do it, but it's better to be safe than sorry!

1.Gather your materials. I recommend sealing your beloved invitations the old fashioned way first (lick 'em and stick 'em) just in case of any rough handling by the P.O.

2. Light your candle. (If you are like me, you may yell, "BEHOLD, I GIVE YOU FI-YAH!" a la Sid from Ice Age. Or not.)

3. Tear the paper off your crayon. Hold the now-nekkid crayon about an inch from the candle flame until it gets all melty.

4. Quickly position the crayon over your envelope and let the wax drip into a nice puddle in the proper place. If it's not dripping enough, you can roll the end of the crayon around on the envelope to get more wax to stick. Also, I found it easiest to move the envelope to the crayon instead of vice versa.

5. Stamp the wax puddle with your stamper doohicky or other item.

Voila! A DIY wax sealed envelope!