On parenthood

“The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.”

- Jack Handey

Keeping It Real

With my thanks to Kathy Sierra for being so hilariously funny.

(For Diesel)

Putting a stop to that right quick!

Horror of horrors, I realized today (six weeks later) that I was listed as a “growing blog” by WordPress. So now I beg you: STOP THE INSANITY! I don’t want to grow. I enjoy being small. Please, please, please, for the love of god and all that is holy, leave me here in my sweet, little semi-anonymous state, oh you who do not have my best interests at heart.

How famous people deal with their fame (those who do is with grace and style that is) is beyond me.

Fame scares me.

I have kids.

They are cute and highly kidnappable.

Sheesh. (Or as Charlie Brown would say, “Good grief!) Honestly.

Signed with love from,

Just a girl hangin’ out on the Internet trying to have her five minutes of fame, but not so much that any of it comes back to bite her in the butt. I’m a big chicken that way. Seriously. Be nice to me. I can’t take it when you aren’t.

Thought for the day

Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are.
Let me learn from you, love you,
bless you before you depart.
Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.

-Mary Jean Iron

Too good not to share

Randomly stumbling through the world wide web today, I found this, almost completely by accident.

Thankfully I don’t have to worry about diet pills — at least not at this point. I apparently have more of my mother’s father’s genes than my father’s mother’s. (Which basically means that my grandmother had some heft, and my grandfather was skinny as a rail until the day he died in spite of never exercising, eating three huge meals a day and enjoying a full, artery-clogging dessert after each meal, including breakfast.)

For those of you who may be considering this new wonder pill, I present to you “alli: Miracle diet pill with teeny-tiny side effect” by Angry 365. Damn funny stuff, that.

That is one stubborn, bad ass weed

So . . . my father-in-law coming in T minus three days and counting has prompted some unusual behavior at my house: namely, doing things we wouldn’t do otherwise, such as cleaning the fish tank (which is green for some unknown reason — Jon says I’m feeding the fish too much — I still think they’re underfed and unhappy about it), cleaning out Buddy’s (formerly Snake Food’s) cage, and — the biggest one of all — attempting to weed the yard.

I say attempting because I learned several things today that I thought might be applicable in other parts of my life, as well.

For instance:

I found that it’s easier to pull the four-foot high weeds AFTER I have watered the ground they live in. Water first. Weed second.

I also found that grabbing too tightly as I pulled meant stickers in my hands, even through the thick gloves. Don’t grab a prickly thing too tightly and expect to avoid the stickers.

If at first you don’t succeed, try a different angle. Yanking one way brought what seemed to be little success. Changing my approach/direction usually produced instant results. Voila!

If a different angle doesn’t work, I thought of two more options: a) give up, or b) get the shovel and chop that sucker in half. Which choice is the correct one depends on how desperately you want to get rid of it and whether or not it endangers your own personal safety in the extrication process (see below).

Spraying weeds with weed killer before attempting to yank them does two things: 1) It takes a long time, and 2) Those suckers are meaner in death than they are in life — tread carefully.

And, it’s easier to pull the little ones than the big ones. Once they’ve taken root and been allowed to grow for a while, they think they have as much right to be there as the desirable plants. Weeding before it gets out of control will save major back troubles. (I pulled so hard once that I nearly ended up on my butt from the force of the yank. Fortunately, having done this exact thing before, I stopped myself just before the tumble, but also was unsuccessful with Mr. Bad Ass Weed. Time for the shovel for him. Say goodnight, Gracie. “Goodnight, Gracie.”)

Cheers and best wishes for a happy weekend!

In honor of my sister-in-law, who rocks

A correct use of the “B” word

For all those of you who are lying awake at night (already) wondering what to get my dog for Christmas, worry no more! Classic, isn’t it?

Thought for the day

I found this today on brainyquotes.com while I was looking for something else. Funny how life works that way. I had heard a variation of this, but not this exactly. It intrigued me and spoke to me in a way I wish it didn’t.

“You will not be punished for your anger, you will be punished by your anger.”

Buddha

All funnied out

In lieu of being able to be funny, I present to you pictures from my weekend. Apparently my get-up-and-be-funny got up and went. I blame it on Dan and all his Be In The Moment Who Ha. (Just kidding, Dan. You know I love you!)

I did realize yesterday evening after I dumped an entire cup of Mike’s Lemonade (yes, the yummy kind) on our video recorder that I needed to get out more often. Why spiked lemonade and a non-working camcorder would lead me to that conclusion, I’m sure I don’t know. But I think that maybe it was because I was feeling more happy and at peace than I usually do. Maybe the answer is just that I need to drink more!! (Okay, Anonymous, before you go off on that one, I’M JOKING!! It’s a JOKE! Tell my Dad to calm down and take his blood pressure meds.)

So since I apparently have no funny left, I’m hoping that the pictures will tell my story better than I could.

The concert Jon played for last night was at a little idyllic spot on a tiny lake, complete with geese flying overhead and a momma duck with her seven ducklings in tow. It was truly lovely. I wish you all such moments of peace. (And I’m not jokin’!)

Happy June, everyone!!

This next photo is of my co-worker Jessica. I am currently threatening to put her on match.com without her knowledge or consent, because dammit, doesn’t everyone need someone who can smile the way the man in the second photo down is smiling? Okay, no? Well, I do. Or, at the very least, I definitely prefer this in-love thing to the life I had before I met him. Fix the world, I cannot. Ah, but love. Twoo Wuv. (Think Princess Bride here with me, people.)

I did like the way the sunset played into these pictures. I thought that I didn’t take such bad photos for being over the legal limit — damn those lemonades were good. What do y’all think of drunk photography? Better or worse than drunk blogging? Anyone game?

My thanks go out to my Aunt Sandy who also snapped a lovely photo of Babs and me.

As I look at it, I am reminded of a quote by Elizabeth Stone (thank you, Google) who is quoted as saying, “”Making the decision to have a child — it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

And — as anyone with any speck of medical knowledge knows — having your heart outside your body for any length of time can lead to serious and swift consequences if not cared for properly.

And while the lyrics aren’t entirely true, that last thought makes me think of a current Nickelback tune. Even if the first few lines somehow came to be, it would certainly help the internal bleeding I feel when she’s not here. (As far as I’m concerned, folks can hang on to their pride all they like if they’re practicing the other four virtues — wait, three virtues. “Not crying” doesn’t count as a virtue in my book. Not doing things that cause other people to cry? That’s another story.)

“If everyone cared and nobody cried
If everyone loved and nobody lied
If everyone shared and swallowed their pride
Then we’d see the day, when nobody died.”

So much for being short-winded, eh? (And yes, I’m sure that in a previous life I was from Minnesota.)