Hey.

So apparently two or three people read this 'cause I've gotten at least three nudges in the last year. Pretty exciting stuff. Sorry guys. Distracted by life changes and whatnot. And by this cat. 

Also this computer has no working enter button. Neato formatting, huh? I'm going to try to start posting here more often. I have no job right now, so it should be super easy to find the time... 

Happy Ballpoint Pen Day

It's important to have reasons in life to celebrate. Today (er, Sunday, which starts in five minutes), I'm celebrating ballpoint pens. I shall use one to take notes in church, to doodle when I am not listening in church, and to underline things in my lesson manual at church. It's going to be an exciting day!

Other days I am looking forward to celebrating this year:
1. Raggedy Ann and Andy Day on June 12th-13th (which doesn't really make sense because that is TWO days, people!)
2. Magna Carta Day on June 15th. I think we all celebrate this one, don't we?
3. National Flip-Flop Day on June 17th. An ode to footwear or wishy-washiness? Hmmm... I can't decide.
4. International Fairy Day on June 24th. Because fairies are pretty!
5. Great American Backyard Camp Out Day on June 25th. Should be interesting in the backyard of my apartment...
6. International Cherry Pit Spitting Day on July 2nd.
7. Compliment Your Mirror day on July 3rd. (Who's a pretty mirror? YOU are a pretty mirror.)
8. Indivisible Day on July 4th. Which would have been more fun the first way I read it, which was INVISIBLE Day.
9. Don't Step on a Bee Day on July 10th. My feet feel so safe on that day!
10. Cow Appreciation Day on July 10th. Mooooooo.
11. Barbie-in-a-blender Day on July 27th. Oh, the traditions! Just thinking about this day brings on the nostalgia!
12. Take Your Houseplant for a Walk day, also on July 27th. Truly a busy, busy day.
13. Particularly Preposterous Packaging Day on August 7th. Oh, the fun we have on this day!
14. Sneak Some Zucchini onto Your Neighbor's Porch Night on August 8th.
15. Hug Your Boss Day on August 19th, which I first read to be BUG Your Boss Day. I'm instituting Bug Your Boss Day at my work. We're trailblazers.

Efficient Movie Watching 101

If you don't know about the Bunnies, then your life is sadly incomplete. For instance, this recap of Star Wars is helpful. I think Little Man would especially appreciate it for the Chewbacca parts.

Also, been hearing about this Twilight thing, but don't want to commit to the whole movie? Me neither.

I see there's one for New Moon, too. I'm thinking I might just watch that one and call the movie watched.

If My Cell Phone Could Sing Me a Song...

I just got a new cell phone. FINALLY. I might possibly have had a terrible string of luck when it came to cell phones and... well... doors. Car doors. And so for the last half year or so I have been using a loaner phone courtesy of Alice. Now I have a pretty shiney new phone, and I hereby vow that it will not get slammed in a car door. Or really any door. I feel that this is a sensible plan.

What I DO need to do for my phone is find it a good ring tone. One that really expresses who I am. You know, At the Core. Here's the ones I've thought of so far:

1. Love Stinks, by J. Geils Band. And so it goes 'til the day you die.
2. Carry Out, by Timbaland (Featuring Justin Timberlake). Because nothing is more romantic than "take my order 'cause your body's like a carryout." And I like me some romance.
3. Nothin' On You, by B.O.B., because I AM the whole package, plus I pay my taxes. (Best lyrics of the year, btw.)
4. Or maybe I'll just get a Hoops and Yoyo ringtone.

Stinking Filarious.

I can talk good. I would like to introduce you to some new lingo you should integrate into your vocabulary.

1. Filarious. When funny doesn't cut it and hilarious seems too... easy.
2. Therapicky. Or Therapeuticky. For those feel-good moments after those feel-bad moments.

Top that, Webster.

If I were to get a tattoo...

I have friends with tattoos, and they have all these deep meaningful things. Besides the whole being a conservative little Mormon girl reason, I have never considered getting a tattoo because I am lame and see no deep meaningful symbols around me that I wouldn't get bored with in a few months. Here are my ideas on my tattoo that I'm totally going to get soon.

1. Kermit. I'm going to have the kermit collar put on my neck. Hot, right? Or should I say... hawt?
2. Cookie Monster. Possibly on my belly. Since that's where my cookie monster lives.
3. A huge seagull. All the way across my back. Because my inner voice says "Mine. Mine. Mine.Mine. Mine."
4. A daisy on my toe. To be original. (It's just a taaaaattoo of a flower, so I'll feel groovy, while takin' a shower. Er something.)

Yeah. There's a reason I don't have one. Okay, there's the whole Mormon thing too. But I feel that I have illustrated why we should all agree that I have made a wise decision all around.

Peer Pressure

I have come to the realization that I am a huge slob. Shush, peanut gallery. I went on a cleaning flurry tonight. It was caused partially by my effort not to throw a tantrum, and to use my energies for good instead of evil. The other part of it was the part where, after my initial cleaning, I realized that some might mock what I considered my clean orderly trunk. Specifically Friend from Work, who has yet to have a blog name assigned her, unless it's FFW. I don't heart that name though. I do heart saying heart this week, though. Anyways, the other night she told me that she hangs up most of her clothes, and that her hangers and the shirts on them all have to be hanging in the same direction or something wackadoodle like that. And so I mocked her. And realized that I am a big slob. Because,

1. I don't fold my clothes straight out of the dryer, which apparently happens in real life, as well as on the Brady Bunch when Alice is in charge.
2. I don't hang up my clothes that need hanging straight out of the dryer either. Because that is effort. I consider the effort I take to pull them from the pile I've thrown on my beanbag and drape them on my chair as sufficient. So, really, I sometimes don't hang them up at all, because once they are in the chair I can just sort through them to pick out my outfit for the next day anyways.
3. I don't iron. People who iron are crazy. And FFW and K both iron their jeans, so I know TWO REALLY CRAZY people. My theory is, it will get wrinkled in the car anyways. So if my skirt is a little wrinkly, it will just look like I drove to church or work or whatever. It happens. Why not just forgo the work part and get straight to the sitting induced wrinkles. Or in my case, the I-don't-hang-up-my-clothes wrinkles. I'm a believer in efficiency, what can I say.

So anyways, I cleaned my trunk tonight, and then I had to go back and tidy up the clean trunk. Because the wad of canvas bags I have for shopping COULD be folded instead of wadded, after all. So I kind of sort of folded each one into a wad as I shoved it into the holder bag. And the first aid kit could go under my front seat or something. So I hucked that up in the back seat, because that's one step closer to the front seat, being in the passenger part of the car. And I suppoooooose I could take the sleeping bag that has been there since I went to camp in mid-March up to my closet. But I draw the line at taking the bowling ball upstairs. Because you never know when a spontaneous bowling trip will occur, and I want to be sure that I have my own ball and shoes on hand.

The moral of the story is, I suck at cleaning. But I take pride in the little things. Like that I threw away the bagels that have been in the back seat since... you know, what, I don't judge you. Don't judge me.

It started as a Sweet Self Portrait

And ended with me in hysterics because Baby Girl is so stinking hysterical. She has the cutest little sense of humor! I didn't realize she was pulling faces until I pulled back the camera to look at the little preview window. Let's just say there are about thirty of these.

I Done Got Me a Car (and a Diet)

So I'm sure you noticed this on your own calendar, but Saturday was Daddy/Daughter bonding day. For my special daddy/daughter event, we went car shopping. Because the stupid-head collission repair center totalled my car. I ended up getting a car which I am quite pleased with, for a payment that might allow me to still purchase groceries every other month. But that wasn't the fun part.

At the first place we pulled into, we parked the car and walked up to the little building (picture seedy looking used car lot), and this youngish guy wandered out and said something disinterested like "so I guess you've done some research and you probably know what you want?" I believe my father was holding piece of paper in his hands. So, you know, he was deducing and all. Then we told him the car we wanted to look at, and he was like, oh, that's not here. That's on our other lot. "But it was listed online as being at this address," my father pointed out. *Blank stare*. Oooooookay. Well, um, thanks.

At the second place we looked (the other lot--also seedy), we parked and walked towards the little building. A young man and woman in jeans and t-shirts, enjoying a smoke, stood there. As we approached, they were like, "hey." After a moment, they extinguished their cigarettes. At some point they asked us if we were looking for a car. And then informed us the one we were looking for was on another lot. And showed us the crappiest used car, that wreeked of cigarette smoke (blank stare from the woman when I pointed this out..."I haven't been in that one.") and I'm pretty sure the holes in the upholstery were from cigarette burns.

At the third place we looked at (an actual dealership), there were five or six salesmen just standing around when we got there. They all kind of looked at each other, and quite possibly did rock paper scissors, and then one came our way. The one with the cowboy heels with clacky heels. Seriously? Cliche much? He was all humble, gorsh, let's see what we might have on this here lot. And then he wandered around like he'd never seen the cars before. And then he looked for a car that I'm pretty sure didn't actually ever exist while he pointed out other cars far above the mileage and price point I had specified. And then we got in a car and drove down the street to the other lots they owned. We got out, looked around, he scratched his head some more, and then we went back to the first lot. And he scratched his head some more. And he showed me a car that was out of my price range, too high in mileage, and crappy. And THEN (and I swear he was trying to create the appearance of working really hard for us to produce this magical car by going through all the aforementioned motions), he showed me a cheaply made car, with no bells and whistles, that was about 4,000 abovie my price point, and had 97,000 miles on it. Yeah, I did not feel saved. I think that's what he was going for. He ran inside to "ask what price he could knock it down to," while my dad half-heartedly looked at the car and discussed leaving. He emerged to introduce his associate, who was taking over because he "had a phone call." Associate proceeded to inform us that he was from Brooklyn, where they talk straight. And then he babbled about the pro's of the car, including the fact that there were screws you could loosen all by yourself to change the headlights. They shore do have some straight talk in Brooklyn.

Once we escaped there we went to a whole other county and found an unslimey salesperson who looked like they had not had their will to live sucked out of them, and we got me a car. And that, my friends, is how I plan to lose weight.

The Benefits of MyFace

I'm telling you... hours of fun:

Call the Nestle Hotline at 1-800-295-0051. When asked if you want to continue in English or Spanish, wait quietly for about 10 seconds and I PROMISE you will smile. Keep going and press 4. Then press 7.

Things Every Automobile Consumer Should Consider

In view of the profuse squishiness of my car, Squishy, that has forced his back bumper into a permanent grin, there's a very slight possibility that I will get to sink further into debt--er, buy a new car.

My sister sent me this peach of a review.



It helped me to realize that there are things one should consider when purchasing that perfect automobile. Things like:

1. Is it easy to park?
2. Is it green?
3. Can I afford it?
4. What if I'm asked to take part in a beach assault with the Royal Marines?

Riding the Bus Like a City Girl!

It's been a few months now since I was hired at my new job, and my time using an "extra" parking pass my company was paying for is over. I'm okay with this. I knew it was happening. Plus there are lots of added perks. Like needing less gas and less repairs, therefore saving money, so I can buy cute shoes. Also I have less stress, since I no longer have to worry about being run over by crazy people who don't want to let me merge, and instead try to force me to remain in an exit lane when trying to enter the freeway. AND I can read on the way home, therefore taking some time to relax and exercise my brain a little.

My first day on the bus (we won't count the one-day trial run back in August), I stepped onto the bus, paid the fare, and then politely accepted the transfer ticket being proffered by the bus driver, 'cause, you know, even though I didn't need it, I didn't want to hurt his feelings. Then there was the exciting lurch as I turned to walk down the aisle to take my seat, and an awkward moment where I asked (like all the sudden I have manners or something) "may I sit here?" of the nice looking asian man who concentrated very hard on not noticing me. On the way home that night, I was That Passenger who totally missed that we were at my stop, and had to approach the driver and ask him to just let me out when we were at the next stop light, so I wouldn't have to call my daddy and ask if he could come get me at a park and ride ten or fifteen minutes from my house and take me back to the park and ride where my car was waiting for me.

I'm a big city girl now.

I'm Patrioticest!

And I can prove it because I have this, this and this.

No, not really, dork!

Happy Baby Safety Month!

In honor of Baby Safety Month, I would like you all to take a moment out of your busy lives to watch this important informational video.*

*Keep in mind irony here, folks.



P.S. I heart babies. Shaking is bad. That's my message. Call me if you need a sitter. :D

Hey, Honey ;)

It's Honey Month. I'm pretty sure that the aim of that celebration is that you should call everyone by Honey as your term of endearment for the month. Here's a few scenarios:

Boss: I need your time sheet by five
You: Sure, honey, I'll get right on that.

Drive Thru Attendant: Would you like that Quadruple sized or do you just want the fat delivered intravenously, honey?
You: Hmm... We're going to have to think about that, honey. Check back with us in a minute.

Room mate: For crying out loud, would you please stop calling me honey?
You: Sorry, honey.
Room mate: No, really, it's freaking annoying.
You: Aw, honey, don't be a cranky pants!
Room mate: I'm going in my room.
You (through door): Honey, let's talk about this.
Room mate: $!@#%"$!@#%##@!

That last one is probably an accurate prediction of what will happen with me and K this month. I'll test her endurance and get back to you.

Workin' 9 to 5:30ish...

I should mention that I am now employed again. So now I'm going to have to make my life about something other than my unemployment. What to do, what to do....

I'm working in downtown Seattle, at a non-profit I don't want to disclose, in case I have Internet stalkers or something, so please don't out me in my comments sections, and run-on sentences are fun. But being that I'm now a city girl, or at least a one who is employed by an organization located in the city, I'm realizing that I will have lots of good fodder for blogging, or just conversational pieces. Not the confidential stuff, of course, because I would like not to get fired. Also because breaking confidences are not cool. But the other stuff. Like the naked man.

So I'm sitting in my office last week, and all of the sudden I hear the woman at the front desk say "there is a naked man out there," with kind of the same inflection one might use to say "those are some ugly pants he's wearing." Except he wasn't wearing pants. Or anything else. Not even socks. So she said the former, not the latter. The bike cops were already talking to him and trying to convince him to put some clothes on, once they located some. Apparently he wasn't very responsive. This might have been a good thing, since one of the responding officers was telling us that naked people can actually be some of the most dangerous and aggressive--the nakedness being an outward manifestation of some serious crazy. I always thought of streakers as peace loving hippies. Not so, apparently. At least not in Seattle. Maybe in Berkley or something. Anyways, of course when you hear something like that you can't stay in your office, even if you don't really want to be scarred with the vision of nakedness. So I started to come out front, and the staff said, "oh, no, you don't want to see this," as she picked up the phone and paged another staff by saying "(Staff name), please come to the front, you've got to see this." Apparently I must exude Mormon-ness because she knew right away that my virgin eyes could not handle the sight of Naked Man. Pretty quickly a cruiser appeared with a real policeman (something about the bike and the neon yellow coat tells me that the bike police pretty much have the authority to direct traffic). Then a fire truck showed up, and I believe a medic. I've been told that the fire station is called to medical scenes because they have trained medics or something and can usually get there first, being based in stations out in the community. Or I could be making that up. But that's what I think I was told once. Anyways, so at some point he sat down on the sidewalk, and eventually one of the officers coaxed him into putting on some pants or something. I was trying not to do the whole standing around gawking thing, because I was supposed to be working or something. As opposed to all the hecklers I hear were across the street yelling things at Naked Man throughout the spectacle.

This didn't happen at my old job.

Knives On the Other Hand...

Brought to you by the hard working folks at K's office.

Just Between You and I

It seems like we are having these talks a lot lately, but I feel like you and I need to sit down and have another chat. I've been seeing the quizzes you've been taking on MyFace, and I'm a little concerned. This vampire guy that you speak of marrying...this Edward... is that really wise? I mean, yeah, he's a hundred years or so old, so he is not technically a minor, but he is in the body of a 17 year old, is he not? Yes, the actor who plays him in the movie is 23ish, but still. Have you noticed that you are 30ish or 40ish? And married? With children? Also that all of your friends of like age also seem to think he is their one true love? A little cradle-robberish. Also possibly polygamous. And do you really want someone to stand over you and watch you sleep all night? Should we change his name to Clay?

On the plus side, I am happy to report that my sweet teenagers who have friended me are generally not crushing on him as much as you. Or counting down to the movie. Or making slightly uncomfortable lustful comments about him. Or posting pictures from their Twilight parties. Because they didn't have one. So more for you, yes? I do know a ten-year-old that would love to come to your party for the next one, though.

Phew. I've held that in for so long. It's good we had this talk. I feel much better. Now if you will excuse me I have a Lord of the Rings Quiz to take now. Have you met my husband, Strider?

Hey, I'm Parked Here!

In case there was any question... there's a van in this parking space. The orange cone was the thing that tipped me off.



I totally need a job that has rules like this.

Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie Charlie!

If you look on the right hand side of my blog, there is a little doodad that says "cornify," and if you click on it over and over again, you will make unicorns and rainbows appear all over my blog! What could be more fun? It's my Monday gift to you!

It's like going on an adventure...