I don't know when we moved to Seattle, but apparently it happened sometime last week. I'm sure it was a Harry Potter operation. They moved my entire house, the yard, even my neighbors! Amazing what a magic wand and some nifty, rhyme-y spells will do.
I just will not stop raining here!
So me and my umbrella were getting out of the car once I arrived at work late because of traffic. You know the weather is bad when I'M stuck in traffic, and my commute is only 10 miles.
I have one of the cool umbrellas that opens with the click of a button. I guess it's not really that cool, because almost all umbrellas are like that today. But I remember when we poor souls had to push the little do-hicky in and manually push the umbrella up until you hear the click. It really s*cked when you had a paper cut on your thumb. Of course, this was back in the day when I walked to school, uphill both ways, in the pouring ran with no shoes - sniff, sniff, I had such a tough life.
I usually open the door, stick my arm out and open the umbrella above the door so the rest of me doesn't get wet. Not today!
I hit the button as I was grabbing my purse. INSIDE THE CAR! I had the umbrella positioned in a way that it opened all the way and flipped my glasses off. It was like a reverse airbag.
I'm such a dork - again.
Silver Lining:
1. The umbrella closes as easily as it opens.
2. There wasn't anyone in the parking lot so I didn't get a lot of sh*t for it. Although, I'm totally going to get it from all of you. At least it won't be to my face :)
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Thursday, May 28, 2009
Another Dork Moment
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Lake or Pool?
What is a lake?
There are a lot of definitions, but here’s the general gist:
- It is deep enough that you can not cross without a boat. You can make that argument about some ponds as well, but wait, there’s more.
- Because of the lack of sunlight reaching the bottom of the body of water, a lake can not support rooted plants except near the shoreline.
- It’s not an ocean because it is a standing body of water. Not that anyone is going to mistake the Pleasantville lakes for an ocean anytime soon, this was purely informational.
Anywho, Pleasantville has a kick-a** pool club (leisure, kiddie, lap & lazy river), and it opened this weekend! However, there has been a lot of rain lately so the general consensus was that the water would be like ice.
So why did I see so many ding-bat teenagers swimming in the lakes? According to my definitions above, that water should have been colder than the pool! No way I was going to check it out, because our lakes really ought to have the following signage:
Well, if piranha could survive a Missouri winter, you would have cause for alarm. Fortunately, we only have bass and bluegill in the lakes.
You would think the bass would be scary because they are bigger than bluegill, but it’s the little ones that get you! The bluegills have a preference for certain exposed areas of the human body and they just have to have a taste. Men, let’s just say it may be to your advantage to wear a shirt in the water.
I know this because last summer, a neighbor of mine (who is black – not that it would make a difference otherwise, but it’s important to the story) and a few family members decided to take a dip in the lake, swim out to the raft & enjoy a summer’s day. They jumped in the water, and that’s when the bluegill appeared. It was like a swarm of mosquitoes.
There was some splashing and screaming and one of the guys kept getting bit on the nipple. His nipple was pierced so I’m sure that’s what first attracted them to him. You know fish are like children. Jiggle something shiny in their path and it will draw them in like moths to a flame. Once the bluegill were there, and realized their favorite treat (people skin) was available, they wouldn’t leave pierced nipple guy alone.
Anyway, they high-tailed it out to the raft, heaved themselves up the side and sat breathless in disbelief. As they looked out in to the water, more and more fish were appearing. Had they put their toes in the water, it would have been like piglets to the teats, but much more painful. Knowing they couldn’t stay out there forever, but fearful of the bluegill, they had to come up with a plan.
Pierced nipple guy was the knight in shining armor (which would have actually come in handy here, but armor makes it really hard to swim). He would make a diversion so the ladies could swim back to the dock. In an act of supreme selflessness, he did a cannon ball into the water and the ladies made it to shore safely.
As they were walking up the dock, a woman was watching her sons play in the water.
My neighbor warned her, “There are biting fish in the water. Your boys better watch out.”
The woman said, “Oh, really? They haven’t had any trouble with that.”
My neighbor huffed a bit. “I guess they only like dark meat.”
Silver lining:
1. There may have been a grand plan in place here. It’s a very family oriented community and perhaps the developers were trying to prevent people from skinny dipping in the lakes. I’m grateful for that and considering the age range of people living here, there are plenty of people I don’t want to see skinny dipping. Oh, and I don’t want my girls, when they’re teenagers, going skinny dipping either. Skinny dipping in seclusion = good. Skinny dipping in community lake = bad.
2. I say again, we have a community pool that is super cool. No bluegill allowed.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Friends
The rules:
Deliver this award to eight bloggers who then must choose and deliver the award to eight more and include the following text in the award:
"These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers."
I had also gotten this award for The Goofy Gardener from Squirrel Queen, but I can come up with eight more bloggers. Not all bloggers are into the awards, but I like them anyway, appreciate their comments and think they are definately worth visiting.
Please take a little time to visit the following blogs:
Confessions of a Desparate Housewife
Laughs and Giggles About Marriage, Cooking & Commuting to NYC
It's Gonna Take More Than a Hamburger to Make Me Happy
It Was Dark, Stormy & I Lost My Serial Comma
Silver lining: I'm "Wonderful" - it doesn't get much silvery than that!
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Jewel of a Find
I had been searching and searching for the right piece of furniture to act as a sideboard in my dining room. I needed something that wasn’t any deeper than 14” and had storage. A charger and serving platters had to fit in it too.
Oh yah, it had to be cheap, but nice. Hubby was a little tired of my decorating expenses. Sometimes you have to give them a little sense of control so I agreed to look for something less than $75.
I found things on Craigslist, but they were either too ugly, too expensive, too deep, too long, too tall, too not storage-y.
Then miracle of miracles, I found one that was nice looking, perfect depth & length, had plenty of storage, a little on the tall-ish side, but it was FREE!
How did I come upon this jewel? Well, it all started one night after dinner.
Ken, Barbie & brood had come over for dinner. The kids were driving us nuts so they were relegated to the upstairs. Hubby & Ken got out Guitar Hero (the one that only cost $5.65 – are we lucky or what?) and started jammin’. So Barbie & I were left alone for chit-chat. That by itself is a miracle.
A few glasses of wine (each) and lots of girly talk led us to the office closet. I can sense the gears in your brain moving. You know all the men reading this leaned forward and went “there”, right?
I just “had” to show her the fabulous curtain material I scammed a deal on (The guys just slumped back in their chairs. Did you hear it? I’ll be lucky if they bother to keep reading).
While poking around, Barbie noticed a bookcase. Cherry in color, glass doors, about 14” deep. Now the gears in our brains got chuggin’. They had totally been slowed down by all the wine.
“Why don’t you use this in the dining room?”
“Because it’s filled with crap.”
“Get a measuring tape, let’s see if it will fit.”
“Barbie, look at all the CRAP. And there’s all this crap on the floor in front of it.”
You could barely walk into the 6X6 closet!!
I rolled my eyes. We measured the bookcase.
“Fine, I guess it will fit. Now where am I going to put all this crap.”
“Worry about that later.” She started taking stuff out and setting it on the futon. Sure, I’ll worry about it later. Like when she’s gone home and doesn’t have to worry about it herself.
The futon was loaded up and we were ready to move the bookcase out of the closet. We needed those moving men thingys – good thing they were part of the crap that was in the bookcase earlier.
As we were pulling/pushing the bookcase out of the closet, we had to turn it right away, but the futon was in the way. Since we had loaded it up with crap, it was heavy. Some of the crap needed to be moved. So we put it by the closed side of the double doors to the room.
With the futon out of the way, we made tracks across the office floor to the door. Crap! We needed the second door to the room opened to get it out. We had to move the crap back to the futon.
To get to the dining room we had to go through the family room. The boys were in the middle of a song so we just stood there letting the bookcase hold us up (remember a lot of wine was involved – our limbs were wobbly enough without the added deprivation of oxygen from all the crap movement).
When they finished (never mind pausing the game), they moved out of the way so we could push it across the room. Did they help us? No. Did they even offer to help us? No. We didn’t really need them, but it would have been nice.
After quarter-inching (you know when you move something just a smidge to the left, right, back, forward, up, down and then move it back again – this drives men nuts, you women should try it sometime for a little fun and/or revenge for whatever manish thing he did) the bookcase about fifty times, we got it right.
Five kitchen cabinet shelves later, all the fancy-wear made it to the dining room.
Barbie & her brood left, and of course, I still had an empty office closet and a futon full of crap.
Hell’s bells, I’ll worry about that later!
Silver lining:
1. I have five empty shelves in the kitchen – whoo who, I can move the miscellaneous kitchen gadgets out of the pantry and into the kitchen. More room for food – we like food so it’s a good thing.
2. Did I mention the bookcase was free? Of course, I paid for it at one point, but in accountant speak, that’s a sunk cost.
3. All the crap made it back into the office closet right before my mom came to visit three weeks later. Did it take me three weeks to move it all back? Oh, no – it took three weeks to come up with the motivation.
4. I managed to use the word crap 13 times in one post. Gee mom, you must be so proud.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
It's a Homophone!
My five year old, Cupie, is pretty tall at four feet. This is especially apparent when you compare Cupie to her friends, Tessy & Prancer, who come from vertically challenged parents.
For this reason, there has been a running joke for quite some time referring to my kids as “Amazons”. Stinkles is actually pretty average. However, compared to Prancer (who is more than a year older), Stinkles is at least the same height, if not a smidge taller.
Because Stinkles is only three and can’t reach the light switches or the sinks, we have step stools in the bathrooms.
Okay, that's all the background information you need for the story :)
The girls’ bathroom has one sink with drawers on either side of the vanity. For whatever reason that stool ALWAYS has to be right in the middle. To get to the light switch, Stinkles will reeeeaaach over to turn on the lights.
Both girls also insist on being able to see themselves in the middle of the mirror when they are getting their hair done. This makes no sense to me – they have a five foot vanity! It goes back to some of the bathroom etiquette of separating individual activities. Just like you don’t take the middle stall in a three stall bathroom, you don’t need to stand in the middle of the vanity when there is plenty of individual space on either side of the sink.
I did this on purpose when we built the house so they each had their own drawers, outlet and vanity space – they only had to share the sink for spitting out toothpaste and washing hands. These activities take, like a minute, compared to the three hours they will spend daily getting ready to leave the house when they are teenagers. Hmmmm, share for a minute with one sink or share a vanity for three hours in order to have two sinks? Hormones, sisters, bad hair days – I think I’ll take the one minute of sharing.
Sorry about the detour.
Anyway, Cupie is too tall to stand on the stool while I’m doing her hair – I can’t see the top of her head when I’m putting in a pony tail or ribbons. Instead, she kneels on the top step (although she’s starting to get too tall for that too).
Recently, she asked me, “Why do I have to kneel on the stool?”
It had been an exasperating morning already so I sighed and said, “Because you have Amazon genes.”
Her face twisted up and she exclaimed indignantly, “No, I don’t. I gave those to Stinkles!”
She thought I meant “jeans”!
Silver lining:
1. She now occasionally stands on the floor (on her side of the vanity) to get her hair done. Baby steps, folks!
2. I told her the difference between jeans and genes. FYI – genes are instructions in the manual God used to make her. That’s how she ended up a tall, brown-eyed, cute-as-a button kid!
Friday, May 8, 2009
Get Smart
If you are in a technical field most people assume you are smart, correct?
Take, for instance, anything to do with computers. If you can open a box, connect cables, insert several plugs into a power strip, AND make a computer turn on, you’re doing okay. Get that internet thing goin’ on and you’re doing good.
Let’s take that to the next level. Let’s say, you can figure out how to connect more than one computer, set up a fire wall, route your telephone, and get movies on the TV using nothing more than a little box and a black cable, you’re on a roll!
There are a lot of people who have accomplished the above within their homes. We have all that, but that’s only because Hubby is a computer networking guru. It’s certainly not because of my computer know-how.
If it were up to me, I would have a land line, cable, and one computer with dial-up.
You know why?
Because someone else would have come in and hooked all this stuff up for me. And each one would remain separate so that I could tell exactly what which one is broken without using any non-existent computer/electronics troubleshooting abilities.
Hubby’s abilities go much further than home electronics, but I couldn’t even begin to tell you what else he does – it’s that complicated. He’s the guy that takes all those 24-like computer/electronic gadgets and makes them all “talk” to each other.
On the subject of 24 – that Chloe character has got to be smart, right? She hacks into all the s*ck-*ss networks (that Hubby did not set up/secure) in order to obtain necessary schematics to top secret underground tunnels and reprogram their computers to play the Hamster Dance every time there was an incoming e-mail.
Computer programming. Now, there’s some genius.
How many people understand that language?
Honestly, how many of my fellow bloggers been to The Blog Doctor whenever you’ve wanted to do something cool, but Blogger didn’t have a readily available gadget? How do you all think I figured out how to put those tabs on the top of my page?
On a daily basis, I walk amongst such geniuses. We have almost an entire floor of our building housing electrical engineers and programmers. These are the guys we depend on in order to create the product the sales department has already sold. They better be smart!
Imagine my surprise the other day, as I was walking to the break room (I think I needed more potato chips), which requires a walk amongst the geniuses, when I heard someone whistling.
What were they whistling, you ask?
IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN!
Silver Lining:
1. This person was only one out of over a hundred in the engineering department.
2 . In an economy like this, we’re still producing what the customers want and the customers are still buying. We’re more fortunate than other companies out there.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Mouthy Housewives
Hysterical site, I just have to share. For all you anti-Dear Abby types, this is the advice column for you!
Enjoy!
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
I'm Too Sexy For My Blog
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Wow, That Was Awkward has given me the "Sexy Blogger" Award. Just writing that made me blush a little.
If only you all knew how NOT sexy I am, but I'll give it a whirl.
In order to accept I need to state five things that are sexy about myself.
1. My eyes - I can really turn on the charm with these babies. If I do say, by using some eye shadow and a lash curler do-dad, I can get a lot of things with just my eyes alone. I'll leave the "what" to your imagination.
2. My optimism - I can find something good in anything. Hey, I think there's a blog out there about doing just that. Having a positive outlook is sexy to the point of almost being annoying. I guess it's a fine line.
3. My laugh - Not the one that is loud and boistrous. You know that "HA!" burst - that one can be kind of annoying (hmmm, maybe I should have gotten the "Annoying Blogger" award). I'm talking about the one that comes out naturally, when I'm comfortable and just having a good time.
4. My lips - I've been blessed with full, heart-shaped lips - very kissable. Sorry folks, they are reserved for Hubby only. The fact that all of you can't have a kiss from my lips is sexy in its own right.
5. My ability to use power tools - That's right! I have my own tool bag, but it only has a drill. However, Hubby has lots of other power tools and I actually know how to use most of them! There is nothing sexier than a chic pulling on the arm of a miter saw, is there?
Well, there you have it - the sexy and perhaps not-so-sexy things about me.
Now, who do I bestow this upon?
I believe the deserving blogger is . . . .
Comfortable With Chaos!
Check her out and you'll understand the nomination.
Silver Lining:
1. It's another good day in "Idiot-land". Anytime someone has something nice to say about you, it feels good - even if it comes out a little back-handed (see, that's the optimist speaking).
2. Hubby's making dinner tonight - not that it has anything to do with the award, but hey, it makes me happy :)
Friday, May 1, 2009
Oh, The Irony
Once I got there, I had to make a few decisions.
First off, how much salt did I “need”?
Pretzels or Potato Chips? Both very salty, but chips just sounded better.
There was more than one type of chip. I rolled my eyes and once again had to make a decision.
Baked Lays or Regular? Baked Lays were healthier, the even had the check mark indicating the lower fat grams – ooooo, I bet that influences a lot of people. There are other things in the machine with check marks next to their prices, but I don’t care. I want what I want and no check mark is going to influence me to get to choose animal crackers over mini sandwich cremes.
I really should have been responsible and gotten the baked chips, but my fingers were possessed. They punched in the number for the regular chips completely over-riding my brain. Kind of like men – they often let body parts have more control than their brains.
Go back to my desk or sit in the break room? There were a couple magazines sitting on one of the tables. I thought to myself, “You know what? I don’t take breaks and sometime work at my desk while eating my lunch. I’m going to sit down, read a magazine & enjoy my chips.” There was even a little high-pitched “hmh” and an indignant head nod at the end.
I sat down, opened my chips and savored that first one. I enjoyed reading a couple of short articles before I had to tip the bag and shake the last few crumbs in my mouth – you can’t let a good thing go to waste. I got up to throw away the bag and head back to my desk. I closed the magazine and started to put it back on the stack.
My mouth dropped open as I did this. The name of the magazine:
Niiiice, eat your salty, greasy, fat-laden chips while reading a diet magazine. It’s like ordering a diet coke to go with your Big Mac & fries.
Silver Lining:
- No one was in the break room so they didn’t see me reading the WW Mag while eating those chips.
- No one was in the break room to see the final crumb fall into my mouth – it’s not very lady like and a little on the unprofessional side.
- I totally enjoyed those chips!
