Fifth Dear So & So Letters

It's Friday!

I've got a few things I need to get off my chest so I can have a good weekend. So I've written a few letters. I think you may enjoy some of my moments of misery, confusion, and dingy-ness.


Dear George,

Could you consistently lean back a bit when you poop? I know you have the ability to clear the perches as evidenced with the three piles of poop rising like volcanoes from the floor of your cage. I really don't like cleaning poop encrusted perches.

Grossed Out,
Your Birdie Mommy

Dear Padded Bra Makers,

Why do you make padded bras for children? Don't deny it. I saw them in the little girl underwear section at Wal-Mart!

Do twelve or thirteen year-olds really need padded bras? They grow up fast enough! You don't need to push that process by making their chests bigger than they really are.

Feeling A Little Ranty,
Pollyanna

Dear Self,

When trying to drill into a wall that has duct work in it, make sure the drill bit is turning the right way. If the bit is turning to the left, it will not penetrate the duct work. Going to the left only helps you remove screws.

Hee, hee. The left = loose screws.

Just an FYI for next time. You know, so you don't have look like an idiot when Hubby has to come over and help you.

DIY Dingy,
Me

Dear Mother Nature,

Did you really have to choose the moment I ran out to the garage to start a deluge of rain?

I was only going to run out and run back in. I was expecting to come inside with a few rain drops in my hair, not as a sopping mess with no towel in sight.

I know I've written you a letter at least one other time about the weather, and I never got a response. That's poor customer service. Maybe I should just take over for the Pleasantville area.

Wet,
Pollyanna

Dear Self (again),

Don't wear Crocs in the rain. You will slip & fall on a smooth surface. Such as a garage floor.

A Little Ache-y,
Me

There are others out there who share my thoughts - I'm sure of it. Why don't we all head over to Kat's place to see who else is writing letters this week?

Silver Lining:

1. George has a sparkly clean cage. I cleaned EVERYTHING! He was so confused when I was all done (because I rearranged the "furniture") that he almost didn't want to get back in.


2. After Hubby drilled a little hole for me, he didn't even tease me about the drill. I knew there was a reason I keep him around. XOXOXO to Hubby.


3. Apparently, I'll live after my little rain run. I eventually dried out. And my arm doesn't really hurt from the fall anymore

Quadward - Honestly & Randomly

Count them:





Four awards!

All given to me by Cougs at Couger Tales. She's a fellow Babe and SITSta and definitely a good read.

How wonderful is this?

It's such a fantastic surprise when ever one award comes my way, but four? At the same time?

Well, let's just say, it blew me right out of my chair.

Or was it the Pleasantville wind? We're famous for our wind. Not really, but it's pretty gosh darn windy. I refer to my house as the "Red house on the prairie." Because I don't have any neighbors on either side of me and when the wind kicks up, you might as well be on a prairie because there is no protection.

As I didn't have the windows open this weekend, I'm pretty sure it was the awards.

I'm not know to be short-winded myself so I'm making this part one of four. I'll be passing out three more in the next week or so. But let's get started with this one:


Honest Scrap. What does that mean?

If you say it out loud, it sounds like "Honest Crap." Not to diminish the award in any way, but wouldn't this be a more appropriate award for me? Honestly, the fact that you all like my crap enough to come back time and time again is what should be blowing me out of my chair. What the heck, I say, "Cheers! To a sore arse for hitting the floor every time someone leaves me a comment or becomes a follower." Raise a glass of what ever liquid deliciousness suits your fancy.

In order to fully accept this award, I need to share 10 random things about me.

And, since it's Random Thoughts Tuesday, I'm counting this as my post for that as well :)

So here goes:

1. In the fifth grade, I punched a boy in the jaw.
   
   I could feel his fingers on my back as he was getting ready to snap my bra. I clenched my fist and swung straight back with my arm. Totally caught him off guard - it was awesome!
   
   He never bothered me again.



2. I suck at math. I'm an accountant and without an adding machine or a spreadsheet, I'm lost when it comes to numbers.
   
   Hubby, on the other hand, is a whiz at it and never lets me forget. I've completely given up on this aspect of my life. I don't even try anymore, I just look at him. Or if someone talks number to me and he's not around, I just say, "Hubby's the numbers whiz, I'll have to talk to him about that." Sad, but true.



3. Speaking of spreadsheets, I'm an expert.
   
   I love how all my linked up spreadsheets calculate in seconds when my co-workers are busy entering the same information multiple times in multiple spreadsheets. If they would just listen to me, their lives would be so much easier. Gee, that sounds conceited.
   
   Oh well, sometimes the truth hurts.



4. I make all my own curtains.
   
   I'm too picky to buy anything ready made. They either aren't long enough, full enough, or interesting enough.
   
   Or they are too expensive. I'm cheap that way. I made fully lined curtains for my dining room window for about $15 bucks. Ceiling to floor. Woot! Woot!



5. I don't understand how I can wash all the light one day, and run out of underwear three days later.
   
   Seriously, there is a black hole with all my underwear. Each time I do the laundry, it eats up another pair.
   
   I'm lucky I'm not negative on underwear right now.
   
   One of these days, I'm going to catch that black hole in the act and I'm going to re-claim fifteen years worth of underwear. Well, maybe only six or seven years worth. The ones older than that probably don't fit anymore.



6. I once worked for a company that did not allow paper clips and ALL faxes were printed on green paper.
   
   That's not green as in environmentally friendly. It was actually green colored paper.
   
   They spent a fortune on binder clips. A paper clip box has, like, a hundred paper clips in it. A binder clip box has twelve clips and costs three times as much per box. You do the math. Better yet, let Hubby do it.



7. I have had someone from every state except Alaska visit my blog.
   
   Where are all the Alaskans? Do they not like to laugh? If you know anyone in Alaska, send them a note telling them to read my blog. Really, then I can stop stressing over this point and move on to getting people from the 198 countries of the world to read my blog.
   
   I'm almost national. Now, I want to be global. I want to spread laughter to every corner of the earth. Come on people - help a gal out!



8. I paid for college all by myself.
   
   I spent two years at community college and two years at a university.
   
   No scholarships. No grants. No hand outs from Mom and Dad.
   
   I've since paid off all my student loans too.



9. I bought my first home when I was 23.
   
   Idiots! What business did any bank have giving a 23 year old a mortgage for twice her annual salary? Gee, guess this mentality is what got us into the housing mess we're in now.



10. I'm a Daisy Girl Scout leader.
    
    What was I thinking? It's actually a lot more involved than I thought. I used to teach Sunday School on a weekly basis so I should be able to handle meetings twice a month, right?
    
    Well, not only to I have to actually plan the meetings (they gave me a detailed, step-by-step book for Sunday School), but I have to attend two different leader meetings a month. There are special events for the girls - skating, lock-ins, camps, etc and I have to help with these things too.
    
    Really, though, I'm loving it. I want my daughter to have a better Girl Scout experience than I had growing up. As far as I knew, Girl Scouts was selling cookies, making a craft once a month, and bringing a snack to the meetings once a year. I want Cupie to enjoy being a Girl Scout AND learn what being a Girl Scout is all about.

You all have a little bit of scrappiness in you so I think you all deserve this award. Share your "Honest Scrap" or "Honest Crap" - I look forward to reading it.

Now, head over to Cougs' place to experience her own brand of scrap.

And you need to stop by Keeley's place for all the other randomness floating around in the blogosphere.

And finally . . .

Silver Lining:

1. At that job with the weird paper clip rule, I had the best boss I've ever had. He taught me more about my profession than any classroom ever could, the importance of work/life balance, and that sometimes you have to make your own fun.


2. Proving that those bankers were idiots, I couldn't afford my home and a single gal's lifestyle. I had to get a second job to do so. That's how I ended up being a Domino's Pizza delivery driver - where I met Hubby.


3. That boy in fifth grade didn't turn me in to the teacher. I think he was either too stunned or too embarrassed to get hit by a girl.

No Fail Rice Krispies - NOT!

I haven't had a good kitchen calamity in awhile. And it happens to be your lucky day (but definitely not mine).

I've got a kitchen calamity story for you all.

As luck would have it the grandparents called Saturday morning and offered to take the girls on a "Haunted Hayride" about an hour away. We were invited to an "Alley" party - which is like a block party, but takes place in the alley behind our homes. We would bring the kids, but it is really is more fun when you don't have to watch out for small appendages getting too close to a bon-fire. Can you say, "AWESOME!" (all sing-song like) - we could hang out with our neighbors and friends for a few hours and not feel bad because we stuck the kids with a babysitter!

It wasn't until four in the afternoon that I realized we needed to bring some sort of food to the party.

Brownies took an hour.

By the time I pulled together ingredients for cookies and baked them, I'd still be at an hour.

I didn't have an hour. We were planning on being there in 45 minutes.

I found some marshmallows and rice krispies in the pantry. I could tell there weren't going to be enough marshmallows to make a full pan of rice krispie treats. I figured I could just melt the marshmallows and pour in enough rice krispies until the consistency was right.

And I thought I would make up for the lack of quantity with quality. By quality, I meant chocolate. Chocolate chips mixed with marshmallow, butter & rice krispies, where could I go wrong?

Apparently, I could go horribly wrong.

I didn't want to bring over the glass dish I initially put the treats in so I started taking a knife to them in order to transfer them to a large paper plate.

I jammed the knife in and a hunk of treat zinged out of the dish, nearly taking out an eye. Thinking maybe just the edge was crunchy, I continued to try to cut the treats.

Um, yah. It wasn't just the edges.

The entire batch of rice krispie treats were crunchy. And not in a good way. It was like rock candy kind of crunchy. And painful.

I needed a new plan.

I didn't have a new plan.

There was nothing else in the pantry, to take at a moments notice. I didn't even have an unopened bag of chips.

Chips!

The market is just across the way, I would get chips at the market and then whiz off to the party!

So that we didn't have to come back into the house, Hubby's bright idea was to make up our drinks (which he was going to hold on to - there would be no drinking & driving), we'd swing by the market and then get to the party.

Mmmmm, amaretto and 7-up in my big insulated mug. Sprite is preferable, but we had 7-up so I was going with the flow. Hubby grabbed an insulated bag and filled it with six "Shocktop" beers and we were ready.

I put my big mug on the center console of my car and the sack-o-beer on the passenger floor. Telling Hubby none of this, I went back in the house.

Hubby got in the car, on the passenger side, and knocked the mug filled with amaretto and 7-up deliciousness into the drivers seat. The lid popped off and the seat was now filled with amaretto and 7-up deliciousness.

A smarter person would have started sucking the liquid up with his or her lips, but I ran inside for the shop vac. By the time I got it and an extension cord and made my way back out to the car, my sponge of a seat had completely absorbed all the amaretto and 7-up deliciousness. Like the left over bones after a body has been dissolved in an acid bath, the ice cubes remained.

It was a sad day in Mudville, folks.

Silver Lining:

1. Hubby went to the market and came back with a six pack of Mic Ultra and chips.


2. We had a good time at the party, but were home by 8:00 because we were whooped from all the earlier running around.


3. We were home by 8:00 like old, married people. But I'm happy to be an old, married person as long as I'm old and married to Hubby. Cheers, to gray hairs and rocking chairs (neither of which I have yet)!

Big Box Guilt

I accidentally scammed a big box chain yesterday.

Really, I didn’t do it on purpose.

I bought some candles using coupons, making them only a $1 each. If you bought five of said candles, you got a $5 gift card for the store. Essentially, that made them free – yay!

I went through the check out line, got my gift card and was on my merry way.

Once I got to the car and started thinking about the transaction, the total seemed too high. I checked the receipt and sure enough I was charged too much on three of the candles (without regards to the coupons).

It wasn’t a ton of money and was going to let it go. But then I started looking in my bag at the other stuff I had bought and the total on the receipt and decided I really didn’t need the candles anyway. So I went back in the store to return them.

The gal at the service desk was very cheerful and was happy to accept my return. This was very unusual because I’ve met my share of crabby customer service people at this store. I pointed out that I had used coupons and she said there wasn’t anything she could do about that and she had to refund the full amount on a store card.

I had forgotten about the $5 gift card I already received in making the purchase in the first place. The bottom line is I had given them $6.50 + coupons for the merchandise, but I ended up with $20 in store credit.

I feel a little bit guilty about that.

I told you all that to get to the “ding-dong you’re a dork” part of my story.

I went to one of the big box chain stores today. I had some kick-*ss coupons for Chex Mix that when getting the store to price match to a printed sales flier from another store, made the Chex Mix FREE! I’m all over free stuff!

Once I got into the store, I realized the price per bag was only a quarter more than if I went ahead with the price match. Considering, I had unintentionally scammed them yesterday, I wasn’t going to push the issue and use up some of the $20 credit I had.

I gathered up nine bags of Chex Mix, a bag of Tostitos, and two TGIFridays Spinach & Artichoke dips and made my way to the check out counter.

The cashier grunted, “$12.04.” Just the total, no “That’ll be $12.04” or “$12.04 please”.

I swiped my debit card, punched in my pin, took my receipt and bags, and headed for the car.

Once I sat down in the car, it hit me.

I DIDN’T USE THE GIFT CARD!!!!!

Silver lining:

1. I don’t think anyone else saw me smack the heal of my hand against my forehead V-8 style. Yah, it was loud enough to make a smack sound. Left a pretty red mark too.


2. My conscience still has a guilt-ridden $20 to spend.

You Know You're An Idiot A Split Second After It's Too Late

You volunteer once and do a good job, guess who gets asked to do something. That’s right, it’s you!

Last month I made some fantabulous “Good Student Awards”. After three Mike’s Hard Lemonades each, my friend Kitty and I hauled out the bucket of crayons and colored really pretty like. They looked kind of like this (but they all had different color combinations).


Cupie said they needed glitter. So I used the glitter glue I had at home and piped it on the edges and the words. Of course, I used up all my glitter glue.

Since they were so sparkly & pretty, I got a request to make more awards. I still didn’t have any glitter so I hiked my butt down to the craft store.

Glitter glue is expensive!

I figured the Elmer’s at home and the regular, sprinkly kind of glitter would do the job. I bought eight jars that had a shaker top.

Wouldn’t you know it, I spent just as much as I would have on the glitter glue. At least the sprinkly kind will last longer.

A shaker top is cool, but you have pop out the tab do-dad. I thought I’d just push on them.

Like opening parmesan cheese.

They were so small they didn’t stay open very well so I had to open the jars and actually pull the tab off. I was able to tear most of them out. The red and multi-colored tabs were an issue.

I needed to perforate the edges somehow. I didn’t want to use a knife because jabbing it at the laminate counter top in order to pierce the tab edge would result in open jars of glitter, but a nicked up counter. Not a good idea. I needed something a little duller.

There were fondue forks in the silverware drawer. The two prongs were pretty close together and they had a rounded end.

Perfect!

The multi-colored jar was pierced as planned and I pulled the tab out.

The red jar was the first one I tried to open by just pushing in the tab – the one where I discovered the tab doesn’t stay open so well. There was only the long edge to perforate.

Because one side had already been pushed in, it kept folding in every time I tried to jam the fondue fork into the edge.

I concluded I wasn’t able to achieve the right angle by pushing down toward the counter so I picked up the lid with my left hand.

I pushed the fork with my right hand.

Planned event: Perforating the tab edge. SUCCESS!

Unplanned event: Perforating the palm of my left hand. SUCCESS!


Silver Lining:

1. I did finish the awards. I just clenched a paper towel in my left hand while doing it.


2. Thank goodness I had nixed the knife idea.


3. My awards are better than the other mom’s awards – she only colors them all one color and uses only one color glitter

I'm Across the Pond

I get giddy with comments.

When someone passes one of those blogger awards to me, my heart soars.

But for someone to like my drivel enough to allow me to post said drivel on their blog, I mean WOW!

I'm caught almost speechless. I say almost because really folks, have any of you ever thought of me as speechless? Seriously, I think I'd have to be heading toward the castle in the sky for that to happen.

Anywho, I'm done talking here because I'm busy talking over at Kat's. Pop on over to the Three Bedroom Bungalow for my pumpkin carving adventure.

Silver Lining:

1. It's so much fun to hop across the pond. Maybe I'll get to do it for real someday.


2. Kat's a great blogger buddy and funny too. She tells it like it is when you're an American living in the UK. When you stop by to read my post, you should check out some of her past posts too.

Monk Moves

If you've never seen the show Monk (Tony Shalhoub) on USA, you should really check it out. Monk is a neurotic ex-detective for the San Francisco police department. He notices stuff, puts the pieces together, and neatly solves crimes for the police. His big problem is that he's an obsessive-compulsive with a phobia for everything - from milk to monkeys, charcoal to caves, harmonicas to heights, slime to spiders. It's hysterical the lengths he will go to avoid a phobia.

Anywho, Cupie wanted to play in the basement yesterday. No biggie, the bulk of the "big" toys are down there - kitchen set, humongous Barbie house, etc.

I was busy signing a sale contract for our old house (we still own it, two years after we moved out) when I heard a blood curdling scream. I looked at Hubby who just sat on the couch completely ignoring Cupie's cries. I was busy. He was just sitting on the couch (well, he might have been working on something I asked him to do, but he was closer to the basement door so he totally should have jumped to his feet).

There was a spider!

A big, hairy, fast one!

Getting on a chair wasn't high enough for Cupie. She pulled a total Monk move by climbing up on a table - because the fear of spiders totally trumps the fear of heights.

Silver Lining:

1. Daddy was once again a super hero for killing the spider. For his past heroic acts, click here.


2. For everyone who seen an episode of Monk, this is pretty funny. For anyone who hasn't, sorry if you don't get the post.

Observations of an Almost Four Year Old

Stinkles wears Ariel jammies that for the premium Disney price, were made quite cheaply. Within hours a small hole had formed in the crotch. Nice.

Hubby wears jammie bottoms that the designers fashioned with a weezer hole which remains closed with the help of a button.

In all her nearly four years, Stinkles never notice this until today.

"Hey, look! We both have holes in our jammies!"

Silver Lining:

1. Hubby wears underwear with his jammies so we don't have any peakage going on.


2. Stinkles wears underwear with her jammies too. That would just be creapy otherwise.

I Said . . .

Hubby got a new game for the Wii this weekend - Wii Resort!

It's a lot of fun - fencing, Frisbee, archery, wave boarding, etc. All those resort-y types of things to do.

Cupie has finally gotten the hang of which buttons to press and can read so playing some of the games has gotten much easier for her. She's really funny at fencing. She gets her arm a swinging, gets her body into a little fencing stance, and scuttles forward toward her "opponent".

Hubby was fencing when Cupie piped in that she wanted a turn. Stinkles can't play any of the games and was tired of being the cheerleader and asked to watch Diego.

Hubby was in the middle of a round and told them both to wait just a minute.

A minute ticked by.

Then another.

Cupie asked again.

Stinkles headed over to the game console and very pointedly pushed the power button.

Right in the middle of Hubby's round.

She walked away like it was no big deal. In her mind, she had solved the problem.

Silver Lining:

1. Is it wrong to laugh behind a book while your husband is sternly discussing the situation with your four year daughter?


2. The Wii has a built in memory so Hubby only had to start over that one round and not from the beginning.