myspacey

so, i have the myspacey photo (see screenright) and magdalene* kept hassling me, so i decided to set up a myspace page.

i hate myspace.

it's just so... so... meh! with the blah and the ugh. i just don't like it. i have a secret account that my family communicates through** and magdalene found me there and insisted that i make a public account that she could be a part of. i decided to sacrifice for my good friend so she could play on it and feel like she was a part of something bigger and better. aren't you sorry you made me do it now, magdalene?
so, anyway, i have to say that i hate it just a little less today for two reasons:

1. i've found like a zillion of my old high school friends on it, so that's pretty cool and
2. i got this lovely message in my inbox this morning:

"i dont know you, but i saw your page on here ms issues. u are very beautiful! do u like the cardinals?
my mom hates me becuz i like white ladies. i dont care becuz u are probly a lot stronger than her. if u fart by her she might hit u becuz she doesnt think white women hit back. i hope u would do it anyway if u want to. if my mom punched u, would u throw her down and do it again?

~shawn"

bestill my beating heart. i believe that bobby petronik has been replaced.

*(i said "CONT" to grimey, btw)
**hi sis's and mom!

open letter to neighbors

dear neighbors in unit #2,

hi there, we've never met. i'm your frustrated next door neighbor. how's it going? yeah, not so good over here.

here's my issue: i pay for two parking spots; one covered and one not. i, of course, use the covered spot and the other spot is not used regularly by me. this does not mean you can tell your friends it's ok to park there since the poor single mom next door doesn't use that spot herself and no one ever comes to visit her. i don't need you to remind me that i have no friends.

thanks!

#3

picture of the day

this picture just makes me smile. i can't know why. but i wanted to share it with you all, nonetheless.

now accepting donations for psychotherapy

we've already established that as part of Y-ME, i have decided to start eating more healthy foods, right? ok then, moving on. unfortunately, i am not the only eater in my house. my children have not taken so well to there being no mac and cheese, white bread, real sugar or candy in the house. pete, who was always my good eater, refuses to eat about 75% of what i put in front of him. that is so frustrating for mothers, as other mothers who may be reading this can attest to. frustrating to the point that you want to do something... anything to make the children eat this food.


case in point - this weekend pete wanted a tuna fish sandwich. i took this as an opportunity to make a delicious salmon burger made with pimentos and lemon and dill and topped with lettuce and tomatoes and sounds super tasty, am i right? wrong-o. pete would not eat the sandwich, no matter what i said:

"you can have a treat when you're done if you just eat half of it"
and "be mommy's good boy and eat"

which didn't work and led to "youwillnevereatagainaslongasyouliveunderthisroofif
youdonoteatthatsandwich!"

ending with the inevitable "STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA WOULD LOVE TO EAT THAT SANDWICH!!!"

allow me to segue. lucky for everyone i have the internet. the internet is such a powerful tool for communicating, researching, discovering new and interesting things and the lesser known but nonetheless powerful tool of scaring the living bejeebus out of your children with pictures of starving children in africa.

you can probably guess that i didn't end up making him eat his salmon burger. i was too busy consoling him from the trauma i inflicted when i showed him this picture:

and this picture:

so, you are welcome to make those donations which will go toward the future psychotherapy my poor dear children will quite obviously need. a lot of.

did i mention that the girl saw the same pictures, looked at me, shrugged, and walked away? yeah.

my next boyfriend. if i'm lucky.

designing women

i am continually amazed at what we, as human beings, will do in our cars, presuming that no one else can see us. it's like we step into our cars and it's just a natural extension of our private homes so we just assume that jane doe sitting in the lane next to us cannot see a thing we do inside our impenetrable fortress. and why would we think such a supercilious thing? do we not notice that our cars have, i don't know, glass windows?
case in point (you knew it was coming) - driving home on friday afternoon, i was stopped at a red light when i happened to look up in my rear view mirror. the car behind me was one of those fancy lexus suv's. but that's not what i noticed first. i first noticed the woman behind the wheel. she happened to be glancing in her rear view mirror as well. then i noticed she wasn't so much glancing as she was looking intently. then i noticed she had something in her hand. she put it up to her face, just under her nose and started moving it in swift, upward motions. it was a razor. she was shaving.

a woman.

was shaving.

in the privacy of her impenetrable fortress (aka, car).

now, i am not one to judge, because i've been known to pull the same sort of tricks in my car*, but i obviously started to giggle. because damn! then i started to think of charlene on designing women**. right, so, there was an episode where she talked about seeing a man picking his nose in his car and how disgusted she was and did he think she couldn't see him? and then i started looking into it and i realized it was actually suzanne who said it:

"Suzanne: ...I mean, if we're trying to outlaw unattractive habits, why don't we outlaw nose-pickin' in your car at 60 miles an hour?"

but isn't that something charlene would totally have said? i know, weird, huh? i guess when you think of it, it's something suzanne would have said too.

geez, i miss that show.

i'm sorry. what were we talking about again?


*i have a tweezer i keep for those pesky stray chin hairs that don't show up till they see daylight. shut up, you have them too.
**i loved that show, didn't you? i still watch reruns on lifetime.

the stall conversation

i think it's pretty safe to say that everyone has been faced with this awkward situation. you run into an acquaintance/coworker on your way into using the restroom and this person starts a conversation, one you are sure will not finish up before you get into the stall. to me there is nothing more embarrassing than, 1) knowing someone is peeing not 3 feet from where you're peeing, b) they don't mind talking to you while you're peeing and third) they don't mind listening to you pee while you talk!

ew.

this happened to me the other day. i ran into a coworker on the way into the restroom and she started a conversation about god knows what. i've blocked most of the memory from my mind. i'm sitting there, getting my number 1 on, and she continues this conversation. i can't not answer her questions. she knows i'm there, for god's sake, she can hear me peeing!

ever since i was in elementary school, i can remember having a phobia about public bathrooms; not their cleanliness, but the fact that other people were in there peeing and they knew you were in there peeing too. i remember very clearly sitting there, knowing a bunch of other 9 year old girls were sitting there on their respective toilets and not hearing a single. splash. not a drip, splatter, trickle, or dribble. not a thing. i was so self-conscious that i was the only one who made a sound that i would do the "pee-pause". i'd let go for a second then pause, pee and pause, trying to aim for random noises that might mask the sound of my urination. for the longest time that was completely normal for me and i did it without thinking. hell, i still do it. in the privacy of my own home. of course, i have no problem with using the potty in front of anyone close to me, but coworkers and strangers? fuggitaboudit.

so unless you are a best friend, sister, child, or significant other, and you see someone on the way to the water closet, keep the conversation short! and, please, for the love of all things good and holy, SHUT UP WHEN YOU GET TO THE STALL!

Y-ME

as i've said, i'm trying to eat right as part of my Year of ME, aka, Y-ME. of course, there is a story here. almost 6 years ago (right after pete was born) i went to one of those women's conferences where they had a bunch of motivational speakers (i know, gag. i was in a phase!) and one of them was a registered dietitian name Zonya Foco and i thought she was so super motivational that i bought the stuff she was peddling.* anyway, i ended up with her cookbook... and dry erase grocery list... oh and dry erase menu planner (dry erase marker thrown in at no extra charge). i came home all psyched up that we were going to eat right, DAMMIT! and WE DID. for about 5 minutes. typical "diet" story, you know how it goes, so i won't rehash. i could (and probably should) totally blame the failure of that diet on my ex, but i won't.**
when i decided 2007 is Y-ME, i had no better place to turn to then my already purchased eat-right-cookbook, which was conveniently gathering dust with my "The Firm" workout tapes and "Fanny Lifter". since then, i have purged all fattening, triglyceride infested, carbohydrate ridden, non-whole-grain foodstuffs from my home. and you know what? it's not so bad!*** actually, i'm pretty sure that i'm only going to lose weight because i don't want to eat a damn thing in my house. whatever works, that's my motto.
this cookbook isn't too bad, it's got tons of ideas for eating healthy with little time to cook in. the downside of it is that Zonya loves the beans. beans in every freaking recipe. i like beans, they're tasty and all, but damn. i'm stinking things up like none other. hey! maybe that's how i'll lose weight. one methane expulsion at a time.
i'll keep you updated when the diet starts working. right now i've convinced myself that my body is just clinging onto all this extra weight and when my body loses and the diet wins the battle, i'll lose like 20 pounds over night. it could happen. don't judge me.

*see, she did this whole thing with scraping lard onto someone's hand showing the amount of fat you eat in regular potato chips and it was truly sick. it got me super motivated. i can't explain it, you had to be there.
**ok, maybe the lard thing wasn't that sick. potato chips are tasty!
***i'm totally lying. god, i miss those lardy potato chips!

Beyonce - Irreplaceable

Beyonce - Irreplaceable

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i know it's super cheesy, but this is my anthem for the year. i don't normally like her, but that beyonce can sure sing a liberated woman's song!

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remember when...

... i used to have fun and witty things to say?

yeah, good times.


this year i am taking care of ME. i quit smoking and i'm eating right and i'm getting rid of the things in my life that are bad for me. you know that almost always involves a man, right? i want to get back to that place when i felt witty and fun and like a good mom and a good person. IT WILL HAPPEN. i will be a grown up this year and take care of business.

either that or i'll watch plenty of tv and sit on my butt. whichever.

"omg, you killed kenny!"

so, you know how i have the cutest, most smartest kids in the world right? awhile ago pete asked me if he could shorten his name (btw - his real world name is 9 letters long and harder to spell). i said, "hey, ok, what would you like to change it to?"

he replied, "i dunno... kenny?"

makes sense to a gemius. it's not for us to understand. he's on a much higher plane we can't begin to comprehend.

no, i'm not calling him kenny.

blogging at work is fun to do

everyone in my department has left for the day, so i blame this random blog on them. seriously though, i am busy, but i came across this and i thought it was great and i wanted to show you's guys what a dork i am and i didn't want to forget so i'm posting it now:

The 2006 runner-up, Stuart Vasepuru from Scotland, played with one of the most famous pieces of dialogue from the Clint Eastwood movie "Dirty Harry".

"I know what you're thinking, punk," hissed Wordy Harry to his new editor, "you're thinking, 'Did he use six superfluous adjectives or only five?' -- and to tell the truth, I forgot myself in all this excitement; but being as this is English, the most powerful language in the world, whose subtle nuances will blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel loquacious?' -- well do you, punk?"

that is awesome on so many levels! *sigh* i just love grammar.

my undying appreciation will go to the first person to call me on that horrible run-on sentence i started with.

shrek is evil

have you ever noticed that everyone has a hamster/other small rodent escape story? well, here's mine.

we got him (or her, you can never tell what those little fuckers are. and personally, i don't care. we decided it's a he. end of story.) two weekends ago because pete has been extra responsible and i (albeit, mistakenly) told him that he could have a pet when he displayed the proper amount of responsibility. in hindsight, i should have better defined "proper amount". we were in the mall, the mall had a pet store, the puppies forced me inside, we came out with a hamster. his name is shrek.

i. hate. him.

sunday, i was trying to clean out its cage and the fucker bit me. DREW BLOOD! i'm sure i have hanta virus. then last night, it escaped its freshly cleaned cage. i'm sure it's after me. it got a taste for my blood and now it wants more. we luckily (or not) found it tonight after it ran across my boyfriend's foot. i've decided to let it live.

for now.

fyi

so, i was falling asleep last night and i thought of a totally funny post titled "fyi" and it was going to be short and it was going to be about something i despise. or is gross about me. or something like that. anyway, guess what happened?


i forgot what it was.


but i'm sure it would have been awesome!


lucky you guys get this post instead. you're welcome.


oh wait! i've got something gross about me. sometimes i hold my gut in both hands and shake it at my boyfriend and say "you like that?!"

he won't admit it, but i'm sure he does.

no, i didn't take the "red eye" and other intentional puns

ok, so i don't find as much to blog about as i should, but something freakish happened to my eye, and there's no better blog fodder than that.

so, i wake up friday morning and my eye looks like so:

can anyone say "ew?"

and here's me and everyone else around me - "what the fuck is the matter with your (my) eye?!" and if i have to make another joke about "my boss is tough" or "my boyfriend beat me up, but you should see him!", i'll puke. swear to god. and someone will need to hold my hair back because i don't want to get puke in it.

don't fret imaginary friends, the internet tells me there's nothing to worry about. i bet i still do.

the best advice i received was from my 3-year-old. when she asked what happened to my eye i told her that i probably poked it. and she gave me the most poignant piece of advice i've received in my whole life. she said...


"mommy! don't poke your eye!"


those are just good words to live by.

 

quick story...

just a quick little funny story about a faux pas i pulled last week at work.


i was looking over some paperwork with one of the ladies i work with. since we make blood products, sometimes things happen and we can't use the product, such as contamination. records for a contaminated product are marked as "CONT". we were discussing a record that was marked as "CONT" and when i referenced that remark, i pronounced "CONT" as you would the whole word, but without the "-aminated" part.


let it soak in for a minute and you'll realize i just said my least favorite word... out loud... to my coworker... nice.

we are in a fight.

yup, all of you are now on my shit list. don't pretend that you don't know why... you know what you did... if you don't know, i'm not telling you...

ok fine. take a look at my last post. go ahead. i'll wait.










see that word in the last paragraph? yeah, it's not so much "right" as "write". and i was not so much "right" as "completely fucking retarded". why the hell did no one tell me i did that?! for fuck sake! you'd think you were just reading my blog for entertainment and not picking it over for grammatical errors.

by the way, don't you hate it when you buy a bag of salad and forget about it until a month later and it's all gross and slimy in the bottom of your so-called "crisper" drawer?

yeah, me too.

gift giving tip

you guys know how i hate to judge or complain, but here i go.

the holiday season is the time of giving, as we all know. and when you don't know someone too well, you tend to give them the catch-all. yes, i'm talking about the Gift Card.

this gift is fine and dandy, especially between not-so-close friends or colleagues. but, to coin a cheech phrase, here's my issue with that.

if you are going to give the GC there is absolutely NO SHAME in writing, somewhere on or around it, the amount the GC is for! i received four GCs this year and not one of them indicated the amount the GC was worth. for pete's sake people! i don't want to look like a greedy bitch and be all "hey, not-so-close friend or colleague, exactly how much am i entitled to spend with this lovely GC?" would it hurt so much to put the freaking amount on the fricking GC? heck no! so, i have to go online and check the balances so i don't get up to the register at the GC store and look like a dumbass when my purchase far exceeds the GC amount. and then the ditsy cashier has to be all "ummm, the total is eleventy seven $$" and i have to be all "here's a GC of unknown amount i would like to apply toward my purchase" and she runs the damned thing and is all "ok, now it's like, totally only eleventy $$. how wud u lick 2 pay 4 that?" (and she says it misspelled like that because she's so dumb) i hate that stupid bitch. with her barcode scanner and nametag. she thinks she's so much better than me, but she's not!

all of this because some well-wisher couldn't right the god damn amount on the frickety fracking GC.

/end judgmental complaint/

picture pages with pete

i decided it was time for another installment of drawing fun with pete.

my parents have a lovely, xeriscape, backyard, complete with indigenous desert plants and even a fountain. of course, it's not as lovely as it was before my kids and i lived there for 7 months, but i digress. one of the indigenous plants to the lower sonoran desert is the yucca plant, which my son has drawn for us below:

and just in case you don't know what a yucca is and this graphic representation isn't sufficient, here is an actual yucca:

there is a hole at the base of the yucca in my parents' backyard, graciously dug by their cairn terrier. christian was not buying this story though, and the picture above is his story of what is actually in that hole.

it is, in fact, a demon rabbit hole. said demon rabbit must be killed with rocks that christian will fill the hole up with. if the rabbit is not killed, it will be flushed out by the rocks and then killed by the crazy monster, as a back up plan.

seriously folks. i have no idea where he gets these ideas from. definitely not me. it must be his dad's warped dna that gives him these ideas.


not. mine.

my family, the boy band

i don't know if i've ever told you this before, but i come from a large-ish all girl family. i have 4 sisters: 2 older, 2 younger. 5 siblings in our family... 5 members of N*sync... coincidence? i think not!

let me break it down for you something, yo.

i present N*sync




yuck, huh? personally, i hate them, but the picture is necessary to illustrate my point. we have justin, JC, chris, lance and joey. my sisters and i take on the roles of the boys in this band (and any other boy band for that matter) as follows:

justin: that'd be veryvaried, one of my older sisters. she's "the cute one" who always stood out and took charge (when we let her).

that, and she has permed, frost-tipped hair. hehehe


JC: that'd be oh-so-talented baby sister/member. she's also along the lines of "the cute one," but tends to be the wind beneath our wings. (if you just went "aw, how precious!", i have to say that is so funny because i am so non-sentimental. it was meant as a joke. gotcha!) she doesn't enjoy the spotlight as much as the lead singer, but is cute and talented in her own right.


chris: that's me. i'm the ok-looking, kind of talented sister/member who cracks a joke to bring attention away from the fact that i'm not as cool as the others.


lance: that's my other younger sister. she's the not-completely-with-it sister/member who everyone just nods their head at and smiles with her. and she's in space.


joey: and to our last sister/member, the oldest. seriously, i had no idea what this guy's name was, so i had to google it. that pretty much explains my oldest sister/member. she's way older than the other sister/members and doesn't really fit in the group, but we keep her around because she signed the contract.