Stiffy

I had book club again last night.  I haven't had that much fun in a long time.  Probably since last month's book club meeting. 

One of the ladies told a story about how when she was a girl sitting at dinner with her family, she asked the question, "Why do people alway say, 'Ward, don't be so hard on the Beaver' and why is that so funny?"  Nobody would tell her.  Later when she learned the hilarity of the double entendre she was mortified that she had asked her parents, and incredibly grateful that they didn't tell her.

Another lady said when she was a teenager, again sitting down at dinner with her family, she told a joke that she had recently heard.  Everytime she heard someone tell the joke it got a big laugh, but she didn't really get it.  She told the joke to her parents.  "What is better than roses on your piano?  Tulips on your organ!"  And then she laughed and laughed, pretending to get it.  Her parents gave her a courtesy laugh and quickly changed the subject.  She says when she was older and thought about it, it dawned on her that she told an oral sex joke to her parents and she didn't even get it.  Mortifying. 

This brings me to something Kira did lately, and when she thinks back on it in five or ten years she will be mortified and tell her book club all about it.  She had one of those long balloons like clowns use to make balloon animals.  She blew it up and to be funny said, "I made a balloon animal.  It's a snake."  Then she waved it around a little and said, "It's kind of a stiff snake.  I'll name him Stiffy."  And then she went up to Mitch and poked him relentlessly and kept saying in a deep growly voice, "Hey Mitch, say hi to Stiffy.  Stiffeh.  Stiffeeeeehhhhh!" and then she said something about Stiffy only having one eye and, "Hey Mitch, look into Stiffy's one eye and say hi!"  Mitch tried to stifle his laughter and thought it best to try to ignore her so she would stop poking people in the ribs with her balloon phalus and yelling "MY NAME IS STIFFEEEEHHHHHH!" and eventually she did. 

I hope I am around when it dawns on her how inappropriate it was that she blew up a balloon, named it Stiffy, and ran around the house poking her parents, grandparents, and brother yelling out "Say hi to Stiffy!"  I really really hope I can see her face when that happens. 

Stiffeeeehhhhhh

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I'm still taking submissions for the Bloggin' questions!  Send yours to me please!

Random Non Sequiturs

God, people are so weird sometimes. Lately I'll be sitting in a room with people and someone just pops off with some totally random thought that has nothing to do with anything anyone was talking about. This has been happening so much lately that I started keeping track.

- "Ted Danson is a vegan." - Said by Mitch's mom while drinking coffee.

- "There is a guy at the Y that has an empty bag [scrotum]." - Said by Mitch while eating lunch at Erbert and Gerberts.

- "I hate spines." - Said by my mom during dinner one night.

- "What's a 'pube shirt'?" - said by Kira after watching Thirty Rock.  (I don't think it was so much a non-sequitur as it was a request for clarification.  Stupid Thirty Rock reruns.)

Stay tuned for more.  They're everywhere.
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Thanks to those of you who sent me your responses to my Bloggin' post.  Next Wednesday look for Azia's answers.  Amanda already answered and posted it in her blog.  Check it out.

Bloggin': So... what else?

Thank you so much to those of you who have already responded to my Bloggin' questions from yesterday!  I was so happy to read your answers!  What do ya say we make this a Wednesday feature until I run out of blogs to feature?  Okay, sounds good to me.

Nataliedee.com

As promised, I will feature my own answers today:

1. Does your blog fit into a "niche" and how do you choose what to write about? Have you ever pulled a post after you published it because you regretted it?

I guess you could say it is a humor blog because I try to be funny. It started as a mommy blog so I could keep track of crazy things my kids said and did, and I found most of the stuff I was writing was about the funny stuff the kids did and funny stuff that happened. So I guess now you could call it a humor/mommy/everyday life blog. I write about what strikes me funny. I have pulled exactly one post after posting it because it was about my daughter and although it was hilarious, it was a little too personal.

2. Do you read a lot of other blogs? How many? Have you had contact with the bloggers, or are you a lurker?

Yes. I read about 100 blogs. They don't all post every day, and I have about ten or so that I really like and never miss. I put blogs I like in my Google reader and I check it every day in the morning when I eat breakfast. ~Helpful hint: as an avid blog reader I think you should enable your posts to be read in-full in a reader. If you only have it so I can read a few sentences, a lot of the time I won't click the link to your blog to read the whole thing because I have 30 other posts that are right there, easy to read.~ I have communicated with about 30 or so bloggers of the blogs I read. There are many I just lurk on. There is one mommy blog that is just kind of a ho hum family-only blog in Tennessee but I've been lurking on it for YEARS. I don't know why. I feel like I'm a fly on her wall that she doesn't even know is there....

3. Do you comment on a lot of other blogs?

I do not comment a lot. I should comment more. I don't know why I don't. I think part of it is total laziness because from my reader I have to open the page of the post I want to comment on, then I have to comment, then I usually have to do the stupid word verification. So if I comment, it's something I really wanted to say.

4. How important is it for you to get comments on a scale of 1-10? 

I LOVE getting comments. I would say on a scale of 1-10 it is about an 9 because although I love the comments, I would keep writing regardless if I got them or not. Whenever I see a comment in my inbox I get a little thrill. I love to know that someone read the post and liked it enough to comment because I assume everyone is like me and only comments when they really liked what I wrote.

5. Do you respond to your commentors?

Not as much as I should. Isn't that shitty? I'm trying to get better because I know when I comment on other blogs I usually go back and see if the author responded. The other day I commented on the George Washington Wired blog.  They had pictures of newborn baby piglets that were just born at Mount Vernon.  I said that there is nothing in the world as cute as baby piglets, and also there is nothing more delicious in the world than slightly older piglets.  I went back to see if there was any follow up and I got an admonishing response from another reader who told me to have more respect for the animals that give up their lives so I can have delicious bacon.  I felt really bad about that.

6. How many followers do you have? How did you get them?

I have 80 people who have pushed the "follow this blog" button. I have followed a lot of blogs and the other day I checked them all out and many of them are out of business or haven't posted in months. (Lightweights.) I check my stats pretty much every day to see how many hits I've gotten and it hovers around 200 to 300 a day but about 75% of those are from random Google searches and those people generally don't come back because they weren't looking for me, or for a blog to read, they were looking for things like "where does a horse's milk come out" and "ativan shut up juice" and they don't generally return. I would guess that I have about 15 to 20 everyday readers, and another 10 or 20 that check in once in a while. How did I get my followers? I begged people to read my blog. Is there any other way?

7. How do you promote your blog?

Promotion? I don't know much about it. I have looked up how to promote a blog and they say to make it easy for people to subscribe in a reader (check), post consistently (check), comment a lot on other sites (not so much), write guest posts on other blogs (anyone want a guest post?), and advertise (I'm not at the point where I think this blog is worth spending money on.) I also started my store but I can honestly say I don't expect to sell anything. I just enjoy designing stuff on my computer.

8. Do you write for any other sites?

I've guest posted before for The Empress, and I've written posts for Aiming Low, LOL, Mypheme, The Chunkersons, and some other regular blogs that have since quit posting.

9. What is your favorite and least favorite thing about blogging?

My least favorite is that a small part of me can't help see it as some kind of competition. I get discouraged when I see a new blog go up and within three months they have 500 followers and 30 comments per post, and their content is kind of iffy. Does that mean my writing is iffier? Probably.

The best thing is that I have an organized easy way to write consistently and that I've made some great friends. When I started I thought it was just going to be a family focused online diary to tell my sisters and parents what my kids were doing. I had no idea it would be so much fun.


10. What advice would you give to potential bloggers?  What do you HATE to see on a blog?  What do you like?


I would say keep writing all the time.  Make your site nice to look at, not too junky.  Link to stuff.  Have cool pictures.  I hate when I click on a blog and they have music.  I HATE that.  I usually won't go back. Oh!  and one more peeve that's not so much a blogging peeve as it is a writing peeve.  What I hate is when people misuse question marks to show that if they were talking they would say part of it like a question.  Example:  "That dolphin attempting to hump a lady taking part in a swim-with-the-dolphins program? Was the most disgusting thing I ever saw."  It's not grammatically correct.  Don't do that.  

Bloggin'

The only reality show I was ever taken in by was Wife Swap.  I find it fascinating to see how other people live their every day lives and how it compares with how other people live their every day lives, and then to watch it get all mixed up. I really like to know how other people do the same thing I do.   I was chatting with my friend Kady at A Lady Reveals Nothing (who just got interviewed by Forbes online magazine) (showoff) and we were talking about some bloggy things and that got me wondering what other bloggers think about and how they do things.  I want to know these things!  I came up with questions for what I want to know the most. 

I would like you, my fellow blogger/readers to answer my questions so we can get a peek into your bloggy life.  Here are the questions:

1.  Does your blog fit into a "niche" and how do you choose what to write about?  Have you ever pulled a post after you published it because you regretted it or got some horrible feedback?
2.  Do you read a lot of other blogs?  How many? Have you had contact with the bloggers, or are you a lurker?
3.  Do you comment on a lot of other blogs?
4.  How important is it for you to get comments on a scale of 1-10?
5.  Do you respond to your commentors?
6.  How many followers do you have?  How did you get them? 
7.  How do you promote your blog?
8.  Do you write for any other sites?
9.  What is your most favorite and least favorite thing about blogging?
10. What advice would you give to potential bloggers?  What do you HATE when you see on a blog?  What do you like to see on a blog?

Please answer my questions. Even if you only want to answer a few and not all, that's great!  (personally I don't know how you could answer some and not the others, but hey, whatev.) I'll even let you be anonymous and post your answers that way, if you want (but why would you want to?).  I figure if I am curious about how you do these things, a lot of other people are curious as well.  Send me an email at pluvial124@gmail.com with your answers.  You don't have to write a book.  Just a few sentences for each question would suffice. 

It won't take you that long.  I will post your answers one blog at a time and make a big splash about how great your blog is for my 20 or so readers here at So... what else? and maybe we can make some bloggy connections and do some bloggy projects together!  Doesn't that sound like fun!  We could do cross-over events like they did with Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley!  I don't know.  But I know I would really love it if you played my little game.  Just to get the ball rolling, I will post my answers for tomorrow's post. 

So get busy.  I'm talking to you Kady, Summer, Jane, Angie, Andie, Simone, Anne, Kathleen, Eva, (vacation shmacation, Eva) Wendi, Jenny (I wish), Meg, Amanda, Stephanie, Azia, Becky, Linda, You're Lucky I Don't Have a Gun, and anyone else out there that I've thoughtlessly overlooked.  I couldn't possibly get too many responses.

I'm an idiot, did you know?

Sam is fifteen now and a full-fledged teenage boy with everything that goes with it.  He thinks he knows eeeeeeeverything and that 99.9 percent of the rest of humanity are total idiots who don't know what they are doing.  Teenagers are annoying.  I hope with all my heart and soul that this is a phase and he is right now at the rock bottom of it and on his way back up to his old careful, sweet self because frankly I'm tired of being the idiot mean mom who is ruining his life.  What do I do that is so mean?  I'll give you an example.

The other weekend he told me he had plans to go ice fishing with his friend.  Okay, whatever.  That friend lives right on a lake so I had envisioned them walking out a couple dozen yards and drilling a hole and fishing. No problem. The days leading up to said fishing trip Sam leaked out some more details of his plan.  They were going to have to snowmobile out to where they wanted to fish.  It was just going to be the two of them.  Sam was going to borrow his grandpa's ridiculously overpowered snowmobile that goes over a hundred miles an hour.  I had to put the kibosh on the plans because it was a recipe for disaster.  The ingredients:

1) stupidly overpowered motorized vehicles
2) wanting to use these machines and drive them too fast over a body of frozen water where neither one of them knows about currents and the subsequent varying thickness of ice.
3) No adult supervision except maybe the friend's mom's boyfriend-of-the-month who I've never met which I suspect was just something Sam made up to make me feel better about the whole thing, but had the exact opposite effect.
4) The tendency of teen boys to try to out-macho each other which in this case would, of course, manifest itself in a high speed race.
5) When I expressed my concerns to Sam, he assured me that he knows absolutely EVERYTHING about ice and snowmobiling on ice, even though he's only ever done it once.  And he thinks I'm an idiot for thinking that ice can vary in thickness.  (Insert sarcastic tone here) "It's all four feet thick, Mom. There's nothing dangerous about it."  I told him a story that still haunts me about a family (mom, dad, baby) driving on the ice roads on Rainy Lake about ten years ago.  Their car went over a patch of thin ice and went through.  The car sunk in about 20 feet of water.  The baby was strapped into her carseat.  The dad dove down over and over until he was almost dead trying to get their baby out, but he couldn't.  Sam's response:  "That's too bad, but that guy was an idiot.  You don't strap a baby into a carseat on ice.  Everyone knows that; and cars don't sink, [idiot], they have tires filled with air." I love him dearly, but sometimes when he talks I just want to punch him in the face.  And then I feel bad for wanting to punch him in the face.

Ugh.

So there was no snowmobile trip.  Now I'm the mean bitch that is keeping him from having any fun in his life.  I miss the safety conscious little boy who built a tree-house on the ground because he thought a rickety dwelling built in a tree by a nine-year-old wasn't a very good idea.  I miss the boy who used to do the limbo like this:

And surfed like this:

and had the humor and self-deprecation to make fun of himself and his safety conscious ways by riding around on his scooter like this purely for the entertainment of his mother:

I'm convinced that is unfounded confidence in his abilities and the ridiculous assumptions he makes about things he knows nothing about are going to get him maimed or killed, and I'm still his mother, right?  It's still my job to raise him and protect him, right?  Yes.  Unfortunately in his eyes I'm just a fun-ruining worry wart who is dragging him down.

Ugh.

Oh, and this is the year he gets his driver's license.  Is there any way I can put him into a drug-induced coma to protect him from himself for the next five or six years?

Have Your Cake

I got a cake mix to make for Mitch for his birthday and when I wasn't looking he went ahead and made it himself.  (I would have made it bundt style because he is always saying "let a bundt cake do the talking" and I would have used chocolate frosting, but you know, whatev.)  He made a jello cake with plain whip cream for frosting.  The whole thing was so sad - the man making his own cake from a mix, using plain whip cream for frosting instead of mixing it up with some cream cheese - that I thought I would pretty it up a bit for him before I took it over to his parents for his birthday party.  I was planning on it saying, "Happy Birthday Mitch!  I ♥ you!" and that would be happy surprise when he took the foil off to cut it.  (And also, of course, everyone would then think I am the one who made the cake instead of letting the birthday boy make it.)


I took out my professional cake-decorating tools (some old tubes of frosting and the tips that came with them) and got to work.  These are the results:

You see, I discovered after writing the "happy" that the tip I was using was too small.  The letters were too thin and looked like they were written by someone with Parkinson's disease so I switched to the tip with a bigger hole.  It was a really big hole.  And in my defense, it's really hard to get cheap tube-frosting to stick to whip cream.  The letters were too big and I was not going to be able to fit "birthday" on the cake much less "I ♥ you Mitch".  At most I would be able to fit "birthda" but that would be so lame so I just left it at "Happy Birth" and added some flowers to try to distract from the abbreviated message. I posted it on Facebook and got a comment from one of the best amateur cake makers I know, Carrie, who makes cakes that look like this:

A campfire, a sparkly river and life-like trees and rocks.
Somebody is a bit of a showoff.

  
Carrie said it is the best "Happy Birth" cake she has ever seen!  So now I'm feeling pretty confident.  Change the category from "Happy Birthday" to "Happy Birth" and suddenly I'm Number One! 


I guess I was feeling too big for my britches after my wild cake success last year for Mitch's birthday:

It's a heart-shaped cake!  Awwww cute! The picture is supposed to be a rabbit but unfortunately looks more like a pear with boobs.  Again, I couldn't fit Happy Birthday on so I just wrote H.B.  He knew what it meant.  


Maybe I'll just ask Carrie to make Mitch's birthday cakes from now on.

Happy Birthday, Live Birth!

My wonderful husband whose legal name is "Live Birth Johnson" is 41 today. (His parents didn't choose a name before he left the hospital so that's what his birth certificate says.) Although today is the actual day of his birth, he insists we celebrate and give him preferential treatment all month.  He says custom dictates that you can celebrate your birth month from your actual birthday until the end of the month, which works out good for him because his birthday is on the 3rd, but kind of stinks for the rest of the family: my birthday is the 29th, Sam's is the 30th and Kira's is the 31st of our respective birth months.  When we point out the unfairness of such a system he says, "Too bad for you."

In honor of his special day I am going to re-post my favorite post featuring Mitch.  It was originally called Seven Secrets to a Fabulous Marriage

Mitch says he doesn't like when I write about him on the blog, but I think we all know that's a big fat lie because who doesn't like to see their name in print, am I right?  We have been married for a loooong time, like almost half my life (assuming I'm 26), which surprises and amazes me because before him I was never with anyone longer than a year.  People just get on my nerves after a while, know what I mean?  Not that I didn't mean it when I said, "Til death do us part,"  I totally did, I just assumed one of us would kill the other by now (thank you for not killing me yet, Mitch).  Since I am obviously so incredibly good at being married, I'm going to give you some of the secrets to my amazing success which, in a phrase, is this:  set the bar low.

1.  On your honeymoon, if things start getting too romantic and spectacular, get diarrhea so badly that when you emerge from the bathroom in the teeny tiny cabin you're staying in, you find your new husband holding one of the clove-scented coasters you got for a wedding present against his face to keep himself from gagging.  If he stays with you, that's good, if he stays in the cabin with you, it's true love.

2.  When you are pregnant and miserable and he gets you flowers to try to brighten your day; because that is so out of character for him, and also because you are absolutely mental when you're pregnant, accuse him of stealing the flowers and then look in the checkbook register to see if he actually paid for them.  Don't expect flowers again after that for a long time, but it's worth it because it's important to set mental-health low points early on.

3.  Let your wife know you are the man of the house.  Let her know you are going to be there and provide for and protect her and the little ones.   Mark your territory and don't leave any doubt as to whose territory it is:

Just to be on the safe side, you better use your last name, or at least your last initial,
 in case the little woman is simple-minded.  

4.  In a successful marriage it is understood that as you grow older, you will change physically and probably lose a little of the initial hotness that got you together in the first place.  A good spouse knows that and accepts it.  A really good spouse will morph into a cartoon character to keep things "interesting."

                     

5.  Teach your wife to appreciate things she never in a million years thought she would appreciate.  Say something like, "If I ever poop the bed, tonight will be the night," and then when you don't poop the bed, she will actually be happy!  And grateful!  And all you have to do is NOT poop in your bed!

6.  Laugh together.  When your adolescent boy comes out of his room wearing pants four inches too short because nobody has done laundry in a week and the boy grows out of clothes at an obnoxious rate; purely for the entertainment of your beloved, one of you should say, "Hey, nice pants!  Where's the flood?" which will make the other one laugh hysterically.  Who cares how the boy feels?  He's got to get used to people laughing at him if he's going to wear pants like that anyway.

7.  Support each other's interests.  If she gets obsessed with shoving live plants in jars with rocks until your whole house is full of terrariums and the moss patch in your yard is full of divots SO BE IT. If he gets carried away with installing poles so that your back yard looks like a forest full of leafless yellow-trunked trees, LEARN TO LOVE IT.

That sums up the glue that holds my marriage together.  What are your tips?

I'm Clean

You know what?  Upon review of my last two posts I realize I may have inadvertently led you to believe that I am disgusting.  I want to assure you that I am not.  Just because I don't wash my arms as some kind of sick habitual practice doesn't mean my arms have never been washed.  I distinctly remember last summer after a day of gardening my arms were quite dirty.  Let me assure you that they got a solid scrubbing after that!  I don't walk around with obviously dirty arms.  In fact, my arms don't even see the light of day for all the months between October and April.  How could they get dirty?  They don't.

As for my dusty wood stove:  I have no excuse for that other than I hate dusting so I never do it.  Well actually, I do when it gets noticeable, but what's the point?  It's all going to get dusty again anyway.  I wiped off the woodstove after I noticed Sam had written on it.  That was yesterday.  I bet it's dusty again already.  It just never stays dusted.  I guess I have a problem with menial daily chores because much like the dusting, they're never done.  As soon as I get the last piece of laundry folded and put away, someone strips something off and throws it in the laundry room.  Even as I'm unpacking the two hundred dollars worth of groceries that I just bought and hauled, someone is in the refrigerator getting a snack.  As soon as I get the bathroom spotlessly clean, someone literally shits on my hard work.  LITERALLY.  So I suppose not washing my limbs (or dusting, or cleaning the oven) is my quiet way of protesting against all the stupid chores that we all have to do everyday just so we have clean things to wear, good things to eat and nice places to poop.

I am quite finicky about some things.  My refrigerator is always clean and there is never any old food in it.  I clean that regularly because of the obscene amount of hair that ends up at the bottom, under the crisper.  (Where does that come from?!?  It's so gross it haunts me sometimes when I am lying in bed trying to go to sleep.)  In fact, my whole kitchen is pretty clean (except the oven), and my house is usually picked up so at a glance you would see it and think I'm tidy and clean.  I am tidy, and if you don't count dust or oven grime or limb dirt, I'm clean too.

Time to dust!

Bust Bather

I didn't shower yesterday in honor of the blizzard and having no school.  School was called off again today but I think I would be pushing it if I put off bathing for another day.

If it wasn't for Mitch giving me so much crap about it, I think I could go for days and days without hygiene.  Sometimes Mitch and I shower together and not because we are so incredibly in love that we can't stand to be apart for the length of time it would take one of us to shower individually, but because we are old and married and have no more boundaries.  There is nothing romantic or sexy about our mutual shower time. Mitch mostly points out flaws in my washing technique.  But come on, how could my legs possibly get dirty in the winter, Mitch.  If I wash them and they aren't dirty, they will just get dry and scaly and disgusting.  No thank you!

The other day while in the shower with Mitch, I made the mistake of thinking out loud and said, "Oh crap, I washed my arms,"  which was a shower showstopper.  Much like I don't like itchy legs, I also don't like itchy arms so why scrub perfectly clean-enough arms every day?  Mitch then tried to admonish me by pointing out that I only wash the parts that show and then he drew an imaginary line on my body separating the parts I wash from the parts I don't wash.  He said it was like a bust.  This kind of bust:

My hair and my face and my pits are all in there, so what's the problem?*  He then said something sassy about hooker baths and wallowing in my own lanolin but I wasn't listening.  I was already out of the shower and dressed by then.  Another benefit of doing a half-assed job in the shower:  Not having to listen to the super-clean, self-righteous albeit incredibly itchy super-bathers because they are still in the shower washing and rewashing parts that weren't dirty in the first place.  I've got better things to do.  

*just for the record, there are other, shall we say, 'islands' of body that get washed regularly.

It's a blizzard

Trees on our sliding hill.  

We are having a full-fledged, Little House On The Prairie type blizzard today.  I know it's a true blizzard because Mitch went out driving.  Every time we get a snowstorm, Mitch insists on getting in the car and driving around in it.  He says it's festive, but also, I think he is trying to stick it to the weather experts on TV and radio who say to stay off the roads.  THEY ARE NOT THE BOSS OF HIM!

I was outside shoveling off the deck and Mitch came outside with his hockey bag and said, "I'm going to hockey, see ya later!"  I was bundled up so only my face was sticking out, pretending I was Laura Ingalls and I had to shovel a path to the barn because Albert was in there detoxing from his morphine addiction and if I didn't get to him he would DIE.  The wind was blowing around in circles and howling like a freight train, and Mitch comes out like "Dum de dum de dum, just a regular day, whistle whistle whistle," totally oblivious to the weather.  He got in his truck and left.  About an hour later he was back and actually said the words, "The roads are un-driveable!"  Now THAT'S a blizzard!

Now he is outside plowing the driveway with Sam.  Kira is building a fort.  The dog thinks all this new snow is bullshit, and I have vowed to celebrate by wearing my pajamas all day and watching every western on MeTV.  I already watched Gunsmoke and Bonanza and now I'm in the middle of The Big Valley.  Yesterday on The Rifleman, Lucas shot the points off the antlers of a deer head hanging in a saloon.  Each individual tip! With a rifle!  Miraculously there were no gigantic bullet holes in the wall behind the deer head.  I don't know how he does it!  The scene cut away before we could see the bartender say, "Lucas! WTF?!?" because if you're going to have a taxidermied deer head hanging on your wall, you want all the points on it.  Everyone knows that.  If you go to all the trouble of hunting a deer, having the head mounted, and hanging it up on a wall, it's pretty inconsiderate for someone to come in and shoot off all the points, Lucas.

show off

Kira in the car

Kira might be annoying sometimes (right, Sam?) but she sure is easy to please.  Mitch bought her a soda pop in a glass bottle the other day and she is obsessed with drinking things out of her glass bottle.  And whenever she has it near her she compulsively yells, "GLAAAAAAAS Bottle!" which led to this latest installment of Kira in the car:

"If I ever get in a bar fight I hope I have this glass bottle with me. I would break it over somebody's head."

And believe me, if she is willing to break her precious glass bottle over someone's head, they probably really have it coming. 

Also, I think I've been subjecting her to too many old westerns and the standard at-least-once-an-episode, glass-breaking saloon fight.  Violence isn't the answer, Kira. 

And another thing:  While in my Effexor coma, all I did exercise-wise was make things on my computer.  My fingers are STRONG.  I started a little online store on Zazzle, and made some bloggy things.  Mostly magnets, but also some ridiculously expensive coffee mugs.  And a T-shirt.  I don't know if I like the T-shirt.  I might take that one down.  The magnets are all Kira in the Car quotes.  Check it out here.

One more thing:  I am so FAT right now.  I might have to go on a diet because I had to put clean pants on this morning because I spilled strawberry shortcake on yesterday's pants, which I was planning on wearing again today (and tomorrow and the next day).  Anyway, the deep squats and lunges I had to do, along with the accompanying grunts to make the clean pants stretch to accomodate all my new flesh were anything but appealing (right, Mitch?)  So I will probably start detailing my dieting sob story again at The Chunkersons.  Who's with me?

Touch Up

I've been touching up photos lately.  I love technology.  Why would I ever go on a diet or get a tan when I can just make myself skinny and tan in photos after the fact?  The differences are so subtle you can hardly tell anything was done, but people just look better.  See if you can see the differences I made in the sets of pictures.  The first picture is the original and the second one is the touch-up.  

Could you spot the differences?  

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Okay, let's try again with another picture.  This one is me and my niece Millie:

So subtle!  Millie just looks a little more *with it*, don't you think?

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One more time:

I changed one tiny thing and it made all the difference in Sam's level of coolness.  Can you tell what it was or do you just feel the cool vibe?

Photobomb

Mitch, sometimes a girl just wants a picture of her bird.

Effexor, a nightmare in a capsule or convenient tablets!

Remember a while back when I told you that my post-partum depression was rearing its ugly head again? Well, I've been beating it back since then and it's been kind of a rough road.  My doctor doubled my dose of Prozac which didn't really help all that much.  So then she said "we" should try Effexor.  She said Prozac might have stopped working because sometimes people develop a tolerance.  Effexor works as an SSRI as well as a norepinephrine uptake inhibitor.  Or something like that.  I was willing to try anything.  While I was in the office she told me not to stop taking the Effexor abruptly because although it wouldn't be life-threatening, it might be "uncomfortable."  She said one of the nice things about Effexor is that it also has anti-anxiety properties.  Okay, sure, I like being calm I guess.  I have never really had a huge issue with anxiety.  I don't particularly like going to the dentist or almost dying on planes, but other than that, I have no history of anxiety issues.

I started taking the Effexor.  After a couple of weeks I was feeling every last possible ever-recorded side effect.  I had chills, brain fog (which I suspect is part of the anti-anxiety?), chest pain, crippling lethargia (more anti-anxiety?),

This is what I'm like on anti-anxiety medication

eye pressure, muscle weakness, etc. etc. etc.  I had to stop taking it even though it was working on the depression.  I looked up how to taper off and I read some horror stories about Effexor withdrawal.  HORROR stories.  Like people saying that it was comparable to withdrawing from heroin.  Like people saying they had to take weeks off of work until they got over the worst of it.  Like people saying they split apart capsules and counted out the hundreds of tiny beads and reduced their intake of the drug by one teeny bead a day, taking months and months to taper off and STILL had withdrawal symptoms.  What???  Why would my doctor give me something so scary?

I didn't think it could really be all that bad, so I told my doctor I was getting off it and began tapering with no horrible effects.  The doctor told me that I might experience some mild anxiety while I was withdrawing. Like I said, anxiety has never really been a problem for me so I wasn't very concerned.  Eventually I got down to taking such a tiny chunk of pill that I almost couldn't see it and still, no side effects!  No effects, that is, until I actually stopped taking the medicine.  I've been totally off for about a week and every day I wake up with a throbbing headache and joint and muscle pain like I have the flu.  There's also mild, annoying, dizziness and nausea.  I am also finding it hard to concentrate on things. I am listening to a book on CD and it's been so frustrating because I can't keep the characters or plot straight.  It might just be a bad book, but I can't really tell.  The last thing I needed was a pill that makes me sick and dumber than I already was.  All of this is annoying, but it will get better.  I can power through the physical effects.

But remember when I told you the doctor told me I might experience some "mild anxiety" during withdrawal?  Have you ever had a panic attack?  I hadn't before, but a few days ago I had a flat-out, freakshow panic attack.  I thought I was having a heart attack and was going to DIE.  I could hardly move.  I couldn't stop sobbing.  I could hardly breathe.  It was the worst feeling EVER.  Holy shit!  "MILD anxiety???"

The doctor gave me a prescription for Wellbutrin.  I'm afraid to take it!  Now that I know she is the queen of understatement I'm worried about everything she bothers to casually mention.  She told me that Wellbutrin is a bit of a stimulant so not to take it before bed.  What does that mean in reality?  Does it mean that I will need to get a person-sized hamster wheel to burn off the stimulating effects of the Wellbutrin?

(Maybe a hamster wheel is not a bad idea....)

Will my whole family be annoyed by the sound of my hamster wheel squeaking all night long every single night that they will have to move my cage to the laundry room? The doctor also said that some people experience increased anxiety.  Does this mean my heart will literally explode?  I read on Drugs.com that Wellbutrin can sometime cause seizures.  I don't want seizures.  I prefer my brain seizure-free.  Of course, my doctor didn't mention anything about seizures.  That probably means there's only about a 75% chance that it will happen.  I still feel pretty good depression-wise so I'm in no hurry to get on anything else right now.

What kind of medicine do you take?  Do you have any side effect nightmare stories that will make me feel better about mine?

My Last GW Fun Fact (for now)

President's Week pretentious fun fact!: This is the last day of our week of presidential fun facts.  I can tell you loved it by ALL the comments that are clogging up my server (sarcasm).  Awwww...  So we will end on a sad note so you don't miss it too much.

George Washington died when he was 67 years old.  He was retired from political life and spent his days riding around overseeing his farms.  One night he complained of a sore throat, but it didn't seem serious.  Early the next morning he woke Martha and told her he was feeling terribly sick.  She wanted to get up and call a doctor, but he didn't want her to.  He didn't want her to catch a cold (considerate dreamboat) so she waited until morning and then summoned help.  Several doctors came to administer aid to Washington during the day.  GW was having trouble breathing and talking so the doctors bled him, TWICE.  It didn't help (obviously) and Washington asked not to be bled again, but they did anyway (doctor's NEVER listen!).  He was bled again.  They took 35% of his blood volume in all the bleedings.  Nobody knows for sure, but there is speculation that Washington had epiglottitis which is a serious infection of the throat that cuts off airflow to the lungs.  Washington kept getting worse, and was suffering horribly.  One of the doctors suggested a tracheotomy which would have restored his breathing, but he was overruled by the other doctors because back then there was no anesthesia (ow) and they didn't want to cause the president more suffering.  According to Tobias Lear, Washington's personal secretary, this was his last exchange:

"I am just going. Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put into the Vault in less than three days after I am dead." I [Lear] bowed assent, for I could not speak. He then looked at me again and said, "Do you understand me? I replied "Yes." "Tis well" said he.


He died shortly after "without a struggle or a sigh" (according to Lear).  Sad huh? 


There was a doctor named William Thorton who came to Mount Vernon the day after Washington died and proposed attempting a reanimation.  He thought with a tracheotomy, an infusion of lambs blood and gradual thawing, the president could be brought back to life.  Martha vetoed the plan.  

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That's it for President's Week!  Tomorrow I will have a new header!  But if you find yourself missing George Washington, I've added a page on the blog with all my GW information. 

My Girls

I just got back from a quick trip to visit my parents and my sister and her daughters, Sid and Millie.

Sid, the three year old, is a BRAT, but she makes me laugh harder than anyone.  My mom told me a story about how one day Sid fell down the stairs.  She fell forward and was lying on the stairs on her stomach with her head facing down and her feet on the top step.  My mom was shocked that she fell and was on her way to ask if she was okay and help her up when she heard Sid say, "Grandma... Grandma... grab my feet."  She wouldn't move because she was afraid she would fall further and it cracks me up that she had a plan for my mom to save her while she was lying on her stomach on the steps.  I'm laughing even as I write this.  

A few weeks ago she got her first case of diarrhea since she has been potty trained.  She came out of the bathroom and told my mom, with her voice full of wonder, "I peepooped!"

Yesterday Sid was all hyped up and being obnoxious.  She was about to jump on Kira and Kira said, "Oh god."  And Sid cracked up laughing and ran up to me and told me "Kira called me 'OOOOHHHGAAAAA!" and then ran to the bedroom where my sister was changing Millie and yelled into the room "Kira called me OOOOHHGAAAAAA!" and then she shut the light off and shut the door.  Beth had just taken Millie's diaper off so the baby was lying on the bed half naked and suddenly they were both thrust into total darkness.   Why do I think that is so funny?

Beth is trying to teach Sid the concept of time-outs for undesirable behavior.  She tells her that she has to stay in her room for her time-out until Beth comes back to get her.  Sid lies on her stomach in the hall with only her feet in her room and yells, "MOM, COME AND TALK TO ME!"

Sid thinks it is HILARIOUS to call me Amy and call Amy Sarah.  She's been doing that since she could talk, and we thought it was just an honest mistake, but it isn't.  She does it on purpose to stick it to us.  Yesterday she made me pretend she was a baby and put her in the crib for a nap.  Gladly, I thought.  When I got about two steps out of the room she started yelling, "AMY! COME AND GET THE BABY! AMY!  AMY!  AMY!  AMY!  AAAAAAAAMMMMMYYYYYY!!!!!!" So I yelled back, "Amy isn't here!"  and she laughed and laughed and said, "SARAH, COME AND GET THE BABY!"  So I went back in the room and she looked at me with her sweet little face and said, "Hi Amy!"  She's a brat.




President's Week pretentious fun fact!:  Washington was known for his incredible physical strength and dexterity (swoon).  At the end of the revolution told a friend that he never knew anyone who could throw a rock as far as he could. Once he threw a rock on top of the Natural Bridge in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  Here's the Natural Bridge:

Those tiny things at the bottom are people.  (It's really high.) Another time at Mount Vernon a group of young men were having a competition "throwing the bar" which I suppose is like a javelin.  Washington happened upon the young men who were stripped down, sweating, showing off, and asked where the furthest mark was.  He then grabbed the bar and flung it further than any of them without so much as removing his jacket.  He smiled and said, "When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I'll try again," and walked away.

Washington was also a fantastic horseman.  Preceding the Battle of Trenton, GW was riding up and down a column of soldiers on horseback and suddenly his horse slipped and started to fall backward down a steep, icy slope.  Washington locked his fingers into the horse's mane and hauled up its head by brute force.  He shifted his balance backward just enough to allow the horse to regain its footing.  The people that witnessed it were in awe.  Washington saw their stunned faces and said, "What? It's no biggy."  (no, he didn't.)  I saw Mitch do that on the lawn tractor once.  It really is impressive.

This has nothing to do with GW's strength, but I like it so I'm including it:  Ethan Allen (the man, not the furniture company) was captured by the British during the Revolution and he reported that the British had a picture of George Washington hung in their outhouse.  Allen supposedly said, "It is most appropriately hung. There is nothing that will make an Englishman shit so quick as the sight of General Washington."  

Happy Birthday, George Washington!

I don't have an actual post today, just my pretentious George Washington fun fact.

Oh yeah and this:

Happy George Washington's Birthday to YOU!

President's Week pretentious fun fact!:  Although he lived in a time before vaccinations or good medical care, George Washington was surprisingly resilient, physically.  He had many horrible diseases in his lifetime, including diptheria, smallpox, malaria, dysentery, tuberculosis, depression, quinsy, pneumonia, pleurisy, and a throat infection that eventually killed him when he was in his late sixties.

In the midst of the French and Indian war, while on a 100 mile trek (no roads) he was struck with dysentery.  General Braddock ordered him to go back but he refused.  It was so bad that he had to stop riding his horse and ride in a cart.  The diarrhea (and, I'm guessing, the resultant case of white-hot sting ring) caused hemorrhoids (another thing we have in common!❤ ) When he was well enough to ride again he put pillows on his saddle to ease the discomfort.  He wanted to lead his troops into the woods and engage the enemy but Braddock refused.  Eventually Washington was the only leader left during the battle.  He had two horses shot out from under him and had bullet holes in his hat and jacket, but didn't get shot. GW was the only person left able to distribute Braddock's orders and lead the retreat. Somehow Washington was able to ride 40 miles through darkness to summon reinforcements, though he occasionally had to crawl on his hands and knees to find the road. All while recovering from DYSENTERY. He later admitted that the ride left him "in a manner wholly unfit for the execution of the duty"  He lost a lot of weight and took a long time to recover, but he did.  Isn't he dreamy?

Winter Break Activities!

President's Week pretentious fun fact!:  George Washington did not have wooden teeth, Simone!  He did, however, have bad teeth and by the time he became president he only had one natural tooth left.  His dentist used this as an anchor for his barbaric dentures.  His dentures were made of lead (as pictured) or ivory, human teeth (gross), cow teeth (super gross), and springs.  Here's a picture:

That space in the back right side of the picture is where his natural tooth was.  The metal must have rubbed on that tooth relentlessly.  GW got to be friendly with his dentist (mistake) and when his last tooth fell out he gave it to this dentist who put it in a little glass case and put it on his watch fob (psychopath).

Blog Buttons

I've been having the best time lately playing with picnik.com.  I've been making blog buttons.  They are on my sidebar.  You can take one if you want.  Actually, I don't know how to make real blog buttons, the kind that you, as a reader with a fellow blog are able to "grab" and post on your blog, so they are just pictures with text on them.  I looked up the directions for blog buttons on google and I understand everything except how to assign a web address to a picture. What????  Like anyone is really supposed to be able to figure that out!  I figured out a way to make them the poor-man's (dumb girl's) way:  Take the picture and put it on your sidebar and then link my address to the picture.  I realize that the downfall of this plan is that you could link any site to my picture and that might be kind of hilarious, but I'd like it if you just linked my site to my picture.

I find the best buttons are made from unflattering pictures of myself.  I have so many choices!  This button is made from my all-time favorite picture of myself:

It was taken when I was eleven years old.  We were in Tasmania touring the crap out of the place (I'm not kidding. We lived in Australia for a year. Shut up, Mitch) and my sisters and I were SICK of looking at old convict artifacts so we threw ourselves into playing with our barbies.  We were walking around this old graveyard and my dad wanted a picture of the old graves but he wanted a person in it because he says that pictures are always better with people in them.  I was sick of getting my picture taken too, so I wasn't interested in putting my best foot forward anymore so I didn't bother taking down my hood, or even untying it or loosening it a tiny smidge.  And I was holding Barbie so why not put her best foot forward and give her a little camera time?  And while I was at it, how about a hand on the hip and a white-man's overbite to give that boring old graveyard a little sass?  This picture was lost for a long time.  It was the stuff of Lindahl family legends.  It was talked about and laughed about so much that I thought maybe the silliness of it was being exaggerated.  Then I found the picture a few years ago and it was every bit as silly as we remembered.

On to the next button.  Now, before I show it to you, I want you to know that this is what I thought I looked like:

But this is what I actually looked like:

This is another classic that the people who are supposed to love me most in the world laugh and laugh about.  I was on my honeymoon at Yellowstone National Park and Mitch and my sister and I were seeing the sights. (Amy went on our honeymoon with us. What?)  I was walking around like this ALL DAY.  I had that nifty crossbody bag but nobody told me I was wearing it wrong.  Thanks, new husband!  Thanks, sister!  It's not supposed to go tightly over your boobs, it's supposed to go loosely between your boobs.  I've tried crossbody bags since this incident and they don't look good no matter how I wear them.  If I wear them properly between the boobs like Reese is in the picture of her, it makes one boob look really high and one boob look really low.  Maybe my boobs are lopsided?  Probably.

So grab a button if you want!  And if you know the tightly kept secret of assigning a URL to a photograph, please, let me know.

President's Week!

Why is George Washington all over this page, you ask?  Because it is his birthday on Wednesday and I'm nothing if not festive.  Also, George Washington is my boyfriend.  Read the books His Excellency George Washington by Joseph Ellis, or Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow and he will probably be your boyfriend too.  He was tall and quiet and dignified and incredibly brave, and he loved dogs and horses.  He had bad teeth, shot bald eagles for fun, and loved to be at home more than anywhere else.  It's like he was made for me.  Of course, there is the slave-owning thing, which is a constant wedge between the two of us.  I've been to Mount Vernon three times in the past couple years (is that braggy?)

Get out of my yard!

It is one of my favorite places in the world.  I would LOVE to have the place to myself for an entire weekend.  I would walk all over the parts that they don't let you walk on, I would snoop in every cupboard and drawer and pretend I lived there.  I think a weekend is all I could take though.  I need my running water, indoor toilets, and refrigeration.

The picture on the header is a portrait of Washington by Igor V. Babailov.

It is titled "My Beloved Country" ~ George Washington.  Babailov is a contemporary painter and based the portrait on the Houdon bust made in Washington's lifetime.

The Houdon bust

The Houdon bust is supposedly the most realistic replica of what Washington actually looked like.  Houdon visited Washington at Mount Vernon after the Revolutionary War, and made a life mask on which to base his sculpture. He followed Washington around for a few days to try to capture the essence of the man.  He said the expression on the face of the bust is based on the look Washington had on his face when he was negotiating the price of some horses and the seller gave him a price that was too high.  Washington just stared him down until the price was lowered.

Happy 280th Birthday, George Washington!

Ask Hobo Siren

There is a new advice guru on the scene and I think you should write her a question.

She might choose your question, but she probably won't answer it. I don't care.  I just want to see another one of her videos.

She's brilliant.

Summer@hobosiren.com

Poor decisions that turn out okay keep you from ever learning your lesson: UPDATED!

You know how you get to be a certain age (over 40) and know better than to do some stupid things that seem like a good idea at the time?  Like calling old boyfriends when you have been drinking, or overpacking for a trip, or cutting your hair when you've stayed up too late and are overtired and have just looked at some very unflattering pictures of yourself?  You know how those things are bad ideas?  Well, thankfully I have never done the first one.  Although I have called people who were not YET my boyfriend after I'd been drinking.  It just goes to show that I am charming, charming, charming! even (especially) after I've had a few.  That was years ago though.  Why are we talking about drunk-dialing old and/or future boyfriends?  I don't know.  The last thing: cutting hair in an over-tired state, I've done that plenty of times before.  And I did it again last night.  I was looking at this picture of myself:



(Sometimes I look a lot like Nick Cage)


And I thought, it's time to face facts, I cannot pull off the bare forehead.  I look like Frasier if Frasier had long stringy hair, which he doesn't, therefore I look worse than Frasier. 

So when I was rushing around, getting ready for bed, stressing because I wanted to get some sleep because I had to work at the crack of dawn, I looked at my hair in the bathroom mirror and I thought, "I should cut some bangs."  Actually, here is my entire inner dialogue:

Me:  I should cut some bangs.

Me: Just finish brushing your teeth and go to bed already.

Me:  No. It won't take long.  And I'll look way better.

Me:  No, you won't.  Haven't you learned that late-night hair cutting is NEVER a good idea?

Me:  No.

Me:  You are an idiot.  Hey, why are you getting the scissors?  Go to BED!

Me:  This will only take a second.

Me:  You are going to regret this. 

Me:  No I won't.  I'll look cute.
Me:  No, you won't.  You'll look like you cut your own hair in the middle of the night.
Me:  I look that way all the time anyway.
Me:  That's because it's the only time you ever get haircuts.  Leave it to a professional!
Me:  No.  I can do it.
Me:  PLEASE, just go to bed.
Me:  Here goes!  (snip snip)
Me:  Great.  You did it.  Tomorrow I will tell you "I told you so."
Me:  I think after a fresh washing and blow-drying, it will look good.
Me:  I'm pretty sure it won't. 
Me:  Sure it will.  These choppy chunks will blend right in.
Me:  No they won't.  WHAT ARE YOU DOING!  PUT THE SCISSORS DOWN AND GO TO BED!
Me:  I think I can blend these choppy parts.
Me:  By cutting it more?  STOP!
Me:  I should.  I can't though.  Man, these scissors are dull!  I don't know what's wrong with me.  Help me.
Me:  I give up.  I'm not talking to you anymore.

Me:  Okay, I'll stop.  Goodnight.

And I got up this morning and rolled out of bed, tired from being up so late, and totally forgot about my late-night major-hair-decision.  I washed, dried and I LOOK SO CUTE!  What do you know, late night self-inflicted impulse-haircuts are a good idea! 



Me, this morning.  Bangs are a miracle!



Update:  Okay, that last picture really isn't me.  It is Keara Knightly.  Honest mistake.  One of my loyal readers wanted to see an actual "after" picture of me.  Sorry, but all my pictures are "before" pictures.  I'm still waiting for the day I can call myself an "after."  So anyway, I took some pictures of my new bangs.  Here, have a look:

BEFORE Before:

AFTER Before: