Friday Confessions

1.  There was a dark brown smudge on my finger last Friday and my first instinct was to lick it off.  This could have gone very badly.

2.  I assume brown = chocolate.

3.  It's a beautiful thing when your pants are too big.

4.  Especially when you've forgotten you accidentally bought them too big.

5.  While enjoying my pedicure and extreme callous removal over Memorial Day weekend, my guy hit a super sensitive part of my foot and I almost fell out of my chair laughing.  The girls in the other chairs were trying not to stare.

6.  I have sensitive feet.  Hovering several inches over them sends me into a rage of laughter.

7.  I may or may not have accidentally kicked Corey in the face after he dared to venture near my feet.

8.  I had my first jolt of espresso in several months on Wednesday.  Tall iced vanilla latte.  I could not stop talking.  Or smiling.  Or blinking.

9.  At Starbucks they get mad if you forget to tell them you wanted your drink "iced."

10.  As of post time, I will be perusing used literary treasures at our library's book sale.  This is a popular event among book collectors and people who aren't fond of antiperspirant, so finding last season's hottest read for 50 cents is not going to be as easy at it appears.

...

My craft festival starts tomorrow morning.  Oh.  Em.  Gee.  I am so nervous!

Desperate Plea

Oh my gooooosssshhhh.  Fellow bloggers: please stop.

Seriously, can you give me, like, 20 seconds to catch up before you post anything else??  I've been away from my computer, unable to soak in every word, ponder the conundrums of breast pumps and bottle rocket wars, and make thoughtful (yet odd, sorry) comments.

And I want to do all those things!  I need too.  Your news is my routine, and like my daily celebrity gossip fix, a la People online, it's as precious to me as wearing shoes in a public bathroom.

Can I tell you how gross I feel just standing in a public bathroom?  Don't even get me started.

But I digress.

Can you just feeeeeell the whining here?  Do exaggerated vowels convey that tooooone?

I'm doing my best to read it all, like actual read.  Which means I can only do a little at a time.  So, if you all were able to take, oh let's say, a half-day blog siesta that would do me a world of good.  Thanksomuch.

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PS. Can someone fix Blogger so I can resume commenting?  For some of you I still am not able to leave my feedback, which I know is crucial to the development of your blog.  Please advise.

Weekend Wrap Up: Part II

And by "Part II" I mean this past weekend.  The one we just survived, barely.

(Part I was Memorial Day weekend.  Remember?  I couldn't be bothered to harass Blogger for not allowing me to post my pictures.)

Saturday/Sunday were also known as crunch time, because as I am just days away from my first big craft show I am in freak out mode to get everything done.  And by "everything" I mean the things I already have planned and the things I add to my to-do list daily.

In between activities, Corey scheduled us to attend a barbeque at our friend Scotty O'Dwyer's house.

Scotty O'Dwyer is actually his nickname.  I realize nicknames are not usually four syllables longer than the actual name, but it ain't my game.  Take it up with Corey.

AnyBBQ, we packed up our sausage roll and cake balls and headed out at 4:30pm for what I thought would be a few hours with friends, and a much needed break for me. 

Oh and a break it was; a seven hour one.  One that included every type of meat you can fit on a grill, a hot tub, six billion mosquitoes and four half glasses of wine.

I probably could have typed "two glasses of wine" but I drank them one half at a time, so...

Even two full glasses is one and a half glasses more than I have in a month, and I was feeling pret-ty relaxed.  I ate cake balls with wild abandon and may have made plans with Corey's cousin to find our way into the Bradley Cooper movie that's filming around here.

The wine then had the same affect on my sleeping as Benadryl does.  I was out within seconds of crawling in bed, and then woke up groggy and unsure of my name.  In no way was I sick (only two glasses, remember), but I was also not completely "there", and this followed me the rest of the morning.

Like to church.

Yes, I had an incident at church.  But let me preface it by saying I normally have a hard time paying attention to speakers in any topic or arena in perfect health and mental well-being.  College lectures were a nightmare.  You say learning disability, I say mind your own business.  Tomato, Tomato.

That saying actually doesn't work in print.

AnyEmbarrassingSituation, Corey and I sat down in the sanctuary and the sermon commenced.

What was it on, you ask?

Ummmm...errrrrr....wellll..... 

I could only half pay attention because I have been so sleep deprived for several weeks now and had groggy brain from the wine.  Eventually Pastor Bill came to a point in the sermon where I distinctively remember him saying:

"Stand up if you'd like to give glory to God."

I thought to myself, uh, yeah I 'd like to do that.

 I looked over at Corey, "Let's stand up."

He gave me a quizitive look and we stood.  But not everyone in the sanctuary did.  In fact, only half of the people stood up, and the ones sitting were clapping.

"Why isn't everyone standing?"

"...I don't know..."

Eventually we sit down and the pastor talks about hardships and difficult situations most people struggle with and I assume that's why we stood up: we had hardships at some point in our lives.  That's ok, I thought.  I got those.

So on we go with our day.

Brunch.

Stomach ache.

Jewelry.

Then I talked to my dad, who also attends the same church but went to the earlier service.

"Hey, remember when Pastor Bill asked people to stand up in church this morning?"

"Yeah."

"Um, what were they standing for?"

"That was for people who have conquered addictions."

"Get outta town."

"...??"

Oh dear sweet baby pandas what have I done.

I've let about 200 people speculate Corey and I met at a rehab clinic, that's what I've done.

Oh the embarrassment.

The shame.

The painful lesson that late nights and rabble-rousing may seem like fun at the time but have horrrrrible, embarrassing consequences.

But on another note: I was super productive, so...

Ten on Tuesday

Today's questions are on cell phones.  It figures at a time when I'm terrified of my cell phone, with news of possibly health problems linked to radiation from phone use and getting pulled over for the second time for talking and driving, I've gotta talk about the dang thing.  Sheesh!

But thanks anyway to Krys at Eat This Soup for coming up with something for us to talk about!

1. What type of phone do you have? Do you like it?
I have the first version of the Droid and this sucker has about had it.  Not only is it terribly bruised, but it's starting to freeze, and when I need to let Corey know there is a deer grazing on the side of the highway I'd better darn be able to.

2. How old were you when you got your first cell phone?
I was 16 and it was huuuuuuge.  I think I only had something like 40 minutes on my plan each month, so I could only use it when absolutely necessary.  Like telling all my friends that I had a celly and they didn't.

3. How many cell phones have you owned since your first?
I'm on my fifth.  And proud to say I have never owned a flip phone.

4. How much is your average monthly phone bill?
Much more than I'd like.

5. When you were a kid/teenager, were you allowed to have a phone in your room?
Kinda.  I think I could have, but I didn't want one.  I've never been much of a phone talker.  I actually dislike talking on the phone very much.

6. Do you like talking on the phone or do you despise it? Or somewhere in-between?
Whoopsie!  Guess who should have read the questions before she dove right in.

7. Do you text a lot? Is texting/talking while driving illegal where you live? Are you guilty of it anyway?
I don't text as much as a certain husband who shall remain nameless.  When talking to a Verizon rep:

"It looks like you don't need a large texting package.....oh, wait.  Yes you do."

Even touching a cell phone is illegal here.  But I do it anyway.  I talk.  Not text.

And I get caught.

8. What sort of texting keyboard does your phone have? Touch screen, slide out, or something different? Do you care?
Both, but I prefer to use the slide out keyboard.  It prevents such mistakes as "Wud bebop big deal."  I still don't know what this means.

9. Look at the last call in your call log – who is it? What were they calling about? Who calls you the most?
Corey.  He calls to check in every now and then.  Make sure I'm still alive.  This happens often.

10. What is the longest phone call you can recall having?
I've had 60+ minute conversations with Corey before we were married and living together.  And that's as far back as my memory goes.

...

Peace out.

Weekend Wrap Up: A Week Behind

True to form, I am a week behind on Memorial Day Weekend News.  My valid excuse: blogger would not accept my pictures.  It was one heckuva weekend.

And it started Friday with me, artist of the month, hanging out at the store where I sell my jewelry, meeting all of my three fans.

By "meet" I actually mean hanging out in the back of the store with the finger foods because I get super embarrassed by compliments.

And because I like to snack often. 

Highlights of the night:

• Food.
• Cupcake truck parked outside.
• I may have accidently served wine to minors.
• Met really fun people.

Up next: long hike up the highway to Corey's hometown for some fun in the sun out at camp!

And by "fun" I really mean wading through water to get to camp and standing on the deck saying, "ooooooh my gosh I can't believe all this water!"  We instead spent the rest of our time at his parents' house, on the porch, chattering on about all the goings on.

That is, until his mother, Bonnie, and I left to get our toes done.

A girl simply can't not get her toes done at least once in her life.  This time was actually my second, so I know from previous experience that my foot is not actually supposed to be rubbed raw, but boy do my nails look purdy.

Next I took a ride with the in-laws to one of the most fun houses I have ever been inside.  The most fun being Susan Feliciano's house on the corner of Olive and South in my old LBC neighborhood.  It may be because I was young the last time I was there, but that place had more nooks and crannies than an English Muffin.

Bad joke.  My apologies.

So off we go to the house of Bonnie's old friend, Olga, who unfortunately passed away earlier this year.  She was in her 90s.  Olga did not have children and only a few family members to pass treasures on to, so the rest of her belongings were scheduled for the dumpster.

I think this is tragic.  And I may have said so a few dozen times as we looked through old photo albums of relatives no one will ever know.  I would have l-o-v-e-d to have sat down with my grandmothers, looking through pictures of relatives long passed, and then taking those pictures to my children, all seven of them, and telling their stories, but I'll never have that chance.  So instead I settled on taking pictures of Olga's mother and father, their pictures were labeled and in places where they would be looked upon often, sparing them from a dirty, stinky fate.

She had a room full of sewing equipment, closet upon closest full of clothes, and a drawer of medical supplies from her husband's dental practice some 70 years ago.  To say I enjoyed learning about this woman through the stuff she collected is totally understated.  I wanted to go through every hat box, drawer, closet, but it would have taken hours and our lungs just weren't up to the dust.

So off we went, with a few treasures and a slight cough.

Even though we were having a good time, I was still there to get some work done on my jewelry (big craft fair coming up this weekend.)

My big helper stepped in.

Out of 1627 felt balls I needed for the show he rolled six perfect balls.  I was so proud!  And then I forced 13 more on him.  I believe he is now regretting this move from business manager to assembly worker.

Too late for that, Cor.

Oliver had a great time.  Although he wasn't able to get his annual romp in Lake Champlain he did avoid a horrible rash on his undercarriage from floating duck poo and cutting open his paws on zebra mussels.  And he had a cat to stalk.

This cat.

He is as friendly as he looks.  As in, not at all.

I may or may not have used an unrolled sleeping bag as a buffer when trying to pass him in the hall to avoid being mauled.

Oliver is much braver.  They stood face to face.  His ears were perked with an invitation to run and play and eat out of each other's bowls.  Kitty just stared and growled.

Funny how animals understand each other's signals, even if they're part of a different species.

Can't fault a brother for trying.  But I wouldn't mention that to the cat.

Corey and I were a little bummed at not being able to barbeque at camp, wake up to water lapping on the shore, and consuming flaming marshmallows covered in chocolate and graham cracker.  But the weekend redeemed itself, and we were pleased as punch to spend time with family.

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In the next Weekend Wrap Up: why four half glasses of wine may cause you to do something embarrassing in church the next day.

Friday Confessions

1.  It's Friday, again, and I have very little to confess.

2.  I've been saintly all week.

3.  And/or have forgotten all the things I wanted to share.

4.  Sometimes I catch myself making faces when I am frustrated, annoyed, excited, etc.  And I mean really screwy faces I would be embarrassed to know strangers saw.

5.  Striped fitted sheets mean the world to me.  They say, with no words at all, "this end up or down but not side to side," saving me several moments of frustration trying to stretch the short end to fit the long end, and then rotating it, and then rotating it again because I realized I just needed to stretch it a little farther the first time.

6.  Corey saves himself the frustration by leaving the sheet however it falls.

7.  Guilty pleasure, in my car when no one is watching edition: I take my shoes off and put my toes up to the AC vents.  Usually just my left foot.  It feels magical.

Also, singing and dancing would fit into this category.  Although I'm less concerned if someone sees dancing than holding my foot at face level.

...

Aaaaaand that's a wrap.  Happy Friday!

Pre-Weekend Wrap Up

I very much would like to share the events of Corey and my weekend away, camping under the lamps of his parents' living room, (mainly because I think you will be interested, but also partly because I know very soon I will forget) however Blogger is rejecting all of my pictures.

Not that there were too many, just four that were to be accompanied by a ton of words.

But alas, not today.

(sigh)