pssst July 24, 2009

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Moving Day July 22, 2009

Remember when I posted yesterday about moving? Well, now that I can get into the new site, I will only be posting there from now on. So everyone bookmark www.burningthesouffle.com and go there instead. See you at the new site!

Several Things, Mostly Unrelated July 21, 2009

1.  I want this for when I am huge and pregnant.  If you don’t appreciate the “Breaking Dawn” reference, then you can buy me this one.

2. Speaking of huge and pregnant, it seems as if every teenage girl I pass in this town is preggo. I’m going to hand out condoms instead of candy at Halloween.

3.  The bottoms of my feet, due to NEVER wearing shoes, even on the pavement that has been baking in the TN sun all day, now closely resemble a leather handbag.  (Ok, I wear shoes in public, but not around the house, and not to get the mail, and sometimes not to walk my dog.)

4. Said dog needs a new bed, she has had the old one for awhile, and since she sheds like crazy, it has endured multiple washings and spins in the dryer.  It is also sporting a rip in the cover where someone (ok, me) couldn’t properly put the stuffing back in. (It’s a weird shape, OK?)  I’m thinking this bed would be pretty good. Ok, I’m kidding, WISH I could buy her that one. I In all likelihood, she will be getting one from LL Bean.

5. Oh, but don’t think the dog will be sleeping on that bed at night, no sirree, she has decided that she must sleep on my bed and only on my bed, and RIGHT ON TOP OF MY LEGS.  And boy, I better not try to move. Apparently I am there for her comfort only.  It’s ok though,  she’s wicked cute. Here is a picture for evidence, apologies for the crappy cell phone quality, but it was what I had in my hand, ok?

This bed is occupied, you must find another.

6. Oh yes, my original intention- a change is coming, or actually, the change is pretty much here. Thanks to the help of Mike, this blog is moving.  The new address will be http://www.burningthesouffle.com, you can go there now for a sneak peek, but there really isn’t all that much to see yet, other than old posts. All that is going to change very soon, but I am so excited! Thanks again Mike!

Cold, Wet, and MUDDY. July 20, 2009

Last Saturday, D and I decided to take our kayaks to the really popular kayaking spot around here, about an hour away. We had never been to this particular spot before, but we found it without that much trouble.

Well, sort of.

We got to the spot fine, but apparently put our kayaks in at the wrong spot. After paddling 1/2 mile or so upstream, we decided that it was an exercise in futility, and turned around to take the boats back to the right spot.

So, we get to the right spot, shove the boats down the ramp, and go to get into them.

This would have been perfect, had I not fallen into the river at this point.

Twice.

Fully clothed.

Yep, I am the uber-klutz.

Finally, I managed to get into my kayak after lots of swearing and manuevering, and down the river I went.

It was awesome, totally worth it even if I did have to paddle 5+ miles in a wet t-shirt and denim shorts.  This actually wasn’t that bad until the last mile or so when it started to get dark and rapidly cool off, and the 1/2 mile trek back to the car. (Can’t honestly say that I was all that keen on walking in the dark with wet and muddy tennis shoes.)

I am not sure if the skin around my hips will ever be the same (wet denim begins to chafe after awhile, dontcha know?) but that’s what I get for not wearing a rash guard.

Oh well, all’s well that ends well.

How was your weekend?

Professor You-Tube July 18, 2009

So, I am really proud of my D. I’ve always known he was a very handy guy to have around, but I never stopped to really think about and appreciate how clever he really is.

His dad needed some plumbing work done, and was going to call a plumber to do it.  “Don’t do that,” says D, “Let me look at it and see what I can do.”

So, D looks at it, develops a plan, and tries it.

It doesn’t work.

At this point, I would have felt I was out of my element, and called in a professional. Nope, not D.

He goes on YOU-TUBE to watch a video on how to do it!

Then he goes back to the hardware store, gets some more stuff, and does it!

I’m not totally sure what all they did, but it involved putting some sort of pressure regulator in and running a lot of new pipe for a new inside faucet in the basement. I might add that the water pressure dropped to a non-bullet pounding level immediately, and they only had ONE tiny little leak in all the new pipe that D had run all over the basement.

I was totally impressed. D, you are so smart, it never would have occured to me to watch a you-tube video of how to do something. (I mainly use my you-tube viewing for watching things like this, I am a shining example of maturity.)

D, I am so proud of you for wanting to learn so many new things and then just getting out there and trying them.

Yikes. July 16, 2009

Today, I decided to take a semi-short (not shorter in distance, but at least you don’t have to hit all the traffic lights in town)  cut through a highly populated subdivision near us.  I do this quite a bit, it is a busy road through this neighborhood.  It is a pretty packed place, the houses don’t have much lawn at all, and it is popular with people who don’t want to do a lot of yard work.

Anyway, I was driving through, and I saw 2 little boys playing in some sort of pushcar thing on the sidewalk.

By themselves.

It really unnerved me, they didn’t look older than 5 or 6, and I could see no adult in sight. They WERE in front of a house with the front door (barely)  cracked, but again, no grown-ups in sight. And yes, they WERE on the sidewalk, but this is a BUSY street.  I cannot pass total judgement, because for all I know there was a grown-up who was outside mowing the lawn or something, but again, I did not see anyone. The speed limit is pretty low through there, but that doesn’t mean that someone won’t speed.

I am not trying to judge their parents.  I am not a parent, but my goodness do I know what it is like to be responsible for someone.  I really do get it.  Last summer, I was the sole caregiver in the toddler room…with FIVE toddlers…all under the age of two. For several hours. Everyday. I get that every minute can be “look at me, look at me, look at me” or “I need this, or that”. I get that it can wear on you.  I know, these boys were older than toddlers, so how about my fourth grade class? Fourth graders can barely be trusted to go to the out of sight bathroom without causing mischief …(Don’t believe me?  How about the time that 2 kids decided to “chug” milk at breakfast and then, not surprisingly, puked it all up all over the bathroom…and then neglected to tell anyone. Yeah.)  I get that parents (or anyone exposed to small children for a long period of time, haha) need a little  break.  If the kids had been in the backyard with no adult, I would have thought nothing of it (ok, I am paranoid, I might have, but I would have assumed that someone could see them out of a window). If I had seen 2 little boys sitting on the bench outside the women’s bathroom at Dillard’s, I would have thought nothing of it .  But 2 little boys playing alone (albeit, on a sidewalk) right next to a VERY  busy street? Yeah, I thought something of it.

Maybe I am overreacting. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for kids playing outside, even alone. I just want them to do it in an area where they can be safe.

And to me, alone next to a busy street, is not safe when you are five.

I Neglected…

To show you all my new (super-short) hair! I got it cut last week. I LOVE it…this is the best haicut I’ve ever had, I think.  I tried to grow it out for a long time, but I hate spending hours on my hair, so long hair really isn’t the best option for me.

Here you go, my new ‘do:

The Top/Back of My Head

Ta-Da!

Gratuitous Kitteh Pictures

Have I ever told you about D’s little tiny cat? She is old, and very, very tiny.  She weighs maybe 4 lbs, and she has no tail (well, she does have a “stub”). We don’t know if she was born that way or if she lost part of her tail before she came to live with D.  She also has always had a bum paw,  but it doesn’t seem to bother her, she just holds it off the ground when she walks; we think she must have gotten in a fight with a bigger animal before finding her way home.

Anyway, she is a really sweet cat, she is a little skittish with people she doesn’t know, but she loves to be petted and snuggled.  Last night D and I were sitting on the couch with Smitty, and she happily sat on my lap and purred for the longest time.  She had to sit on a towel though, because she loved “kneading” my legs with her razor-sharp claws and my purple lounge pants weren’t enough protection.

Enjoy some gratuitous pictures of the cute kitty:

Just lounging around

Please, enough with the pictures!

Not crazy, I promise July 15, 2009

I really promise I am not nuts.

I am just prone to random fits of giggles.

Like, the other day, I had a laughing fit remembering something that happened with my first college roommate- One day we were doing some laundry when she stuck this neatly folded pair of panties on top of a stack of my folded stuff…..

“L, these are not my panties,” I say.

“Yes, they are,” she insists, “they have to be.”

“No, not mine. I have never seen them before. *Snicker* Did you forget what your own underwear looks like?”

“NO. I KNOW they are yours! They were in my laundry basket when I took them to wash!”

So apparently a stranger’s panties ended up in her laundry basket, along with the rest of her clothes. She swears that she had them before she put them into the washing machine, they weren’t something that just got stuck to the washer and mixed in with her clothes. We never did find out whose panties they were.

Anyway, the other day, I started remembering this and I just could NOT quit laughing. In the grocery store. I had to fight back snorts.

Or, how about the other recent giggle fit I had, remembering the first (and only) time D made tea with the coffee maker:

It was the first time we were cooking dinner together, and we wanted to have some really good stuff. D makes awesome tea on top of the stove, but we were running out of time and I told him just to make it in the coffee maker instead. Meaning, he should just put water in the coffee maker, and stick the tea bags in the coffee pot.

Apparently the wires got crossed, because a few minutes later I looked over and D was cutting the tops of the tea bags off and dumping them into a coffee filter.

*Snicker*

Remembering that gave me the giggles the other day too, also in public.

Do you ever get random memories that bring on giggle fits?

Annoyance Confessional

Do you ever have little, teeny things that bug you? Things that you would feel silly whining about to someone else, but you just feel the need to get it off your chest? Well here is my list! Feel free to add your own annoyances!

1. People who follow too closely, then get pissed off when you turn and they have to slam on their brakes. Yes, Miss-Green-Ford-Focus with the Hawaiian crap on the rearview mirror, I am talking to you; this is the woman who was driving the white foreign car with a college decal and bumper stickers in the rear window, and, oh yes, a SLEEPING INFANT in the backseat. Watch out, you don’t know who might be in front of you. And thanks for that really ladylike gesture you flashed at me, you’re a real peach.

2. People who reward their children for breathing. I kid, I have never actually seen anyone do this, but some people come darn close. Seriously, a reward for being dragged around wal-mart?  A treat for standing in line at the bank?  Come on people! Don’t you ever do things you don’t want to? I do all the time! I do things like taking out the week-old trash that smells like barf (oh wait, it IS barf), cleaning up the backseat where my doggie threw up because I didn’t have the window cracked enough for her (my bad, I really did feel terrible), tackling the 3 foot pile of laundry that haunts my linen closet (Ooo, spooky!), and just the normal everyday things like emptying and reloading the dishwasher, etc. Nobody actually WANTS to do that stuff, but you do it because you have to. No one rewards me for schlepping a cart full of groceries around wal-mart, so why should kids be rewarded for uh, doing nothing?

3. People who have no clue what is an age appropriate gift for a kid.  I realize if you do not have children, or have never been around children, you may be left scratching your head at what to buy little junior the neighbor’s son for his birthday, but how about googling it or asking junior’s parents what he needs? A one year old doesn’t need a box of stationery…(I am not even kidding, someone used that for a present at a party I went to recently…don’t try and say it’s for the parents…the party is for the KID, not the parents.) A four year old cannot play with a chemistry set.  A ten year old probably doesn’t want a “Abby Cadabby” DVD.

4. The teenagers that make out on the side of the walking trail in my town. Uh, gross? What happened to making out in the car or under the bleachers? Uh, not that I ever did that. (Actually, I SO did do that, ah memories!) Anyway, I don’t need to see you playing tonsil hockey while I’m walking my dog.

5. People that purposely show off on same said walking trail. Yes, miss-tiny-pink-sports-bra, you are in shape, we get it.  You don’t have to stop and bend over and huff dramatically after jogging .000000000009ths of a mile.

6. Acne. In your 20s. I thought this would be gone by now…..like, with my teens? (Actually, v. few problems as a teen…hit 20, face breaks out, luckily not horribly, but still annoying.)  Ok, it is really not all that bad, except for the one cyst/nodule thing ON MY CHIN. Go away!  Oh well, at least makeup covers it up. Sort of. (Actually, this may be the result of the acne medicine I was prescribed, apparently you break out worse right after starting new stuff, sort of like getting rid of a year’s worth of pimples in a few months apparently. So hopefully totally clear skin is not that far out of my reach!)

Those are my annoyances of the day.

What are yours?