I Think Casey Jones Wrote My Horoscope Today

I also don't believe that anyone should "shop shoveling coal..."

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Your 30s: The Myth

Congratulations on making it to your 30s. If you weren’t already depressed about being a ‘real adult,’ let me thrill you with what you can expect from this decade of your life.

1. If they haven’t already, cashiers and waiters will stop asking you for ID when buying alcohol. Instead, what you get when you try to hand them your card is a very condescending, “That’s okay; I can see your gray hair.” This is one of the many horrifying ways you find out about:

2. Your first gray hair. When I was in my teens and 20s, I was very resolute to grow old gracefully. Whenever my gray hairs grew in, I would wear them with noble pride. I earned those hairs! Until the first one appeared. I ripped that puppy right off my head, as if it were some kind of alien mind control device implanted to entice me to play Bingo and eat prunes. Speaking of aging gracefully…

3. Ever since you were a teenager, you’ve been waiting impatiently for the day that you wouldn’t have to worry about pimples anymore. Well now you’re in for some unexpected fun, when you stop to wonder if the ingredients in your acne medication will interfere with the work your wrinkle cream is doing.

4. The people around you will refer to your age in some unflattering ways. It doesn’t matter if they’re older or younger than you either. Younger folks will continually make references to how “old” other people are. Then apologize when they find out that you’re only a year or two younger (or in some cases, older) than the person they’re referring to. The older ones are the worst though. This is when you get to hear about all the things that you should be doing “at your age.” For example, “Are you sure you don’t want to try this age-fighting moisturizer? You know, at your age, you should start worrying about fine lines.”  Thanks, I didn't have enough to feel insecure about.

5. Even if no one says anything, some hard truths about the passage of time will hit you in some more subtle ways. Over the last few years:

 I read announcements from my old childhood friends that “their baby” will be graduating high school soon. Can you believe it?
 Music that premiered in my teen years is in the category of “classic rock.”
 I am hiring people who were born just a year or two before I graduated high school.
 I am almost old enough to be my coworkers’ mother (assuming I started at 18). Next year it will be official, this will not be a good birthday.

When I was in my 20s, I figured that by the time I reached my 30s I would have life a bit more sorted out. I thought that I would start developing a wisdom that came with my age and that people and situations would start making more sense. While that’s true in some respects, I actually feel more like a preteen than an adult. Here are a couple of items to think about:

 When you’re in your 30s, your body starts to change in some unpleasant and frightening ways.
 You find that you’re still interested in entertaining yourself in much the same way that people a few years younger than you do, but you feel too old to indulge in those passtimes.

I’m not saying that it’s all bad, I just think that a girl could have used some warning. Here’s to hoping that I will get this shit worked out in my 40s.


"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

I'll Shoot Your Eye Out

I've never fired a gun in my life until today. It's not that I don't like guns, or that I'm afraid of them; I just have never had a real use for them. Mr. A has been trying to drag me out shooting for years. Today I finally said, "Okaaaaaaay..."

I actually had a lot of fun! Yeah, I'm surprised. What was even more surprising is that I didn't do too bad:

This was my first target.  I actually hit the box that the target was fastened to with an entire clip (oh, no, I hit the target once, nevermind) before I figured out how to aim with the sight.  If that were a burglar, he'd be in pretty bad shape right now.

This was my second target.  Only one of my shots hit the box this time.  I am not so bad for a first-timer.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Motivation

This video was a huge eye-opener for me. As a manager of a small group of professionals, I'm always looking for ways to keep the team motivated and keep everyone engaged in their work. The information I gathered here helps me approach this work from a different perspective.

Awesomeness!



"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Sad Cat Video

Proof that cats are not always heartless, aloof creatures.




"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Let's Get Physical

So, now that I'm no longer about to die, I've decided to get serious again about my workout.  In the past this has not been a hugely successful endeavor because, inevitably, all of the following happens:

• The kids scream the whole time I'm out of the room.  I can hear them no matter how high the volume is on my iPod.
• Mr. A warns me that he has a raid (WoW) in 30 minutes so I'd better hurry up.
• Mr. A talks non-stop about how asshole-y the kids are pretty much every time I bring up my workout.
• I get sick.
• The kids get sick.
• Mr. A gets sick/throws his back out.
• I get home late from work too late to eat dinner and work out, so I have to choose.  I usually choose food.

There's a quote by Einstein that always runs through my mind right before I start working out again:

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So, in order to make sure that my same failures do not rear their ugly heads, this time I will:

• Eat late lunches, so I don't have to worry so much about dinner.
• Tell Mr. A that his alternative to watching the kids until I'm damn-well done working out is to pay a gym.  Then I will also pay additional for said gym to watch my bratty kids.  Those gyms are more expensive than my kid's preschool.  I think he'll get the point.
• The illnesses....well there's not much else I can do about that.  We're just going to have to keep hand washing and monitoring of the kids' germ sharing (i.e.: no cup sharing and no toy biting)

Wish me luck!

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Idle Hands

Today I'm resting from a week of slowly dying.  I usually sit around for a good span of time on my days off, but I have a problem with sitting in one place for too long.  I get twitchy.  Today I'm not giving myself any excuses though.  I've been pushing myself too hard all week and now this is the result whether I like it or not.  So this is how my day has gone (any gaps of time between events are filled with mindless internet surfing or napping):

6:40 - Wake up and make coffee.  I'm about to enjoy a cup when my son wakes up.  Mr. A creaks downstairs with him and then yells, "TAKE HIM!"  Apparently he has worn a misshapen groove in his side of the bed and it's causing him to sleep in the shape of a letter K.

7:00 - Listen to Mr. A bitch about our mattress.  I stop him every 3 sentences to tell him that he needs to just buy a new one and quit his bitching.  Seriously.

 7:30 - I no longer want my cup of coffee because I could swear I hear bugs in it.  I pour it out and make myself a new cup.

8:45 - Now the bugs are in the air vent.  Or it might be pigeons.  I think they followed me home from work.

9:20 - I thought about doing laundry, but didn't.  I did change my clothes though, but just because my son spilled Cup O' Joe #2 on me and then smeared his face across my chest until I had a rainbow of boogers across my boobs.  I bet Suri Cruise doesn't do that.

9:30 - Watch Spongebob Squarepants and complain about an episode where, at one point, Spongebob and Patrick freak out because they don't have any water.

10:00 - Banish the kids to their bedroom to play.

10:10 - Go upstairs to check on the kids just to find the mattress to my girl's bed laying on the other side of the room.  All of her clothes, books and toys are spread all over the floor.  I just take the kids and go back downstairs.  I feel a small amount of guilt when I do this, because now Mr. A will have to clean this whole mess when he takes the girl up to bed tonight.  Whatever, I'm resting.

11:05 - Take cold medicine.  I don't think I have a cold, but it reduces the symptoms that I have.  The only kind I can stand is the Alka Seltzer Plus Cold (cherry flavor) (not a paid plug), so I'm trying to get this down when I can feel my throat not opening or closing properly.  I think I broke my throat.

11:15 - Put my son down for his nap.  He actually went for it.  It was a pleasant surprise since he usually fakes like he's going to sleep until he gets to the bottom of his bottle, when he jumps up like a jack-in-the-box on crack yelling, "Fooled you, MuthaFucka!!!"  Then he proceeds to try and kill himself for the next 1/2 an hour or so by attempting to dive head-first off of things.  Things like the kitchen table and his playpen.

11:20 - I decide that nap thing the boy is doing looks like fun, so I do the same.  It was just as awesome as it looked.

1:45 - Woken up by a crash.  My daughter decided to smash her special keyboard into the floor.  Apparently she broke off the space bar.  This is unfortunate since most of the games she likes to play use the space as one of the action keys.  Tough luck kiddo.  While all this was going on, I pretended to still be asleep because I didn't want to get up yet.

1:48 - Fell back asleep. 

3:00 - Woke up for good when my kids dumped over their toy box and then my son climbed on top and let out a battle cry.  When I looked over, he was doing a victory dance.  It occurred to me that if a responsible adult didn't make their presence known soon, it might get all Lord Of The Flies up in here.

3:10 - Watched my grandma's 3 lb. Yorkie struggle to make it through the toys to get to the patio door.  I'd feel bad, but I really don't like that dog.  I mean, at 3 lbs., does it really get to call itself a dog?

4:20 - Think about doing some laundry.  Don't.

4:30 - Watch Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.  Really watch it.  Get mad when I realize I can no longer enjoy it because I have to pick it apart with logic.  Like:

• Flint's Spray-On Shoes would have probably led to his feet being amputated because they can no longer grow or be cleaned properly.
• A "laceless alternative foot covering" is already invented.  It's called "every other type of shoe that's not a sneaker."  Just buy yourself some flip flops Flint.
• There's no way his Monkey Thought Translator would not have made him a bazillionairre.
• RatBirds is a redundancy.
• The only member of the news media covering the most spectacular weather phenomenon ever in the history of mankind is an intern from the The Weather Channel (well, the generic cartoon equivalent anyway).
• Which leads me to wonder why she was there to begin with.  What interest does The Weather Channel have in a theme park opening on a small, obscure island?
• None of the food ever rots.
• When the mayor gets bigger he also somehow grows taller.  If it were only that easy.
• During the scene where we first discover the mayor is getting huge, he has a giant hot dog tucked under his arm.  This is well before the Giant Hotdog Panic scene.
• There is no way humanly possible for Flint to make that huge Jell-o castle in one night.
• I'm pretty sure the Jell-o piano shouldn't be making any noise.
• People are still eating the ice cream even though Steve is clearly throwing around some poo in it.  Frickin' ew.
• I would not eat in a restaurant where food fell on my head.

I missed the rest of the movie because, unfortunately, my little girl decided to freak out and start throwing things at me.  This caused me to punish her by taking away her "stickers" (temporary tattoos).  That caused her to scream, "NO MAMA.  I WANT MY STICKERS BACK RIGHT NOW!!" for half a damn hour.  I totally ignored her while I was catching up on this post.

Now I have a serious headache and Mr. A and I are trying not to look at each other because we'll laugh at her.  It's actually pretty sad how attached she got to those things in such a short amount of time (they lasted 5 damn days!!), but on the other hand, she's just so overly-dramatic that you can't help it. 

She's just standing there sobbing and telling her dad, "Mama took my fire!  My fire gone!" with the exact same emotion as someone would say, "Someone took my baby!  My baby is gone!"

I know I'm mean for laughing, but laughter is the best medicine and I need all the help I can get right now.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Oh Yeah Star Wars, You Sexy Bitch!

Yesterday morning started out the same way it always does.  I got up at 5:00, made coffee, zoned out for about 1/2 an hour.  Eventually I have to get up to do the work thing, so I put my coffee cup away and take my laptop back to the office to find:

Mr. A.

naked

sitting in his office chair

with a sock in his hand

and so I look at his computer screen

no porn

I'm confused

or he's confused, I dunno

then he tells me, "Star Wars Galaxies"

uh huh, I see...

slowly back out of the room

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

The New Look

So I got bored and changed some things around.  I'd never really liked the dragon template, but it's a pain-in-the ass to find something you like, make sure it functions and suits your blog's overall theme.  (Well, the last one I guess I don't have to worry about much, since this blog doesn't have much of an actual theme.)  I ended up with the 1980s dragon-looking thing because, frankly, it was the only one I got to function properly that day.

This new template is one that I picked up a while ago.  I just loved the look of it.  It spoke to exactly what I picture when I think of this blog: some girl in mismatched clothes, crying alone in the corner with a bunny rabbit thrown in for no particular reason.  What?  You too?

I tested out the function for a little while before committing to it and viola! here it is finally put to good use.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Confession (That I May Want To Take Back Later)

I never liked babysitting.  I did it anyway because it was the only way for a teenager to make money without having to a) apply and interview for anything and b) work with food.  I really didn't like having to try to figure out what to do with the kids for _____ hours until their parents came home.  I hated changing diapers.  I was absolutely no good when it came to discipline issues.  I just let the kids watch movies and play until their parents came home.  For the most part, it went okay, but it gave me no joy.

Flash forward almost 20 years later and I still can't stand babysitting.  Except now, they're my own kids.  I might sound like the worst mom ever right now, but please trust me when I say this isn't always how I feel.  Just right now.  I keep staving off the urge to gather them both up and lock them with their father in his office while I take a bubble bath and file my toenails. 

One is crying because...well, who the hell knows.  I just fed him, just changed him, just cuddled him, just gave him tooth drops.  I don't know what his deal is.  He just wants to cry on my knee while I'm typing and slobber all over my pants.  Occasionally, he'll try to bully my hands away from the keyboard.  I don't appreciate that.  I get the feeling that he just wants me to lug him around all day. 

I'm not 27 months pregnant, WeeMan.  I don't have a convenient kangaroo pouch to tuck you into.  You know, if you were a bird, I would have kicked your ass out of the house by now.

The other one, my girl, is whining at me.  It's typical 3-year old behavior, but I don't care.  I don't want to hear it.  She wants a cheese.  I get her some and sit back down to finish...whatever it is I'm doing.  No sooner do I get sat down and she's whining because she wants water.  It turns into a 10 minute long battle because I refuse to acknowledge her until she talks like a normal person.  I still can't get jack shit done.  This repeats all damn day: I want water, I want to play in my room, I want to play games, I want to color, I want food, I need to go potty....

Speaking of potty, she's in the bathroom every 5 minutes.  Which means, when I'm not getting up to get her one of the 40,000 things she thinks she needs, I'm having to go find out if she's really going to the bathroom, or if she's just playing in the medicine cabinet or squirting shampoo all over the floor.

And then this isn't even accounting for the fact that both kids are climbing all over me and/or literally in my face.  I really have a hard time with being physically confined and this is just way too much negative stimuli for me.

My solutions

For the girl: time out and time in her room.  I think one hour would give me enough time to stop eyeballing the roll of duct tape.

For the boy: I actually did just lock him in the office with his father.  Mr. A's been pissy with me all morning and he's decided to keep to himself.  Surprise!  It's a crying, clinging, snotty, screaming baby boy.  Congratulations.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Valentines Day Horoscope

February 14, 2010

1. Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   If there was ever a time -- no, absolutely destined -- for the beginning of a romance, this, for you, is definitely it. All the cosmic lights are green. Very green. So when you're invited out, do yourself a favor. Forget all about washing your hair, doing your grocery shopping or any other shallow excuse you had lined up to avoid this. Get dressed -- nicely -- and go! 

Whoever writes this shit is creepily accurate.

• I am at the beginning of a romance...in the grand scheme of things.  We're in year 15 of, what could possibly be, a 50-year relationship.  I would qualify that as a beginning.
• I'm wearing green!
• I did not wash my hair today.
• I did not go grocery shopping even though we're almost out of milk and diapers.

Holy crap!  When I was invited to drink and play card games with Mr. A, I totally did.  I ditched all of my other plans, started pouring down the vodka and....

Yeah.  I'm drunk.  And will probably delete this tomorrow. 

Happy Valentines Day!!

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Doesn't That Figure

I went back to the My Heritage site because it has all kinds of fun little doohickies to play with.

This time, I did the Look-Alike Meter. This will tell you if your child looks more like mom or dad. Before I did this, I always thought that my daughter looked more like her dad and my son looked more like me. Now I know:

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celeb - Collage - Morph

MyHeritage: Family tree - Genealogy - Celebrity - Collage - Morph

I will save these as a reference for the next time Mr. A complains that the children don't resemble him at all and starts asking questions about the mailman. (Our mailman is a woman, by the way...)

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Something I Did Want To Know....

This was my celebrity look-alike photo collage from MyHeritage.com:

I uploaded my photo



And this is what it came up with





I swear I didn't cheat! And just to be fair, I will admit that the format for the collage I chose only allows for 8 of my look-alikes to appear. The other 2 that I did not include:

Antonio Banderas
Jared Padalecki

I mean, at least they were hot guys, but seriously....


"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Drunken Mario

Mr. A and I are not a cutesy, hand-holding kind of couple.  As a matter of fact, our quality time usually consists of getting plastered and trying to kick each others ass.

At games.  All in good fun, I assure you.

Last night was New Super Mario Bros. Wii night at the Awesomehouse.  Specifically, the Coin Battle mode.  Time to get our game vocab straight:

Cock-ass: Congratulatory term for the winner of the round.  In a sentence, it would sound like, "You fucking cock-ass!  I would have won that one if you didn't push me off the cliff."

Which brings us to...

Buddy fucker: Phrase used to describe the player with the winningest spirit.  Buddy fucker has what it takes to win the game and not let anyone else stand in their way.  Used in a sentence, "Why did you get the mushroom and the flower?!  Dude, you're a total buddy fucker!"  May occasionally be substituted with "cock blocker".

And let's not forget the all-important...

Cheatin'-ass bitch:  This phrase can be used to describe either a male or female player.  Please note, however, that it is funnier if you use it to describe a male.  You would use it in any instance in which the other player is just completely annihilating you on the scoreboard.  Unless you're Mr. A and you're completely drunk.  Then you would use it to describe the player who dies every 5 seconds because, she too, is completely drunk.  "You totally got, like, 8 coins on your way into the lava.  Cheatin'-ass bitch!"

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Minus Clever Theme = Mindless Rambling Monday

I'm not making fun, I swear, but I struggle with finding something that I can focus on to make a post.  I keep scrolling through my blogroll -- the out-of-control laundry list that it's become -- and am bombarded by day-themed titles assault me with their productiveness.  (I'm so lazy and disengaged from this post that I'm not even looking at this when I type, I'm trying to catch The Office.  Which is why my dumb ass doesn't get any writing done.)

Mistaken Identity Monday, Terrible Haircut Tuesday, Wacked-Out Store Clerk Wednesday....
I can't commit to that, but I did look for help elsewhere just to get helpful hints like:

Describe what you see in this photo. Describe what you don't see-- the interior. Describe the person who comes out of the place. What does the person do?

 I see a shack that was probably nailed together by dwarves or ginger kids.  The interior is coated with a 6-inch thick layer of petrified maple syrup.  There is only one room in the shack, and it's currently occupied by gnus that eat nothing but cheese curds.  The person that comes out of this place is...obviously lost.  It's a maple gnu shack and there's nothing for him here.  Then he remembers the cheese curds.  He thinks he can take the gnus in a fair fight.

See, I can do this!  Next!

The chimpanzee is looking into your face. What is she trying to say? What is your response? 

 

Chimp: "Feed me or I'll rip your face off!"

Awesomeness: "Aaaaaaaaaahhhh!"

What did I learn today?  I don't take writing exercises very seriously and I have no imagination.  I'm also too lazy to write anything worth reading.


Is it cheating if I already knew that yesterday?


"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

How 'Bout A Nice Warm Glass Of 'Shut The Hell Up'?

If I knew it was that easy, I would have done it a long time ago.  Oh, the peace!  Oh, the quiet!  Today I figured out how to simultaneously shut my husband up and get him to stop bitching to me about what the kids are doing.

Mr. Awesomeness:  I just want you to know that your son just ate your daughter's shoe.  I took it from his hand, which is covered in poop.  Also, all of the baby wipes are on the floor.

Awesomeness: *Blank stare* And....? (Ladies and gentlemen, this happens every day at 4:30.  It's not going to end up on the news.)

Mr. Awesomeness:  Well, I know you're in the zone over there ... *waves a snide hand in a circular motion toward my lunch and laptop*... but you should probably be checking on these kids every now and then.

Awesomeness:  Well I'd hate to do that because then I'd have to raise my allowance.  These kids have 2 parents and I'm not their babysitter.  Your son was also doing these things while you were on your computer and eating lunch.

Mr. Awesomeness: ...................

That's right, suck it.

P.S. As I'm writing this, he comes into the room and tells me:

You know, I was so distracted by the wanton destruction and lack of supervision that I forgot to wash my hands after I changed your son's shitty diaper.  I didn't remember until I caught myself picking my teeth.  It wouldn't be so bad, except I put cream on him.  I totally touched his asshole with the fingers I had in my mouth.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Ahem.

Poker face.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Merry Grinchmas!

Santa brought many wonderful presents to the AwesomeHouse this year.  Then The Grinch had to show up bearing gifts.  What did he bring this year?

• For the girl: A fever of 104.
• For the boy: Sore throat, diarrhea and severe diaper rash.
• For Mr. A: A trip to Walgreens because some asshole, who will remain nameless (Grandma), didn't bother to call us while we were out yesterday to tell us we were out of milk.
• For me (and then subsequently everyone else): A dozen rotten eggs.  I just bought those fucking things last week.  No deviled eggs this year.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

After The Warranty

I've spent my vacation watching everything in the house fall apart around me.

• My TV.  We bought it 7 years ago.  For the last 2 years, it's been acting up a little.  There have been times when there were red spots coming out the right side of the screen.  That was easy to ignore.  Then on Tuesday the screen went dark.  Not all the way black, just dark.  Ugh.  This is where I find out that all of my shows are shot in dim lighting.  Time for a new TV.
  
• My dryer.  It came free with the house.  We didn't have a particular attachment to it. It dries our clothes.  Until it doesn't.  There are some loads now that have to go through the thing 2 or 3 times.  This is one that we're going to ride out until the thing finally dies.  I am not looking forward to replacing it.  Every woman knows (and Mr. A is about to find out) that you don't replace just the washer or just the dryer.  You get them as a set so they match.  Yes, it is important.  Your laundry comes out mutated when your washer and dryer don't match.
• My vacuum.  This one pisses me off because I just bought the thing.  I tried cleaning my dining room rug last night and the damn thing just sucked up all the dirt, then spit it back onto the floor next to the rug.  Lame!  We cleaned all the filters this morning in hopes that it was just being pissy because it was full of crap. We'll see.
• My microwave.  It took me 2 minutes to nuke something that the instructions say should only take --at max-- 55 seconds.  If we have to replace the microwave, it will be the 3rd one we've had in the last 5 years.  Contrary to what that statement would imply, we don't actually do a hell of a lot of cooking in the thing.  We mostly use it to heat crap up or reheat leftovers.  I'm seriously thinking of not replacing the stupid thing.
  

 Of course, all this crap is breaking down right before Christmas, but right after we've already spent some good money on gifts.  Gifts that can't be taken back, naturally. 

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

Today's Horoscope

1. 
   

   Taurus (4/20-5/20)

   You're the master of ceremonies. You're a fountain of cheerfulness. You're slated to have big fun no matter what you end up doing with yourself. Since you probably went over all the possibilities in your last slow moment, you're ready to move as soon as the mood hits you. Maybe you're up for a fresh attack on a project that once defeated you. Maybe you'll paint bright colors all over something that usually bores you to tears. Whatever you do, do it with gusto.
   

 Dead on, horoscope.  Dead on.  What did I do today?

• Slept until 9:15.
• Turned on my fountain.
• Built houses in Sims 3.
• Washed some of the kids' clothes.
• Checked my email.

But I did do it all with gusto.

"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe

It's Different When It's Your Kid

How much do you want to bet?

My entire life, I've found body fluids horrifically disgusting.  Blood, pee, vomit, whatever.  I can't deal with it.  I put off having kids for years and years (for many reasons) knowing that I would have to deal with all of this stuff if I changed my mind and had them.

Now, I've got a 3 1/2 year old girl with a very upset stomach.  I'm by myself today, so I can't pawn the puke puddles off on Mr. A or his grandma like I usually do. 

The thing that makes me feel the worst is that I can't even snuggle my little girl right now (something that she desperately needs) because when she starts puking again I have to run away.

So this lesson:

Whoever said "It's different when it's your kid," lied.  It's no different, and I would say that it's actually worse.  Kids are constantly leaking some fluid or other and you really don't have a choice but to clean it up.  Blech.


"Knowing is half the battle." - G.I. Joe