Yay Dirt!

Know what this is?

If you guessed "dirt", you are correct.

If you guessed "dirt" immediately followed by "has she lost her ever lovin' mind?", you are more correct.

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What's Up With the Cap?

Looks normal, right? Well as normal as a tube of toothpaste lying on your kitchen table can look.

Now I'm starting to notice something a little …. odd about this tube.

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Meet Sugarpie

Meet Sugarpie.

She's a rat.

Let me repeat that.

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A Question

Does this horse need a dentist?

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A List

For your Thursday reading pleasure, I've created a list of 15 random items that are currently on my mind.

1. I have not yet posted anything about the new pet rat, mainly because I'm still living in denial. Deep denial is a wonderful place.

2. Spring is the season in which Mother Nature messes with me the most. Sunny and 70 yesterday, snowy and 30 degrees today. I blame Al Roker.

3. My Diet Coke habit is getting wildly out of control.

4. Ten days ago I sliced my thumb open while dicing an onion. It still hurts and I think this should relieve me of any bathroom cleaning duties. Don't know what the connection there is, but I really, really hate cleaning the bathroom.

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I Like Him

I like him.

I like his heart.

I like his patience.

I like how he drags me out of the Atari age and into the iPhone age.

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On the Way Home From Swim Practice

I know you've had enough of me and my sunrise or sunset pictures. I get that you want to run screaming from your computer, but indulge me.

I'm still on high on my photography class with Jerry Garcia. I feel as though I could snap every elusive photo known to mankind. At this point, I'm 98% sure that I could take a picture of Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and the ghost of Elvis all sitting around a campfire together eating chips out of the bag.

But I digress.

This was the view from the driver's side of the car while driving home from swim practice one night last week.

I think it looks kind of other worldly and not like a former strip mine at all.

Then, a mere three miles down the road, this was the view from the passenger's side of the car.

Next time I post any sunrise/sunset photos you have my permission to run screaming from your computer. Just don't tell me. We will still be friends.

I can't help it. I like taking landscape photos.

Landscapes stand still.

Usually.

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Cultural Update for March 2011

It's been a while since I've tried to gain sophistication via cultural events. You might recall some of my previous cultural experiences. Let me refresh your memory.

Remember when I got sprayed by a toilet at the art museum?

And when I was fondled in an old theater by a total stranger while his girlfriend was sitting mere inches away?

Good times.

But Saturday was different.

Saturday didn't have anything odd or kooky or pervy happen.

Saturday we loaded up the fam, including my dad, husband, two daughters, and nephew who is twelve years old and six inches taller than me but whatever, and went to Brick World.

AKA the Lego Convention.

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Don't Bother Me

Don't bother me.

I'm serious. Don't bother me.

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A Brush With Celebrity

Wednesday evening I took a beginner's photography class. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I sure didn't expect a brush with celebrity.

It started out innocently enough. I left my house in plenty of time to drive downtown, park, and find the room in which the class was held.

About halfway to town, I realized that I had forgotten to bring along some paper for copious note taking. I figured it wouldn't be too big of deal because the instructor most likely had some type of handout or cheat sheet to give us newbies and I could flip that paper over to take notes. I've taught beginning computer classes for adults for years, so I know how these things work. Instructors for newbie classes are supposed to have handouts.

Well, I was wrong.

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My Incomplete List of Words I Can't Stand

About a month ago I published a list of words I love. It included such treasures as ruckus, hoopla, quirky, wonky, and rankle. In the interest of fairness, I decided to share My Incomplete List of Words I Can't Stand.

I hope I can get through this list without being physically ill, but I doubt it.

In no particular order:

squat - eww! I can't stand squat! Or it's brother diddly squat. Or it's cousin squash. Eww. Squash.

thesaurus - love the book, intensely dislike the name … maybe because from grades one through three I thought a thesaurus was a kind of dinosaur.

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The Fine Art of Procrastinating

I am procrastinating. The bathrooms need to be cleaned and that is my least favorite household chore.

Give me dirty dishes! Give me rooms that need dusting! Give me laundry! I love laundry! But please, I beg of you, take the dirty bathrooms away!

In short: I loathe cleaning the bathroom.

I will do anything else to get out of cleaning the bathrooms. Even shop for groceries.

Once upon a time, grocery shopping was my least favorite chore. But then I realized something. It's grocery shopping, emphasis on shopping. And I like shopping. That and skeeball are the only sports I'm good at. Seriously. I will take you down at skeeball, but I digress.

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Award Winning Mashed Potatoes

A few days ago I had dinner out with a couple of friends and one friend commented on the mashed potatoes she was eating. She said they were very good.

Without even thinking about it (shocked? really? I said something without thinking? moi?), I calmly stated that I make fabulous mashed potatoes. They are (drumroll please) Award Winning Mashed Potatoes.

I've even toured the nation showing good folks how to prepare mashed potatoes.

And been on the Today show.

And gotten a medal for my efforts from the people of the great state of Idaho.

Okay. My mashed potatoes have never, ever won an award. And I've never toured the country making them. Or been honored by Idahoans. Or met Matt Lauer.

But they are good.

Know what makes them so good? Butter.

Mmm … butter.

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I Might Vomit

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from the oldest daughter's teacher. In the email, the teacher explained that the class' rats each need a permanent home. Without so much as a second thought (or even a completed first thought), I fired off an email to the teacher stating how delighted my family would be to adopt Sugarpie the rat.

Seriously. I used the word delighted.

Clearly I don't think before I speak. Or email.

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Dear Mother Nature Part Deux

Look at this picture.

It's a lovely shot of the crocuses in my front yard. I posted a similar picture yesterday.

Know what the biggest difference between yesterday's post and today's?

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Dear Mother Nature

Daffodils

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Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler

Kids, it's Mardi Gras! I've been to New Orleans for exactly one day and it happened to be Mardi Gras.

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Apples, Gus Grissom, and Life on the Edge

Sunday afternoon was spent helping my 5th grader make her naked apple head doll look like astronaut Gus Grissom, of Mercury, Gemini III, and Apollo 1 fame.

I live life right on the edge, man. Teetering on the edge.

The apple head itself was carved at school a few weeks ago. I volunteered to help the students carve the doll heads and it must have gone well because I don't remember any severed limbs or arteries. But I did get stabbed once. My arm is fine. My sweater's arm? Not so much.

Know what I discovered that day at school? Apple head dolls are creepy.

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I Am Essentially Eighty-Five Years Old

Reasons why I believe that I am essentially eighty-five years old:

1. I like to eat dinner at 5:00 pm.

2. If the temperature dips below eighty degrees I deem it chilly and grab a sweatshirt.

3. Occasionally I've been known to tuck a kleenex in my sleeve for emergency use.

4. I like Big Band music.

5. New fangled things like electric can openers and answering machines completely befuddle me.

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Dressing Like It's 1982

I bought new jeans this weekend. They are Levi's 525 straight leg. They are from Kohl's. They were on sale.

None of this is new. I've been buying Levi's on sale from Kohl's for years. I've flirted with the 525s, the 512s, the 505s, the 515s, and my one true love - the 501s. Usually they are of a dark denim variety. But all that changed Sunday afternoon.

Just to shake up my wardrobe a bit, I went with the light denim. I'm such a wild woman.

And I love them. I really, really do. It's almost unhealthy.

They feel so comfortable, so familiar, so nostalgic.

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Jen and Joanie's Photo Excursion #1 (subtitle) Artsy Fartsy Part Trois

Now that my home Internet connection has been restored I can fill you in on the weekend my Aunt Joanie and I went on a photo excursion. We got our artsy fartsy on all over the county. And it was awesome.

There's something to be said for sharing your fartsy with someone.

*warning: this is a pictorial. If you don't enjoy my pictures in which I think I'm all that, feel free to skip reading this post. I'll never know.

First stop: downtown.

We hit a former hardware now antiques store with some merchandise sitting outside.

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Sniff! Sniff! Ahh … the Smell of Scurvy Prevention Is in the Air

Know what I did this morning? It's not something I do very often, maybe two or three times a year. It's not something that I generally brag about, but I'm only telling you guys, right?

This morning I bought stuff off of the back of a semi truck.

And it wasn't illegal goods.

It was … fresh produce! Ta da!

Living in the Midwest in the winter does strange things to a person. It reduces you to wearing layer upon layer of clothing. It reduces your skin to a pasty white version of it's former bronzed self. It reduces you to staying inside your house for three and a half straight days with only the Star Wars movies and your camera to entertain you. It reduces you to buying fresh oranges and grapefruits off of a truck parked in the Menard's parking lot.

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