lil brother blog fodder

I was talking to my brother, waaaaay into the wee hours. He's at work and wrapping up his night. In the course of conversation he had cranial flatulance. I joked that his train of thought got derailed and fell off the bridge into the water. He said "your head leaks. I should install a blowoff valve so that I can audibly tell when your brain leaks" More love. Really. Don't you just feel it?

My aunt wished VD on me

I got a call from my aunt in Missouri kind of late last night. We do that...night owl tendencies are a genetic mishap apparently. Mine was also compounded by a birth late at night. Our conversation kind of started along these lines

::cell phone rings:: "Hello" (nifty caller ID already told me it was the Aunt)

"what are you doing?"

"reading blogs" (my list is growing by the way)

"ohh. well I was calling to wish you a Happy VD"

"you're calling to wish me a Happy Venerial Disease. I feel loved"

"yea well, it's what I do"



We've always gotten along pretty well. We are quite a bit alike. She has a slightly bendier warp to her humor than I do. She calls other holidays some off-color things too. It's probably best we not disclose them here, in writing, for the whole world to see. She should be able to maintain some semblance of decency and anonymity, even if her children force notoriety on her with their shenanigans. At the very least I can avoid shattering her facade of normalcy. My aunt has often said "Everyone is entitled to their delusions, some people abuse the privelege." She's been prudent with her delusions, I'll let her have this one.





In other news of the day around my abode: I got little accomplished today. I got cranky about something someone did this afternoon. I thought part of my crankiness was caused by a need for a nap, so I took one. That helped dissipate SOME of the cranky mood, but not all of it. The dh was asking what was wrong with me, "I'm cranky" was all he got, despite his pressing me for details. I didn't want to unleash the wench and cause more problems. It just wasn't worth it. The trigger was a minor thing, but really annoys me when it happens. I put on sneakers, went outside and unleashed my annoyance on unsuspecting foliage. Ligustrum and Loquat got tamed without argument. And the big chuckleworthy part of all this.....my dh dragged out the lawnmower and mowed the front yard. Shush, it's February, but it needed mowing back in November. I swear to you I said nothing to him about doing anything around the house today. He said he had no plans for anything, and I believed him. I only went outside to get away from the overload of TV noise. The trimmers were there, the mood struck. I went with it. At least my delusion free whim was productive and no V.D. was involved.

Yes, it's Valentine's Day, but you still have to work

My husband works in a home improvement store, as a department manager. He's been in a few different departments, and the current one is where all the babysitting takes places. He's in essence, the "Head Babysitter In Charge" - front end manager. If these cashiers are scheduled to work, and they call out just because it's Valentine's Day IMO they need to be suspended or terminated immediately. If they get to keep their job, I would hope they get the crappiest of shifts and schedules just because they deserve it. First of all, my husband had to work on Valentine's Day, as did I. I am sitting here with dinner keeping warm in the oven, an hour past when my husband should have gotten off work. Granted he doesn't always leave on time. However, today he would have - because it's Valentine's Day and he wants to do something nice with me. But wait, we are talking about immature people with no work ethic hired as cashiers at his store. Excuse me, but you're now screwing with MY time. I plan my work schedules around my husband's so that I can try to spend time with him, or have a date with him and not have to worry about a babysitter. It's one of the things you do when you work retail. You work around things. Heck, it's what you do as a grownup, you work around things. The schedule is posted in advance. If you know you're going to be working on Valentine's Day, let your sweetie know that alternative plans should be made. Doing something special doesn't HAVE to be done ON February 14th. Now, these fools have tampered with my Valentine's Day and as a result, certain individuals will be getting some kind of token of appreciation from me for doing their part. Meanwhile the rest of them can go find another job. *hmph*

What's in a name?

I have become rather engrossed in reading blogs. I can't really say addicted because I do walk away from the computer. It's the whole chatting on AIM thing that gets my butt in trouble. I get sucked into a conversation and well this girl goes with the flow. In the meantime I follow links from one blog to the next because a link with a Kick A name is calling my mouse to click. Stuff like "Rocks in my dryer" "God do you hear this Southern Girl Rambling?" "CurtJester" "Mental Poo" "Crouching Child, Hidden Alien", "Boobs, Injuries & Dr. Pepper", "Upright and Breathing" (a phrase I stole from a former coworker, stolen by my friend the Persnickety Ticker), my sister's blog "Life is easier as a social reject", and I have forgotten to bookmark the million others that I followed just because the name was cool. I wonder how these individuals have concocted their blog titles, and how it is associated with the blog author.

Mine? Well, fine, I will give you a glimpse but don't expect much. OK first of all, I am primarily of Irish descent. My dad's parents took a boat from Ireland and landed at Ellis Island near the turn of the last century. There's the tie to "Irish". "Feisty", describes me to a "T" in every possible definition listed on dictionary.com (except the part about a farting dog). Feisty is an apt description of me, and if you don't believe me, ask my husband and his friends, and a few others who have encountered me in some mode other than fun. For the record, I'm usually fun - at least till someone strums the wrong chord with me then smart people just get out of my way. "Wench", well it was a fun intent, but just went back to dictionary.com and actually some of that applies too. I am a working girl, and young (age and at heart) but lack the loose morals part of the definition. I mean, I do have those hellraiser tendencies but I somehow manage to keep them in check. When I think of a "wench" I think of the old pub wenches that were basically waitresses (some did more than that *ahem*), and entertained the customers. Keep 'em happy, keep 'em drinking. Well I don't have a bar here on my blog (do you KNOW how difficult it is to get an ABC license?) but if I did, you could have your fill of rum (preferably the Whaler's brand), Yuengling, Sam Adams, Dogfish beers, and whatever else I keep on hand or would keep on hand if this wench wasn't pressed for pennies right now. So you're just stuck with whatever you have since it's more readily accessible to you anyway, meanwhile I'll just be a good little wench and entertain the masses....Someone have a spare tray? I lost mine to someone's cranial region (or was it their posterior?) some time ago.

As promised

OK, I told a visitor I'd post the pictures of the targets from my visit to the gun range almost 2 years ago. My brother had a rare day off in the world of pizza, and I was available during the day to go play with weaponry.

Most of the rounds went into this target

Decided not to waste another target, so the remaining rounds went here

Now, you should know that this was my first time firing a weapon of any kind. And that day my wrist was bothering me (work injury due to utter wastes of oxygen being stupid as usual) and some of my shots were off because of the pain. I know I missed the target several times. I didn't care though, I had 100 rounds to fire off and I made sure I got all of them out of the gun. My husband showed the targets to his buddies very proudly "Lookit what my wife did!"

Yea, his friends are careful around me because A) they've seen my temper at a realllllly bad point, and B) they saw the targets. They love me dearly but they've told me they won't make me mad. I've noticed we don't see his buddies much lately........

from the mouths of babes.....

I had just put my rosary in my purse, as my daughter brought her brush and detangler spray to me. She asked what I was doing, I told her and she told me she thought I couldn't wear it to church. Not that I wear a rosary, but I said that you can carry your rosary anywhere with you. She said "I thought I heard God say you can't wear your rosemary necklace to church" The cackling within me has yet to cease and I'm sure I'll still be cackling later about this. She never ceases to bring some sort of smile to my heart, yet challenges my patience. Yea, welcome to motherhood.....

Perfect site for nuclear testing, I tell ya...

I was trawling around blog-land and found this one
http://mostcertainlynot.typepad.com/most_certainly_not/2008/02/is-it-a-full-mo.html
I personally am offended by the story because my husband was in the Marine Corps and I'm very glad I do not live in Berkley California. In my opinion, the citizens and officials of that city are just a bunch of wackos. I am not even going to launch into a long post about my two pennies on this. I live in a city chock full of military presence and come from a family of military affiliations, then married into a family with military affiliations. This ordinance wouldn't happen where I live, mostly because it's a rather backwoods city, but still...it wouldn't happen here.

It started one way, ended another

Someone asked me a few months ago if I was Catholic. Initially cautious about answering, the answer is yes. While I do have a hellraiser side of me that is geneticly linked through my now 80 year old father, I do have another side of me. The two sides often meet somewhere in the grey area of my personality. I have long recognized the effects and presence of Divine Intervention in my life. I have friends that do not hold the same spiritual beliefs I do. The common denominator between us is that none of us like it when other people shove their beliefs down our throats and say theirs is the best way. I surely hope one of us is right. We all respect that each of us has a different perspective and we don't judge each other based on that narrow criteria of our spiritual tenets. We do however hold very similar morals in general of common decency. The fringes of the morals differ between us even. I have found that I am a little quieter inside than I was a year ago. Some of it is from making a large change in my household, some of it is a spiritual journey I've been taking since last Spring. I've gotten some incredible amounts of personal and spiritual support from everyone around me in varying degrees. I can only hope that I have returned the favors somewhere along the way. I've started reading a book called Saints Behaving Badly by Thomas J. Craughwell. I'm not very far into the book but it seems to be an interesting read. I also have come across this interesting website with reflections on different forms of clutter, specifically tailored to the Lenten season. Day by Day Through Lent Since I also subscribe to the FLYLady emails, this set of daily reflections applies to another area of my life. I had a goal of getting my house clean for Valentine's Day. It's honestly unrealistic for me because I get overwhelmed very easily with the mess around me. I used to pull everything out of the closet or room even, and then spend the next month carefully maneuvering around the mess as I lamented my decision. Then in the meantime I would try to clean it back up but the whole "forest for the trees" experience gets in my way. So, I am going to expand the timeline of my goal to have my house cleaned up by Easter. That's 6 weeks of Lent, therefore 6 weeks of working on my mess. I have a life that calls my name all hours of the day, and I have to make sure my efforts to clean a mess don't leave a bigger mess in my own wake. I also have to ensure that I'm not just moving stuff from one place to another. I have to get rid of a bunch of stuff, period. This house has a sum total of 3 closets. One linen closet, two bedroom closets, and the poor laundry room serves as another closet/catch all. I spent my birthday in the laundry room to get it to look like what my sister calls "the back room of a chinese restaurant". After all, it is directly off the kitchen. I will not even launch the diatribe about how the males did not listen to me when they were framing out this former garage. They've admitted that they should have listened to me, well after the fact. So I have to, once again, make do with what I've got till I can get something better. It's small and laid out weird, and I was put in this house to make me purge my clutter. These cramped quarters also saved our hides from an apartment with mold in the kitchen that the maintenence and property managers tried to say wasn't there. So if you're ever in the market for an apartment, don't move to what is now called Baymeadows Village. I don't care if they've changed managers or not, that doesn't remove the fact that the buildings are so old and probably built on a marsh or swamp, and therefore bastions of trapped moisture. So to go from this well laid out, 1500 square foot apartment with closets in practically every room, to this 1100 square foot house with practically no closets (but a big yard) was a shock to my clutter hoarding ways. It's better than what it used to be, but surely doesn't look it. And sitting here yakking to you via the keys is not getting anything done. I do however have a load of laundry running in my relatively clean restaurant back room. I only meant to post this little couple sentence long entry with the link to a reflection site, and name the book I started.....apparently more was screaming to escape my brain. I now have a puddle of cranial leakage to clean up from under my chair. I really need to get the holes in my ears fixed.

Public Service Announcement for Valentine's Day

Someone asked what I wanted for Valentine's Day. I don't know really....I wasn't planning on making a big deal of it. In the course of conversation though, it came around to the usual gifts of chocolate, jewelery, massage certificates etc. It dawned on me that if a guy expects to get intimate with his mate, then he should avoid giving her chocolate for Valentine's Day, or risk not getting any. Wait, before you start with your objections, hear me out. It really DOES make sense. My plethora of useless knowledge reminds me that chocolate releases the same endorphins that are released during intercourse. Well if she's already got the endorphins flowing in her, that just might diminish the guy's chance of achieving his expected goal here. Now that doesn't mean it's a certainty, but most mothers are too darn tired to get all ramped up and randy (though it DOES happen at times). So save the chocolate for morning after Valentine's Day. You'll have gotten your quarterly allotment from her anyway, and to make her even happier, you'll have saved 50% on that cheezy Valentines candy because you got it for her the day after the special occasion. Yes, guys, that savings means we can now buy another pair of shoes.

Roll Call!

If you actually survive the trauma of reading this blog...post something. It's more for my own poops 'n' giggles than anything else. I am no Linda Sharp or Crystal McKnob, but then again, I still haven't figured out what I wanna be when I grow up either.