2013: A Year in Posts

Get it? Posts? I slay me…

Hey look, it’s December 31st!

Now that I’m finally fully recovered from intestinal fortitude I’m facing the reality of having two kids here for another week all day long… Oh Calgon, take me away, PLEASE!

Thank goodness it’s almost a new year.  2013 was an interesting year for me.  It wasn’t the best year but not the worst either.  Here’s my year by looking back at a sampling of the stuff I wrote.  I also added pictures that may or may not have something to do with the posts themselves.

But first, get yourself some tuneage to listen to as you read.  Head to My Skewed View and check out what people have shared as their very favorite Twisted Mixtape Tuesday of 2013!

January

Not too bad. I was even complimented on my use of sprinkles by said local celebrity.

I made a cake that actually turned out ok for my son’s birthday. My husband told me as I began to plan for this year’s cake that the reason we don’t buy cakes is because it’s much less interesting to blog about.  True…
The ADD Kitchen Chapter 3: Why Duff Goldman Will Never Hire Me

February
I went back to work subbing at the place I used to work before I had two kids.  How cool is that?  Things didn’t start out so smoothly, but it got better.
My Life of Crime:  Subliminal Criminal

Sorry ladies, he is all mine…

Oh yes, my husband also grew a pornstache.
A Man, A Plan, and a Stache

March

March was the beginning of my grand experiment.  I put out a call for help and people responded enthusiastically.  What resulted was my first week of guest bloggers as I attempted to survive spring break in a college town.
I Want You (But Not In A Weird, Gross Way)
Weekly Wrap-Up: All Good Things Must Come To An End

April

Easter cuteness 2013.

I was the victim of entrapment.
Help, HELP!  I’m Trapped at Target!

May
The Princess turned five.

WOW! Two cakes that turned out in one year…

I wrote a review of the book I Just Want To Pee Alone, and one of the times that maybe I should have been thinking a little more clearly before I allowed my daughter to photograph me became the picture seen round the world.  It’s also probably as close to famous as I’m ever going to get so I guess I’ll take it.
I Review Famous Toilets, Or At Least A Book With A Toilet On It

June

I celebrated a milestone.  My little blog was one, and of course I wrote about it.
What To Expect When You’re Blogging, The Toddler Years

July

I couldn’t go to BlogHer, but I could go for some ice cream. Yes I look twelve here.

I couldn’t go to BlogHer, and I was ok.  At least I think I was…  This was followed up with how I was ok after not going to BlogHer.
I’m Not Going to BlogHer (And I Feel Fine)
I Didn’t Go To BlogHer and Get Free Lubricant, But I Did Go To Jail

Oh yes, we got a kitten.

August
I went from full time blogger to part time when I could blogger as I once again joined the world of the employed.

First day of school.

My kids went to school.  I now have a third grader AND a kindergartener.
The Truth About Kindergarten: Mommy Won’t Be Driving the School Bus
Also, this piece of work about what a piece of work I am originally appeared on my friend MJ’s blog.  I shared it again in August and gosh darn it, people like me.
Confessions of a Geek

September 

Dark Lord of the Grill.

I took some real time off from everything because I was celebrating being married and stuff and had other people once again do the work for me.  Talk about some great posts!  I was blown away from the response I got from the week of guest bloggers.
Weekly Wrap-Up: The Double Extra Special Edition

October 
Somehow I was permitted to review another book!  I still think it needs action figures…
Meltdowns…Reviewed

The kids on Halloween in front of the tree that would eventually flood our basement. Damn tree.

I also looked at Halloween this year and wrote down some things my kids have taught me.
Seven Things My Kids Have Taught Me About Halloween

November
Was the beginning of my plunge into the pit of despair, with very little written and published.  Silly me.

December

Oh look, the card that only two people actually received…

The paying job kept me plenty busy, but I did manage to turn out a few posts…

Let it Snow, The Blogging Conference that Really Should Have Happened in a Snowstorm
Flaming Pillow Pets and Other Christmas List Nos

Hopefully 2014 will be the year for us… and hopefully I’ll have plenty of brainpower to tell you all about it.  Happy New Year!

Deck the Halls With Lots of Vomit, Fa La La La La…

Did you miss me the last few days?  Do you feel like I kind of left you hanging there?

Let’s review…

Previously on The Sadder But Wiser Girl…

Sewer grossness be gone!  (Because I have to put this picture in whenever I can…)

We last left our sort of heroine counting her blessings after the sewer backed up into her basement and left behind an odor similar to what one can only imagine the bog of eternal stench would smell like.

I was a little busy, but I managed to keep writing some stuff.

Enter the family Christmas this past weekend:  A little more than twenty four hours spent doing Christmas with two different families two and a half hours away from home.  Plus a visit to a third on the way home. Busy, busy, busy.

My stomach was rumbly.  I figured it was just all of the fish chowder I ate.  Or stress.  Or lack of sleep.  Or kids.  Or that I’m crazy.  I downed a Coke or two or seven and ignored it.

And while we were doing Christmas we received quite a few gifts.  However we got one additional one that we were not expecting.  A wonderful group of people in the blogging world got together to help us out in our time of stinkiness by making sure that we didn’t have to wait until after the fact to celebrate our Christmas day at home.  It’s something that I’ll never forget.

Again, for the zillionth time, thank you my friends.

Thanks to this thoughtful gift, the Monday after our weekend jaunt was spent at Target getting the presents that we had been putting off.  Even though I’d been up all night the night before with a stomachache, I was dead tired, and I felt like my food had been sitting at the bottom of my throat for two days, I was going to get my shopping finished!

As it turns out, I was pretty much spot on.  After I finished all of my shopping, I topped it off by puking for five minutes in the store bathroom.  Pretty much everything I had eaten the past day or two.  Isn’t that magical?  I’m sure that the people in the bathroom who heard me making sounds like I was dying thought so.

Then I came home and slept and puked and slept and puked in a vicious cycle that lasted through Christmas Eve.  I know there were things going on around me.  My kids played, they checked on me, they asked me for stuff.  At times I even responded with a half conscious “Honey I love you, I’m not being lazy I’m just really sick.”

I vaguely remember Evil Genius wrapping all the presents, doing the last minute grocery shopping, cooking all the meals, renting some movies, and even washing some dishes.  If there was a medal for that, I’m sure I’d dip it in chocolate and give it to him.

I said I wanted to rest and not gain any weight this Christmas, I didn’t mean it quite like that!

Luckily, I recovered enough to enjoy my kids opening their presents, and a wonderful dinner and dessert cooked by Evil Genius.  I was even conscious for most of it.

See the tie-dyed shirt that Evil Genius is wearing? Is that not the coolest shirt ever in the history of geekdom. And sadly not in my size.

Now that Christmas is over, it’s back to the real world.  I’m still not feeling well *urp* but there are no more excuses and I have to work as well as attempt to do those things known as chores.  The kids are for the most part well entertained by their gifts, except when they’re not.  Yesterday as I attempted to do the working from home part of my job I heard my daughter yell at least once “Mommy I’m LONELY!”

Translation-she’s ready to go back to school already.  We’re only a little ways into the SIXTEEN day break that the kids have this year.  Wow.  They have it rough.  We may not survive this…

The Professor is good, because he has a lot of screens to look at and that makes him happy.  Except when he’s not.

Oh… and the Christmas card?  Remember that from last week’s Fly on the Wall post?  After all that had happened, I thought I had better be a good girl and take them with me while I was visiting family and work on them in the spare time I foolishly thought I would have.

Then I left them at my mom’s house, because apparently the flu which infected my gut had already seeped into my brain, I just didn’t know it.

Once my brain began comprehending things, I mentioned something to my mom and she immediately sent them to me, only they no longer can be considered Christmas cards.  We’re now in the beginning stages of turning them into New Year’s cards, with only a few days before I have to send them.  The beginning stages as in I bought stuff to make them with and have felt too lousy and had too little time to do anything with them.

We’ll see how long before I just give up and figure that this year Christmas has just officially kicked my butt.

I hope you are all having a joyous holiday thus far!  I hope you actually got your Christmas cards sent out, enjoyed a lovely time with your family, and are enjoying the stretch of time between the two holidays without any sort of poop or puke in your midst.  Let me know how your holiday went by telling me in the comments!

And I leave you with my absolute favorite picture from the holiday…

Where else do you play with catnip mice but in a Christmas kitty bag?

December 2013 Fly on the Wall: The Holiday Edition

Guess what time it is, it’s time to get buzzed!

It’s not what you’re thinking, no eggnog or spiked holiday punch here, just some things you might overhear if you were a little fly on the wall of someone’s home.  Today fifteen bloggers are sharing little snippets of their lives simultaneously.  Sit down with a hot mug of coffee or hot chocolate and take a peek into my life. 

(Peppermint schnapps in your drink is totally optional.)

When you’ve finished with my post and have changed your pants and am not totally scared away, then please check out some of the other bloggers links at the bottom of the post!

Evolution of a holiday card…

Ok so let’s start with the evolution of a Christmas card.  I had this bright idea to have the animals pose with the kids.  At least the two semi cooperative ones, because we don’t want to have any trips to the emergency room by trying to get the female cat in on it.
Picture 1:  Dog is licking his butt.  If you look really hard you can see where the cat escaped to back on the piano.
Picture 2:  Weird positioning of participants.  You can see all my crap in the spare room.
Picture 3:  The Professor is looking at his sister.  As you can see she wants peace on Earth.
Picture 4:  Cute but blurry.  What?  The camera cooperate?  NEVER!
Picture 5:  The dog is obviously savoring one of the treats I’ve been bribing him with.
At this point I had my picture. But as I was editing it Evil Genius leaned in, looked, and said “Our daughter’s underwear is showing.”  I missed that.  Since a lady reveals nothing, I made the kids put their Christmas stuff back on and made them go back into the room with the tree.
Picture 6:  The Princess is covering her unmentionables, but The Professor’s eyes are closed.
Picture 7:  Bad lighting, Professor eyes are closed AND he’s not looking at the camera.
Picture 8:  The Princess looks like she’s wearing a fur hat.

I finally got a good picture. I uploaded it to Snapfish, added a cute border, and ordered copies for pickup at Walgreens.  As it turned out, it cropped it closer than it looked on the website, so while still cute it wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for.  Sigh…

It looked like this only the Professor was much more cut off than this.  My kids are cute, so hopefully people will like it just fine!

Evil Genius:  “What else do we need for Thanksgiving?”
Me:  “We need to get a gravy boat.  Mom said she found us one.”
Evil Genius:  “Yeah, but I was thinking of something more along the lines of a gravy barge.”

The Princess, aghast upon hearing that chicken nuggets come from chickens.
“No, chicken nuggets grow in the GROUND!”  Duh…

Since we had company coming for Thanksgiving, as in my husband’s boss and his wife, I actually made a decent attempt at cleaning the house despite having a stomach bug.  Obviously my kids became suspicious.  The Professor came flying down the stairs hollering “Mom, why is the bathroom clean?”

Evil Genius outdid himself this year on Thanksgiving dinner. As you can see, it’s very hard work.

Me: “We need to make some homemade dog biscuits this Christmas so we can give some to Neo and Jackson.”
The Princess: “GREAT! We need to get a dog treat maker!”
Um, I was thinking more along the lines of a buying a bone shaped cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits. Kids these days!

The kids have been wanting to watch some Christmas movies.  This particular night they had chosen A Walt Disney Christmas.  In one part, someone was painting a checkerboard onto a canvas.
The Professor remarked. “Oh look, they’re painting like French people.”
Me: “How do French people paint?”
The Professor: “Very neatly.”

Yup, this is pretty clever. And probably the closet I’ll ever get to making one! HA HA!

Evil Genius arrived home from work a few weeks ago and announced the following:
“We are not allowed to discuss three subjects in our office now.  No religion, politics, or superheroes.”

The kids were trying to name Santa’s reindeer.
The Professor:  “Well there’s Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Nixon…”
Just so you know, he’s not a crook!

The cat would like to point out that he photographed just fine, but is very put out that he was not included on the holiday card.

The dog WILL NOT leave the Santa hats alone.  At one point, when I caught him carrying one around in his mouth, I yelled in frustration “DON’T EAT SANTA!”

The Professor has been studying the plausibility of how Santa can enter people’s houses.  We were watching a movie when he suddenly had an AHA moment.
“That’s IT!  Santa turns to liquid!”

The Princess: “Mommy, my friend said that when you’re a mommy they check your boobs at the doctor.”
Me (a bit taken aback): “They give you a mammogram when you turn 40.”
The Princess: “Ohhhhhh… So you have to get one at your next birthday.”
Me: “I’m afraid so.”
The Princess: “And Daddy?”
Me: “No he’s a man.”
A pause…then…
The Princess: “Oh, I get it now! You’re a ma’am, so you have to get a “ma’am oh gram”!”
Makes sense to me…

Buzz buzz buzz, Happy Holidays!

Now go visit these other fine blogs to see what stories they have to tell from their respective abodes!

Baking In A Tornado

Just a Little Nutty

Follow me home . . .

Menopausal Mother

The Momisodes

Spatulas on Parade

The Rowdy Baker

Sorry kid, Your Mom Doesn’t Play Well With Others

Juicebox Confession

Writer B is Me

Dates 2 Diapers

Kiss My List

Moms Don’t Say That

Adventure into Domesticland

Oh Crap, Literally: Counting My Blessings

So it’s not exactly fortune cookie material…

Count your blessings, because in the blink of an eye you could be ankle deep in your own poo!

All right, I admit it wasn’t really ankle deep, but there was definitely poo involved.  It was definitely a crappy thing to have happen!

This past weekend we had a not so welcome gift from the sewage fairy.  Some roots from the tree outside our house got into our sewer line.  Our basement went from 0 to a lovely spread of muck on the floor on one side in a few hours.  I just happened to go downstairs for a loaf of bread and ended up playing a game of stepping stones to get to the freezer.  I more or less had to sit IN the freezer to get the bread out, and I hollered to Evil Genius to come look at the basement.

The next morning we had a quick visit from the city guy who simply said “Yup, you’re backed up.”  This was followed by waiting a few hours for our local Roto-Rooter guy to come out and snake the drain.

Yeah, this tree. I like this tree… I’m sad about it.  It’s going to have to come down.

And by the way, he didn’t have to do it once.  Or twice. He had to run it FOUR times.

Lucky us!

Incidentally, I have discovered what the worst smell in the world is.  If you have kids, take their worst diaper or poop accident and multiply the smell by 1000.  That is the smell that will linger after Roto-Rooter has left your house.  I started smelling it about the time he was finished, and then he brought the weird drum shaped device through the upstairs he stopped and showed me the sewage covered tree roots.  I just about threw up, it smelled that bad. And remember, that stuff doesn’t usually bother me.  That means it was really, really bad.

As he often is, Evil Genius was amazing.  He came home from work while I was at my job and cleaned it all up.  By the time I came home my house was transformed from stinky mess to a lovely Lysol smell.  And I like the smell of that particular cleaner, so that’s quite all right.

Confession time:  I have to admit when it happened I went a little nuts.  I worried and I cried.  Because that’s what I do.  Having to shell out a large chunk of change ten days before Christmas when you’re not exactly rolling in the dough makes your wallet hurt.  Add to that fact that I had just had my hair colored for the first time in many years the Friday before. It was my Christmas gift from my husband.  While I loved how it looked and it wasn’t terribly expensive, the guilt of spending that money on myself instead of my kids just about killed me.

Moms do that.  We put our family first.  So it’s a natural mom reaction to feel bad in these situations.  Even though no one was dying and nothing really terrible was going to come of it, I still felt bad.

And I continued to feel bad about it.  I was so preoccupied that I ran into the side of the cart corral at Target.  While the car was fine other than a few scratches in the paint, my already wounded pride was aching.  And then I burst into tears in the store, because here I was surrounded by all of the things I would like to get for my kids, but couldn’t at the moment.  Not that my kids NEED anything, because they have plenty of toys.

So then I felt bad for feeling bad.  After all, we still had a house, food in our kitchen, heat, running water, clothing, and so forth.  Why was I fretting over the fact that we might have to postpone Christmas?  They would be spending time with their extended family and would get gifts from their grandparents the weekend before.

I guess because I don’t want my kids to know just yet that sometimes life just really sucks.

And we’ve had it worse.  Much, much worse. Three years ago we had a flood.  During this flood our sewer system got overwhelmed and backed up.  And kept backing up-all the way up our basement stairs.  It was one of the scariest moments of my life.  My husband was at work and couldn’t leave, and I thought we were going to float right out of our house.  We lost our furnace and thought we’d lost our freezer, which was floating around in the basement.

Weeks later miraculously our freezer came back to life.  And we got a new furnace through a local organization who happened to be helping winterize our house at the time.

I also have to keep in mind that this is the first Christmas in a long time that one of us hasn’t been out of work or in school.  My husband is working a job that while the commute is long and some aspects of it are stressful, he is doing what he loves at a company that is very supportive and truly appreciates him as an employee.  We have good health insurance.  We have great benefits.

So what the hell am I upset about?  Counting my blessings makes even the worst situation seem a lot better.

Speaking of blessings, I want to thank my blogging friends who had kind words to offer me as I was fretting about the whole thing.  It really meant the world just to hear that things will get better!  Sometimes it’s nice just to have someone listen. We don’t need any help, we will be fine!  It’s just another setback in a series of things that are getting better slowly but not quite fast enough to make me happy.  I just have to remember that sometimes it’s one step forward and two steps back!

Oh, and by the way, I’ve got about a thousand crap references saved up since this whole mess started.  I bet you can’t wait!

Now before you go away thinking “Sheesh, I thought this lady is supposed to be funny!”  I want you to remember that even the funniest people have unfunny days.  But you can get your laugh on over at Moms Who Write and Blog, where they have a little shindig going on known as Mom For the Holidays!  You can read many great posts (but not ghosts) from Christmases pasts!

And to go right along with that, tomorrow is Fly on the Wall, The Holiday Edition, going live at 10 am EST/9 am CST!

Oh There’s No One Like Mom For The Holidays!

Get ready… It’s time for Mom for the Holidays! My sister moms over at Moms Who Write and Blog are putting together some of the best mom lit and parent humor for the holidays on the Internet! Hosted by the hostesses with the mostesses moi and supermom Lisa Nolan at LisaNolan.com.

Do things get a little crazy for you this time of year? Believe me, you’re not the only one!  So go and take some time out for yourself, because you deserve it! Head over to our group Pinterest board and re pin some great posts to read later (when your family has passed out from too much sugar-plum goodness). You can also hangout with us at our  Facebook Event starting on Wednesday 12/18 at 6 pm! And if you love to read mom blogs, click on our holiday lit and parent humor link and read yourself to sleep, because goodness knows you’re going to need all the sleep you can get!

Will you be there with bells on?  Ho ho ho!  Let’s get our holidays on, Moms!

Twisted Mixtape Tuesday: The COLD mix

I’m spending a Monday that was supposed to be spent going to the gym, picking up Christmas pictures, and doing some Christmas shopping sitting on my couch waiting for Roto-Rooter.  Boo!  This isn’t what anyone wants for Christmas-sewage in their basement!

So with lots of time on my hands and little ambition, I can focus my (lack of) energy on Twisted Mixtape Tuesday.  This week is Dealer’s Choice, which means I can share anything my little heart wants. In the past I’ve done such things as all acoustic songs. 

This week I’m COLD.  I don’t like being cold.  I figured it was either share songs about cold or songs about poop and sewage.  I’m thinking my choices are much more limited if I did the latter, so I’m going to stick with songs that have to do with cold.  And ice.  And December.  BECAUSE I CAN!

Sadly, it’s not even really winter yet!

So Cold-Breaking Benjamin

First up is this little ditty by Breaking Benjamin.  I’ve shared other songs by these guys.  I love love love this group.  I don’t even know why.  I just do.

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I Am A Rock-Simon and Garfunkel

A song I listened to quite frequently in my college days.  While not my favorite, when I’m in a mood this is one I like to blast.

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Hazy Shade of Winter-The Bangles

See what I did there?  This song was originally by Simon and Garfunkel, but this is my favorite version.  I know I’m breaking my own rule here of never sharing the same song twice.  Oh well, you have to agree it ROCKS, and it’s my all time favorite song by The Bangle.

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Ice Ice Baby-Jim Carrey

This version is much better than the original… I’m going for comic relief.  Vanilla Ice flips houses now. Do you suppose he sings this when turns on the icemaker?

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Silver and Cold-AFI

Another group that I’m surprised I like, but they do some really catchy stuff.  And I think they really like cold weather.

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Love Like Winter-AFI

More catchy than the last, and more cold…

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Frozen-Madonna

I had forgotten about this song.  It’s off my favorite album by Madonna, Ray of Light.

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Cold-Hearted-Paula Abdul

Remember this song?  I believe it was my anthem a few times when I was a teen and then young adult.

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November Rain-Guns N Roses

What?  A playlist of songs about cold without November Rain is like peas without carrots.  Or something like that…

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December-Collective Soul

An interesting fact about this song-it’s great to walk to.

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Cry-Faith Hill

So they talk about cold in the lyrics, k?  And this song is great to belt out when you’re having a bad day.

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Betcha can’t wait to see what people are putting together for this week’s choice.  Do you feel like putting a playlist out there?  DO IT!  Then link up at either My Skewed View or Finding Ninee! 

What You Missed These Past Few Weeks, Probably Because You Forgot I Had A Blog

*Waves frantically*

Hello!

It’s not that I don’t love you all, but the paying job and those people !known as a family have had to take priority.  And hey, my house was clean for almost a week!

This is what I’ve done lately, which hasn’t been much.  You might be bored, or curious, or have nothing better to do than to peruse these posts, which is totally okay with me!

This Past Week

The 80s Child Thinks of Christmas–Relive your childhood through my reblog!

Might As Well Face It, I’m No Robert Palmer-It’s Twisted Mixtape Tuesday, the addiction edition.

Flaming Pillow Pets and Other Christmas List Nos-Here I was totally out of the blogging habit, and I got sucked back in by the idea of this post.  Some blogging friends and I vent about things that we don’t want our kids to get this Christmas, carnival style.  Even if you don’t want to read about combustible pillow pets, scroll down to the bottom of my post and check out the other bloggers’ Christmas item vetoes.

Ode To The Baking Queen-If you are familiar at all with The Secret Subject Swap or Fly on the Wall, you’ve probably heard about Karen of Baking in a Tornado.  Someone had a brilliant idea to do an Advent calendar of sorts just for her, and I got Friday the 13th to share something with her.  I wrote her a song, sort of.

Previously on the Sadder But Wiser Girl

And recently… okay maybe not so recently:

Let It Snow: The Blogging Conference That Really Should Have Happened in a Snowstorm-My prompt for the Secret Subject Swap was whether I’d rather be on an island alone with all the amenities or trapped in a snowstorm for a week with my favorite people.  Obviously the title gives it away!

Christmas, Christmas, CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Twisted Mixtape Tuesday, Christmas Style!

Fly on the Wall November 2013: The Princess Edition II-Everything entertaining that the Princess has said and done recently.  This should really have a laugh track.

Football, Food and Fashion Sense-Once again I make brilliant observations and even learn some things from a football game.  It won’t happen again, promise.

Twisted Mixtape Tuesday: Tell Me A Story!  Songs that tell a story.  My idea, thank you very much!

Best and Most Disturbing Search Terms

Now what you’re really been waiting for… trust me, I’ve been totally saving them up for you!  Apparently while I was on my little hiatus people were totally wondering about their bodily functions:

yo I p!  Yo I do 2!

troi cake, or even better, deanna troi underwear Get both and you can eat your cake AND wear her underwear too.

fat unicorns farting rainbows  Don’t discriminate, what about the skinny ones?

what does glue do to your poop?  People look this stuff up?????

where do unicorns poop?  Now I want to know too.

Why am I not pooping glitter?  Because you need more fiber?

John Cusack headband I just.can’t.imagine.

What aisle is pudding in at Target?  Again, people look this stuff up?????

antibacterial lotion This seems normal compared to the other stuff.  Now I have to find out why this leads to my blog!

This Next Week

I’ll roll out some sort of Christmas related reblog from back when I had more time and more ambition to write stuff!

There will beTwisted Mixtape Tuesday- it’s another dealer’s choice, a free for all, an   opportunity for us to share whatever the heck we feel like!  So I will share WHATEVER I FEEL LIKE!

Fly on the Wall-Another invitation for you to come into my house and try to figure out how I have yet to actually go nuts.

Cherish this time, because WHO KNOWS when I’ll write enough to actually be able to post another one of these wrap-ups!  It’s a busy, busy time of year.

But I will share one thing.  Take a looksie:

I went RED!  Isn’t this exciting???

Ode to The Baking Queen

I got invited to contribute to an Advent calendar.  Not just any old Advent Calendar.  This is one for a very special person, Karen from Baking in a Tornado.  Every day until Christmas a different blogger is doing something special for her.  Me the superstitious one has been asked to contribute on Friday the 13th.  I guess I had better make this one count, huh?

So what could I give Karen? I’ve known her for most of my short blogging career, which in blogging years is a long time! After a lot of contemplation, I decided to write her a song.  More specifically, a song parody, because she has a fabulous sense of humor.  But what song????  Then it hit me…

Karen has been referred to as many things, because she’s awesome.  Fairy Blogmother is one thing that I distinctly remember.  But to me she is “The Baking Queen”.

Now she is much too young to remember disco, but she may have heard this song before on a Time-Life commercial. You know, the ones where you get 1000 songs on two CDs?

Now, there are a few things you need to do before you actually finish this post.

Remember this guy?

IKE! (Don’t kick the baby.)

Humor me, k?  It will make sense in a minute.

1.  Now, print out this picture…

Print me out! (Pretend I’m saying that in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice. Why Arnold? I don’t know, what voice do you want me to use?)

2.  Take a pair of scissors and cut across my mouth. Like Ike.  Really.

3.  Find Dancing Queen.  Here, use this.

Don’t actually look at the lyrics on the screen.  Just play the music.  Don’t know the song well?  Well then you’d better use this.  Just sing REALLY loud over the real lyrics.  K?

4.  Sing the following lyrics in the place of the actual lyrics.  Move the top part of my picture up and down so it looks like I’m singing as you do this.  Better yet, get someone to do that part for you.  You know, just in case you’re like me and totally can’t multitask (yes this counts as multitasking, believe it or not!)

This is as close as you’re going to get to seeing me perform this… though I do play a mean autoharp.

Still with me?  Good… carry on…

Baking Queen
My parody of Dancing Queen by Abba
written just for Karen!

You can bake, you can blog
Having the time of your liiiiiife
Oooo, read that blog, write that theme,
You are the baking queen!

Friday morn and you got the most
In a secret swap that you have to post
Always with some great food, getting in the mood
For crab pockets and pie
She is the mistress of the fly
With tales to make you laugh and crrrrryyyyy
With a bit of cream cheese, and everything to please
Now I really want a snack
And when she gets the knack

She is the baking queen, food that’s sweet, lots of tasty treats
Baking queen, feel the heat from your oven scene, oh yeah
You can bake, you can blog, having the time of your liiiiife
Oooooo, Read that blog, write that theme, add a little heavy cream

You come home and turn the oven on
Don’t burn the cookies when you’re gone
She makes up the best drinks I’ll never pour down my sinks
I’m in the mood to bake
And when she makes a cake…

She is the baking queen, treats so sweet, she bakes like a dream
Baking queen, she has helped with my blog esteem, oh yeah
You can bake, you can blog, having the time of your liiiiife
Read that blog, write that theme, diggin’ the online scene

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I know, I know, don’t quit my day job.  That’s good, because I can’t afford to quit.

I hope you enjoy my gift to you for today.  Happy Advent Holiday Calendar Friday the 13th to you, Karen!

Flaming Pillow Pets and Other Christmas List Nos

At the top of the cat’s Christmas list? A box. And that’s fine with me.  The kids are a little more complicated.

You know what is wonderful about programming on PBS for kids?  NO COMMERCIALS for toys!!!!!

Up until the last year or so, for the most part I kept my children blissfully ignorant of the hottest items out there, because the only thing I let them watch was PBS or movies rented from the kids section of Family Video (because they’re FREEEEEEEEEEEE!)

Occasionally, however, something would slip through my stronghold of noncommercialism.  My first experience with this were the Pillow Pets.  My kids saw these commercials and went nuts.  Because it’s a pillow AND it’s a pet!

OMG IT’S A PILLOW AND A PET!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

By the way, both of my children own three of them.  I like the original pillow pets when they were just a pillow and a pet and nothing else.Then apparently everything in the world had to transform from a pillow into something else, because who wants a pillow that’s just… a pillow.  Boring, right?  I got so annoyed by this last year that I had to write a whole rant about pillows that transform.

The latest annoyance by this company has got to be the “Dream Lites”.  Both of my children have wanted one since they came out.  Perhaps you’ve heard of these?  An animal pillow that lights up and projects stars on the ceiling.  Cool huh, NOT!  Every time we go to a Wal-Mart my kids have to stop and look at the Dream Lites. Both kids have picked out exactly which one they think they must have and exactly how they will use them.  I don’t get this-they’re not even soft, so I can’t understand why anyone would want a hard pillow that lights up.  Imagine my delight when I heard that one caught fire.  NO!  You can’t have one because they’re a FIRE HAZARD!  There, I said it.  Mean Mom…

Now that my children are watching things like Vortex (the current equivalent of our childhood Saturday morning cartoons) on Saturday mornings, they are inundated with all of the ridiculous things that are being marketed to kids.  And they want them.  This year they took the toy catalog long before we were even allowed to speak of Christmas and pretty much circled everything in it.  Apparently they thought they were being helpful by using different colored pens to denote who wanted what.  But when they both circle everything, does it really matter?

Then I came up with the brilliant idea of having them write Christmas lists.  The Professor didn’t really quite get that he had to ask for presents for himself.  When I pointed that out he scrapped the list.  The Princess took the idea and ran, except that when I got the list, I needed an interpreter.  Enter Grandma, the former second grade teacher, who was able to decipher the list in a jiffy.

The Princess writes her first Christmas list. Impressive, but she is not a Jedi yet.

You’ve got to love a kid who asks for belts for Christmas, especially one like her whose butt is always hanging out of her pants! AND STILTS, she asked for STILTS for Christmas.  LOL!

And no, she’s not getting a bird.  Or a computer.

(If anyone knows what the second to last item is, please enlighten me, because even with the expert help, I couldn’t figure it out.)

The Professor at Christmas. One toy or book is all he really needs. That is until we’re all done, then he wonders “That’s IT?????” (You only got 200 toys this year, what do you mean that’s it?)

The Professor is still thinking over his list.  I really hope I get one before Christmas…

Aside from the aforementioned flaming pillow pet nightlight things and the bird, here are some other things that my kids won’t be seeing under the tree this year.  Or any year.  Ever.

Furby-What the hell do kids see in those things?  I think they are CREEPY!
Easy Bake Oven-Refer to the whole Dream Lite thing above.
Robot Claw Grabber Thingie-Not because my kids would get in trouble with it, I’m talking about my husband.  No, no ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Barbie Dream House With Two Separate Elevators-Since our Barbie house has no stairs of any kind, Barbie has to teleport from floor to floor.  So much better than an elevator or even two, don’t you think?
Hello Kitty Pop Star-No!  NO! NOOOOOOOOOOO!
Ugglys Pug Electronic Pet-Nobody gets anything with the word “ugly” in it… especially this.
Back to the two elevators thing… WHY would Barbie need two elevators?  Is Barbie too good to share an elevator with anyone?  Do they have elevator races?  Inquiring minds WANT TO KNOW!

What ARE my kids getting for Christmas? Aside from visiting Gamestop for a used DS for The Princess, the verdict is still out.  I guess you’ll just have to come back and see.  I might even blog about it.

Some of my awesome blogging buddies also have things that they are not wanting to see under their trees.  Here are the links to check out their Christmas “NOS”!

Dear Santa, Please Don’t-Jen from My Skewed View

The Gift That JUST.KEEPS.ON.GIVING-Katia from I Am The Milk

My Child Models Deserve the Best at Christmas-Jean from Mama Schmama

Santa Employs Sweatshop Labor-Rachel from Tao of Poop

Three Things I Don’t Want My Son To Get For Christmas-Kristi from Finding Ninee

Holy Testosterone, Batman!  Why Are Superheroes So ANGRY These Days?-Sarah from Left Brain Buddha

Thanks for Nothing, “American Girls”.  Why I Hate American Girl Dolls-Stephanie from Mommy Is For Real

Is there something that you hope that your child does not receive this year?  Share, share, SHARE your thoughts in the comments!

Might As Well Face It, I’m No Robert Palmer

This week’s theme is, well, see below…

Good things to be addicted to:
Running
Working out
Health Food
Water
Cleaning

Bad Things to be addicted to:
Chocolate
Diet Sunkist Lemonade
Glitter
Peeing
Streaking

Things that I do not know whether it is good or not good to be addicted to:
Blogging

Yeah, as you may gather I struggled with this.  The original theme this week was I don’t just love you, I’m addicted to you. Great theme, right?  Right!

But was it right for me?  Not so much.  Don’t worry, it’s me, not you.  Two songs, TWO songs were all I could come up with.  One has dancing lady clones as the band and the other is a song by Chicago.  I’m sure it’s not hard for you to guess which ones they might be, especially easy if you simply click the words in bold.

Jen, being the really awesome person she is, permitted me to tweak this to instead being  songs about addiction.  My husband, being an addictive personality, had NO problem whatsoever putting his two cents in for that particular take on the theme.  He stole (um, borrowed?) a few songs I wanted to use. No really, he had no idea what songs I wanted to use, it just worked out that way and I don’t like to have the same list as everyone else.  So I wound up with a lineup that kept coming back to songs by The Muppets and Weird Al.  Lame.

I’m not sure what made this so hard for me.  It’s not that I don’t have any vices.  Though I will say that of the ones I have, glitter, peeing, and streaking are not among them.

So songs about addiction?  Here are some I surmise may have their roots in such a thing.

Ice Cream-Sarah McLachlan

Must be some really, really good love.  Better than ice cream?  Better than chocolate?  Notice that caffeine is not mentioned.  I didn’t find any songs about being addicted to caffeine, chocolate, OR ice cream.  So I guess this will do…

Oh wait a minute…

I Love Rocky Road-Weird Al Yankovic

Best accordion solo ever?  Perhaps.

It’s Been Awhile-Staind

All right, let’s be more serious now.  Yeah, this song fits the bill.  I don’t know what it is about this group, but I love everything they’ve done.  Yeah, kind of depressing, but then again, Aaron Lewis did eventually go into country…

Pain-Jimmy Eat World

I can’t quite figure out what this song is really about, but I definitely think it fits the addiction criteria.  Either way, it’s going to be stuck in my head for awhile, so we might as well add it.

Oh!  Then I remembered this song:

Bad Medicine-Bon Jovi

Dude, I totally rocked the Bon Jovi hair in high school.  Really!  And now the Pain song is no longer in my head, and probably yours either.  You’re welcome.

Comfortably Numb-Pink Floyd

What would a list with addiction in it be without a Pink Floyd song with an equally weird Pink Floyd video to boot?  According to them, this song isn’t about drugs.  Uh-huh.  Ok.

If you were to make a list having to do with addiction, what kinds of songs would be on your list?  Would your list be stranger than mine?  Tell me what would be on your list in the comments.  Or better yet, write your own list on your own blog and LINK IT UP over at Jen’s website.  And be sure to see what other people are listening to while you’re there!