This is so faar past due I don't even know what to call it...

I have been gone so long I don't know where to start, so I'll just ask... are you watching Last Comic Standing? Cuz you should be. Unlike it's obnoxious counterparts this show exploits actual comedians that are actually hilarious. No idiotic 20-somethings that are much much less attractive than they think they are... no one with an amazing voice (says their mother)... and no random talents. I have to butt in here and say I dislike talent contests because I am good at a lot of s*#$ but none of it qualifies as a talent. At least not in my book. As a kid I feared (quivered in mah sneakers) the age-old get to know you question "what's your hidden talent?". If I had some random awesome talent you can be dang sure I would have been sharing it without being asked!

You may have noticed my comic strip expletive. We'll see how this goes. My loving husband was offended by the use of my very favorite curse word in my previous post. Apparently he has never actually had a conversation with me. So no offense, Chris. (Haha I thought it would be really fun to add "but f^%* off" right here, but in order to remain married, I staid my twitching fingers.)

I spent the last two weeks sitting through alternative teaching certification. For those non-Texans, this is to become a teacher via an alternate method not learning to teach in alternative ways (or in an alternate universe :(  ). I hate that it is nearly impossible to use a smiley face near a parenthesis, because what better way is there to boldly share your emotion with the world than by smushing together some punctuation. (Side not: occasionally I "lose words" in my head and sadly I just had to ask Chris (dang! when I just mocked him) for 'punctuation'.)

There will be much more to come on those classes and the other class inhabitants (you may not know this but people are WEIRD). In the mean time I have to mention the storm in the gulf. I have two things to say here.
1. I think it is awesome that not only do storms have names but they are used as if one is speaking of another human being. "Alex has increased in strength today." Way to go buddy.
2. The media seems to be always searching for new and original catch phrases. Everything has to be named or whatever. You know what I'm talking about, no reason to keep rambling. Anyway, this afternoon one particularly helpful weatherman let me know that I am living in the "Three Day Cone of Uncertainty". What?!? Thanks? The only thing that could make that make more sense is if it was spoken in a booming, ethereal, God-like voice.

Last thing for today. I have this great cat. (Four great cats). But this one specifically is very pretty (white Persian) but lives up to the pretty and dumb stereotype. However, occasionally she surprises us all. Exhibit A. It took her all of 24 hours to figure out the cat door at my parents house. (It goes laundry room to garage). Unfortunately, then she was stuck on the other side (in the garage) and terrified for hours. Exhibit B. Knox has become quite adept at catching the cats in the few days we've been back. He can only crawl, but figured out how to corner them and then dive when they run past. Mid-dive he gets two handholds of fur and flesh, sits down, and gently (ha!) drags them into his lap squealing insanely. So tonight Angel (the pretty blonde) outsmarts him by jumping backwards into the pack 'n play when she's cornered against it. The remainder of the evening she sits quietly watching his every move. Knox goes to bed. A couple hours pass. Chris comes home, walks through the living room, "Angel! Get out of there!", lifts and tosses the poor thing on the floor. Yep. She'd been stuck again.

Lazy Days

Our summer days would not have been near as lazy so far if we weren't being washed away in torrents of rainfall (is that even proper phrasing?). Today alone we got 4.3 INCHES in about 4.3 hours. This was the 3rd day (in 2 weeks) since I have been been visiting/hanging out with/working for my old nanny kiddoes of rain. Not the everyday pool adventure I had dreamed of. Stupid me, I literally half imagined my 10 month old would be swimming at the end of the visit. Maybe in the backyard. The incessant rain and the kid's insane obsession with wheels is what led to this

We were just hanging out on the porch watching the rain and he couldn't stand that truck being 15 feet away and stationary. You can imagine endless days of either 95 degrees or non-stop rain can get a little wearisome with 3 kids in the house so first chance I got I tried my best to lower the opposition's numbers and take one down.  OK not really, but I was ever so innocently playing catch in the country club pool with a 6 six year old and gave him a bloody nose. In front of several mothers. That I know. That know 6 year old's mother. Oops. I tried to keep him from freaking out as I carried him from the pool and told him that "No buddy, you aren't bleeding, I just want to wipe the water off your face" but the random kids walking by shouting "Hey MOM! That kid is BLEEDING!" were really fucking up my plan. It all worked out and the mothers above mentioned to 6 year old's mother how well I handled the blood with 3 kids (apparently they hadn't noticed I had inflicted the injury- all part of my plan to set myself up to look good) and how great I looked in my bikini. Brag about me blog time!  (Not rude because every mom who spends their days sans makeup chasing an infant needs a boost of self-confidence) And by the way 6 year old's mother thought it was hilarious.

I apologize now for the long delay between posts (I'm sure you were beside yourselves trying to figure out what I was doing!) but even though I've spent several days inside, 10 feet from my computer, I have also played approximately 30 hours of monopoly. Wish this was an exaggeration. It is not. I can quote every "Chance" and "Community Chest" card if you give me the first word. I can also spout out most of the rental fees. I am looking forward to returning home to my husband and playing him just to show off my new skills. And I now offer my services to you. Any familial monopoly disputes? Bring them to the table, I am a walking rule book. You may now advance to the nearest railroad. If unowned you may buy it from the bank. If owned, pay owner twice the rent to which they are entitled.

Also, I hope my hiatus has allowed everyone to check out some other awesome blogs (blogflow anyone?) and I promise to gradually return the favor and check out some new sites!

Because I am Busy

Because I am busy chasing around THREE kiddoes this week I am copy and pasting an old post from my previous (and now abandoned) blog. Also it's (kind of) about my personal, real life friend who I just converted to an official blogstalker (her words!) so I thought I'd celebrate. If I am not too whipped tonight I will tell you about the time (Wednesday) that I tried to do away with one of said kids.

Just for You (Assuming 'You' are Alicia)
Originally posted May 6, 2010

"I think I am also over/underwatering... so what did you do to correct? My garden is puny. Stunted. And retarded. I think I planted too soon, over/underwatered, and secrete some sort of mysterious plant-killing enzyme from my fingernails. " ~Alicia

I thought this question/comment was entertaining. Not "haha funny" at Alicia's expense, but side of the mouth smirk at her cleverness. AND since she's one of two followers I can do this. Follow me and maybe you can have your own post too.

After I took my laughably little squash (the guy at the nursery really did laugh at it) home with me I followed the nursery dude's advice. Side note. My squash was so small I forgot it in the car. It ended up in the driver's seat where it was sat on repeatedly and then found a few days later unharmed. I stuck my finger straight in the ground near the base of the plant up to my hand. A whole finger length. This was to see if the soil was wet all the way down. Apparently squash are binge drinkers. Think me in college. Sober much of the time, but sloshed at the weekend toga party/luau/football game. See below.

Back to the squash. They like the soil to be completely dry, then water a lot. Water the entire area that the plant covers. But DO NOT WATER THE LEAVES. Then leave it alone until the dirt is dry again. But DO NOT WATER THE LEAVES. I had read in all three of my gardening books and been told by the nursery man to water under the leaves. We followed these instructions all the while wondering if I needed to purchase some yellow rubber rain hats for my demanding foliage. Even though we're in South Texas, it's going to rain at some point. One day it did. Lots. Thousands of big wet rain drop landed and remained on the large leaves of my squash. No big deal. It's a plant. Plants need rain. A few days later the leaves were covered in powdery white fungus. It had been mentioned so casually I didn't think much of it until the leaves turned yellow and started to die. F***! Right when I was getting the whole drunken squash, sober sober sober squash thing down. We clipped the dead leaves and sprayed the rest of the plant with a baking soda solution (3 tablespoons baking soda to 1 gallon water) and that seems to have worked. BS is a natural fungal inhibitor or something so we now keep it on hand for the deluge.

An extra special Alicia note. Alicia is awesome and half the reason I even bother to use the internet to post anything is to see what comment she can come up with. I wish I was kidding but she gave voice to pictures of my sleeping newborn. The girl has a gift for captions.

Sherlock Holmes

So I am hoping this review does not detract from my amazing (not so great, actually) "review" of alabaster cow. So if you are reading this and did not read that, you better keep scrolling when you finish this shit. I'll know if you don't. Thanks :)    I am so far behind and claim to be a book review blog but am slacking. And I had coffee at 7:30 PM.

I know this is not some hot off the presses new novel by any means. By like 100 years. But Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is the shit. The original shit. Sherlock is one of those guys I've thought most of my life I would have to tackle at some point. I only wish I had known that the as I dove in for the tackle I would quickly fall in love and spend the rest of my days trying to conjure the dude into real life. So he could be my best friend. My personal gumshoe.

When I saw movie previews back about 6 months ago, I knew the time had come and I checked The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes out of the local library. Surprise, surprise! It was an easy, straightforward read. None of the wordy, overly descriptive prose I was expecting. Instead Sir Arthur opens chapter one with a mystery and by the end of the chapter it's solved! Chapter two, repeat! So when I got a Kindle for Christmas I downloaded the entire Works of Arthur Conan Doyle for less than 5 bucks. Months later, I am only 13% of the way through and dreading the day I hit 100%. And just a fun fact (teensy spoiler alert). Sir Arthur was not as fond of Sherlock as his readers and once tried to kill him off. It didn't work. ALSO, like I said I have only read 13% (which is a complete novel about one mystery and at least 30 short story mysteries) and only ONCE has Sherlock used the term "elementary" and it was not in conjunction with "my dear, Watson" which is only rarely used on other occasions. Sooo read it. But when you're done find your own personal gumshoe, cuz this cat's taken.

alabaster cow...

...rocks my world. I am obsessively grammatically correct, (ok I try my darndest) but lower-cased the title in honor of one of my very favorite blog writers. Actually, she's my favorite. She was pretty much my favorite to begin with and THEN she featured me on her blog. Made my month. That's a big deal considering in the last month my kid (coolest boy in the universe, just sayin') learned to crawl, cruise the furniture, and got 4 teeth this month. So THANK YOU ERICKA AT ALABASTER COW!!!!!!!

If I am being honest (and I am always honest which is why you like me, right? Seriously I have decided I am honest to a fault- more on that later) I will admit to you folks that I have been meaning to tell you about Ericka's blog for weeks. WEEKS. I repeat for emphasis. She is funny. FUNNY. (ok that time I was making a joke with the caps) But she is freakin' hilarious. And she is an actual writer of novels. This is one of my dreams, but lately I have realized that I am too damn lazy to write a whole book. (More on that later, too) Also, I had been writing my kids blog from his point of view for months and had been iffy about my own. Ericka inspired me. Mostly because she cusses a lot and I like to cuss. If you're betting on my kids first word put your money on 'fuck'. But she is incredibly honest. To the point that I wish I could say some of the things she does, but I can't bring myself to do it. Yet. I also discovered through her that I can write and people will actually read it! Like more than my husband (whom I made a follower by logging in, using his e-mail address, and attaching a photo. And I am not convinced he reads it.) and a friend or two that I pay on a post by post basis.

I can't quite describe what alabaster cow is about because my mind has yet to grasp its awesomeness in its entirety, but according to E there is chihuahua shit and periods. And one of the top babies of all time (Ava is amazing. And beautiful. And on the list of women Knox is allowed to date in a few years). And BOOZE. Yummmmmm. Alcohol speak distracts me, so just go read it for yourself. Start with the part where she writes about me (and manages to make me sound so good I want to be friends with myself).

Hey! Did I mention she made me a button??????? SHE DID!!!!!!! So grab it and go. Go read her wittiness but don't forget to come back!