Emily

Emily's Thankful List

My friend Emily did a 'Thankful Challenge' on Facebook.

Her resulting posts were so funny, that I spewed a mouthful of water.  

My personal favorite is #4. And #17. 

1. I'm thankful my dog can't talk because I'm convinced he's a male chauvinist pig
    and I ain't 'bout that life.

2. I'm thankful for when my parents pick up the tab for dinner. I don't think this happens with
    everyone's parents but when I eat with my parents I don't think I've ever had to pay....EVER.  
    Thanks Mom and Dad! 

3. I'm thankful that according to Vogue, we're officially in the "Era of the Big Booty."
    My time has arrived people.

4. I'm thankful for the Cookie Monster. His message really resonated with me at
 a very young age. I like him.

5.  I'm thankful for my mini-van. (My 19 year-old-self just glared at me and
     called me a loser.) 

6. I'm thankful for eyebrows. They make a difference.

7. I'm thankful my kids haven't figured out how weird I am. (But I think they're catching on.)

8. I'm thankful for my nose. I really like to smell everything and I'm impressed
    by it's ability to know right from wrong. 

9.I’m thankful for really old doctors. It's my opinion that doctors only get better with age. 
  (Unless you're a brain surgeon. I don't want an old shaky man operating on my brain.)

10. I'm thankful for the electric blanket on my bed. Nothing says high living quite like falling   asleep each night encased in electricity.

11. I'm thankful I haven't been sent to jail yet. It's one of my life goals to never 
      be held captive.

12. I'm thankful for milk and quite frankly blown away that I can buy it at any grocery store BY THE GALLON FOR 3 BUCKS!! I milked myself one time, using one of those human milking machines. It took me half an hour to produce 3 tablespoons to feed to my hungry crying baby. Spilling that milk would've been a fate worse than death. That day changed the way I look at milk forever. It's liquid gold people! Liquid gold. And if you happen to be a nursing mama out there who's reading this, I would like to congratulate you and tell you what an awesome job you're doing. Really, I mean it. You deserve a gold medal. Feeding another human with your own body numerous times a day, everyday, is hard work. Really hard work. Good on you!

13. #13 is having technical difficulties, sincerely Laughing Mamma. 

14. I'm thankful they don't put Box Tops for Education on cases of beer and  
    cartons of cigarettes. That wouldn't make much sense at all.

15. I'm thankful for Google and it's ability to help me win arguments I have with my husband. Take last night for example. I walk into the living room to find Chadwick watching ANOTHER Robin Hood movie. I began my rant.

"Seriously Chad! How many times are you going to watch Robin Hood? Haven't you seen this before?"

"No, this is a new one."

"A new one? How many Robin Hood movies are there?"

"There's only 5 that I can think of."

"Five! Yeah right. You've watched at least 15 since I've known you. I'm gonna Google it. Oh my goodness there's 53 Robin Hood movies and that doesn't even include television series. I told you so!"

"Fifty three huh? Looks like I've got some catching up to do.”

16. I'm thankful for the "Church Ladies". I don't know if a more caring group of individuals exists. I spent several hours last night watching a movie with the "Church Ladies" and I haven't felt that peaceful in a long time. They totally made me feel taken care of. They always do.

17. I'm thankful for "natural flavor". I don't know what natural flavor looks like, smells like, feels like 

     or where it comes from, but it's in just about everything I eat. I was eating some Wheat Thins today, 

     and on the front of the box, in bright orange letters it actually says, "Natural flavor with other natural

     flavor." Maybe later tonight I'll Google natural flavor to see what I come up with. I'm fearful of what

     I might find. 

18. I'm thankful I've completed one week of thankful posts, and now I can stop being so thankful.Tonight I am finished. The thankful ship has sailed and now I'm going to turn my focus to all the things I'm bitter about. Good night!

            

      

            

Shawshank

Shawshank Baby

This morning when I went to change my daughter's diaper I found something. 

No, not that something. 

I had to unzip her footy pajamas, and as I unzipped them - a comb fell out. 

Not a little kid comb or a baby comb, but a full adult-size comb. 

She had stuffed the whole thing down one of the pant legs of her pajamas.

I don't know if she slept with it all night, or stuffed it in there this morning, or if she is planning to use it to dig her way out of here (like in Shawshank Redemption), but this morning I learned that my little girl is totally capable of squirreling away contraband in her clothing. 

I don't think this bodes well for the future. 

In The Check Out Lane

IT'S REWIND WEDNESDAY! 
In Honor of Rewind Wednesday Here Is A Post From The Archive. 

IN THE CHECK OUT LANE

Check out lane manager: "Please come down to our express lane, it's much faster."

Me ( in my head) : " Yes, I realize that, I've been standing in check out lanes for more than two decades, I actually chose this one because the lady in front of me just bought enough food for a small country which means I can stand here for at least five minutes; that's five uninterrupted minutes of relative silence where I get to read a magazine that I won't buy but that provides me with important information like the fact that J.Lo really does have butt insurance, someone gave Katie her brain back and she is leaving Tom and wearing normal clothes again, and that I apparently need to be on Team Edward or Team Jacob. I was actually most of the way through an article about Will and Kate, so please leave me alone, you are messing with the delicate balance of my day."

What I actually said to the clerk: "Oh, of course, thank you!"

Foodie

Foodie

I had to create a Google Plus account. Mostly because this blog is powered by Blogger which is a Google thing, and since it's a Google thing I have been sucked into their universe and now must do everything they tell me. That, and it's just a good way to be able to share blog posts. Anyway, when you create a Google Plus account you have to create a little description of yourself. It's kind of like a class in Marketing 101, except you don't have to pay for it. Sum yourself up in seven words or less! Um, okay, that's easy.  So I summed up myself by using two things I am, one thing I do, and one thing I love. My description reads: "Mom, wife, blogger, lover of bacon." My husband read it. "I don't think you are being very authentic,"  he says to me. Um, what? "You love toast more than you love bacon." Okay, well, he's got me there. I do really love toast. I think bread and jam should be a food group. I also really love pie. I actually really might love pie more than I love toast or bacon. So maybe my description should simply be "Lover of Pie." Or we can kick it up a notch and make it "Pie Aficionado." Seriously, I ate a piece of pumpkin pie every single day for the last three months of my pregnancy. It's not my fault the end of my pregnancy also coincided with pie season. It was a fluke, but a really really great one. I told the doctors that if our little girl came out all orange that they shouldn't worry, it wasn't jaundice, it was just all the pie I ate. (For the record, she didn't come out orange. She does love pumpkin though.) 

 Then it occurred to me that I also really love coffee. So much so that I put a picture of a latte on my Google Plus account. Do you know what goes really well with coffee? Chocolate. I really love chocolate too. So my description should really be "Lover of chocolate, bacon, pie, toast, and coffee, in no particular order." But that's a few too many things for a personal description. Maybe I'll just start calling myself a foodie. Come to think of it, why isn't this blog about food? 

Sousa

How Sousa Changed My Life (But Not Really). 

So I'm typing a text to my friend and trying to type the word 'sounds', except I miss the 'd' and so it ends up being 'souns'. So then autocorrect takes over (because autocorrect is a control freak) and turns 'souns' into 'Sousa'. Sounds being a word that is used roughly 5 million times more often than Sousa (I didn't Google it or anything, just a guess). I mean, when was the last time you heard a really good Sousa reference? Are you constantly talking about Sousa marches, and how John Phillip Sousa changed your life, and how they really ought to make a movie with music only by Sousa? Um, no. So apparently autocorrect is a control freak that is really into high school band music. I think autocorrect really needs a better hobby. Or a job. 

P.S. That's John Phillip Sousa up there. I'm going to frame the picture and send it to autocorrect as a Christmas present. 

Overheard

Dad With Stroller

Today at the zoo I overheard a dad talking to one of his buddies. They both had strollers with them, but no kids. I imagine the kids were off with their moms going to the bathroom or staring at zebras or some other appropriate activity kids do at the zoo. At any rate, this dad starts zooming down the pathway and I hear him tell the other dad "EXTREME STROLLERING: ZOO STYLE!" I'm pretty sure that strollering is not a word, but this guy managed to turn it into a sport. I love dads for this reason - when they get bored, they turn life into a sporting event.

Google

Are you there Google? It's me, Hannah. 

The other day I needed to send an e-mail. I was in the drive thru line at Starbucks (don't judge, or do, just do it silently) and I needed to let my preschool know I was going to be late (I was trying to figure out a better excuse than "I'm in line at Starbucks"). I belong to one of those hippie style cooperative schools (that has only one real hippie I can think of) so all of the parents teach and when you send an e-mail you send it to the whole group (we're very democratic that way). So since I had just gotten gmail on my phone I didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't know, for instance, that you should not try to send your first e-mail from your phone while waiting in line at Starbucks (someone might die). Seriously. First, I tried to sign in. Actually, no, I did sign in. To my own e-mail account. Mine. Google did not accept this. Since I had a new device I needed to verify my account. Okay, fine. We all know what happened to poor Jennifer Lawrence this month. Hackers are everywhere, and if Google wants to make sure no one is trying to get a hold of my preschool schedule to splash all over the internet, then who am I to stop them? So I had three options. I chose the first, which involves Google sending me a code to my phone that I then enter into the appropriate box. Then TA-DA! (as my toddler likes to say) I'm in like Flynn (or Finn. Whatever.) 

Only, not so much. I read the code, I copied the code. I pasted the code. And. Google. Didn't. Like. It. They rejected me. Or the code. But it felt like a very personal rejection. How could you do this to me Google? It's ME!! At this point I realized that trying to hold your phone and your coffee and your croissant at the same time (again, silent judging only) is really difficult. So I threw my phone in my bag and just forgot about it. Until, in the middle of class, my phone starts dinging. I read the text. It is a mix between an announcement of the apocalypse and a letter from a superhero. Basically Google wanted to save me from the evil hackers that would completely undo my life if they were allowed to break in to my account. I sighed. I couldn't respond to the text and say "IT'S ME GOOGLE! Really! For the love of God!" Then my husband called me. Panicked. "Did you know someone is trying to hack your account? I just got a text from Google." So, Google can text my husband??? Google is a drama queen.  "It's just me, I just suck at technology," I told him. I know he agrees with this assessment of my technological skill (I still use a paper calendar), but he was nice enough not to say anything. 

When I got home I had a warning from Google. It alerted me that some evil minion was trying to break into my account. And then, right at the top there was a box you could check. It asked "IS THIS YOU?" Um, jeez Google, yes it's me, I've been trying to tell you that ALL DAY, you just don't listen very well. Seriously, having an account with Google is like having a junior high school boyfriend. Do you like me Google? Check yes or no. Or just let me check my freaking e-mail.