Facebook Ads

Some of my favorite Facebook ads....

for when squeezing the air out of a ziploc bag is just too challenging for you

I'm a nerd, but this cracked me up and I love that movie.

wow, that's some targeted advertising.... now I feel almost stalked.....hm

I think I've seen this guy near the bus station preaching about the end times

because when you're searching for a complete stranger to watch your children for several hours, 'fast & easy' is what you want

naaaahahaha, how awesome is that?!

Your Mom calls the vacuum cleaner "Jaws"?

Just before Christmas our vacuum cleaner died.  This was not the best timing, so we waited a few weeks before getting a new one.  We set out for Target after Christmas, figuring we'd get a new one there.  It took a while to pick the one we wanted, which they then of course did not have in stock.  Four stores and four choices later, we went home vacuum-less and a bit peeved.  A week later the Man did finally find the one we wanted at another Target, and in a lovely shade of blue I might add.

So we get it all unpacked and bask in it's shiny newness.  It isn't very different from our old one when it comes to features, but really, as long as it can pick up dried PlayDoh while it terrorizes the cat, it's satisfactory.  It does have one new feature though, which is the red and green lights that tell you when an area is dirty or clean.  This is really neat at first, but soon you realize that you have become a slave to the green light, ever waiting for it to appear.  After 9 passes over the same section of rug you either stop believing that it actually can sense the dirt, or you start wondering how filthy your family really is.  Take the kids' bedrooms upstairs for instance:  The light almost never turned green.  I kept going, thinking that surely it would turn green at any moment.  As I continued to sweep the same section again and again, I began to wonder if the children had just been bringing pocketfuls of dirt in to dump on the carpets, or if perhaps the sheer age of the carpet had caused it to just disintegrate more and more with every pass of the sweeper.  I began singing 'Roxanne' in my head, waiting for the red light to go out.  I'm pretty sure it took 3 hours to vacuum the upstairs, during which time I sucked up various beads, Polly Pocket shoes and the cat.  Did I mention the suction power on this thing?  And that it's self-propelled?  So it really can get away from you quickly, and suck up all kinds of things that you didn't intend.  It reminded me of Mr. Mom, with Michael Keaton being terrorized by the sweeper. (If you haven't seen that movie, you should!  It's hilarious!)

Yes, it's new layout time again

And if you hate it, you can blame my friend Nova, who told me that the old layout was boring. I'm pretty sure that this one is even more so, but when you mess with html, sometimes you get the horns, or in this case, you lose all your nifty sidebar items and have to start over. I hunted through loads of Pyzam layouts but I hate how 99% of them squish your main text into a tiny little column. And I can keep fussing with this today, or I can tend to the stomach-virus-laden child who is currently sleeping on the couch. I can tell you what I'd rather be doing of course, but it will get messy if I ignore the Princess for too long.

Ramblings

Hello loves, it's been a while. My life is crazy-mom-busy these days and with the Man still gone 75ish hours a week, I'm holding down the fort alone. I'm looking forward to the end of the soccer season soon, as three trips a week for that has become my undoing.

I added a new thing to the blog, if you notice on the top right. It's a clock with dancing and music. It makes me pretty happy, but you can mute it if it annoys you. It's in military time, so after noon you have to subtract 12 to know the time.

Piano lessons are still fantastic and I got glitter stickers on my completed pages today. Yeah yeah, I know it's silly, but really, I spend my life with small people, and sticker motivation has it's merits, even for the 34 year old in the house.

I signed up for Word of the Day emails from Dictionary.com and I feel smarter already. Today's word was sobriquet, which has nothing to do with being sober, oddly enough. My favorite new word so far though, is donnybrook, which I'm sure I will find oodles of ways to use around this circus.

Heroes has started a new season, and I'm finding it harder and harder to watch home alone at night without the Man. I may need to start watching it with him in the daylight, because I have Sylar and Mohinder heebie-jeebies and our cat does little to make me feel safe. He did however, reassure me of his undying love at midnight, 5:30 and 7 o'clock this morning as he lay at my bedroom door yowling. It was not euphonious.

This & That

Sleepin’ in Omelette - This is a beautifully written recipe, accompanied by helpful pictures to teach you all you need to know about making this omelette. That said, do not ever make it. You will die of a heart attack within five minutes of eating it. You have been warned.

Never End Game - If you have an hour or 19 to kill, try this game.

Followers - If you look on the top right of this page you will see where the Followers section is. I am forlorn and lonely here folks, so throw me a bone. It's Monday and I need to feel loved! Click over there to Follow me!

Kids, can you say 'IRONY'?

Anti-War Protest at GOP Convention Turns Violent

You know, wherever you stand on politics and the war, what kind of jackass do you have to be to think that acting this way at an anti-war protest makes ANY SENSE??

Just Keep Swimming

Where did my blog list go?? It's there when I go to edit the template, but I can't see it on the page. I'm annoyed because that's how I go read other blogs. Foo.

Well I'm off to the camper in a few hours, and I'm only taking the Boy. The Princess is away at church camp until tomorrow and the Barnacle is staying home with the Man. It's the de-barnacling of the Barnacle you could say. It will be the first time that he and I are apart for more than a few hours, so we'll see how he does.

We have some new pets here, six little fish. I asked the Man what kind they are. "Cheap starter fish." he replied. They are teeny and greyish and that's the extent of our knowledge apparently. The Boy named them (not sure how the Princess was so gracious about this) and now they are called Nemo, The Boy, and Hot Wheels 1 through 4.

We had talked every once in a while about getting fish for the kids but nothing ever came of it. Then out of nowhere, the Man gleefully arrived home a week or so ago with a tank, rocks, filter, plants, fish food, plastic castle and so forth. We had new neighbors move in up the street and they put the whole kit and caboodle at the curb the first day. Guess they were tired of it or their fishies were lost in transit. Either way, we are shameless curb shoppers in this family, so home it came to be cleaned and refilled, much to the joy of our children. The only thing we needed to replace was the lid for the tank, as it was cracked.

The first night the fish were with us the Man and I were watching tv and I discovered something fantastic. The sound of the water falling into the tank from the filter could not be drowned out enough by the tv to prevent my body from constantly needing to pee. The Man promised to fix the lid or replace it. The next night the cracked lid was temporarily taped and in place and I could relax without any pressing bathroom needs. It was sometime later in our evening that we heard a loud noise come from the kitchen. The Man had just been walking into the room when one very wet and FREAKING OUT kitty came flying across the kitchen counter, crashed into the fridge and tore up the stairs. Apparently sitting his fat rump on the cracked lid was not a good idea, and he got a closer view than he had planned.

The fish won't talk about the incident but I have a feeling that Hot Wheels 3 is holding a grudge. He keeps giving the cat a fish-eye. (I know, worst pun ever, hahahaha)

New Banner & The Princess's Orthodontic Journey

I finally got around to making the new banner. I'm pretty sure I will be unhappy with it within an hour but right now all is delightful.
I took the Princess today to get a prescription from our family doctor for Valium. After many unhappy visits to the orthodontist, I'm finally giving in to my 'last resort'. She just can't seem to cope with them doing work in her mouth, and given the extent of the work she needs done, it just makes sense at this point to get her something that will help her relax about it. She has to have an RPE put in and eventually braces, and she was barely able to cope with them using cheek retractors to hold her mouth open for pictures. She was supposed to start this process a year ago but after a total core meltdown in the chair we gave up. I'm not only resorting to pharmaceutical help for her, I'm also bribing her and blackmailing her. If she does well after each visit she will get to pick out the ice cream treat of her liking. And if she does not get this work done, she will not be allowed to go to camp with her church friends. I hate to hold that over her but don't really see any choice at this point. I feel badly for the poor kid but at the same time I wish she would just get over it? (BAD BAD MAMA) I don't know how she got so delicate, it's certainly not from my sturdy side of the family.
Not too much else going on here to blog about. I got out my bike to start riding again but only got one ride in before the blessed heat wave began. I weaned the Barnacle last week which was very bittersweet for me. The Man is working a lot, summer is hot and sticky, the days are long and filled with bickering children, and I am in love with the life that I have been given. When we all cuddle up on the couch to read together each night I have my whole world in my lap, and nothing else could be as sweet.

Computer Ajuda

Hello loves.... I just wanted to let you all know that I have not evaporated. We had a lovely camping trip for my birthday, and I will talk about it soon. But for now, my laptop was lonely up at Circuit City, so the Man's desktop computer decided to join her. Once Firedog is done taking all of the college money we have saved for the children, I shall return again to entertain you. That is all.

Motorcycle Motorcycle

When I was growing up my family took a lot of road trips. My Dad was a teacher and my Mom was a homemaker, so our summers were wide open. We camped across the States and back a few times, so I've been to more national monuments & parks than probably anyone else my age. (Grand Canyon twice!) This is back in the days of manual windows and the walkman, where you prayed that your batteries would last a few more days in the car, and that it wouldn't eat your Miami Vice soundtrack cassette. Don't get me wrong, I loved my family, and we saw a lot of amazing things.... but when you are 12 and on a road trip for two months with your parents and siblings, you can kind of lose your mind a little.

At any rate, one of the things that we did to pass the time was to play Horsey Horsey. Now, for you city kids who are unfamiliar with this diverse and complex game, let me explain. You see a horse, you yell 'horsey horsey!' and whoever has the most horses at the end of the trip wins. That's it. The most excitement comes if someone sees a cemetery and yells out 'bury your horses!' and you have to start from zero. I know what you're thinking, that this game is a sad little way to amuse small children and that a 12 year old would not think this was cool. Sadly, I was that lame, and I guess my 16 year old brother was equally lame, because we all played it with vigor. And when you are traveling the great plains of America, you are bound to see a lot of horses, so the count could get up into the hundreds, with the carnage of the cemetery ever looming in your mind.

Fast forward to road trips with my own children. We don't see so many horses around these parts, given that we live in the burbs and our only road trips are 75 minutes to the campground every weekend. It may be in Lancaster County, but it's still a pretty dry game when you're traveling the turnpike. So instead, we play Motorcycle Motorcycle. This works well, but they seem to need to play a form of this game at all times now, and the competition ramps up more and more each time. On a hike this morning they changed it to Bikey Bikey and then Persony Persony. At that point we reined them in a bit and asked that we please stick to one ridiculous game at a time. On the drive home earlier tonight, the Princess gleefully suggested that we play Signy Signy. I thought that maybe we could instead just have a quiet ride home. The Man thought that maybe we could play Roadkill Roadkill instead. Not too many miles down the road however, they settled for poking each other with their feet and giggling while the Man and I turned Travis Tritt up loud enough to drown them out. The Barnacle, who clearly found all of this behavior beneath him, sat quietly in his seat with his bee (pacifier) and blankey, with only an occasional noise to request his cup.

And not to brag, but I won the day with 27 motorcycles, because no matter what the Man says you are not allowed to count the ones inside the motorcycle store.

Too Many Labels

I bet that based on that title you're thinking that I'm going to say something truly profound about the way that we pre-judge other people, and how in today's society we simply must put an end to such shallow definitions. But alas, I am not that deep, at least not right after I finish the dinner dishes and collapse into this chair to putter about the internet.
No my dears, I just have too many labels on the blog. I spent some time earlier today trying to tidy them up from their unruly state. I had a lot that were only used once that I condensed or removed. There are some however, that will remain no matter what, such as the Michael Jackson label. The cheese stands alone. Or, the crazy man-child stands alone, whatever you prefer. (Of course, mentioning it in this posting allows me to go from 1 to 2 Michael Jackson entries, thereby justifying his presence.)
I promise I will come back to this project, hopefully after I put the kids to bed tonight. I am thinking of some kind of homemaking label, so I can mush together cooking, sewing and tattoos.

Political Rambling

So we finally had our primaries here in Pennsy, which was a relief. I could not be more sick to death of political ads and discussions and this person said this and that one did something scandalous and blah blah blah. Get on with it! Add to that the fact that as a Republican, I pretty much had no say in who our candidate will be, since my state is one of the very last to vote. I don't know which of those clowns I would have picked for certain, but I'll have to live with John McCain I suppose.

My mother-in-law and I have a fun political relationship. We're definitely on opposing teams, but we like to tease each other with our party stereotypes. (I hate the environment for example, and just want to waste all of our resources! Whee!) When GWB won a second term she called me to congratulate me on 'my guy' winning. What I love about my MIL, in addition to the fact that she wore a bikini to the beach on her 50th bday, is that we can talk politics the way that everyone should be able to talk politics. Emotionally intense moral topics like abortion and the death penalty aside, most political discussions consist of people who want the best for their country & family. My MIL is a democrat and my FIL is a republican. This in itself is entertaining, but I'll save that for another day. I don't consider myself an idealist by any means, as I'm way too cynical and sarcastic to fall into that category. But I just don't see why we can't talk from both sides of the political table without it ending in bloodshed. I think this is why I'm not really a Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter fan - while I agree with a lot of their political stances in theory, I'm just not into the name calling stuff. I'm much more of a Glenn Beck fan, who is a thoughtful man when it comes to politics but doesn't tend to take himself too seriously, and has a wicked sense of humor.

I love our President, but I can find humor in GWB's foibles, and I'm not so self righteous as to not laugh when he says stuff about gynocologists practicing their love of women. One of my all-time favorite YouTube's is the Endless Love video of GWB and Tony Blair. I guess maybe I am an idealist in a way, since I don't see why we have to take ourselves so seriously when it comes to politics. Or maybe I am just sick to death of the political commercials already and will just be sticking my fingers in my ears til November. *la la la la not listening la la la*

Soylent Green is People!

Ok, that title has pretty much nothing to do with this blog post, but it's fun to say. And if it means nothing to you, then go see what Wiki has to say and try not to have nightmares. Bon appetit!

This is how I made my children insanely happy at the dinner table the other night. I turned their favorite tortellini green. For now, it's just food coloring. Little do they know that this is part of my diabolical plan to get them to eat the spinachy variety of pasta. I love it when a plan comes together! *mwahaha*

Amy's Challenge

Ok, so Amy wants me to do this fun little exercise and since she amuses me I will comply.

My middle name anagram thinger:

L: LOST - My favorite show and I'm insanely obsessed with it. I don't want to show all of my crazy, but I have a whole lot of links in my Lost favorites folder.

Y: I'm gettin hosed here, because there aren't a ton of Y words to use. All I can think of is YAMS, hahahaaa. No really, I can make this work. When we were TTC our first year of marriage, I was reading all I could about how to get pregnant. I read somewhere that something in yams could be helpful. So one night my little sister and I were in the grocery store at like one in the morning buying yams and toaster strudel and snickering like hyenas. It's one of our favorite memories.

N: Nerdy. I really am. Beyond all of the crazy wild past that I have, past all the cowgirl and tattoo exterior, I really am a big fat nerd. Example: The Man and I got our taxes done and are not so patiently waiting for our refund to arrive next week. And you know what I'm excited that I get to buy? Microsoft Word. Fa real ya'll. I think I even blogged about it yesterday too, which proves my nerdiness. It's even more exciting than when I bought my Mr. Clean broom, which was a banner day to say the least.

N: News. I'm kind of a news junkie. I read the news online a lot, and if I have the tv on while I'm doing stuff, it's always on a news channel.

Out out dreaded space!

I tried to edit my previous post about 817 times and it INSISTS on having that giant space under the picture. I am held against my will by the giant space! I have no rights!

Good Morning

It's always nice to have a decent night's sleep, wake up feeling good, roll over.... and hear the sound of your children riding their bikes out front! Even better is when you go outside to explain to them why it's NOT OKAY to leave the house in the morning without waking mommy up, and you discover that your daughter is wearing a super short pink satin hoochie dress-up skirt paired with a velvet bodysuit and heels, and your son is wearing his sister's sweater and his underwear and that's it.
These are the days when I resent having to switch to decaf!!!