Friday, December 30, 2011

My car's other job was a honey bucket


For those of you who don't know, I don't have a valid driver's license anymore and we haven't owned a car since we left the States 2.5 years ago. Sometimes I miss not having the freedom to jump into my car, turn the radio on, find a nice long country road, and drive my thoughts away...then I remember that I'm in Ireland where the petrol is about the equivalent of $8 a gallon and the roads here are terrifying since they seem more designed for micro machines and are curvy with no hedge control so every corner is a blind corner. Oh yeah, and they drive on the wrong side of the road. Another way for me to not miss driving is to go back into my archives and read stories about my past car woes. This was written back in 2005 and was when I was driving a 1990 Honda CRX. It was a fun car but then it started developing some problems...

The other night I got in my car and smelled gas...like fart gas!  It was beyond sickening and then I remembered that this has happened before. Last year in the fall, it rained consistently for a few days.  You're probably thinking that I should be used to this considering I live in the Pacific Northwest, right?!  Actually where I live, it really doesn't rain that much, so constant rain for days is out of the norm.  Anyway, when this happened last year, I distinctly remember wondering if someone pooped in my car...for some reason there is a dormant poo smell that 'comes alive' when it rains a lot! It has been raining a lot...to say the least...so my car is dominated by the scent of crap! I get in the car and almost expect to turn around and see some balding hobo, in just a greasy wife beater and boxers, eating a KFC bucket of chicken, smiling happily as he just cuts em loose in my car! 

Considering that I have no backseat, this is not possible...surprise, surprise! I've also considered leaving a hidden camera in my car to see if bums are breaking in to use it as an outhouse...Yeah, I drive a 1990 Honda Honey Bucket! I have a wonderful air fresener in the car but it only works when you turn the vents on, so the poo smell lurks until I can get the heater warm enough to turn it on!  Moral of the story:  I NEED A NEW CAR!!! 

Note to readers: Chrissy and I named the 'hobo' Chuck even though we discovered that I just had a leak in my back hatch that was making the carpet wet which apparently makes it smell like poo...it was more fun to blame it on Chuck though!

Also, go visit Melynda at Crazy World today! She is featuring two fabulous bloggers today...and I may just be one of them! Well, I'm way late for the 12hr long Lord of the Rings marathon (but it's ok because I hate the first film and have seen the second one a million times) so I'll be catching up on all of your blogs tomorrow! Happy Friday!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Joy of Christmas

And so ends another Christmas season. I was feeling good by Christmas Eve night and when Branden got home from work, we enjoyed a dinner of chicken roulade stuffed with chorizo, red pepper, garlic, and sheep's cheese. For those of you who have never had the amazing wonder that is sheep's cheese, you are missing out! It tastes nothing like goat's cheese (which is good because I loath goat's cheese) and has no gamey flavor at all. It reminds me of a soft parmesan. Anyhoo, with a side of brussel sprouts and honey carrots, we were happy campers. Our house was empty, as all of our housemates went to be with their families, so we took full advantage of the lone house and left our empty coco mugs on the coffee table in the living room over night! (we're so bad!!!)

Christmas morning was great. We slept in and relished in the fact that we had a morning and an entire day to be together. Branden had been working from Wed-Sat so we were very much missing each other by Christmas. There was no tree, no presents to be opened, and no family to laugh with, but it oddly was a wonderful Christmas morning. I suppose it just put the true meaning of Christmas into perspective as we were very grateful that we had each other and that God had taken care of us in this new adventure in Ireland. We had already received a box of goodies from Branden's parents, Chrissy, my sis & bro-in-law,  the laptop, and another box from my parents is still on the way, but the entire week, we had solely been looking forward to just being together for Christmas.

So we took our time, Branden made his famous scrambled eggs, and we just enjoyed every moment we had. At 2:00pm, we headed to our friend's house for Christmas lunch/dinner. We feasted on tons of delicious food, played lots of fun games, and laughed like loons. We had an epic game of pictionary where we drew with dry erase markers on the tiled floor and divided the teams by tipping the dining room table on it's side to block and prevent peeking. It was fabulous!

When we got home, we were able to catch my parents on Skype before they headed over to my grandparent's house for their Christmas dinner. We then Skype'd Branden's parents and got to see his brother too. Then we finally Skype'd my sis and bro-in-law, where our oldest nephew showed us some of his new treasures and the little one entertained us due to his gingerbread sugar high. It was great to finish off Christmas day with family. Even though we couldn't be with them, it was still nice to see their faces and have them be part of our first Irish Christmas.

Yesterday, I felt as if my cold was coming back. I don't think it was, but I think all the fun, chatting, and laughing from Christmas day maybe was a bit much from my previous week of laying low and resting a lot. We took it easy all day, watching TV movies, snuggling under the blankets, and looking at random stuff on Pinterest. I feel better today, I just have lots of 'leftovers' floating around my upper body. Today we will continue to take it easy with our highlight being a run to the store for groceries. Branden goes back to work tomorrow so we are enjoying the rest of our time together while it lasts.

Did everyone else have a lovely Christmas?

Friday, December 23, 2011

*Drool* *Snore* *Dream*

I don't have much time. It will be coming soon and when it does, it will take me completely. I just want to let you all know that I am feeling much better. Branden brought home a cocktail of meds from the big pharmacy in town last night and they are working wonders. I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and understand that I probably won't be able to personally wish you it on your own sites today because, it's here...

...The pills Branden brought are fabulouzzzzz.....they just make me really zzzzleeeepy....zzzo I'll be zzzpending the day like a cat....zzzo long and Merry Chrizzztmazzz....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Thursday, December 22, 2011

3 days to get better...

I'd give an update on my condition but I can't type in whine. Basically just re-read yesterday's post but imagine me with much less sleep.

This means I'm cheating on my post today and just sharing an old post from 2005. I used to do shaped posts which were kind of cool looking but super hard to do. I hope you enjoy!





                                           I  like to                                          $
                                     eat candy canes.                                   %
                              I love the peppermint taste;                           $
                       it is so good!  The fruity ones are a
                bit funky but I'll still eat them. The one thing
             that I don't like about       candy  canes is  that
            they can cut the roof         of your mouth so bad
            you may as well be           licking  a razor  blade!
            You think that  it's             just the red  coloring
            that's  starting to              run; but in reality it is
           your blood! Lucky              the peppermint covers
           the taste  of  the                blood but it also burns
          the cut really bad.               The candy cane gets a
           sharp ridge in it                  which  really hurts if a
                                                   taste bud gets stuck in
                                                    it! Then  your tongue            $
                                                   starts bleeding,adding           %
                                                   more bleeding parts in           $
                                                   your mouth.  Still  the
                                                   flavoring  covers that
                                                   yucky blood taste but
                                                   now  it's causing  your
                                                   mouth  to  burn  even
                                                   more!  Nothing  says
                                                   Merry Christmas  like
                                                   a kid  with a  smiling,
                                                   bloody mouth all due
                                                   to that  wonderfully
                                                   great holiday treat:
                                                   The candy cane! Do
                                                    you have any idea               $
                                                      how difficult this                
                                                        was to write?                   $
                                                  

*Note: this horrible mouth torture also applies to the countless amounts of throat lozenges I've been consuming. It felt like my satsuma had battery acid in it instead of citric acid this morning and my Irish version of lemon Theraflu (which means it has nothing helpful in it) made my throat even more sore. Well, Branden left me some money so I should probably shower and head to the Pharmacy.

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

*Cough* *Hack* *Sneeze*

It's another day and I'm still not feeling well. Branden did a wonderful job of taking care of me yesterday but I think he was really hoping for my sore throat to cause me to lose my voice...

I will admit it, I am completely pathetic and miserable when I'm sick. Whenever I was sick growing up, my mom would get me cozy on the couch, let me watch tv all day, and bring me anything I wanted. Branden's mom did this to him too but he didn't enjoy it so much. He said that he would go crazy just laying around all day...I find that silly.

I sometimes think that he knows me too well for us to only have been married for 2.5 years. Although I think we spend more time together than most any other newlywed couple. We had a conversation last night in bed that had me laughing and amazed at how well he knew my mind.

Branden: You are already needy when you aren't sick but when you are sick, you get extra needy. (note: "Needy" isn't a bad term in our house. It usually refers to our need to be cuddled and loved on) Any little thing can cause you to go into a tantrum. Like when I gave you your hot toddy and you tried to put it on your side table but there was another mug in the way.

Me: (In my head I'm thinking, Oh yes, I had too much stuff on my side table so there was only one place to put my mug...but another mug was in the way and I didn't know what to do. All I did was let out one miserable moan of frustration and Branden seemed to know instantly what my "dilemma" was.")


Branden: That's why when you whined, I instantly told you to just hand me the empty mug. You were on the verge of losing it just because a mug was in your way! If you weren't sick, you would have just put it over on the dresser but when you are sick, you can't seem to make any extra effort and expect everything to be done and perfect for you.

Me: (laughing at how scarily spot on he was) That is exactly what I was thinking! It's kind of freaky that you know me this well. I'm sorry you have to deal with me when I'm sick and miserable. You take such good care of me.

So yes, I am a miserable whiner when I don't feel good. Luckily Branden knows how to deal with me well enough but he's off to work all day today so I have to handle my tantrums on my own...and my night table is still cluttered...

So who wants to come take care of me???

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Maybe there is such a thing as too much chocolate?

Somehow yesterday, I completely forgot to also mention my string of lights that I made from needle felting.


It's hard to see but I have blue, red, yellow, and green felted bulbs sewed to a cord. I have made other ornaments but I just haven't taken photos of them.

Today is a weird day. I got a lot done yesterday, we sent out the boy's toys, went to the bank, and even met up with some friends for the most amazing hot chocolate. I had a cinnamon dark chocolate and it was practically like drinking 3 melted chocolate bars...which isn't as good as it sounds. It was so thick, I started to feel a bit sick and had everyone else help me finish it. As Branden and I walked home, I started to feel more sick and more sick. I ended up sticking close to the bathroom for a few hours and then I went to bed at 7:30pm.

I don't know what it is about sleeping while sick but I always seem to dream that I have a lot to do, so then I end up having very stressful and restless sleep. Finally at 3am, I took advantage of something fabulous that Chrissy sent me and I just got on Saturday...Tylenol PM! It was a generic version but worked wonders! We don't have fabulous things like that over here so I was grateful to have it last night.

My stomach is better today but I still feel off. My throat is scratchy and phlegmy and I am wiped out. I think my body is debating on either to give me a cold or a flu but is taking it's time deciding. Luckily Branden has today off so he's been taking care of me.

Well, I may just take a nap. Hopefully my body doesn't decide to kill me as a third, random option. There are lots of fun Christmas movies and shows on so at least I will die happy. Too bad nobody over here knows what "A Christmas Story" is so I can't flip to a 48hr marathon of it at any given time.

Monday, December 19, 2011

6 days to go folks!

Less than a week until Christmas!!! That means my nephews probably won't get their toys in time because we are finally getting in to the post office today...oops! Bad Auntie Moo and Uncle B!


Hunter wanted some more needle felted dinosaurs to go with the two that I made for his birthday. I had a bit of fun making them and I think he'll really like them too.


The yellow one is my attempt at a brachiosaurus and the blue one is my attempt at a triceratops. Here's another angle of them.


For Brady, I made him a stuffed penguin that he can chuck at his brother, bite its head, or stomp on it if he wanted to.



I just hope he doesn't pull the tail off as soon as he gets it. The red blotch by his tail is a heart. I had to put some mushy Auntie thing on it.

Oh and as for the gloves I made out of an old sweater, which I also made the penguin out of the same old sweater, here's a shot of those.


Branden had to tie the bows because I suck at bows. Anyhoo, I hope you all have a fantastic week leading up to Christmas and my shared music today isn't the normal music type thing. It's actually a really cute video I saw on a friend's facebook page but it does have a cutsie song at the end so I'll call that close enough. This is a video of the Christmas Story told by some adorable Australian kids. I couldn't get over how sweet they were, how cute the sheep were, and how miserable the poor donkey must have been! I hope you enjoy it! We got a bit of a laugh out of it!

Friday, December 16, 2011

Christmas via My Brain

Wahoo! It's Friday! I know that this typically means nothing to me since my 'forced retirement' when we moved here in March, but it does mean something for Branden! Finally after weeks and weeks of him sitting at the desk, looking totally sexy and taunting me with his wavy hair and good style typing out the first chapter of his PhD he turned it in this afternoon, which means he can pay more attention to me relax and be done with school for a while! Of course he still has work and he will be working more over Christmas as most of his co-workers are taking time off and he's covering for them, but at least his mind can be a bit more at ease and he'll stop using such big words all the time.

He had me edit his chapter yesterday. Considering that my most exciting read in the past few months has been Wind in the Willows, I decided that I should get my thinking cap out. It took a bit of searching, but when I finally found it, it was half buried in dust, some mice had chewed some holes in it, and I'm pretty sure it shrunk. After 3 hours of praying that there were no spiders in the cobwebs, I plucked up the courage to put it on and start editing...all 21 pages...

Talk about a killjoy! Currently he's writing about representations of the Virgin Mary in the Nativity scene in late medieval Ireland, and considering the time of year it is, reading this sucked a bit of magic out of the season! Now I won't be able to sing "Away in a Manger" because when I get to the part where we sing, "...but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes..." I will just be thinking, "The Biblical account gives no detail to how Jesus was as a baby but because a Franciscan monk back in 1300 or something, decided that the Son of God would not be a baby who cried, we have stuck this idea into our Christmas carols!". Sure it's a nice idea that Jesus slept through the night and never cried but how would he have notified the mortals around him that he had pooped? Did the Franciscan monks consider a crying baby to be unholy but a pooping baby was totally fine?

And don't even get me started on Mary breastfeeding! Branden has a huge section on that because there were a lot of depictions of Mary breastfeeding baby Jesus and some of them are quite hysterical!


I suppose now that I know the meaning and significance behind this type of image I can't laugh as much, but the first time I saw images like this in Branden's text books, I was giggling like a hyena! Basically, the "simplified Maggie version" is that back in medieval times, breast milk was considered to be white blood. So Mary was giving her blood to Jesus by breastfeeding him and thus when he died and shed his blood for all of humanity, Mary's blood was part of that, thus making her a key role to salvation in the church at that time. Images, like the one above, show her milk to have healing powers and to be sacred, as Jesus's blood was considered.

Ok, now that you have all learned something for today (some of you should probably wake up now and stop drooling on your keyboards), I can basically sum up my frustration in that most all of our Nativity scenes and ideas of how the Christmas story went came from late medieval monks. Now that I have read where they actually came up with their ideas and philosophies, I am forever ruined. Ignorance really is bliss!


Oh, and on a side note, Branden will also be looking at representations of Mary at the foot of the cross so now my Easter will be ruined as well!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Google Hits Make Me Giggle

My world could not look anymore picturesque at the moment. I have a nice warm, winter sweater on, my fluffy white comforter is keeping my toes toasty as the winds howl at the window, and both me and my husband are plopped on the bed engrossed in our own laptops! Of course the stuff on his laptop screen is much more boring as he types away at his school work, but mine is full of blog friends, facebook, and my addiction: Pinterest! Oh, and did I mention that my laptop is bigger than Branden's...

Ahhh, life is sweet and nothing can spoil it...oh wait, the house cleaner just arrived, and as usual left the front door wide open regardless of the fact that we have 65-75mph winds, it's freezing outside, and our heater only comes on for about an hour, 2 times a day! Branden went out and closed the door (after she had already been here for a good 5 minutes) and tried to tell her to close the door, but she speaks very little English...see, it doesn't just happen in America! First World problems, I know, but it's not like I even arranged for this person to come clean the house. It's my landlady's staff and I'm sorry but they suck. It would be less bother if they just soaped a cat and dog up and let them loose in the house to chase each other... things would probably be more clean that way too. I'm really hoping our landlady comes by because she is the only one who has a key to the heating system, and despite complaining already, has yet to change the heating settings from what they were back in October! Plus, she has this ridiculous thing about having the water heater shut off from 10am-4:30pm, but somehow it has changed and we sometimes don't have hot water again until 7pm. I have taken many a cold shower since living here and no, it still doesn't inspire me to wake up any earlier. We also have mold in our room and bathroom. A lot of my American friends would flip out over this thought but I have yet to find a place that doesn't have mold over here (including Scotland). The air is just damp, no matter what the temperature, and my windows are dripping with condensation every day (we even have nice double paned windows!). I have found the easiest way to defrost my windows is to put candles on the sills...except I am out of candles at the moment...handy.

What contrasting paragraphs! Sorry for my rant. I just needed to get that off my chest. I actually did have something for your enjoyment planned today. My blog stats have been basically doubling ever month and it does have a bit to do with all of the search engine hits I get now. Branden and I love looking at my search engine hits since they can be so random and hilarious! Here are some recent ones along with my commentary.

statue with ugly christmas sweater: I love the thought of the Lincoln Monument dressed to the nines in a 3D, light up, Rudolf, tinsil attrocity! That would be quite the hit, but I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon, so I wonder what this searcher was expecting to find? The only statues I know of that get dressed up are the statues in Fremont (Seattle) by the bridge. Random people love dressing those statues up and it's pretty awesome actually!

I suppose I could understand that person's quest, but the person looking up perverted ugly christmas sweaters...ewwww! I hope when you found my site from your searching that it chewed you out and washed your brain out with soap!

Moving on, do you remember my rant about leotards? This caused a slew of google hits, including these doozies:
fashion leotards:  I find this to be an oxymoron
men in leotards/leotard man:  why?why?why?
platypus leotard:  ummm....? Where do you even come up with that?

Do you also remember my rant about idiots on Pinterest who didn't know anything about animals?? That is the reason for this next search hit.
baby owls have long skinny legs:  and I'm so glad you know that dear searcher, because then you would know automatically that the photo of the 'baby owl' wasn't legit since it had tiny baby hampster legs! I have come to the point where I don't even look at the nature or pet section on Pinterest anymore because too many people are insanely stupid and gullible. For instance:


This has been all over Pinterest and labeled: "Baby llama OMG!"...do you see how small those blades of grass are??? Did you not ever have a grandma with creepy stuffed toys all over her house??? It's just a toy!

Maybe my ranting has been all brought about by these slightly insulting searches that have managed to find me:
blogspot humiliation:  am I that bad that I should feel humiliated? Did a post have toilet paper stuck to the bottom of it and I didn't notice?? I know Branden hasn't been able to edit all of my posts lately but is my grammar that bad??
gross girl:  my hair is still wet from my shower, I'll have you know! I am far from gross and I have a husband to prove it (oh wait, so did half of the Jerry Springer guests...although some 'spouses' were livestock)

Although, I will say that I felt my blog status raised to a new level of cool when it was discovered usuing this google search:
omg don't tell superman:  That's right! He'd be pissed to find out that I was much cooler than him! True, my site has a smaller following than Superman, but apprently Google recongnizes that I am a threat...

And finally, just another way for my husband to show off that he's a genius:
смешные новогодние картинки: I looked at this and thought, "What in the world??? Where in the world???" and Branden takes one look at it and pipes up with, "Oh, it's Russian!". (show off!) And of course he was right too. I put it through a Russian translator to discover that my Northern readers are finding me by looking up "funny Christmas pictures". It's good to know they still have a sense of humor and it hasn't frozen off after many a cold winter spent in Russia!

Monday, December 12, 2011

Overjoyed and a bit Overwhelmed

After much excitement and a bit of waiting, my new laptop has arrived! It was also an exciting morning as our Christmas box from my in-laws arrived so Branden and I felt a bit like kids on Christmas morning today! We also got our first Christmas card in the mail. It was from my grandparents which was sweet. I have always been close to them and it's always hard this time of year to be away from them. From the time I was born, every year my family would have Christmas Eve dinner with my grandparents and dad's family, go to the Christmas Eve service at their church, and then spend the night at their house so we could have Christmas morning with them. Since my sis and I were the youngest of their grandkids, they loved getting to continue the fun of having Christmas with little ones. We always had so much fun and Grandma and Grandpa loved to sit back and see Katie and me get all excited over our toys. We had the year when I was 3 that we got our kittens, then a bit later we had the year where we got our baby buggies, and then a little later we had the year that Katie and I confused all the adults by eating the cookies and drinking the milk before they did...so much fun and so many memories. I spent Christmas Eve night at their house every year until I was 22 and at that age, I lived only 2 houses down from them but still walked over to keep up the tradition.

After Christmas morning at Grandma and Grandpa's house, we would then drive over to my mom's side of the family to enjoy more presents, food, and fun with my Granny, Aunt, Uncles, and cousins. We were quite close to both sides of my parent's families, especially since most of them lived in the same area, and I feel very blessed for that. Now we are all grown up and have a slew of little ones taking up the next generation. My grandparents on my dad's side have (if I am counting right) 24 great grand kids and Granny on my mom's side has 6. We are a bit more spread out now but we still have a deep connection filled with lots of great memories.

Fun with some cousins: (from left to right) Me, Bonny (our Irish Setter), Colby, Katie, Jennie

This will be my second Christmas in a row being away from family which is a bit tough since I do miss them a lot and we had such a great tradition of being together at Christmas. Branden and I won't be alone though. We will be spending Christmas with friends and their families so we do feel very blessed this Christmas as we did last Christmas when a friend from the US stayed with us. As some of you may have figured out by now, I love Christmas music and one of my favorite Christmas albums is Third Day's Christmas Offerings. There is one song at the end of the CD though that manages to make me cry EVERY TIME I hear it! It's about adoption but it always makes me think of how my parents must be feeling to not have me or my sis home for Christmas and so I can't help but lose it knowing how much they miss us. Dang! I can't even write about it without losing it!

*tissue break*

Anyway, I do feel very blessed this year, especially now since I'm sitting on my bed, surrounded by blessings bestowed on me by such wonderful people and the mail service didn't dropkick through my front door! It's been a tough year for Branden and me but we have grown so much, made such wonderful new friends, and seen miracle after miracle and blessing after blessing. If you get to be with your family for Christmas this year, give them some extra hugs. There are a lot of us out there who wish we could simply do that on Christmas day.



Oh, and if anyone thinks that I have turned into a Country Music lover, I will chuck a candy cane at you because Third Day isn't actually a country band (they can just get a bit twangy every once in a while!).

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

My Wild Party Days...

Growing up in a town with a city population under of 5,000, with a majority of that population being senior citizens, there wasn't much to do...there still isn't. A lot of my childhood activities included hunting and fishing with my dad. I was his tom-boy, so I've been bear hunting, deer hunting, grouse hunting, salmon and trout fishing, crabbing, shrimping, and clamming. When I got to high school, my girly friends and I had to come up with other things to do.

There was a 'dance club' but only sad cases (or as we loving called them, "losers") went there, so that was out. Restaurants closed at about 8:30pm, except one that was open till the wee hours of 10pm, so that was out too. The next town over did have a 24 hour cafe open but it was at the docks and lots of creepy, grimy men went there...so not a chance. We liked to try to stay up all night so we needed some form of entertainment, and the only places open for 24 hours were the grocery stores!

On a Friday night, me and the girls would watch a movie and chat till about 2am, when we just couldn't take being in anymore; then it was off to the grocery store, blanket in hand. We would usually buy some cookies or something to snack on, lay the blanket in the magazine isle, and sit, snack and read magazines for a while! It was late, so no customers would come in, and we were welcome company for the bored employees. When one of our stores was under construction, we went there and would talk to the construction guys. We read them their horoscopes and did quizzes; it was actually pretty fun!

There were always other things we could have been doing but none of us were party people, and our parents trusted us and gave us the freedom we craved. In high school, I only went to one party and it was by random chance. A group of us were hanging out when someone got a call from their friend who was at a party, drunk, and needed to be picked up. So we all piled into the car, parked it in a store parking lot down the road, walked to the party and tried to find him in the smelly, nasty mess of drunk teens. When we finally did find him, we heard someone yell, "If you aren't 21 you better run cuz the cops are here!" Since my friends and I hadn't been drinking, except the one we were picking up, we didn't know what to do. I looked at my friend Alicia and with a smile said, "What other chance are WE ever going to get to run from the cops?"

So we took off through a field, someone lost a shoe, I got my leg tangled in a blackberry bush, but we made it to the car and it was one of the most fun things we did! What a rush! I went home that night and woke my mom up to tell her, she laughed and said we were dorks!

Now that you know what kind of a party girl I am, I find this video a bit fitting. A friend of mine here shared it with me and I died laughing! He has other videos too but I still thing this is the best one.




Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Oh Husband, You Make Me Laugh

One night, Branden was done writing so I had the computer. I was sitting on the bed, checking my email, when I noticed something odd. Branden was standing next to the bed, facing his night stand, and was lunging towards it with his foot. He stomped in front of the night stand and then drew his leg back, and stomped again...and again.

Curiosity getting the best of me (and terror that he could be trying to kill a big bug!), I finally asked, "What in the world are you doing?"

He just looked at me with a quirky smile, pointed to his mug of water, and replied, "I'm playing Jurassic Park!"

I laughed at him, but I can't deny never trying to recreate the T-Rex scene with a glass of water. (Please tell me you have done this too!)



The next funny thing with Branden will be worded into a Tip of the Day:

Brushing your teeth is never an appropriate time to try and blow out a candle!

If he wasn't so high into his education, I might worry...

Monday, December 5, 2011

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! I have blogged!

Since I still have a bit of a waiting until my new laptop comes (eeeeeee! I still can't believe it and am so excited!!!), I spent a decent part of Saturday preparing blog posts for this entire week. Branden worked Saturday so that gave me unlimited internet time, and I even got to read a few friends' blog posts (I miss you all!!). So what has Branden been hogging the computer for in the first place, you ask? He's been writing an essay that's going to become the first chapter of his PhD dissertation. This means he's past the 'read for months' stage and is now into writing mode...for the next 2.5 years! This laptop couldn't come at a more perfect time!

Besides Branden taking the laptop and disconnecting me from the world, he also is a big doodie head and won't let me have a kitty, or a puppy, or a tiger (there's a commercial on TV that says for just 2 euros a month we can adopt a tiger!). Ok, so the landlady is the bigger doodie head because we can't have pets at our house, which I hate to admit makes sense because it's a shared house and people may have allergies, yada yada yada, but I like to blame someone who can hear me and Branden is typically the only one around. He asked me the silly question of where we would even keep a tiger, but I pointed out the obvious: we have a king sized bed! Who wouldn't want to cozy up to a tiger every night? Then he asked how we would feed it, but yet again I was quick to answer. We'd just take it to the dog park! It's not an official dog park. It's just a park nearby that lots of people let their dogs run wild in, so we'd really be helping to enforce the leash laws (if they have them in Ireland). He's still against the tiger thing, so in true Christmas spirit, I'm going to try for something different. 



The funny thing about this song is that my nickname with my fabulous best friend Chrissy is "hippo". It all came about when a very skinny friend of ours complained about her body and we sarcastically stated, "Yeah, you are such a whale!" She found this quite funny and it made her feel better so we all came up with fat animals for nicknames. I became "hippo" and Chrissy became "water buffalo". It really does put things in perspective if I'm complaining about my legs and Chrissy says, "Well you are a hippo you know!" I generally feel much better after that because seriously, have you seen the size of hippo legs?? At least God made me a human and not a hippo, so I shouldn't complain.

Anyhoo, I hope you all have a wonderful Monday! I can't promise I'll get to read your blogs this week or comment back, but thanks to Joshua and the wonderful person who covered the shipping, I should be able to be back and running sometime next week! (if you haven't gone and kissed his feet on his blog yet, you must do so now!) Also, pray that the best of the best mail crew handle the precious laptop...most post seems to be handled by a bunch of armless orangutans. Here's to hoping it arrives working and in one piece!

Friday, December 2, 2011

My Beloved Blog Family

I only have a couple of minutes before I have to rush out to a birthday party but I had to share. My heart is so full and ready to burst! After my post just 2 days ago, Joshua from Viva La Nerd emailed me to let me know that he had worked on his spare laptop, got it all ready for me, and even had a 'gracious benefactor' offer to pay the shipping! He shipped it off this morning so I will probably have it sometime next week!

I will admit, I read his email and cried. I am just so overwhelmed by the wonderful people in my blogging community and am very grateful for all of you in my life. Branden had to talk me into blogging again back in April but I'm so glad I did it! I have met such wonderful people who, even though we've never met face to face, I consider to be dear friends of mine.

Thank you so much Joshua and thank you generous benefactor for this wonderful blessing that you have given to me!