My First Time in Europe

I was a different person when we first moved to Scotland. I was still sarcastic and optimistic, but after living amongst British humor and an entirely different lifestyle other than 'biggger, better American living' I have become more sarcastic and more open to other ways of life. I also had a completely different idea as to what would be good travel wear on the longest flight I had ever taken.

So what did the Maggie of September 2009 do when she first moved across the country and across the pond? She thought it was best to wear a comfortable silk wrap around skirt and her comfortable leather 3 inch heels, which were actually short for her. She hated the fact that she had to wear her glasses and not show off her inherited long lashes, displayed by her typical 20 minute mascara routine, since she would be flying for so long and couldn't sleep well wearing contacts.

After a flight change in Chicago, we had one more LONG layover in London's Heathrow before our short flight up to Edinburgh, where a van awaited to pick us up. I discovered along the already 14 hours of flying that I CAN'T sleep on planes, no matter how exhausted I am! As we sat for 5.5 hours in Heathrow, I had already been up for over 24 hours, I had cabin smell, my heel on my right shoe was stripped down to the nail from the metal escalator surface, and my legs were really not enjoying being next to each other without some fabric between them. I was miserable. Chrissy even tried to tell me before I left but I pooh pooh'd her and said that this was what I was used to wearing.

Finally, after 20 some hours of travelling, we landed in Edinburgh and found the driver of the van. The wind also found my skirt and I had to play the game of holding my skirt down while pulling two 50lb. suitcases behind me, while also sporting a backpack and carrying a Ukulele and purse. We were dropped off at our B&B where we had to carry over 200lbs of luggage up a large flight of stairs and fit it in our small room. At this a point, all I wanted was a shower! I couldn't stand the look, let alone the smell of myself, so I immediately stripped down and bolted for the bathroom.

The sweat on my body started to cool rapidly as I tried turning the shower on. I hit a button, turned a dial, and got nothing. I turned the dial and turned off the button, but still nothing. I fiddled and fiddled with it but could not get a drop out of that shower! Now, patience is not a word I know well (heck, I'm lucky enough to know how to spell it!), so I frustratingly called Branden in to try and figure out how in the world to get the shower on! He did the same thing I did but for less time and then said, "Have you tried pulling the string in the corner of the room?". On the opposite corner of the room, above the sink, there was a long string hanging down from the 10ft ceiling. I looked at him as if he was crazy and may as well asked me to do a rain dance. "Why on earth would a random string hanging from the ceiling on the far side of the room turn the shower on???" I nearly shrieked at him!

Not wanting to get into a debate with his shivering, crazed, smelly, and naked wife, he simply walked over, pulled the string, and the shower came on. My jaw dropped, and even though I was happy that I could finally take a hot shower, I still stated, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen!".

I've learned a lot since then. The types of showers that you have to turn on with the string is actually really nice! They are called power showers or electric showers, and when I first saw that term, I said, "Where we come from, electricity and showers don't mix!". Our flat in Edinburgh had one and it meant we didn't have a hot water tank as the power shower heated the water as you needed it. We never ran out of hot water and never had constantly heating water sitting in a tank, sucking up our electric bill.

I also learned that heels and cobblestones don't work. Branden finally insisted that I give them up for good after picking me up off the side walk for the umpteenth time. It was a tough thing to give up since I was known back home for always wearing high, high heels for everything and had well over 50 pairs (I had to give most away when we moved). Skirts in the wind aren't pleasant either, so my dresses are basically just great closet decoration. I do still see women wear them and I've even asked them how, but I still never seem to figure out how to do it. I guess I'm just more uncomfortable with showing my nickers on a blustery day than the locals.

One thing that hasn't changed though, is my love of animal clips. A friend posted this on Facebook and I swear it's NOT a Bud Light ad...I would never encourage people to drink that crap.

Contest Winner Announcement!

I must say, you all had great ideas as to what I should now do with my Merry Christmas garland. I even had to sleep on my decision! I also had to have help from a panel of judges, aka: Chrissy, my mom, my sis, and Branden (technically Hunter was there too but he didn't exactly cast a vote). We did some slight adjustments to some of the entries and came up with a finalist list. The top 5 were (in no particular order...ok actually it's in the order they were entered)

My Rams Chest submitted by Joshua (we just changed it from My Ram Chests)

Hamsters Cry submitted by Fishducky (we changed it from Hamsters Cry Rim)

My Arms Itch submitted by Fishducky (although I didn't have support from Chrissy on this, because she was afraid that if our door was open and our housemates saw this above our bed they may become paranoid that we are horribly diseased)

Smash Time submitted by Scope (Branden personally really liked this one...he's such a guy!)

Rest My Rims submitted by Elisa (quite a good one for above a bed but also maybe strange since we don't have a car? We still liked it)

So, who will it be?? What conclusion did we come to??? For the most part, the vote was unanimous. This one got the best laughs and is the most fitting I think for our personalities.

The Winner is:

Congrats to Fishducky! I will be in touch and find out if you would prefer to claim your prize in the form of an interview with me or if you would like to share a story on my blog! 

I don't intend to leave this up until next Christmas. So, as I change it from month to month, I will choose one of the finalists and then others that I like. If I use yours, then I'll contact you that month and see if you would like to do an interview or share a story as well! It's a win win really. You can say you won something and I practically have you write my blog for me  ;)

You may ask why I chose to hang "Hamsters Cry" above my bed. I am not in support of hamster sadness or depression but it might make me happy to think of one of the adorable fuzzy creatures crying into his overly sized cheek pockets. A number of years ago, I had a friend that brought home a hamster from college. She had rescued it from living in a tiny cage in a guy's closet, as he was hiding it from the 'dorm police'. They weren't allowed to have pets on campus housing so she brought it home and I got stuck with it. Now, I love animals and think rodents to be especially cute, but this thing was not just demon possessed, he was Satan incarnate in a tiny fur suit! That monster was a biter, and the more I tried to get him used to people, the more vicious he became! 

His name was Stuart when I first got him but I changed it right away to Hannibal because of his love of human flesh. He would strike at the cage whenever he heard someone near, made my mom's knuckle bleed from a nasty bite, and later became severely racist. I started using leather gloves to handle him, and the easiest way to get him out of the cage was to just put your thick, leather clad finger into his territory and wait .000324 seconds for him to latch on to you. The only way to get him off was to shake him off. We discovered that he was a racist rodent when the friend who bestowed him upon me, tried picking him up with black leather gloves. He went nuts and attacked it more fiercely than we ever saw him strike at anything. 

Since I don't like mean nasty biters or racists, we found a new home for him. He went to a lady who bred hamsters. She introduced him slowly to the other hamsters but he ended up eating a baby hamster, so she had him put down...

...I hope it was with her cat! And I hope that cat played with him for a long time. Ok, I'm not one for animal suffering but he ATE A BABY!!! The real Hannibal didn't even eat a baby!

So yes, "Hamsters Cry" above my bed will give me sweet sweet dreams, remembering that nasty little rodent who got his come up ins!

Moral of the Story: Never be racist because you too will become a monster who eats babies!

Support My Silliness Contest! *NOW CLOSED*

My wonderful sister has had the craft bug lately, which has resulted in some fabulous things! At Christmas time she sent a little box of goodies with a Merry Christmas garland that she made. I hung it above our bed since it's a good size, matches our quilt, and it looked nice up there. Here's the thing, now that Christmas is over, I'm thinking it could be a fun to make different words out of it! Branden and I played with it last night and our favorites were "Hairy Mess", "Marry Chemists", and "I has my rest" (sounds very LOLCATZ I know!).

I'm hoping you all can give us a hand and maybe come up with something better! So here is a photo of us with the garland and whoever comes up with my favorite word or phrase can have their choice of being interviewed by me or writing a post to be published on my blog (must be family friendly please). It's a chance for you to hopefully get some more advertising for your blog and maybe some of my followers...and we all know I have the BEST followers!

Branden got glasses for the first time! I think they look great!

I'm Secretly a Crazy Cat Lady

Actually the post's title is a lie...it's not much of a secret! For most of my memory, I have had a cat. I had one cat before I was three but it ran away and then I had my kitty from the age of 3 until I had to put her down when I was 22. For those of you who don't care to do basic math in your head, she was 19. She is another story, mostly because I don't want to cry today, but even after she passed away, my sister's cat who stayed with my parents was mostly in my life until a couple of years ago when he had to finally be put down.

I may not have had tons of cats at one time but I am still crazy about cats! I miss not having a purry little fur ball curled up on my lap, I miss not being able to play with their frisky personalities, and I miss their adorable faces that are full of expression. Some day I will be able to get a cat but for now, Pinterest feeds my addiction. Here are some of my favorite funny cats:

Poor Branden has to deal with my crazy kitty addiction. He has probably had to watch more youtube cat footage than any other sane man on this planet. Despite the fact that he is allergic to cats, he is looking forward to the day that we can finally get one...but between us, I think it's mostly to get me to shut up about it finally! 

When I finally do get my much anticipated cat, I probably will transform into a greater crazy cat lady than I am now! Then I'll think a lot more seriously about things like this:

Once I finally get a kitty, you all will get to hear about my dog obsession!

And yes, we totally want a Basset!

Holy Honey Ham that's Hot!

2012 and I are not getting off on the right foot. Branden and I went grocery shopping yesterday and were happy to find that all of the big Christmas hams were 1/2 off! We bought a 3kg smoked ham with every intent of cooking it up, eating some for dinner and then having lots of yummy ham leftovers. Lunch meat is so expensive so we were looking forward to real ham sandwiches at a fraction of the price!

We have discovered the best way to cook ham is by first boiling it in Coke and then baking it with a brown sugar glaze. Since it was a smoked ham and I didn't have time to soak it in cold water overnight to get rid of the excess salt, I did the quick version by putting it in a pot of cold water and bringing it to the boil while scraping off any gunk off the top. Once it's to the boil, then I can take it out and start boiling it in Coke with a chopped onion (we used 2 small red onions) and some peppercorns. Since it was a big ham, we boiled it for an hour and half. We boiled it in the biggest pot we had but it still stuck out the top of the liquid a little bit so halfway through the boiling process, I had to flip the ham. I had a big plastic stirring spoon that I had been using, so I used that to try and shift the ham.

My big spoon managed to slip off of the ham, shooting a large spoonful of boiling Coke right down my shirt and onto my left "chest area"! I ran to the bathroom, threw my burning top off, and put a room temp damp towel on my burning area. I've heard not to put cold water on a burn so that's why I did just room temp water. Then I put some antiseptic stuff we have that is supposed to be good for burns, and then some plain lotion. Amongst all the pain of a burned boob, Branden and I were still managing to laugh about all of this. I always seem to hurt myself in the strangest ways!

Later, after our tasty ham meal, I was in an odd funk where anything Branden said or did would just irritate me to no end. I have found that the easiest ways to deal with these funks is to just be open about them and tell Branden outright that I'm in an odd bad mood. After announcing my pissy predicament, he said something sarcastically that caused me to laugh and then 'attack' him for irritating 'the monster' (aka me). My attack came in the form of tickling his ribs, but in his attempt to block being tickled, my wrist collided with his hand, pushing my palm inwards, and making loud popping sounds. Some tears later, I decided that 2012 is not very nice and I hope it get's it's Mayan come-up-ins!

Poor Branden felt so bad but it wasn't his fault. My wrist is a bit sore today and I've got some interesting red marks on my chest, but thankfully the pain is gone. I am looking forward to some ham leftovers, as I will be making tomato salad with it for lunch today and then chicken and ham casserole for dinner tonight. Mmmmm, I love ham.

Ok, maybe I don't love ham as much as these guys...

So how was your start to 2012??