Year: 2010

  • You have questions, I make up answers

    I’m sitting here trying to come up with some kind of lead in for this post, but am only drawing a complete blank. So I’ll just say that there have been a few questions that have come up and I thought today would be a good day to answer them. I can’t promise it will be interesting or enlightening because there’s a good chance I have no idea what I’m talking about. But it’s rare that I let that stop me.

    1. Several of you have asked about my new Shark vacuum.

    I bought the Shark Ultralight Multi-Vac from Target. According to the instructions, it can turn into three different types of vacuums. However, I had enough trouble just assembling the dang thing in the first place and I’m not even going to pretend like I’m going to turn it into a hand-vac for small spills. If I have to drag the thing out of the closet, then I’m going whole hog on the vacuuming.

    Before deciding on a new vacuum, I extensively researched various models on the internet for at least five minutes. The Dyson sounded great except paying that much for something that only cleans and can’t be worn on your feet seems like the equivalent of buying a shovel made out of gold. I chose the Shark because it was fairly inexpensive as far as vacuums go and I only have four small-ish rugs in my house.

    I am a fan of The Shark. Not only because it has a cool name, but because it has a clear canister where I can see all the dirt and dust that’s coming from the floor. Maybe I’m in the minority here, but it feels like instant gratification (mixed with a little bit of horror) to see all that dirt and dust while I’m vacuuming.

    (I feel the need to make sure you know that this is not any kind of a paid endorsement or anything. It doesn’t matter to me one way or the other if you buy The Shark. I believe in the freedom to choose our own vacuums.)

    2. Other people have asked about the photo apps I’m using on my iPhone.

    Listen. I have no idea what I’m doing here, but I’m enjoying messing around with the different photo settings and occasionally I’ve even managed to take a decent looking picture. One of the apps I’ve been using is called Camera Bag. Someone recommended it in the comments a few weeks ago and I fell in love. After you take a picture, Camera Bag gives you all kinds of different ways to change it up.

    All of these photos were taken with the Camera Bag app.

    These photos were taken with the Hipstamatic app. It comes with different lens and film options. Honestly, I’m still figuring it out. It can make things look really cool or just absolutely creepy and when I use it to take pictures it’s a little bit like a box of chocolates.

    The truth is that I’m really tired of my little point and shoot camera and want to move up to something a little nicer. I’m not ready to take the plunge yet because I know it will take more than five minutes of research to figure out which one to buy and a lifetime for me to learn how to actually take great pictures with it. So in the meantime I’m just using my iPhone because I always have it with me.

    3. No, P was not the pilot of the helicopter. The pilot just didn’t show up in the pictures thanks to my stellar photography skills.

    4. No, I’m not watching Celebrity Apprentice. Donald Trump gets on my nerves. I’m sure he’s a lovely person, I just don’t want to watch him on T.V. (Says the girl who watched every episode of Growing Up Brady.)

    5. I haven’t started painting my kitchen yet. No one actually asked that, but I like to keep you up to date on everything that’s not happening around here. I’m praying for a rainy day so that Shorty won’t have anything to do except float and tape the cracks in my kitchen.

    And this has nothing to do with anything, but I went to watch American Idol on the DVR last night and the description of the show came up on the screen. It said, “American Idol starring Ellen DeGeneres and some other people”. Is that not the laziest piece of television writing you’ve ever encountered? I believe someone has lost their passion for their job.

    I hope y’all have a lovely day.

  • I’ll be singing On the Wings of Love all day

    Oh, did we have a big day yesterday and not just because it was the season premiere of Tori & Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. Although really? What else could I have possibly wanted to make my quest for the perfect day complete?

    Not that I was really on the quest for a perfect day because what are the odds that a day will come when I am able to watch a marathon of Real Housewives of NY while eating chips and queso in bed and not gain even a single pound?

    So about a month ago, P mentioned that it was time for another helicopter hunt and he asked Caroline if she wanted to go with him. And she has spent the last thirty days telling anyone who will listen that she is going to ride in a helicopter. She’s also spent the last thirty days waking up first thing in the morning and asking in a voice not fit for 6:30 a.m., “IS TODAY THE DAY I’M FLYING IN THE HELICOPTER WITH DADDY?”

    P also asked me if I’d like to go up in the helicopter but my response was slightly less enthusiastic than Caroline’s. I believe my exact words were “I wouldn’t go up in that helicopter if Jesus were the pilot”. Which I guess means I’ll never have one of those bumper stickers on the back of my car declaring that God is my co-pilot. And for that I believe that God and I are both very grateful.

    But I did want to go down to the ranch and experience the whole thing. I just wanted to do it on the ground where sane people like to stay. And also people who made the mistake of underestimating their fear of heights at the Rodeo Carnival and walked around feeling seasick for three hours after deciding it was a good idea to ride the Tower of Doom.

    However, I am a strong believer in not passing down my fears and phobias and general oddities to my child. It’s why I’ve spent the last six years trying to act like carnival workers and people who are double-jointed don’t completely freak me out. And why I force myself to occasionally play something on my iPod besides Kenny Rogers’ Greatest Hits.

    Ruby, don’t take your love to town.

    Sure enough, we arrived at the ranch and there was a real live helicopter. With a propellor and everything. I felt a little bit like I just stepped on to the set of The Bachelor because they do love them some helicopters.

    (I believe this post may serve as confirmation that I am addicted to reality television. If I mention Flava Flav, feel free to stage an intervention.)

    P and Caroline walked up to where the helicopter had landed. Notice their matching safety orange shirts.

    They surveyed the situation.

    They climbed into the helicopter. I began to pray without ceasing.

    What? They get to wear headsets? I would have totally considered doing it if I’d known there were headsets involved.

    Truthfully, the headsets wouldn’t have made any difference because a chicken can’t change her spots or her feathers or whatever. (I’m resisting the urge to say I’m the coward of the county but everything comes back to Kenny sooner or later.)

    And they’re off. Flying high upon the wings of love.

    I spent the next ten minutes experiencing mild to moderate nausea until they were safely back on the ground. Judging from the look on Caroline’s face, I think it may go down as the highlight of her six and a half years.

    After the hunt was over and we all ate some lunch, we hopped into my granite countertops and Caroline drove us around the ranch.

    The wildflowers are truly unbelievable. There are only about three weeks a year when South Texas is this beautiful so I took about a hundred pictures to document it. (And, yes, I’m still experimenting with iPhoto apps.)

    I asked Caroline if she wanted to change into the pretty pink dress I’d brought along so we could take some pictures in the flowers. She looked at me and said, “NO WAY, JOSE.”

    So I’ll just have to treasure these precious memories of her in an oversized safety orange t-shirt.

    After our wildflower safari, Caroline had a little target practice. There are three less water bottles in the world courtesy of her superior marksmanship.

    And then it was time to go home. Even though she wasn’t tired AT ALL. NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT TIRED.

    Or maybe just a little.

  • An Easter sonnet

    After four Easter Egg hunts and stuffing over eight dozen plastic eggs with candy, I don’t care if I never see another brightly colored, plastic egg for the rest of my life. However, I just spent ten minutes opening up all of Caroline’s eggs in search of a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, not to be confused with a Reeses egg. It’s a controversial topic to bring up, but I find the holiday version of the Reeses don’t compare to the regular version. There’s something awry with the peanut butter to chocolate ratio. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong, but I know I’m not.

    We had a great Easter weekend even though I’m pretty sure that I never quit moving until 5:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon when P took one look at me and told me to go take a nap. So I did. For two hours. When I woke up I had no idea where I was or what was going on. Which isn’t that much different from most mornings but was a little disconcerting at 7:00 p.m. on a Sunday night. He’d already gotten Caroline in the bath and fed her dinner. That’s why I keep him around even though he tears paper towels in half and leaves the unused half on the kitchen counter for days and is also incapable of throwing away a Band-Aid wrapper. A fed and bathed child covers a multitude of Band-Aid wrappers.

    Friday was actually a pretty relaxing day. P took Caroline to the ranch with him and I went over to Gulley’s house to work on a little project. She made homemade chicken salad for us to eat for lunch and even used all white meat just for me because she understands my issues with dark meat. We spent the day catching up and listening to Will voice his concerns that the Easter Bunny might get tired from all that hopping because it’s a long way to hop from Africa to Texas. The whole discussion just confirms my theory that the Easter Bunny is a hard sell because the whole idea of a giant rabbit is difficult to swallow. I mean, is it an actual bunny with floppy ears or is it a person dressed in a bunny costume because, if so, that’s kind of creepy.

    The Cheetah Girls had a game on Saturday morning and Caroline scored her first goal of the season. We played the team from last season with the coach who wears track pants and blows a whistle so I was a little intimidated, but we held our own. And I think it goes without saying that we had the best snacks.

    After the game I asked Caroline if she was tired and she said, “I was so tired but I wanted to beat that other team so I just kept running.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we have ourselves a fierce competitor.

    We left the soccer fields and went to eat lunch at P’s mom’s house with the rest of his family. The cousins all hunted eggs and ran around the backyard smashing cascarones on various heads. No one was safe. Not even Gigi.

    (Yes, I’m currently experimenting with about three different photo apps on my iPhone. Why do you ask?)

    Eventually we headed back to our house because I had to cook and clean to get ready for Easter brunch the next day. Fortunately I have a cute assistant who is fascinated by our new Shark vacuum that replaced our sad Hoover after it confronted one too many Polly Pocket accessories and an assortment of hair clips.

    On a totally unrelated note, the Shark vacuum works much better when it’s actually assembled properly. I put it together completely backwards (I have a gift.) and couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about because it didn’t seem easy to use AT ALL and barely got my rugs clean. After P intervened and perhaps mocked my assembly skills a little bit, it works like a dream. In fact, I’m saddened to realize how dirty my rugs were before the Shark came along.

    Anyway, I cracked approximately sixty-two eggs to go in various breakfast casseroles and spent a sweet forever trying to find enough room in the fridge to store them overnight. We have a fridge in the back house that I’d normally use but it is currently filled with about 600 pounds of the antelope that P killed last week and EWW.

    By the time I finished cooking and cleaning, it was time to shower and get ready to attend a friend’s wedding that evening. Are you exhausted yet because I kind of want to lay down and take another nap just thinking about it. The wedding was beautiful and I cried a little bit because I’ve known the bride since she was thirteen and where does the time go?

    Later on, I met P and Caroline at another friend’s house and we dyed Easter eggs and also the tips of our fingers just in time for Sunday morning.

    Exhausted, we all dropped into bed and slept peacefully knowing a large rabbit/person in a rabbit costume was going to break into our house in the middle of the night to drop off some plastic eggs and a few treats. And, sure enough, the next morning there were eggs and treats aplenty.

    Fortunately, the only thing missing was sufficient lighting to take a decent photograph of all the precious memories.

    The Easter Bunny brought us another chicken that poops bubblegum this year because he thinks those are hilarious.

    And he also made a strategic error by hiding one of the plastic eggs in the chandelier. I was getting dressed for church when P came in the bathroom and told me he smelled something burning. What kind of moron forgets about a plastic egg hidden in a light fixture and then turns it on? The same kind of moron that finds pooping chickens to be hysterical.

    (Sidenote: I would guess that the smell of burning plastic filled with Reeses Peanut Butter Cups will be one of the smells in hell.)

    Finally, we all managed to get dressed and get out the door to church even though we were running late and I only had time to snap one quick picture.

    Shortly after this photo was taken, two things happened:

    1. I twisted my ankle walking down the driveway and said a decidedly un-Easter like word when I did it.

    2. Caroline decided those cute sandals hurt her feet and they were dead to her. They now fall under the category of $19.99 I’ll never see again. She wore plastic Gap flip-flops to church instead. Classy.

    However, we did have time to take more pictures once we got home from church even though the humidity had taken a toll on our hair by then. Well, except for P. A monsoon couldn’t take a toll on his hair.

    (The sandals made a reappearance for the pictures because CUTE trumps pain.)

    Then we hunted more eggs because everyone knows the sixth time is the charm.

    And my nephew Luke wore madras pants that made me so happy.

    And then Caroline spent the rest of the afternoon sorting her candy and negotiating how many pieces she could eat.

    So, yeah, it was a good Easter.

    And now I’d like to sleep for five days. Thank you for your cooperation.

  • Fashion Friday: Edition I’m taking the day off

    I hope you all have a wonderful Easter weekend with the ones you love. And I don’t just mean the Cadbury Eggs.

    “The angel said to the women, ‘Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.” Matthew 28: 5-6

  • A little of this and that

    I am sitting down for the first time since I woke up this morning. My entire Wednesday was a complete blur. I went to Bible Study, attended a luncheon where the guest speaker talked about The Genome Project (Don’t be impressed. The entire thing was completely over my head.), picked up Caroline from school, pulled out all my hair while we finished up homework, coached soccer practice, and met some girlfriends for dinner. Then I brought home the bacon and fried it up in a pan.

    Not really on the last part because bacon makes my entire house smell for three days and I try to refrain from frying bacon whenever possible.

    I am tired. And so I am resorting to a list of things to share. Chances are good you won’t care about any of these things, but I have some sort of OCD and can’t make myself just write “There will be no post today due to the fact that my brain has exceeded its capacity and this week has beat me up and left me for dead.”

    1. P left town on Sunday night to go hunting with some friends (Yes, I thought hunting season was over but apparently Robert Earl Keen was right; the road goes on forever and the party never ends.) and returned home Monday night victorious. The following is an excerpt he sent out to his friends detailing the hunt:

    We were walking through a part of the ranch that never gets hunted. There was a natural opening about 80 yards deep with a canopy of large mesquites over it. Tom did a double take on the opening in mid stride then kept going. When I got to the opening I also did a double take on what appeared to be a large, deformed mesquite. Doing a quick check with the binos revealed a huge antelope standing behind a deep “v” mesquite. I unslung the Centurion Arms 308 and dropped to a knee in one motion.

    Trust me when I tell you that the entire email was much lengthier, but I just wanted to share the portion where he “dropped to a knee in one motion”. I can’t explain why it makes me so happy. It just does. Maybe because it reads like the script from a Rambo movie.

    2. I’m doing an unscientific poll and I need your help. How many of you bought something new to wear to church on Easter Sunday? I don’t mean for your kids, but for yourself.

    I kind of think the Easter dress is a dying art.

    And, for the record, I did not buy myself a new dress for Easter. Which kind of makes me sad.

    3. Tropicana has a really fun new rewards program and BlogHer is offering a chance to win a $50 Visa Gift Card. You can read all about it by clicking here.

    That’s all I have right now. I’d like to believe it’s better than nothing, but I think I’m just kidding myself.

  • Shakespeare would be sad

    I spent most of yesterday morning running errands trying to get ready for Easter. It feels like we are supplying plastic eggs filled with candy for every Easter egg hunt within a hundred mile radius. Which can only mean one thing, that no count Easter Bunny is a total slacker. You don’t see Santa making us do all his busy work.

    So I bought eggs and candy, then I ran to the mall because our Easter Bunny has credit at the Disney Store. While I was there I felt it was my duty to look around and see if there was anything cute. And I’m sad to report that I didn’t see much. Actually I saw this beautiful BCBG top, but spending that much money on one top might cause P to vote me off the island.

    I was starving when I left the mall and stopped at Sonic for some tots and a Diet Coke. (Yes, I am back to having the occasional Diet Coke. Man cannot live on water and non-carbonated beverages alone.) As I sat in the car at Sonic, I was checking email and listening to the radio. I wasn’t really paying attention to what was on until I heard these lyrics, “I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful, but the way that booty movin’ I can’t take no more”.

    I seriously laughed out loud.

    When I got home, I searched for the lyrics of the song just to make sure I’d heard them right. Yes I had.

    Dear Sir,

    First of all, I feel the need to point out that there is no such word as “tryna”. Secondly, I believe your goal of not being disrespectful became a major fail somewhere around “booty”.

    Sincerely,
    Melanie