11/2/12 Yes Virginia, There Is a Halloween

So I know I kind of left it on a cliffhanger last time- the question on everyone's mind (and by "everyone's" I mean only me of course) was will she or won't she?  When we last left our heroes, ZB was refusing to wear the hat of her Halloween costume.  We'd been trying to get her to wear it for the entire month of October to no avail.  I wasn't sure what we were going to do if she balked on the big day.  It was quite the nail biter.

But! I am happy to report that on Halloween morning ZB got up and let me put her costume on her, hat and all, like it was no big deal.  Was it because she knew that it was finally the right day to wear a costume?  Was it because it was cold and she was glad to have a hat on her head?  Did she see that vein throbbing on Mommy's forehead and decide to cut her a break?  Who knows what goes through a toddler's mind?

Anyway.  I officially present...two scary and ferocious monsters!

And one of the ferocious monsters is blowing you a kiss.

ZB's costume was available commercially where all fine baby Halloween costumes are sold.  Last year Mom made her lion costume for her, but she (meaning Mom) is having back problems and can't sit at her sewing machine for any length of time, so no free sewing labor for us this year. (Boo!)  So I ran through all the costumes at Babies R Us and Walmart and Target and anywhere else that was like, "we sell overpriced poorly made polyester costumes that your child will wear exactly once!"  And this one caught my eye because it was just so gosh darn cute.  And made halfway decently.  And not obscenely overpriced.  So I was all, "Monsters it is!"

I mean seriously.  Have you ever seen anything cuter in your life?

The only problem was that the hat was a teeny bit big and the "teeth" kept slipping over her eyes.  Surprisingly (and hysterically), ZB's instinct is just to take off running blindly when this happens.  

My costume was a little harder.  Can you believe that they don't make adult monster costumes?  (Actually, that's a lie.  They do.  I found a couple on a website that sells fantasy lingerie.  For all your monster fetish needs, I suppose.  But it isn't really the kind of monster outfit that you can wear to take your child trick or treating.)  So I improvised.  Really improvised.  First of all, it's hard to find purple fur around here.  And if you do, it's something like $18/yard.  Which is crazy.  So I used a blanket instead.  I'm serious.  In the teen bedding section of Walmart, they have all these assorted furry pillows and throws and whatnot.  And they are much cheaper than $18/yard (I think $14 for two or so yards worth...and lined!), so I bought a purple throw and cut it up.  Instant monster fur.  

Secondly, I'm kind of self-taught when it comes to sewing.  My skill level is somewhere around "hem a pillow case".  I couldn't read a pattern if my life depended on it.  So I made up my own.  The skirt is based on a wrap-around skirt that I had in my closet, the leg warmers are just material that I wrapped around my legs, sewed the seams together and put elastic band at the top.  And the hat was me literally laying my head down on the material and tracing around it with a pencil for the size.  I'd sew some parts together, eyeball it, and go, yeah, those sides look mostly even.  Plus, monster fur is very forgiving.  It's so fuzzy you can't see the seams anyway, so no one has to know about that zig-zaggy spot where the sewing machine got away from me a little.  

Standing together, we are monsters.  Alone, I look like a giant purple bath mat with horns.

So those are our Halloween costumes for this year.  I think they turned out well considering that they were almost not to be.  Hopefully she'll remember how much fun she had this year and not fight me so much about it next year.  A Mommy can dream anyway.

Trick or Treat!

8/29/12 This is the Reason Why They Don't Let Cats Up in Space

I'm frantically cleaning the house because Stanley Steamer is scheduled to come by this afternoon to clean the stain off of the new mattress.  (And yes, I clean for cleaners.  A regular run of the mill mess if fine for my family.  We can be rolling around in dust three inches thick, but to have the possibility of some pimply-faced high school kid making minimum wage with a scrub brush and a hose come in to clean my mattress and be all like, "When's the last time this lady dusted?" is just flat out unacceptable.  I mean, I have standards here.)

(I should mention that I have no idea what Stanley Steamer people make.  They are probably handsomely compensated for their time and stain fighting expertise.  The minimum wage thing was just a guess.  I could probably look it up, but at this point I've spent more time going on and on about it than the whole thing warrants.)

Anyway, the whole reason why Stanley Steamer is coming is because we bought a new mattress a few months ago.  And because new mattress warranties are voided by any kind of stain whatsoever, we bought the super-duper money-back guaranteed waterproof mattress pad protector.  It has a 10 year warranty!  It has space age polymers!  It will protect your mattress through the Apocalypse!  So we bought one.  

And then we unleashed the cats.  

Here's something you should know about the cats.  Cats have hairballs.  Five times the cats equals five times the hairballs.  And on top of that, Dixon has a nervous stomach, which means that if ANYTHING unexpectedly changes in his environment (we go on vacation, we change laundry detergent, the full moon corresponds with the third Monday in a month ending in R), he will pull a Linda Blair all over your bed/floor/nicely folded pile of clean laundry in seconds flat.  So we asked the mattress sales guy if this mattress pad protector was up to that challenge, and he was like, "Oh absolutely!  Money back guarantee!  Did you see the part about the space age polymers?"

And to be fair, the mattress pad protector did manage to protect the first 9 times that a random cat (cough Dixon! cough!) barfed on the bed, but I'm afraid that time number 10 just did it in.  Even space age polymers can't handle that rigorous of a barf, wash, repeat cycle.  So now there's a cat barf stain on the mattress.  We called the pad protector people, and they were shocked! SHOCKED I say! that their space age polymers were bested by cat barf.  And I was all, "Yeah, that's the precise reason that Dixon flunked out of the space program...incompatible with polymers." (Which I thought was pretty funny, but it just seemed to confuse the mattress pad people, so I let it drop).  Meanwhile, what are we supposed to do about this stain on our new mattress?  In the end, the mattress pad people offered to send us a new mattress pad protector (now with more polymers!) and pay to have people come out and remove the stain from the mattress.  Which is why I am frantically cleaning the house in expectation of Stanley Steamer coming to pay us a call sometime between noon and 5pm today.  Of  course, the sound of the vacuums and cleaners and whatnot will scare Dixon enough that he will barf on the bed again, so it's all a vicious cycle.  Those space age polymers better be out of this world.

8/1/12 Sympathetic Couch Twitching for the Gold

What? Oh hey, Internets! Glad you found me. It's been radio silence over here lately because last week we took ZB on vacation for her first trip to the beach. We had a blast and I'll tell you all about it but first I have to edit some video. (Yes, it will be a multi-media presentation since ZB LOVES sand and she LOVES the water and she's just too darn cute to be limited to still photos).


(But first I have to cut out the random shots of my feet and the sky and then quickly back to my feet).


(And the two minutes that I thought the camera was off so you get a close up shot of my right nostril while you hear me say riveting things like, "This sand gets everywhere!" and "Hold on. I think there's some sun screen on the lens".)


(Obviously this is Emmy winning material).


But all that is coming later.  Right now I'm completely glued to my tv set as I bob and weave my way though the uneven bars routines from the comfort of my couch.  Ya'll, I am a total Olympics junkie.  Biking, swimming, synchronised diving, fencing, judo, beach volleyball, men and women's gymnastics...I've watched them all.  And I feel like I've competed in them all since apparently I cannot sit still while the US is competing.  I duck my head, I wave my arms, I tuck my legs up in time with the athletes.  Tony actually left the living room and went upstairs last night because he said that my "help" with Gabbie's dismount from the beam almost knocked him off the couch.


And in case you are also tucking and rolling with me, I'd like to recap some of my couch Olympics favorite and/or interesting moments:


1.  I'm bawling like a baby over the girls gymnastics. And not just over the All-American Jordyn Weiber fiasco. Not about them winning gold anyway.  Not even just for the Americans.  Just in general.  Something about these tiny girls trying so hard just gets me every time. They train and they train and they train and they are so small and strong and young and...I could just scoop up every one of them and give them a big hug.  Not that NBC is helping any with their constant back stories about how they had to move across country without their families to train with coaches that could get them to the Olympics. Swimming? I'm fine. Synchronized diving? Not so much as a sniffle. But these 16 year old girls flying through the air doing flips and leaps? I'm sobbing like I'm the one who just won or lost the gold. I don't know why they get me like they do.  I'm a blubbery mess.


2. Did you see where Great Britain's Bradley Wiggins won gold in the road cycling time trials?  I was feeding ZB breakfast at the time he was racing so I didn't get to watch/couch cycle with him, but I listened to it as I cleaned mashed banana up off the floor.  I'm glad he won.  I always root for the host nation if the US isn't in medal contention.  That goes double for Great Britain, since they always seem to come in 4th for everything. Plus I just like saying the name Bradley Wiggins.  It sounds so English, doesn't it?  Wiggins.  Like he's Paddington Bear's best friend or something.  


3. I read an article the other day that said that the organizers provide 100,000 condoms to the athletes in the Olympic village.  (Up from 70,000 at the Sydney games when they had to order another 20,000 when they ran out).  Apparently when you put 10,000 young, attractive, fantastically in shape and mostly unsupervised athletes under a lot of pressure together, they erm, find a way to get rid of that excess energy.  I guess some of that's to be expected, but 100,000?  That's a lot of excess energy.


4. So what the heck is going on between the sets for men's beach volleyball?  All these couples in swimsuits are waltzing around on the sand.  Like, literally waltzing.  I'm assuming it's some kind of weird halftime show?  Instead of cheerleaders or bands they have beach waltzing?  That cracks me up.  Those crazy Brits!


5. This doesn't have anything to do with this Olympics, but if you get a chance, read this article in the Atlantic about a gold medalist in the 1896 Olympics in Athens.  It's crazy how things have changed between then and now. 


6. Did you know that they used to have an Olympic swimming obstacle course race?  I'm not sure how they did it, (buoys? nets? underwater mines?) but I wish they still had it, because I think that would be awesome to watch.  I like to watch swimming, but sometimes it gets boring watching them just splash back and forth in their straight little lanes.  Let's put a ring of fire at the end that they have to jump through.  I'm thinking a cross between the 200 meter freestyle and that show Wipeout.  Get on that Olympic committee.


7.  Oh my goodness.  Did you see the Chinese synchronized diving?  Blew my mind.  How many hours and hours of training do you think that takes to be able to not only do a complex dive, but to do it exactly like someone else?  And the other teams get ready and go, "Okay on three.  One, two, three!"  The Chinese just stand on the end of the board and say one word, which I'm assuming is just "go".  And then they go.  Together.  Perfectly.  I kept jumping up and down and going, "Did you see that?!?  They even have identical water ripples!"  I tell you, these athletes blow my mind.  


I realize it's weird to stop on the number seven, but I can't think of any other Olympic moments right now.  If you have some, feel free to add them to the comments.  I'm sure there are some great ones that I've left out, but after staying up half the night to watch the Latvian underwater basket weaving team weave their reverse double-loop way to gold, my Olympic reflexes are a little fuzzy.

7/19/12 Hair Today, Gone...Well, Today

When the weather gets tough, the tough...chop off all their hair.  Well, maybe not the tough- they probably don't even sweat when it gets hot.  But the quirky do, so this Quirk went straight to the salon and went, "It's 100 degrees outside! Get it off my neck! Get it off! Get it off!" and hoo boy did they ever!

Jared, the most awesomely awesome stylist ever (and available at StudioVisage in Market Square for my fellow Knoxvegas peeps) was all, "Ohmigod honey, with your cheekbones you are just going to loooooove this haircut!"  (And before you think I'm stereotyping male hair stylists, know that that is exactly how Jared is and exactly what he said and I love him for it). And then he cut off all my hair. But in a good way.


It's the first time I've had bangs since I was six, and I have no idea what it will do if I let it air dry and go curly (although Jared assures me that it will look "just fahhhhhbulous" curly) but I like it. It's fun, it's kicky, and it's off my neck for the summer.


And now the big reveal:


(Oh but first, ignore the horrible photography.  It was one of those hold-the-camera-up-at-arms-length-and-click self portraits.  And I'm standing by the front door because that's where the natural light was and I have no makeup on and apparently I really need to get a better night's sleep because the dark under eye circles are like zombie apocalypse much? But you don't care about any of that because you're supposed to be admiring the hair anyway).

So yeah, the hair:

The side view.

The back view.  Notice no hair on the neck.

The front view.  Remember that you're ignoring the no makeup and looking at the hair.

So that's my hair (if anyone has made it this far because I know the topic of my hair is just RIVETING and all).  But if you are interested in a new look and if you have cheekbones like mine (at least, according to Jared) then you might want to look him up and let him have a go with your locks.  I promise you'll look faaahhhbulous!

(Just, you know, make sure you get a good night's sleep before you take the picture).

7/9/12 No Baby Ducks Were Harmed in the Making of this Mattress

Well ladies and germs, I don't know how your weekend went, but ours rocked because Tony and I (and I guess the cats) are now FINALLY proud owners of a new mattress. And let me tell you, it is like sleeping on baby ducks walking on clouds with little cotton balls stuck on their heads.

(Which, in case you haven't done, is a good thing.)

(Well, I'm assuming it is.  Truth be told, I haven't really tested the whole baby-duck-on-a-cloud thing either, but I'm pretty sure it would be soft, so just go with it).

Anyway.

The new mattress is wonderful, and long overdue.  Our old mattress was a) 10 years old and b) not really suited to our sleeping styles and c) not the best quality in the first place since Tony only paid $200 for it.  (Seriously.  Tony bought it when he was just out of college and working in a tiny podunk town in the the middle of a bunch of corn fields.  And they only had one furniture store, which wasn't even a regional one like Sears or JCPenny; it was something like "Bubba's Furniture and Mini-Mart" because that's how small this town was.  And as you may expect, Bubba only carried something like 3 mattresses.  So Tony got a $200 queen-sized "Comfi-Sleep" extra firm mattress set and we've been sleeping on it for the past 10 years.  So trust me, it was time).

Actually, it was past time.  We technically started looking for a mattress off and on last year.  We'd flop down on a few, and I'd be like, "What do you think?" and he'd be like, "I can't tell a difference between any of these" and I'd be like, "Well this is a big purchase.  We need to be sure" and then we'd get fed up and go home and sleep on our not-so-comfy Comfi-sleep, which by this point was mostly just lumpy parts interspersed with random springs.  But a few months ago we both started waking up with our backs creaking and popping like the Tin Man sans oil can, so we stepped up the search a bit more:

Tony: Which one do you like?
Me: I dunno.  The second one we tried in the 4th store seemed okay.
Tony: Was that the memory foam or the latex one?
Me: I don't know. I think it was the one with titanium dura-coils.
Tony: Was that the plush, ultra plush or Euro plush?
Me: Is Euro-plush plushier than Ultra Plush?
Tony: I have no idea.

And so it goes.  One of us would lay on a mattress with a sales guy hovering uncomfortably next to us saying things like, "And there's 2 and a half inches of patented Super Plushie Dura Foam Gel Latex Cotton Padding in it!" while the other one would chase ZB around the store and keep her from destroying the place.  Then we'd switch.  When I was on the mattress I'd say things like, "Is it cooling?  I'm not buying a mattress that traps heat!" (because apparently I am a menopausal woman trapped in a 32 year old body, so I get hot at night).  Then Tony would get on the mattress and say, "Is it on sale? I'm not buying a mattress that isn't on sale!" (because apparently Scrooge McDuck is trapped inside his body).  And meanwhile ZB just wanted to jump from bed to bed (because jumping beans are trapped inside of her body), so I'm sure all the sales people just loved us.

But finally! FINALLY! We found a mattress that promised to be 12 times cooler than a regular foam mattress, and it was on sale, and it was soft, and it was actually a brand we had heard of before (no disrespect to Bubba's "Comfi-Sleep" brand), so chances are it would last a little longer.  (15 years longer according to the warranty!  Although we had to buy a special waterproof mattress protector also since apparently cat barf voids mattress warranties.  C'eat la vie).  And joy of joy, they happened to have one all ready to go in the local warehouse, so we bought it on Thursday night and it was delivered to us on Saturday morning, and all the cats are scared of it because it smells different but that's okay because hey! more room for us on the new bed!

And now when we wake up we feel rested, and our joints don't creak like doors in a haunted house, and I can't feel a single spring jabbing me in the back.  In fact, the only thing that takes some getting used to is that it's about 2 inches higher than our old mattress, so in the middle of the night when I get up to check on ZB, I fall an extra two inches to the floor, which scares my inner menopausal lady into thinking she might break a hip or something.  But other than that?  Pure, cotton-covered baby duck on a cloud bliss, baby!

(Trust me, that's good).

5/30/12 The Post About Me Shopping for Stuff

I bought a new summer purse today.  ZB and I were in the Mart of Wals, looking for staple gun staples and a few other odds and ends, and they had this lovely little crocheted hobo purse on sale for $10. The link doesn't have the exact pattern mine does, (which is brightly colored stripes in a fun summer rainbow of colors) but you get the idea.  And since it is bigger than the first purse I bought for summer (which is bright and fun but really too small for all the stuff I carry so I'm constantly having to mash everything together to get the zipper closed), I was all, "Well you just hop right on in the buggy here, pretty little purse".

(And they say you can't find high fashion at Walmart).

Now, if I hadn't bought the new purse, I wouldn't have been going through the old purse and found my super-secret (so secret I forgot they were even there) cache of Target gift cards.And as anyone who has ever found some unexpected gift cards can tell you, they will totally burn a hole in your pocket if you do not run out and spend them toot sweet.  So off I went to Target.

I started out in the swimsuit section, because I need to revamp my swimwear selection.  See, I seem to have hit a very tricky age when it comes to swimsuits.  When I was younger and perkier, my swimsuit of choice was the bikini.  Bikinis are the official swimwear of college students.  Your thighs are firm, your metabolism is high, and you finally have enough curves to fill it out and not look like a boy.  It is a good age to wear a teeny swimsuit and feel like you can take on the world.  Good times, good times.

But then I had a child.  And when that happens, certain areas of the anatomy (and by that I mean the boobular region) became more ample and you just come to a point where you need a little more support than what a couple of strings can provide.   Besides, strings are also not the best thing for coverage when you have a one year old using your swimsuit for footholds while she scales you like Mt. Everest.  So bye bye teeny bikini.

Normally, the next stage in the life cycle of the swimsuit would be the tankini.  They offer more coverage, but they don't go so far as to be an actual one-piece suit.  And there are some really cute ones out there.  But I can't do them.  See, I have a really long (freakishly long, really) torso.  So they all hit me at a really weird place.  Like around the 5th rib kind of weird.  And whereas you can wear the tankini and look cute, I just look like I stole a shirt from a six year old.  So my only hope is to go old school pre-tankini and see if I can find something like this:

Note the underwire, generous bottom coverage and industrial strength shoulder straps.   These are our friends.

Sadly, Target was fresh out of swimsuits from the '50s, and I was feeling really bummed that despite my best efforts, my gift cards would go unspent.  However, just when things were at their darkest, a beacon of light signaled to me from the shoe department.  And I did manage to come across these little beauties who needed a good home.

These look electric blue in the picture, but they're a very nice turquoise color in real life.

The bargain gods must have felt really bad about letting me down with the swimsuits, because after cooing over these adorable turquoise shoes for a while, I checked the price and  they were on clearance for...are you ready for this? Eight dollars.  Eight American dollars.  Seems they only had a size 5.5, a 9, a 9.5 and a 10 left, and they were ready to move them along.  And while I'm not normally a shoe fanatic, I could think of at least three outfits that I could wear these darlings with, and I just happen to be a size 9, so I really couldn't in good conscience not buy these shoes.

(By the way, I tried explaining this shopping logic to Tony when I got home, but he didn't get it AT ALL.  Sigh.  Boys. What can you do?)

Anyway, to sum up: Cute shoes, cute purse, unexpected Target gift cards.  On the minus side, no swimsuit, no time machine to go back to get swimsuit, and the regrettable knowledge that my time in front of a three way mirror and fluorescent lights is not over yet.

So in the mean time, I'll be the one at the pool wearing a poncho. But I'll be doing it with some cute accessories, so hopefully you'll be so mesmerized by my summer shoe and purse awesomeness won't even notice the lack of swimsuit.

That's the plan, anyway.

5/28/12 Rollin' on the River

Well.

I trust everyone survived their Memorial Day weekend?  It was a balmy 95 degrees here all weekend, so Tony, ZB and I celebrated the sacrifices of our armed forces by spending as much time as possible submerged in water.  ZB and Tony did so in her baby pool on the back deck, and I did so in an inner tube while riding down a mountain river in the Smokies*.  

See, my friend Erin had her brother and sister-in-law in town to visit for the weekend, and Drew (the guy Erin is dating) had his family in to visit, so they were all, "What should we do to entertain all this family when it is blazing hot outside?".  And I, being the helpful friend that I am, was all, "I dunno...Charades?" and Erin (who is a much better event planner than I am, although possibly not as good at charades) was like, "Actually, I think we're all going to go up to the mountains and go tubing".  And I was like, "Sounds fun! Where should I meet you guys?"

Which is how I ended up inviting myself along on Erin and Drew's family (and me) outing.  

So on Saturday at the crack of noon, Erin, Drew, Erin's SIL Virginia, Drew's sister Anna and yours truly piled into Erin's car for a scenic jaunt to the mountains.  I say scenic because normally the drive from Knoxville to the Smokey Mountain National Park takes about an hour, but Erin thought she remembered a shortcut to avoid the always crowded Pigeon Forge area.  Alas, the fates were against us, because between the "shortcut" (which did take us right through Pigeon Forge after all), the police detour due to an accident, the mandatory Dunkin Doughnuts stop, a brief rest stop pause to look at a map and figure out where the heck we were, and my insistence that we not do more than 25mph on the curvy mountain roads (due to my tendency to get all green and barfy from motion sickness), we finally made it to the tub rental place about 3 hours after we set out.  

Still, the company was nice, I scored permanent dibs on shotgun (the one advantage to the above-mentioned green and barfy), and I brought road snacks, so the drive wasn't bad at all.  

Once you get to Townsend (the town about 2 miles outside the National Park Entrance), you can rent tubes for roughly $6 a day.  For another $2 the tube rental places will shuttle you and your inner tube up to the river and drop you off.  But we are locals, not some newbie tubing tourists, so we eschewed the shuttle bus and decided to drive ourselves up to a more fun, more energetic part of the river where we could partake of some white-water rapids.  So we tied our tubes down all over the car with what basically amounted to dental floss that we found in the trunk of Erin's car and took off for our river adventure.  

From Left to Right: Anna, Erin, Virginia, Drew and Me ready for some tubin'. 

If you head into the SMNP (that's Smokey Mountain National Park for ya'll who have trouble with acronyms) by way of the Townsend side, you'll come across the famous "Y" where the river splits into, you guessed it, a Y shape.  This is a popular destination spot for swimming, picnicking, and tubing (if you rode the shuttle bus).  And it is very nice.  But! If you go up the river another mile or so, you will hit a less crowded, much faster, much more fun section of river.  

And really, who wouldn't want that?

Ya'll, the river did not disappoint.  We were a little worried about having enough water volume when we first went up there, but the rains that we've had recently more than guaranteed lots of white-water rapids for us to bounce, slide and sometimes downright fly though.  

Pay no attention to my sexy sexy mesh water shoes.  What they lack in fashion, they make up for with traction on the slippery river rocks.  The hat I have no excuse for.

It was hard to for me to grasp that there's no "right" way to go down the river.  You have to be vigilant about submerged rocks and trees and such, but other than that, left of the rock, right of the rock...it doesn't matter.  If you get stuck, just paddle your tube back out into the current and do it again.  It wasn't designed by a team of engineers or theme park designers. It is nature at its finest, unstructured, untamed, and unapologetically beautiful.  That said, there was one memorable chute where nature got a little more up close and personal than I bargained for.  See, I was caught in a bit of an eddy while facing backwards.  I was wearing a very fetching nylon swim skirt (see the first picture if you need a visual refresher) and I was just maneuvering my tube away from the one current into another when something bumped up against my thigh.  

(Yes, there are fish in the river.  It's not something I like to think about a lot, and for the most part they stay away from the people, and the people never even know they're there.  Kinda of a nature don't ask don't tell policy.)  But this particular little fish decided that he was going down the same current that I just had, and was most surprised to find me still at the bottom of the chute.  Worse, the water ballooned my skirt out so that it was acting as a giant fishing net, and Mr. Fish flew right past the rocks and right up my skirt.  

(This is the part of the day where I re-enacted Jesus walking on water, because as soon as Mr. Fish's tail went fwap! fwap! fwap! against my thighs, I shot straight up out of the water and hovered six inches above it  while screaming and beating myself about hips and buttocks).  

(Of course, this delightful little moment was witnessed by our entire group, several random hikers and all the fish's buddies, who were no doubt laughing uproariously at my expense).  

I'd like to at least be able to say that the fish that assaulted me was huge- a 15 pounder or something like that, but the truth is that I never saw him.  He slipped away unnoticed while I was trying to explain to my group that no, those screams were not me being eaten by a bear...I just had a run-in with a cross-dressing fish who wanted to try on my skirt.  

But fish cooties aside, the outing was simply wonderful, and a lot of fun.  (Totally worth the carsickness to get up here and back).  We ran some sections of the river three or four times if we liked the rapids, and drifted through the calm parts, just enjoying the scenery and the sunshine.  I met some lovely people, had a lot of laughs, and got thoroughly and refreshingly soaked.  

And while our veterans and active duty soldiers might not have envisioned this exact scene (fish attack included) while they fought to keep our country free, I appreciate their sacrifice in order for me to do so anyway.  Happy Memorial Day, ya'll.

* Why didn't ZB and Tony come, you ask?  Because you have to be 2 years old to ride in the tubes, and ZB isn't there yet.  (And Tony is an anti-social hermit who hates group outings).  But next year!  Oh yes!  The fun will be had by all next year!

5/15/12 A Little of This, A Little of That

Hola Internets!
I thought I'd drop in to give you an update on the tree situation, as well as a Mother's Day recap and any other random things that happen to pop up while I'm typing.

First off, Mother's Day.  It was very nice despite it being all gray and rainy outside, and sleepless and cranky inside (someone who will remain nameless is teething.  She won't let me see for sure, but I'm thinking the dreaded one year molars.  Suffice it to say, it is a whiny time in the House of Quirk right now...and I don't care how many times Tony tells me to knock it off).  But Tony and ZB gave me a lovely necklace with ZB's name and baby footprint etched into it.  Apparently you scan a copy of the hospital footprint and send it to the company, and they use it to make a tiny replica of your baby's print.  (Or in ZB's case- her giant one).  It makes me smile every time I see it.  Total Mother's day score on that one!

In unrelated news, can I just say how totally bummed I am that Fox is taking the show The Finder off of the air?  (Or took, as the case may be, because I just learned that the season finale was it for the show).  Seriously Fox?!?  I actually LIKED that show!  It wasn't just a carbon copy run-of-the-mill police drama, or medical drama, or (heaven forbid) cheesy reality show.  It had some good one liners, and while it felt like the characters were still finding themselves, I thought the show had potential.  BAD FOX! BAD!  At least give me an epilogue that tells me what happens to everyone!  You can't just leave Willa hitch-hiking by the side of the road!

Speaking of TV, has anyone else seen the preview commercial for Underworld Awakening?  

I haven't seen the movies, and I know nothing about them, which is probably why whenever the previews come one and I hear the line where the main character says, "In the endless war between vampires and lykins...", I always think of this:

Now, I'm probably not the movie's target audience so this "endless war" doesn't really make sense to me, but if I had to guess, I'd put my money on the lichen, because the thought of an algae/fungus combo laying the smack down on the blood-sucking undead cracks me up every time.

Finally, I'm sure you're all dying to get an update about our whole "tree or not to tree" question.  Sure enough, the tree guy came back out last Thursday and was like, "So what's it going to be?"  I cannot tell you how hard this decision has been for me.  It totally consumed my every waking thought for a week and a half.    I went back and forth and back and forth roughly 400 times a day.  And I can't express to you how much I appreciated all your comments and suggestions.  So in the end I decided that the reason that the decision was so hard was because as much as I liked the idea of a small flowering tree, I just couldn't imagine our yard without at least the pin oak in it.  For better or worse, it is a main part of what makes the yard what it is.  So I'm splitting the difference and cutting down the regular oak and keeping the pin oak.  By cutting just one down I can solve the crowding problem and let a little light in for at least half of the grass while still keeping a mature fixture in the yard.  And after talking to the tree guy about just how much they'll cut off the pin oak, I think I can shape it up a little bit on the other side to balance it out and keep it from looking so weird.  So that's that.  As soon as I signed the official paperwork, I instantly felt 100 times better.  The pretty tree is saved, the yard will look brighter and more balanced, and I still get one flowering dogwood as a replacement.  So thank you, beloved Internets.  You have saved a tree and helped me out once again.

The Pin Oak is giving you a standing slow clap.  

5/4/12 Squirrel Interrupted

Scene: Mid-morning in a suburban Knoxville neighborhood.  The sun is shining.  The birds are chirping.

And I am chasing a squirrel around my backyard in my bathrobe.

It's a good thing most of the neighbors are already at work, because here I am, arms waving, crazy bed-head hair, and the folds of my fuzzy blue robe whipping around my calves as I chase a fat gray squirrel around and around the trees in the backyard.

(You know, it's a wonder they haven't had me committed yet).

Anyway.  The problem is not the squirrel itself.  (In fact, I suppose that based on the description above, most people would argue that it isn't the squirrel that has the problem at all.  And to that I stick my tongue out at all of you.)  No, I happen to like the squirrel.  He's fuzzy and cute and he scampers in a way that I enjoy watching.  The PROBLEM, I would say, is a certain destructive squirrel behavior that he insists on continuing...mainly, he enjoys knocking the bird seed out of all of my bird feeders.

And here's the worst part!  He doesn't even eat it!  I wouldn't mind if Mr. Squirrel was hungry and just needed a little snack.  But he doesn't eat any of it at all!  He just enjoys hanging from the tree branch by his back legs and shaking the bird feeder back and forth until all the seeds are in a messy little pile on the ground, where no bird (except the occasional dove) will go to eat it.  Destructive for the sake of being destructive.

It is a classic case of squirrel behaving badly.

Mr. Squirrel and I have talked previously about this kind of behavior.  When he first moved into the area, I told him flat out that he was more than welcome here, but that he needed to abide by a few yard rules...mainly, no climbing into eaves of the house to break into my attic, and no dumping the bird seed out of the feeders.  That despite it, you know, literally hanging off of tree limbs, bird seed doesn't just grow on trees.  I have to buy that stuff.

Easy enough, right?  I do not ask too much.  Just a little common squirrel courtesy.  But will he abide by the rules?  No!  He is a punk juvenile delinquent squirrel, and he's deliberately trying to vex me.  And this morning when I looked out the kitchen window while waiting for my pop-tart to do its toaster thing, there he was, doing his little upside down act of vandalism and chanting "neener! neener! neener!" in my general direction.  So I just snapped.  I snatched open the back door and flew, screaming and waving, out onto the deck where I took a running leap and cleared all of the stairs in one stride.  "You've done it now, squirrel!", I shrieked.  "You've messed up my bird feeders for the last time!"  His eyes got really big and round, and you could hear his little squirrel voice go, "Uh-oh!  This sister be crazy!"* as he took off racing towards his favorite tree.  But I am smarter than this fuzzy-tailed rat, so I had already headed him off at the pass, and he had no choice but to change course with me in hot pursuit.  This continued for a lot longer than you would imagine...especially with him being fat for a squirrel and me fueled by my righteous, righteous anger, but eventually the red haze cleared and I began to lose steam.  He managed to climb a tree to safety, and I stood at the bottom, shaking my fist and hurling a few choice squirrel insults at him before retreating back to my now-cold pop-tart.

So yes, most of the neighbors now think I'm insane.  And perhaps they've seen a little more of me than they bargained for when the flap of my robe got caught on that tree branch.  But you can bet that that squirrel will think twice before messing with me again.  There's no telling what I'll do to save a little bird seed.

*I have no idea why my squirrel talks to himself like a hip-hop gangster.  I didn't make the rules.

4/25/12 How Do You Say Super Awesome Pond Floatie Thing in Spanish?

It's been pretty quiet here in the house of Quirk.  I mean this metaphorically, of course, because no house containing a one year old is actually quiet.  Especially not with pots to be banged and cat doors to climb through and battery-operated toys randomly singing songs in Spanish all day.

(Why Spanish you ask?  I don't know.  Somehow all the buttons on all the toys always get switched to Spanish.  The same way they all mysteriously get switched to "loud enough to actually be heard in bordering Spanish speaking countries" on the volume control.  Still, I figure it can't hurt for ZB to be exposed to a second language, and I personally have learned the song "Hola! Hola! That means hello! Adios! Adios! Bye Bye it's time to go!" from a pink singing teapot, so I figure it's just a matter of time before we both get offered jobs as international translators).

No, what I meant was that there isn't really anything interesting going on around here.  Well, I take that back.  There is this bad boy:


Behold! That my friends is the Laguna Pond Float Valve, currently winging its way to me from Amazon via the United States Post Office.  It's a valve that I discovered by accident but have now decided that I cannot live without. Why, you ask?  Because I live in the South.  And last week's weird weather not withstanding, it gets hot in the South.  And when it gets hot, all the water in my little pond evaporates.  And when all the water evaporates, my water lilies get annoyed.  And when they get annoyed, they don't bloom with the pretty flowers that I have come to expect each summer.  So I spend ridiculous amounts of time dragging the hose out and topping off the pond and wheeling the hose back up, only to do it all again two or three days later.  But now!  Now I will just attach this bad boy to the hose that runs off of my super-duper 55 gallon rain barrel, and whenever the water level drops and the little floatie goes down, the pond will automatically refill with fresh FREE rain water.  (Or at least 55 gallons of it, which should hold it over until the next rain shower).  So happy dance at my brilliance and/or dumb luck for randomly stumbling across this today, Internets, because hopefully this will allow me to mark one more thing off of the "A Million and one things that have to be monitored and maintained around the Quirky Kingdom".  And score one for being lazy!  And water conservation!  But mostly laziness!

So that's my highlight of the day today.  (I'm not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.  Good I suppose in that I'm happy because I found it, but bad in that this is the most exciting thing that's happened today, which means I'm not exactly living la vida loca.)

(Look!  More Spanish!  I am on fire today!  Or en fuego as they say on Dora!  Official translator to the ambassador of wealthy Spanish-speaking country, here I come!)

Good to know the pond will stay filled while I'm gone.

2/7/12 Pig-Skin Party Pointers

Oh my goodness, Internets. I am so stuffed. For the past two days, I have been scarfing down plate after plate of Super bowl party leftovers, and I'm not sure that I can stand it anymore.

See historically, Tony and I, being the anti-social introverted people that we are, usually watch the Super Bowl game commercials by ourselves. But this year I was in the mood for sausage cheese balls, (which I have not had in sweet forever because who makes sausage cheese balls for themselves? That's just weird) so I said, "Hey! Let's invite some of our friends and co-workers over to watch the game and eat tiny sized food with toothpicks!" And Tony said, "Eh." And I said, "I can make sausage cheese balls!" And he was like, "Hmmm." And I was like, "And loaded potato skins!" And he was like, "Maybe". And I was like, "And that hot swiss and bacon dip that you like so much!" And he was like, "Sold!"

So we had a party, but just a small one mind you, because we're still anti-social. We're just also motivated to share finger foods. But apparently we're also a little rusty on this whole party-planning thing, because we invited these people over and them proceeded to serve them this: We had sausage cheese balls, potato skins with bacon, hot bacon cheese dip, and pepperoni pizza).

Are you sensing a common theme here? (Aside from the fact that all these foods will clog your arteries and give you a heart attack by just thinking about them, I mean). Anything seem a little odd to you? Apparently while planning the menu, I was craving a little piggy. I didn't realize it until after I started making everything, but it all contains cheese and pig meat. You'd think I was heavily invested in pork futures or something.

Anyway, I'm not sure if the limited menu meant our guests were overwhelmed with the sheer about of pig potential, or if I was just in the spirit of "pigging out" and made too much, but there was a lot of food left over. A lot. The fridge was crammed full. So that's what Tony and I have been eating for the last two days. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Because never let it be said that I would let even a single sausage ball go to waste.

The first day was pretty good. Who doesn't like pepperoni and sausage and bacon? You could even say we were "in hog heaven". (Sorry). But by day two, we weren't feeling that high on the hog anymore (really sorry), and by the third day, we were definitely crying "OINKle!" (Really REALLY sorry!)

If it is true that you are what you eat, I fear that I may actually be turning into Ms. Piggy (either that or a giant water balloon, because let me tell you that nothing makes you retain water like a four course meal of salted pig meat). But the good news is that there's an easy enough fix for that. First, quit eating so many sausage cheese balls. Second, drink plenty of water to help flush out the salt, and third, (are you ready for this?)... go wee wee wee all the way home.

2/3/12 Hey, Where's Perry? (You Can Bet I Know!)

I'm going to admit something now that's going to sound completely crazy to people without young kids: I'm addicted to a children's cartoon.

I didn't mean to be. See, ZB likes to get up freakishly early in the morning. Freakishly early. And I do not. Which means that she has me at a disadvantage when it comes to coming up with pre-sunrise activities to keep her entertained. (I know, I know, you aren't supposed to use the tv as a babysitter, and babies her age can't process the rapid camera changes, and she will be forever mentally stunted if she so much as glances at a tv screen, but you gotta cut me some slack here! Did you read the part about it being FREAKISHLY EARLY? And there comes a point where you will gladly trade 2 or 3 future S.A.T. points if you can just distract her with the singing and dancing shapes on a screen for 5 minutes, just 5 teeny minutes so that you can slump down on the couch without worrying about her digging all of the dirt out of the potted plants or dropping cheerios down the heating vents.

So I turned on the TV.

And she didn't care one whit about the singing and dancing shapes, but I was instantly hooked.

See, the Disney channel has this cartoon called Phineas and Ferb, and it's incredibly well-written, with fabulous one liners, and an evil scientist character that seems to monologue in the same bizarre stream-of-consciousness that I do in my head all day. (Is it bad that I identify with a cartoon character as a kindred spirit? How about the fact that he's supposed to be the bad guy? At what point would a therapist start putting giant red exclamation-points in my file?)

Anyway, Phineas and Ferb are these two brothers who spend each day of their summer vacation building incredible inventions like giant submarines or space ships or robotic bulls for a rodeo. And the boys have an older sister named Candace, and she's always trying to bust the boys over these ridiculous inventions and get them in trouble with their Mom. Oh, and they have a pet platypus that is also a secret agent who battles the aforementioned evil scientist who ALSO builds ridiculous inventions in his never-ending quest to take over the TRI! STATE! AREA!

(Hmmm. When you write it out like that, it sounds kinda silly. But it isn't, I swear!)

I normally have low tolerances for kid's shows. Too many of them have kids that are bratty and disrespectful to the adults in the show, or they stereotype everyone, or they're just crazy violent, and I think that's a bad thing to introduce to your kids. But I've been impressed with Phineas and Ferb. They value imagination and ingenuity, and even though their Mom never catches them doing whatever they are doing, it isn't because she's stupid or because they're trying to be sneaky. (It's usually because a helicopter accidentally snagged it and carried it off, or aliens beamed it up, or Dr. Doofensmirtz's invisibility machine hit it right before Candace could drag Mom out to see it...you know, totally plausible situations).

So now I watch Phineas and Ferb. In fact, it has become my favorite show to watch on television. And I don't just watch it, I DVR it. But up until now, it's been my guilty little secret. If Tony came home and caught me with it on, I'd pretend that ZB wanted to watch it. (For the record, she could care less, although sometimes she will dance to the songs they sing). If someone called on the phone during a show, I'd mute it so they couldn't hear it. If there was a Phineas and Ferb marathon on that day, we found excuses not to leave the house. And it probably would have continued this way forever, except that something happened:

Unbeknownst to me, Tony got hooked on them too.

He found them on the DVR where I was studiously recording them "for ZB", and one morning when it was his turn to get up freakishly early with her, he turned it on. And the rest, as they say, was history. (Which Phineas and Ferb totally visited in that one episode when they built the time machine and went back to the age of the dinosaurs! But I digress).

Now we watch Phineas and Ferb together. (Except for today when he was totally bummed because he had to go to work and missed Phineas and Ferb the movie. When he suggested we netflix it so that he could see it, I knew we had fallen through the rabbit hole).

So yeah. I watch a kiddie cartoon. And I know all the words to the theme song. And I've caught myself saying "Whatcha' doin'?" just like one of the characters. And I want to be Perry the Platypus when I grow up. But it's all good. I am not alone. If nothing else, it's given me and Tony something new to talk about.

And when the kid finally gets old enough to enjoy it, we may even let her watch our cartoons with us.

10/22/11 Yard Sales and Other Deadly Sins

There's a church with a reader-board sign across the street from the entrance to my neighborhood. The church likes to put little witty and thoughtful sayings on it, and I like to read them as I'm pulling out of my neighborhood. That is until the other day, when they put this one up:

"He who thinks he is without fault has another yard sale".

And I was like, "Hmmmm. I'm not sure I get that one. Are yard sales spiritual no-nos? Yard sales are of the devil? Or do they mean that people who have yard sales have faults? Is yard sale metaphorical? Do they mean that the junk cluttering up our lives is a fault? Or that trying to sell your junk to other people is a fault? I was just telling Tony the other day that we needed to get rid of some of our miscellaneous flotsam, but I'M CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO HAVE A YARD SALE NOW!"

Anyway, this sign bothered me for days. DAYS! And maybe you're all smarter than me and you've already figured it out, but I was completely clueless until Tony called me on his way back to work today.

Tony: You know that church sign that's been bothering you?

Me: You mean the yard sale one? Why? Did you figure out what it means?

Tony: Yeah. It needs a period.

Me: A period is a fault or a period is a yard sale?

Tony: No. The sign reads "He who thinks he is without fault has another fault, as in his fault is that he thinks he has no faults. Then a period. End of sentence. New sentence: Yard sale. As in, the church is having a yard sale.

Oh.

Well yes, I suppose that makes sense.

Maybe the yard sale is to raise money to buy some punctuation.

9/23/11 Interview With A Baby

It's been six months since ZB made her world debut, and so far she's been taking it by storm! We here at Quirky is a Compliment managed to snag an exclusive interview with everyone's favorite baby to see how the last few months have been for her, and what she's up to now:

Good to have you here, ZB.

Thanks. It's good to be here!

Let's start with an easy question. I understand you've just started solid foods. Do you have a favorite?

Well, I'm still pretty new to this whole solid foods thing, but I'd have to say Pureed Sweet Potatoes, followed by Green Beans, followed by Carrots. Although rumor has it that there is fruit on the horizon though, so I'm keeping my options open.

How about a least favorite?

I have to go with oatmeal on this one. I mean, I eat it and all, but it's pretty plain. If I'm going to have it, I like to have it mixed with sweet potatoes or something.

What's the hardest thing you've done so far?

Oh man! Right now, I'd say getting this crawling thing going! You have no idea the arm-leg coordination that is involved! Move this arm! Scoot this leg! Hold your tummy off the floor! Maintain balance! It's exhausting! I've only managed a step or two so far, but the rewards are totally worth it. As soon as I get going, the freedom is going to be unbelievable!

Any freedom in particular?

Let's just say that there are some kitty cats that better watch out! (Laughs) I'm just kidding. Cats, if you're reading this, I love you guys!

Other than crawling, what other projects have you been working on lately?

Jumping! I just discovered jumping a few weeks ago, and now I make it a point to try to jump on anything. I also like kicking things. These new-fangled feet things are amazing! The other day I shredded a magazine just by gripping the paper with my toes and pulling!

Is that how you spend the majority of your day? Ripping magazines?

Oh no. The magazine thing is just a special treat. Most of my day is spent eating, or napping, or playing with my toys. I tend to rotate between my doorway jumper and my exersaucer. Or my rocket car walker. Or my jungle mat. It just depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

What's it like being so famous?

Well it was a little overwhelming at first, but I'm used to it. My fans are great. They'll like, come up to me in grocery stores and whatever and be like, "You are so adorable!" and I just give 'em a big smile.

Some babies struggle with that kind of notoriety. You seem to do really well with it.

Yeah well, I owe it all to my managers. Mommy, Daddy, Granny, Grandpa...they put a lot of work into keeping me on schedule and looking my best. (Laughs) It isn't always easy, you know! I don't go anywhere without one of them. Plus all my gear. I have a whole diaper bag that has just about everything I need for any situation.

I understand that you've recently been diagnosed with a painful medical condition. Can you talk about that?

Yeah. I've got this thing called "teething" going on now. It's a condition where teeth erupt through the flesh in your mouth. It's totally harsh. But I'm getting help for it. I'm doing physical therapy with teething rings, and I'm on a low dose of Baby Oragel for when it gets really bad. Other than that, all you can do is just take it one day at a time, man. Just one day at a time.

Words to live by. So what's next for America's favorite baby?

All kinds of exciting things! I'm starting my sippy cup work this week, and wearing shoes, and like I mentioned earlier, we're going to introduce fruits to my diet in a couple of weeks. Your readers should stay tuned to find out how all of that goes!

I'm sure they will! Anything else you want to add before we wrap this up?

Yeah, I just wanna do a quick shout-out to my homebabies in the gym nursery. You guys rock!

It was good talking to you, ZB.

Anytime! It was fun!

There you have it readers. An exclusive interview with up-and-comer Baby ZB. If you have any questions for ZB, you can leave them in the comment section below and she has promised to answer them next time.

9/20/11 Cell Phone Mafia

I think my phone company is messing with me.

See, my cell phone is almost a year and a half old (and no, it is not a smart phone, because I am the only person left on the planet without a smart phone. I had the opportunity to get one, but at the time I was picking out my new cell phone, I was all like, "Nah, apps are just a passing fad. That whole iphone thing WILL NEVER CATCH ON". So I picked out a regular phone, and somewhere Steve Jobs smirked.) Anyway, my phone is still okay, despite being of the non-app variety. It does the calling and the texting just fine, and it holds my music, and it has a camera that I absolutely never bother to use, so it meets my needs.

Anywho. For a year and a half I've had my phone, which means that for a year and half I've been paying the $8/month "insurance" in case anything ever happens to said phone. (I'm rough on my phones. They get beat up, they fall down stairs, and after losing the last one by dropping it in the toilet, I said that as God as my witness, I will never be without phone insurance again! *Please insert dramatic fist shaking here*). But Tony does not feel this way. Tony thinks paying the $8 is silly. According to him, nothing has happened to the phone in the last year and a half, so obviously it isn't defective.

So he cancelled the insurance.

And two weeks later, my phone broke.

I figure that somewhere, buried deep in the basement bunker of the Sprint home office, sits a guy with a list of all the people who cancel their phone insurance. And as soon as he sees your name on the list, he goes over to the big red button labeled "self-destruct" and types in your phone number. Then he punches that bad boy and viola! Suddenly your phone goes dead 100 miles away.

So ZB and I headed into the Sprint store, which surprise surprise, was FULL of people who had something wonky going on with their phones. (Basement bunker guy must be having a banner month). So we're all hanging around, waiting for our phones to get diagnosed. (And PS? Babies generally do not care for just sitting around in a phone store. Especially when they aren't allowed to touch/slobber on/eat any of the display phones).

Finally, after an hour, it's my turn to talk to the phone repair guy, whom I have secretly nicknamed the great and powerful Oz. I describe the symptoms, Oz takes the phone apart, fiddles with it, and announces that not only is my phone super-duper broken, but it has broken in such a way that Oz has never seen anything like it before. Oz decrees that I need a new phone. Thank you bunker guy.

Sadly, without insurance, the diagnostic is $38 and the new phone is $300. With insurance, it all would have been free. And you say that your husband only cancelled it two weeks ago? Gee. So sad for you.

But wait! Says Oz. It just so happens that during the month of September, they are running a special where they will let me sign up for insurance for the low low price of...$8 a month! And if I sign up for this insurance again, I will get a new phone for free! And the diagnostic for free! And the honor of meeting the great and powerful Oz for free! (Well, not free free. $8 a month free). And I was like, "Wait. You'll let me re-sign up for my insurance, and replace my phone for free, and we'll all pretend this ugly lapse in insurance judgement never happened?" And Oz said, "yup". And I was like, "Sold!"

So now the $8 is back on my bill. And a new phone has been ordered (they don't carry them in stock because, hello, ancient year and a half old non-smart phone here). And they'll call me in one or two business days when the phone arrives.

But here's the funny thing. 24 hours after they re-signed me up for the insurance plan? My old phone, the one that Oz was like, "Whoa! You broke the crap outta this thing! It's toast!" just mysteriously came back to life. Totally fine. Almost like my name appeared on the "has insurance" list again, and the guy in the Sprint bunker took his finger off the destroy button. Coincidence? I think not.

So I think there's a conspiracy going on with the cell phone people. They're like the mafia offering "protection plans". Get the plan and nothing happens to your phone. Quit paying for the plan and all of a sudden your phone is mysteriously fire-bombed in a middle of the night drive-by. Oz isn't Oz...he's Don Corleone.

And he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

9/15/11 The Case of the Kitty Cat Karma

So I was feeding ZB some pureed green beans and oatmeal today for her lunch. (I know, I know, you wouldn't think that oatmeal would go well mixed with green beans, but she seems to like it, so who am to judge?) Anyway, as you can probably guess, green beans and oatmeal is a very messy experience. It was on her face, and her bib, and her hands, and up her nose, and possibly some in her ears too. Plus I was the one holding the spoon, so I was up to my wrists in it, with a spot in my hair for good measure. (What can I say? Lunch is a full contact sport for us). So we were eating, and dribbling, and generally enjoying the way green oatmeal squishes between our fingers when Mason jumped up on the table so see what all the fuss was about.

Now, Mason knows that cats are not allowed up on the table. Not anytime, but ESPECIALLY not when we're eating. He knows this. But he also knows that when I have my hands full of green beans and oatmeal and a baby who is convinced that she should be the one to hold/fling the spoon, he can get away with being on the table, because I can't spare a hand to toss him off. So Mason wandered over to investigate the intriguing culinary delight that is green bean flavored oatmeal.

And I did what every good Mom does whose hands are covered in green oatmeal- I yelled, I made shooing gestures, I blew in his face. No avail. Mason knew I wouldn't touch him and risk getting oatmeal on him and cat hair all over my hands. And if you've ever seen a cat smirk, imagine it happening here. You could practical hear him going "Neener neener neener!" in his little cat voice as he danced out of the reach of my nudging elbow.

But what he didn't count on was ZB. ZB who delights in seeing the kitty so close. ZB who has no reserves about grabbing a handful of fur. ZB who had also used my momentary distraction with Mason to grab a handful of oatmeal mixture out of the bowl when I wasn't looking.

She got him just behind the right ear. Big gloopy glob of green oatmeal, straight to the back of the head. (Perhaps this was his plan all along? A little sharing of the oatmeal with the kitty cat? Do cats even like green beans and oatmeal?) Regardless of whether this was his plan, he got some, although in the one spot that he would have trouble licking it off.

I called an official end to lunch time and literally washed my hands of the whole thing. I extracted Mason from the tiny baby fingers that had a death grip in his fur, got the largest blob of oatmeal off of him, and tossed him unceremoniously off of the table. Then I wiped green bean/oatmeal/cat fur off of ZB's hands, and face, and ears.

And in case you don't believe in karma for getting up on the table when you aren't supposed to, know that as I type, Mason's normally white fur on the back of his head is currently arranged in stiff, bright green spikes, (can we say punk rocker cat?) and the rest of the cats are chasing him around, trying to lick the dried oatmeal off that he himself cannot get to.

So, moral of the story: Stay off of where you are not supposed to be, get down when someone tries to shoo you away, and beware the baby with the green oatmeal hands.

Otherwise the Kitty Karma will get you, and tonight is pureed sweet potato night.

You've been warned.

9/10/11 ZB Uses a Spoon

From the producers who brought you "ZB's First Cereal" comes the amazing new video, "ZB uses a spoon". Watch as ZB wages a war against oatmeal with a spoon that cannot be trusted and a heart made of gold. Critics give it 4 stars. "Amazing!" says Daddy. "Two thumbs up!" raves Mommy, "ZB's oatmeal performance is some of her best work yet!" This is the finest spoon work you will see all year! Opens everywhere today. This film has not yet been rated.

Now playing at a blog near you.

6/22/11 Insert Clever Title About Jello Molds, MacGyver and Naked Goat Dancing Here

So hey. I'm back. I don't know if you noticed or not from the weeks of silence followed by three posts in a row followed by more silence, but I'm trying to spend a little more time on the ol' blog here. Not sure how long this commitment to quantity will last, but at least you'll get to follow all the exciting and mind-blowing stuff happening here in the House of Quirk.

(That said, I've decided to package all this mind-blowing awesomeness in a list format so that you can absorb it in small doses. Don't want you to get an ice cream headache from all the excitement all at once, now do we?)

First of all, I've officially gone back to the gym. You might recall that I was a regular there pre-pregnancy, but what with the one kidney and tiny uterus and growing-a-new-human and all, the doctor suggested I not do anything high risk, such as walking fast or lifting heavy things or stepping on and off a step to music, so I had to put a temporary kibosh on the whole exercising thing. But! Fast forward 10 months and I am back, baby!

And boy does it hurt!

I knew I couldn't just pick back up where I left off after almost a year of couch-potatoness, but I was really hoping that there was still some muscle memory left. Alas, how soon muscles forget. And how vindictive and cranky they are when they figure out that yes, you want them to support the rest of you while you hover in a thigh-burning 90 degree squat for the next 15 seconds.

So the muscles are angry, but they're just going to have to get over it because there's nothing like marching on a little six inch high bench in time to music in front of a wall of mirrors to make you realize that since the baby did those unspeakable things to your body, parts of you that never jiggled before are certainly jiggling now. And unless you are one of those fruit filled jello creations that old ladies bring to church potlucks and funerals, jiggling is not good.

(I'm talking to you, thighs).

So to recap: jiggle=bad. Exercise= necessary evil. Fruit filled jello mold thingies= kinda scary.



Another thing that you could possibly care less about but that I am going to mention anyway is that Tony and I have just discovered that the entire MacGyver series is on Netflix Instant! And oh my goodness they are so bad they're wonderful! As soon as we found them we knew we'd have to watch every single episode, in order. We're still on the first season, which aired in 1985, so you can imagine the cornucopia of mullets and bad special effects and "computers" that are just giant gunmetal boxes with rows of random blinking lights on them. Oh, and I didn't realize this when I was seven and watching it the first time, but Mac was totally a player! Seems like every episode he saves some big-haired blond and she kisses him passionately. (Of course to be fair, dude did just disarm a nuclear warhead with a tic-tac, so I can see where women might assume that all of his other skill-sets were equally...ah, inventive.) Still, if you have the instant Netflix, you gotta watch old MacGyvers. Preferably while you're drunk or severely sleep deprived. You'll laugh your jiggly derriere off.


Finally, (because I really feel like this post needs a third thing, even though I doubt anyone has actually made it this far what with my sore muscles and tv watching habits being SO RIVETING AND ALL), you'll be pleased to know that ZB is doing just fine. She's hit the 3 month mark, which means that she's 1) working on her baby babble, which is adorable, and 2) drooling like a Saint Bernard, which is less so. We're also working on our daily routine, because BabyCenter (my go-to baby information website) says that babies need a consistent schedule so that when it comes times to nap or eat or poop they're not all like, "Whoa! Where did THAT come from?" (BabyCenter also says having a consistent daily routine will help ZB sleep through the night, and while I'm not quite sure about how consistently eating at 3pm helps mama get some zzzzzs, I'm just desperate enough to try it. Sleeping through the night is our holy grail, and if Babycenter said that me dancing naked on my roof with a goat would ensure a solid 8 hours of sleep, I'd be up there in a heartbeat with an entire herd). Actually, since we started this whole schedule thing our days have been a little more organized (for instance, I can tell you that she had exactly 15.8 oz of milk today and 6 wet and 2 poopie diapers) AND ZB has been sleeping a few minutes longer each night, so goooooo baby schedule! The only downside to it is that it requires a bit of record-keeping as to when the the above mentioned eating and sleeping and pooping occurs, and so far Tony has been remiss in recording pertinent information. (My part of the official record is documented minute by minute, while the three hour section that he watched her while I was at the gym just has the words "One Poop?" scribbled on a random scrap of paper. It appears that baby training is a lot easier than husband training).

So yeah...that's the inside look at out lifestyles of the rich and famous. Our evenings now mostly involve us sitting around on the couch watching a tv show from 1985 while Mama complains about her sore glutes and marks down the EXACT second the ZB takes a sip of milk or needs a diaper change. Not exactly world-changing, but I've seen reality shows with worse stuff.

Plus if you're really lucky and ZB has a couple of bad nights, there's a chance that whole naked-on-the-roof-with-goats thing will still happen. And what with the jiggle and all, there's no way you'd want to miss that.

6/14/11 Only Her Stylist Carpenter Knows For Sure

So I'm tired of my kitchen cabinets. They look old and dated, and they desperately need a makeover. I'd rip them out completely and just put all new cabinets in, but unfortunately I haven't found anyone giving away kitchen cabinets for free, so I suppose I'll just have to work with what I have. (Plus it isn't like there's really anything structurally wrong with the ones I have...they just need a new dye job). So I think I'm going to restain them and maybe change out the hardware. The simplest thing to do, of course, would be to just restain them the same color that they are now. Just cover up the grey so that they won't look quite their age. That way any boo-boo spots won't be noticeable, and they won't come out some weird strange color (remind me to tell you about the time I stained my back deck), and they'll still match the "eyebrows" of the rest of my kitchen. Easy peasy.

But.

But the color of my kitchen cabinets are boring! They're this yellow-y oak color that I swear every early 90's contractor put in every early 90's house and it just screams Update me! Update me! And if I'm going to go through all the trouble, why not get a color I really like? (Like cherry. I've always wanted cherry cabinets.) And while maybe cherry would be too dark with my dark blue tile and my dark blue walls, perhaps a strawberry blond would work instead?

On the other hand though, if I start mixing cherry stain over yellow oak cabinets, am I just going to end up with orange? Because despite living in Big Orange Country, orange cabinets would not be cool. And even if I get a color that's more red that yellow without being orange, is it just going to look like faded knock-off cherry? (Kinda like when you were in college and you and your pals had the bright idea to dye your hair with kool-aid. Does that ever work out for anybody?) I really really don't want kool-aid cabinets.

So what's a girl to do? Ideally it'd be best just to have naturally cherry cabinets, but so few of us are lucky enough to be born with beautiful cabinetry. The next best thing would be to have a professional cabinetry stylist do it, but optional cabinet makeovers are just not in the budget right now. Which leaves the take home, do-it-yourself dye job, which frankly could turn out looking great or looking hideous.

I think I'll go look at some gel stains later today...you know, get a feel for what's available. Check out the home and garden mags to see what the cabinets to the stars are sporting this season, and maybe see if I can find a color that I like.

I'll keep you posted on what I decide for my new look. And ya'll feel free to weigh in also, especially if you've ever done a home cabinet makeover. Or if you haven't. Or if, you know, you have kitchen cabinets at all. I'm a flurry of highlight vs lowlight (vs undercabinet light) indecision, and a girl needs her gal pals to tell her what would look best with her coloring.

5/18/11 In Which I am Bested by a Plant

Oh Internets, I have contracted the poison ivy.

(I'll give you a minute for the full suckiness of that sentence to sink in).

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, it was hiding out in my hydrangea bed, waiting to ambush me when I planted my newest little hydrangea bush that I had received for Mother's Day. (Which, can I just say, is really heartless and cruel...attacking me on my very first Mother's day like that. But then poison ivy has never really been known as a thoughtful and sentimental plant, has it?)

I didn't even realize it at first because I've never had poison ivy before. I just thought I had a mosquito bite on my wrist. So I ignored it. Then the next day, I had three more itchy spots on my arm. Then two more the day after that. It was about that time that I figured that these were no ordinary itchy bumps. So I studied them carefully and jumped to the obvious diagnosis- a deadly brown recluse spider was living in our bed, and I would have to have my arm amputated immediately.

(Sidenote: I have an completely irrational fear of brown recluse spiders. One, they are spiders. Two, they love to live in things like dark corners and under bedsheets. Three, they have a potentially deadly hemotoxic venom that rots away your flesh when they bite you, and four...did you read that part about the rotting flesh? I rest my case).

Anyway, after stripping the sheets and checking the mattress and having a heart attack over every spider-shaped dust bunny that I came across under the bed, no such arachnid was found (which is good because if I had, I would take my husband and child and MOVE. AWAY. I wouldn't even bother to pack. We would just vacate the house immediately. The end. Spider wins). But there wasn't a spider. (Thank the good Lord in heaven). And instead, the mystery itchy bumps kept appearing.

It wasn't until I was digging around in the medicine cabinet for some anti-itch creme that hadn't expired, (mental note: clean out medicine cabinet. Some of the stuff in my first aid kit is now old enough to vote) when the words "relieves pain and itching due to burns, insect bites, poison ivy, oak and sumac" caught my eye and I thought, "Oh you know what? I seem to recall a nefarious looking three-leaved vine from a few days ago. I bet that sucker got me". And it did. Who-boy, did it ever.

Of course, wasting precious days looking for imaginary spiders instead of immediately washing everything that could have possibly had the ivy oil on it means that I am positively COVERED in the stuff. Apparently I had it under my fingernails or something, because I have transferred it EVERYWHERE. (Either that or I temporarily took leave of my senses and rolled around naked in the side yard, but I do not recall that, so I'm going with the oil under the nails theory). As a result, I have scrubbed the top three layers of my skin off, cut all my fingernails back as far as they go and transferred every piece of fabric that I have come in contact with into the washing machine using a pair of salad tongs, which I then boiled for good measure.

But here's the kicker! Because I'm breastfeeding, I can't take any sort of antihistamine like Benadryl, because it can get into my milk supply and affect the baby. So I'm limited to crappy 1% hydrocortisone cream, which is so ineffective that I think the poison ivy actually looks forward to me smearing it on each day...like a hydrocortizone massage. Other than that, all I can really do is wait it out for the 14 to 21 days that it takes to run its course.

So feel sorry for me, internets, for I am one giant ball of itch. And by my count, I still have roughly 9 days to go.

I may not survive.