Showing posts with label wednesday whines. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wednesday whines. Show all posts

trouble in paradise? or wait I live in New Jersey so maybe I should call this trouble in anti-paradise

So, I am doing a little whisper-typing while hubby helps me rearrange some tables in my studio

(I have to whisper type this because he does not like me blogging about him)

but 2 things have happened within the last 24 hours that I find very alarming, especially with Valentine's Day approaching and I feel I must report on them

OK- he's left the room- I need to type fast ....

#1. Hubby ate the last cookie

now he has always been the kind of hubby who hardly ever takes the last of the milk, never the last bite of a shared dessert and would never eat the last cookie in the box

at least not the last chocolate cookie

so what is up with the fact that he ate the last cookie last night right in front of me and then proceeded to fold up the box, without even missing a beat in the conversation

#2. Hubby left his radio station

(I was briefly in country music hell - am I the only one who thinks country music is all about beer now - I still miss the Dixie Chicks)

and his seat position in my car when he borrowed it and he only drove like 4 blocks roundtrip

now normally I am not such a pain in the ass that I would even give this another thought, but when I noticed it this morning after last night's 'cookie incident'

I am left wondering if something is wrong here and how long this kind of stuff has been going on and I may have been too busy to notice.

(he's back, more whisper typing)

I mean, I know that I have eaten many a last cookie, switched many a radio station dial within seconds of buckling my seatbelt and sometimes forget to look in the mirror before I leave the house

(that last one is not related but it can drive hubby crazy and is for some reason coming back to me now)

but he doesn't ....

I guess I will have to see if all of this is leading up to a gigantic Valentine's Day surprise -

(hopefully not in the form of another girl - one who does not smell like E6000, always checks her face for respirator 'dents' before leaving the house and who will always save the last cookie for him)

will keep everyone posted ....

Whining Wednesday - please don't interrupt me when I'm talking to myself

Just a quick little Wednesday whine because I know everyone is busy and I, as usual, am a bit backed up and running behind.

Whine #1 - I may have totally lost my mind

Case in point - I had been enjoying some gorgeous late autumn weather a few days back

(you know, from indoors)

and thinking about taking the Halloween decorations down and putting the Christmas decorations up when hubby got all annoying about something or other and I decided to take myself for a little drive to the mall ... alone.

I wandered into the movie theater

(I have been posting quite alot lately about mall wanderings and I am really not a mall girl and not really much of a wanderer anymore unless you count my late night trips to the fridge)

and there was a Russell Crowe movie playing and since hubby really likes Russell Crowe I decided to stay and see this movie ... alone ...

(so when he would tell me at some point that he wanted to see it I would get to say -"too late bud, already saw that one, remember that day when you were being impossibly annoying and I went on a "wander" ... yup, that day bud, saw it ...")

anyhoo, I put on my big girl pants and resisted the snack bar and took my seat. There were maybe 20 other people in the theater. At some point during the movie

(that I should repeat once again I was seated at alone)

I suddenly yelled out

"GOOD SHOT"

at the movie screen.

*sigh*

Of course, 20 pairs of eyes were upon me before I had time to duck down in my seat and of course, I waited until the very last one of them left the theater at the end before I made my exit.

Now, when I told my daughter this story, she laughed very hard and most likely reported her mother's final slip into dementia to all her friends.

When I told hubby this story he said -

"you know you're going to have to see that movie again"

me - "did you hear me? I talked to the movie screen, I yelled out GOOD SHOT!"

hubby - "well, was it?"

Which of course, is why I love him.

(still think the days with my boat actually anchored to the dock may be numbered)

10% discount in either of my shops Uncorked or Polarity with coupon code GOODSHOT through 12/8.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas ... or miracles really can happen at the mall or the girl/guru that got away

I hadn't been to the mall in a very long time.

It was cold and rainy and I was in a funk, weighed down with so many important things happening so outside of my control these days, when I spied something warm and uber comfortable calling my name from the Old Navy window and wandered inside.

I noticed a cute little couple- she in an outfit that may have been stolen from a goodwill drop box or maybe from that guy that sleeps on the steps of the local library -

(I am now too old for this and if I tried it would be approached by an off-duty police officer and asked if I needed a ride back to the group home - I can though, still appreciate the crafty ability to throw together a couple articles of old clothing, various doodads and a handful of glitter and make it look adorable)

but somehow looked perfectly perfect on her talking to a hipstery handsome guy with a very bored look on his face.

"You shouldn't be talking about this in public", he was saying, scanning the room, "but I agree this is very, very important. I mean, dude, this could save the world and I mean it."

I was behind them, purchasing my old navy performance fleece pajama pants for $10.

(while I never realized I needed "performance" out of my sleepwear, it's nice to know that it has been included - note to self - add the word "performance" to all Etsy listings)

The sliding scale of my pajamas has gotten a little sad - thank you fleece "lounge" pants with bold, blue snowflakes

(and by the way everyone knows no two snowflakes are alike and there are alot of repeat patterns on these pants Old Navy!)

for helping me usher in this new era of "comfortableness".

(what I really want is a snuggie but hubby has threatened to wrap me in it, tag my ear and release me back into the wild if I buy one)

*sigh*

Anyhoo, back to that cute little couple and the conversation that I just so happened to happen upon if you know what I mean. I paid some fast cash so I could stay close enough behind them to hear where this conversation was headed.

"It really is the secret to being happy" she was exclaiming as he began to look a tiny little bit animated, too.

(and by this I mean his head sort of tilted from time to time and his feet shuffled slightly as he walked)

"I am so lucky to have figured this out so young, so I can be really, really happy every single day of my life."

(by now I was almost tripping over her as we walked, trying to stay close enough to hear the twentysomething words of wisdom that I think I may have forgotten somewhere in the last decade or so - if she had glanced my way for even a second I would definitely have knocked her to the ground and demanded to know her "secret" - luckily I was not yet wearing my performance fleece and so might still be able to conjure up a wee bit of intimidation)

"
"Catherine!"

A voice boomed from behind me and I turned to see someone my hubby used to work with almost running toward me. When I turned back my old navy hipsters were gone.

*sigh*

We chatted for a bit about this and that, but nothing important, when she suddenly said, "Damn, I just knew something wonderful was going to happen today!"

(huh?)

"What happened?" I asked, still kind of distractedly looking for that guru/girl with all the answers in my peripheral vision.

"Well, I ran into you, of course" she answered.

I stopped. I focused on her. Her eyes were gray and I almost missed that.

I smiled.

And it was like a giant tumbler clicked into place in my head and my funk lifted a little bit, just a little, but enough to see a little blue sky in that very moment that I had been missing thinking about that next moment - trying to pin down the sure thing that doesn't exist.

We laughed and made plans, that we will probably never keep, to see each other again.

But, somehow that little moment brought me back to center and my funk lifted a little bit and I "got it" - that life in the leap thing, that living in the present moment thing, the ability to survive when that thing that you want so badly could be just a little bit out of reach - that may or may not have been that hipster's aha moment that could save the world, but it did save mine, or at least it did yesterday ...



today print by honeyboo and be happy painting by livingstonandporter

secrets of halloween past or where have all the scary kids gone ....

This picture from the Artisan Collective team blog has me thinking that Halloween used to be alot more scary

(and I mean really scary, like Paranormal Activity 2 promos, Miley Cyrus wrapped around a stripper pole, my fondness for reality television and stirrup pants all rolled together scary)

and actually picturing these things all rolled together is kind of grossing me out, but kind of also making me hungry for the leftover spaghetti in my fridge which I will be devouring when I am finished with this post.

(yum yum)

Anyhoo - just look at these kids - would you open your door for these kids?

(yes, even that Little Rascally one in the front who is probably holding a hatchet or a sickel or something equally deadly, but all sweet-little-farmboylike just out of frame)

I don't know where Jen got this picture, but I never see anything this scary on my front steps on Halloween ....

although truthfully I don't see much of anything on my front steps on Halloween anymore.

Last year I gave up on the invisible trick or treaters

and this has nothing to do with my natural inclination to lock myself in the house, peek out from behind closed blinds and ignore the doorbell.

(I don't know what has happened to them, but we get less and less every year - I think because we have a driveway that is longer than 10 feet and the kids are just way too tired to walk all the way to my front door having been driven everywhere in a comfy-cushy Landrover since the day they were born or they've heard that hubby likes to give bags of pretzels, sorry kiddies, I know pretzels suck, but I can't convince him of this
)

I put a bowl on my front porch and went to bed- I counted the bags of pretzels first and there were 20 bags. In the morning there were 17 bags. So we probably had 3 kids who each took 1 bag .... sigh ...

In my day we would have dumped that entire bowl in our pillow case, ran like hell and then come back later to check for refills.

The only thing we didn't like was when people gave us taffy, not sure if this was just a Jersey thing, people would have boxes of saltwater taffy from the boardwalk and give out individual pieces like tootsie roll size for Halloween - yuck - and pennies - we really hated pennies.

Anyhow, am hoping for some really scary costumed invaders this year and I'm thinking its time Olive wore something scary, too and not her usual cutie patootie stuff, and it looks like I have exactly 96 hours to figure it out ...

... stay tuned

It's Whining Wednesday

Maybe if I set aside one day a week to whine, I really will become the glass half-full kind of girl that I've always wanted to be (they live longer) for the rest of the week ...

1. First whine- the plumbing in my house stinks. One faucet after another has started to drip, one toilet handle after another is not even jiggle-able anymore. Handy hubby told me this morning to flush the downstairs toilet "very slowly".

When we first bought this house- we were just so happy to be out of our crappy apartment and excited that someone would actually sell us a house that we overlooked a few things.

I remember the realtor turning on every faucet, smiling that happy realtor (ka-ching) kind of smile and handy hubby and I (he was handy boyfriend in those days) smiling and nodding as if we had never lived in a place with running water before.

Later, George and I had a good laugh about happy realtor's faucet olympics - but now that I can appreciate the beauty in a sink that doesn't have an endless parade of potted plants sitting in it to catch the drips, I miss those days when we were young and stupid

(and had empty sinks and toilets that could be flushed fast and thoughtlessly like they are supposed to be)

2. 2nd Whine- someone stole gas from my car in my driveway and no one believes me about this.

My proof of this is:

1. I put gasoline into my tank
2. I went to sleep
3. I woke up to no gasoline in my tank

(and I think, even on my most distracted mornings, I would notice a 10 gallon puddle of Amoco unleaded in my driveaway)

But apparently this is all something I must have imagined because after hubby analyzed my gas cap for "pry marks" - and found none

(and I was unable to produce a gas receipt, although I am left asking what kind of man would even ask his wife for such a thing- where did the trust go?)

he did, of course, find some orange paint on my side mirror and asked who I'd hit - assuming that I had hit someone and not that someone had hit me (this paint is actually from a very poorly placed pole outside of a drive thru window that I had hit, but his assumption totally irked me and so I said)

"it must have been the gas thief"

as you can imagine, this line has now become the family joke line and every misplaced set of keys and sunglasses is blamed on the "gas thief"

so, anyhoo, yesterday I decided to talk to a NJ State Trooper about this (our town has no police department, that's right, no police- probably the main reason for the rise of gas thievery in our driveways) and a small handful of state troopers have moved into the municipal building across the street from our house.

The trooper looked at me a bit strangely (hubby may have been giving her a cuckoo hand signal behind my back, although he denies this) and said that maybe it was "a friend playing a joke"

which is totally ridiculous because

1. I don't have any friends

and

2. if I did, they would be the kind of friends to autograph my side walls with deep key scratches not steal gasoline because they know how much I dislike the oil companies

Well, I could whine all day, but I am off to Home Depot to buy a new toilet handle and ... of course, I have to get gas first.