Picutre. It's French for Picture.

Why didn't anyone tell me that I misspelled the word "picture" under the Enjoying section on my sidebar?


That's like not telling someone they have spinach in their teeth.


I thought we were better friends than that.

What Happened To Real Life?

I wanna be a real adult in a real-life neighborhood with real-life friends.


Like the adults in Desperate Housewives. They have neighborhood parties, they chat with each other while getting their mail, the women gossip over wine in the evenings while their husbands put the kids to bed. They have neighbors who try to kill other neighbors, neighbors with dirty secrets and best of all, every single person in the neighborhood is beautiful. You know what I'm talking about, real adult life!


I want that.


I want to be that party hostess who throws the best Halloween party that everyone looks forward to every year. Just like Bree, I SO want to be Bree.

Not the new Bree that robs her own house so that she can divorce her husband without losing half of her belongings and not the Bree who cheats on her husband with her best friend's ex at a dirty motel.


No, I'm talking about the old alcoholic, anal retentive Bree. Can you imagine what her Halloween parties would be like? Amazing!


Every year when Halloween comes around I get this yearning to dress up. I love Halloween so much I have to refrain myself from kidnapping a child just so I can take him trick or treating. I have a feeling if a 5'10 & 1/2" ghost showed up on someone's porch yelling "trick or treat!" that it would not last 10 seconds before getting punched in the white face.


I just can't take that risk.


And every year I get this craving to host a Halloween party, with extravagant spooky decorations, wine and cocktails, and yes, FINGER FOODS! But then every year I realize that I am missing the main ingredient for a killer Halloween party.




People.


You need people to show up in order for the party to be a success. People who are willing to dress up, people who are willing to let loose, people who don't mind a little spiked cider, people who are willing to put up with my husband.


There are no such people in Utah. Where's the real adult life? Does it even exist?


Are you a real adult in a real-life neighborhood with real-life friends that like to have real adult Halloween parties?


Can I come?

This spooky shit was brought to you by prompt #1 of this weeks writer's workshop.

Why Today Is Going To Be A Good Day

Because I found a zit on my elbow.

Yep, right there on the outer portion of the arm hinge, the olecranon to be exact. Not on my triceps, not on my forearm, but directly smack dab in the middle of my elbow amidst that wrinkly pliable skin.

I have Elbow Acne.

I immediately went to demolish the sucker in the bathroom. Though a little challenging using one hand, I was able to contort my body into the optimal pinching position and I executed the problem at hand, and at elbow.

I never turn down a challenge.

Nothin better then that feeling of accomplishment you get after pinching such a ripe zit. In fact I've been so high on triumph that I didn't even notice the SNOW falling outside my window.

And you know what? I don't care, I got to pop a zit today. And not just any zit, an ELBOW ZIT. One can only hope and pray that this elbow acne continues.

Yes, today is going to be a great day.


(My apologies for creating a whole post dedicated to an elbow zit, but if you know me well, then you know how exciting this day really is for me. My apologies go out to all the normal people out there.)


(I'd also like to apologize to my elbow for such tactless exploitation.)

Beet Digger Wannabe

I was hesitant to write about my experience as a Beet Digger because I know it will resonate a lot of jealous and resentful feelings directed towards me and I would hate to be the source of such sinful thoughts and emotions.


Oh who am I kidding? Resent away!


I was honored to be accepted, if only for one night, as a part of the Jordan High School (home of the Beet Diggers) Popular Girl crowd. And not popular girls like in the movie Mean Girls popular, but popular girls as in the coolest chicks you'll ever meet kind of popular.


My friends Andrea & Talisia are part of this group of like 13 or 14 girls from Jordan High who are all good friends and every month they take turns hosting a get together. This month was Tara's turn and she wanted to go see Thriller! (Which I've been dying to see since poo poo head Andrea saw it without me.)


And they let me tag along.


Thriller totally rocked! For anyone that doesn't know what Thriller is, it's an annual dance production put on by The Odyssey Dance Theatre every year for Halloween. It's scary, it's creepy and it's amazing! The dancing is incredible!















I already knew Tara and Dellany who are awesome bloggers and even awesomer real life friends, and I met the other girls for the first time that night at dinner.


At first I felt like that new kid in school with the glasses and braces who is ugly and awkward before she's befriended by the popular girls who then give her a makeover so by the end of the school year she gets asked out by the hottest guy at the school and they go out on a date but he's a jerk and just wants to have sex with her so she slaps him and then realizes that she's been in love with her nerdy best guy friend who she ditched to hang out with the popular girls and after she apologizes for her stupid ways he takes her back and they live happily ever after.


It was like that but minus the braces, and after we sat down and all got to talking, I realized they were all quirky like me so I felt right at home.


Thanks Dell for ordering nachos with me for dinner and for teaching me things that I didn't even know existed, like almond milk and, what did you call them? Vegetables? Yeah, that was pretty awesome.


And thanks Sara for freaking out about everyone having babies all the time and doing stupid stuff like getting married. Oh, and thanks for being so concerned about the audience at Thriller who were all coughing and choking to death from smoke inhalation.


As far as you know I didn't cough once. Shut up Andrea.


And thanks Tara for buying the tickets and letting me write you out a check like those annoying check writers in the grocery check out lines that take FOREVER! Good God people, ever heard of a debit card? Checks or SO 20th century. Oh and thanks for liking the ruffles on my shirt, they like you too.


And thanks Talisia for not having your baby right there on the steps in front of Kingsbury Hall. I thought for sure he'd pop out after that zombie girl snuck up on you and I would have to jump forward and catch him before he hit the cement and then we'd all have to take you to the hospital and miss the show all together. So yeah, thanks for not doing that.


And for not peeing.


And thanks Andrea...for something. I'm sure you did something I should be thankful for soooo...thanks...er whatever.


And lastly, I'd like to thank the Academy. It was hella fun!

I Need To Get One Of These Someday

Or two.

Or three.

Did I forget to mention...

...that we ran over a deer last weekend? Yep, on the way to the movies no less.


There we were, driving along Bangerter highway when it happened. Albert was driving while I was blabbering away, raising my voice in an attempt to be heard over the blasting music.


Rap music no less.


(Sorry, that's two "no lesses" in like four sentences, what does that phrase even mean anyway?)


Up ahead, Albert noticed a car oddly parked on the side of the road and a few cars touching their breaks. Then the car directly in front of us swerved to the right at which point we saw it, lying directly in front of us, a huge buck lying in the middle of the road, antlers pointing straight up.


Albert quickly assessed the situation and realized that we would not be able to swerve out of the way seeing as there were cars on either side of us. At first glance, I thought it was a pile of wood but that thought quickly changed when Albert said,


"Hold on, WE'RE. ABOUT. TO. RUN. OVER. A. DEER."


I grabbed the OS (Oh Shit) handle and braced myself for impact. I then heard a clunking sound as the buck's antlers passed underneath my feet.


And then it was over.


We had just glided over the buck with no problem at all. I should inform you that we were driving the Hummer so Albert was pretty confident that we would run right over the poor guy.


"Something definitely flashed there!" I said, still gripping the OS handle.


"Do you mean your life flashed before your eyes?" He smirked.


"Um something like that. I don't know what, but something definitely flashed!"


"Oh Poob." He said rolling his eyes. (He seems to do that a lot, I think he should get his eyes checked or something.)


"I felt his antlers under my feet!" I shuddered.

At this point we were both excited feeling indestructible and thinking we were pretty hot stuff for being alive at that moment.


I should have realized that the Buck was no big deal, during the winter Al constantly runs the Hummer through huge snow banks on the side of the road just because he can. And now he wants to sell it? I don't think so.


Bucks? Meh. No big deal.


Bring on the Elephants.

The Art of Crotch Watching

Albert and I enjoyed dinner and a movie with our friends Kevin & Andrea over the weekend. After eating delicious sushi, we had about an hour to kill before the movie started so the boys reverted back to their 10 year old selves and played video games while Annie and I participated in some high-quality people watching.


There's nothing more entertaining then people watching, well except for that time Lance made fun of Lindee because she thought Pilgrims and Pioneers were one and the same and that Thanksgiving originated in Utah. That was pretty entertaining, but people watching is a close second.


So we sat on a bench studying the passers by and attempted to guess what kind of people they were and the types of relationships they had with those accompanying them. It didn't take long before our observations reverted to what people were wearing. Annie taught me a lot about fashion, specifically the art of wearing boots over your jeans.


I learned that this is bad:



Now the sweater, belt, and horrific sexy face aside, do you see the jeans bunching up over the top of the boots? That is bad, especially with those hooker boots.


I also learned that this is good:



Boots over skinny jeans is very respectable, especially cute slouchy boots with buckles as shown here.


Now back to our public surveillance, our attention turned to one girl in particular who, as I was taught, was a horrible example of the boot to jean fashion. Annie began to describe why her jeans were not the right jeans and why her boots were not the right boots but I wasn't listening, I was too preoccupied looking at her crotch.


I had never before seen such a large crotch in my life!


I began to feel jealous of this girl, bad boots or not, so I pointed out her crotch to Annie who in turn was a little bewildered by my comment. She looked at the girl and looked back at me until she finally asked me how I could tell she had a big crotch.


Well, let me try to explain. Someone is considered to have a big crotch when they have a lot of space between their legs so you can distinctively see a separation between the first thigh, the crotch, and the second thigh.


It's hard to describe without using my hand gestures that I used to explain this to Andrea but I'll try. You know those skinny bitches whose thighs don't touch? They have big crotches!


Let me just show you.


Big crotches:






Small crotches:





And the crotch size does not necessarily depend on how skinny the thighs are. Some people can have the extremely thin thighs but their legs are built so close together that a space between them is just not viable.


Or you could be built like me with mammoth thighs and colossal saddle bags that, if placed directly in front of the sun, could black out the entire Western hemisphere. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying small crotches a necessarily a bad thing, I just happen to be a small crotched person who would prefer a larger crotch.


Because we all want what we can't have right?

Magazine Hell

One thing I hate and have a serious problem with is paper. I hate paper. Mail, magazines, notepads, fliers, receipts, bills, I just hate how papers make my house look, like a fricken pig sty. (If pigs rolled in magazines, ate paper, and pooped out receipts.)


So if I hate it so much then why do I let it control my life? I used to be so good at filing my papers away, up until about 4 years ago when I started my first accounting job which included filing banks statements, journal entries, and account recons. I did enough filing at work the last thing I wanted to do was file at home.


I used to get excited over filing. I loved making the new file folders using colorful markers to make decorative labels and making sure everything was in it's place. I still have a system in place but now it's just a chore.


So you think I'd try to minimize the incoming paper to my house right? Yeah I thought so too until I was offered free magazine subscriptions.


Did you see the key word there? FREE


I can't turn down anything free. I grew up going to garage sales with my dad learning the value of bartering for a bird cage just in case one day I decide to buy a bird, and if it's free?


No question, you take it.


So I jumped on that offer faster then David Letterman jumped on Stephanie Birkitt! I filled out a stupid survey (a small price to pay) and signed up for 4 free magazine subscriptions.


FOUR!


They started arriving last month. Do I read them? No. Do I save them? Yes. Will I ever read them? Probably not. So why the hell do I keep them if they are making my life miserable? Well, it's easy,


THEY WERE FREE GODDAMMIT!


Worst part is that none of the subscriptions offered were the good trashy celeb gossip kind like:















No, the 4 magazines that I am now stuck with for a WHOLE YEAR are:














They're all good right? Maybe. You know how you can tell if a magazine is good? A magazine worth taking a survey for?


If it contains crossword puzzles.


Four fricken magazines and not one crossword in sight.


What have I done?





So tell me, how do you control the paper coming into your home? What's your system?

Hungry is to Food as This Post is to Intelligence

Ok, remember when I told you about my flower beds and how the hubster totally ruined them by planting the tall flowers in the front and the short flowers in the back?

Well, you all told me not to worry, that once all the flowers started filling in that nobody would even notice my awkward flower beds.

Well thanks guys but you were wrong.

My flower beds still suck. Not only are the tall flowers awkwardly towering over the short flowers in the back, but they are growing sideways!



Sideways!


Seriously, I had a fabulous plan for these flowers to be planted in the back, all bunched together to avoid the lonely one plant awkwardness as shown below.




When turning into my driveway every day and seeing these hideous inept creatures I can't help but think how fitting it is for Al & I to have these flower beds in our yard.



Just like these flowers look out of place among the other flowers, Al & I are totally out of place in our neighborhood. Most of our neighbors just avoid us, they try not to look at us as we are driving through the neighborhood. Of course there are a few nice ones like our neighbors to the left of us, but for the most part nobody talks to us.


Our very next door neighbor especially goes out of his way to avoid us. When we were in-active members of the prominent religion in the neighborhood this neighbor was assigned to visit us every month. Instead of actually coming inside, he would just leave brownies on our doorstep (which were always disgusting), but that was fine by us. I think the day that he found out he no longer had to visit us was a huge relief for him, now he has no obligation to like us.


Then there's the dog hater neighbor who calls the cops on every single dog in the neighborhood. When we first moved in we thought it was just our dog that he was targeting but no, we found out that he is well known as the dog-hater dude.


He's retired and stays at home all day with nothing else to do but leave notes on our door and spy on our dogs. When Bain was alive he would call me and tell me exactly what dog was misbehaving and what their individual bark sounded like. I swear he would sit in his yard with binoculars and watch our dogs all day long.


Get a hobby dude.


Oh, and yelling at your wife is not a hobby. I swear they've got to be the two most miserable people. I have to fight the urge to take Dozer over to poop on his lawn.


And I'm not even going to get into the neighbor that came to visit us one day to tell us we were basically throwing our lives away and going to Hell. After Al had his say to this guy, he has never come back.


Thank God.


Living in our neighborhood reminds me of those stupid analogy questions on the SATs.


TALL AWKWARD EVIL FLOWERS are to THE FLOWER BED as POOBA & ALBERT are to THE NEIGHBORHOOD


But we've lived here seven years now and are pretty happy people so it must work for us.


Maybe those tall flowers aren't too bad after all.

The Only Thing More Heart Wrenching Than A Sad Kitty Face Is A Sad Kitty Face With A Speech Impediment.

Alex sent me this email last week, he's totally milking this whole "selling the Harley" thing.

There's Pains In My Heart Place

My husband is heartbroken. He's losing his is best friend. They've been so close for so long it is just sad that this has to happen now. His friend has always been there for him, whenever Al is stressed or frustrated he could hang out with his friend and his worries would disappear. I'm not going to reveal this friend's name for privacy sake, but you know who you are.


You'd think I'd be jealous right? Well to be honest I was at first. But then I realized that I should actually be grateful for him. I know how important my friends are in my life so anyone who can make my hubster happy is always welcome in our lives.


And God knows every wife needs a break from these massive forms of testosterone. It's nice to be able to bake without being groped from all angles so I appreciate this friend. And really, he is my friend too. Of course I'm not as close to him as Al is, but we do have a good relationship. We respect each other and the role we each play in Al's life.


Hell, even I love having this dude around. And, strange as it seems, he's actually brought Al and I closer together. I know that sounds weird but it's true.


We're going to miss him, but I know that once this stage of our life has passed, there will be other friends to come our way. You may be wondering if we love this dude so much then why are we losing him?


Well our buddy is moving away and I know very well that we could continue a long distance relationship with him but, surprisingly Al has decided against it. Since Al will be going to Law School next year and won't have time for much else he'd end up neglecting him anyway. Al didn't want to put him through that, so he's cutting him loose now.


Geez, it sounds like he's breaking up with a girlfriend doesn't it? I know you probably think I'm being over dramatic, but for us, it truly is.


When Al told me what he planned to do I was shocked. I mean, how can you let someone who is such a big part of your life go like that? Of course it isn't easy for Al, when the subject comes up he gets his adorable sad boy look on his face, points to his chest and says,


"There's pains in my heart place."


And then I in turn kiss his chest right above his heart in order to "make it all better". Because that's what moms wives do.


But this too shall pass. Our life will go on, our friend's life will go on. So I just wanted to publicly thank our dear friend for all the good times.



You will truly be missed.








































Goodbye Hoggy.

Why Stop Now?

Since I won the last giveaway I posted about, why stop there?


Check out this giveaway too:
(but not really because I'm going to win anyway)



Over at A Nut In A Nutshell, Blue Violet is hosting a giveaway for Mabel's Labels.


Best. Idea. Ever.


Now I've got a label maker but it does not even look half has cute as Mabel's Labels.



I think I'm throwing away my label maker.

Death to all other label makers!

Will Put Out For Wine

I'm intrigued, maybe even a little obsessed with a certain blogger. It all started when I entered her Blogiversary giveaway a few weeks ago and totally took the cake. I won the best prize ever.

(No I did not put out, I won fair and square, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't if the opportunity ever presented itself.)

Homemade wine, liquor del cafe & basket full of bath pleasures!

(The cat tail was not part of the prize.)




Check out her labels, aren't they beautiful?

And yes, you heard me correctly,


H O M E M A D E. W I N E.


Yeah, Stacy's basically the coolest person I know. I anxiously await her posts on wine making, which include her own recipe for her fabulous Liquor del Cafe (Kahlua) & homemade vanilla extract. This woman makes wine out of anything, she is famous for her apple wine and this year she will also be making cherry wine. Sounds delicious right?


She also gave me a coupon for 20% off of anything in her boutique Savannah*Haven, in which I was already planning to empty my pockets so this coupon was just the whip cream on the pumpkin latte.


Mmmmm, pumpkin latte......


What? Sorry, got distracted.


So yeah, if you couldn't tell I'm REALLY excited about my prize! Stacy's got mad skills and has inspired me to make my own wine, which may never happen but it's fun to dream...


...and drink wine.

The Hubster On Blogging

I am busy with month-end right now so this post is brought to you by my husband:

He loves blogging.

Helping To Make A Baby

I have a tree. A fellow tree that is, because I too am a tree and together we make:


Well, two trees.



Not quite a forest but we give plenty of shade.


I met my fellow tree while going to college and we were on the drill team together. I have never met such a hilarious tree before in my life!


And today I am here to tell you that I'd like to help make a baby with her. Not in the way you think, people. She and her hubby are hoping to adopt! So I'm here to help spread the word.



Word.


Dani & Chris will really make the best parents and who knows, if I have something to do with making this baby, maybe I could be God Mother Pooba.


Has a nice ring to it doesn't it?


So check these two out and help them become a mommy and a daddy!


Their adoption blog:

And go here to add their button to your blog.