Randomness

I almost wet my pants

So, I know that I am not at all cool.

Other than my blog, and keeping up with my family and college friends on Facebook, I am really not into the whole social media scene.

Because of my uncoolness, I am probably the last to know about www.damnyouautocorrect.com.

After finding this website today, I spent my entire lunch break reading it, and laughed so hard, people around my office probably think I am deranged.

And why was I laughing?

Because I am the queen of auto-correct nightmares.

Defense Mechanisms

A few months ago, I purchased my new laptop. I wanted it to be about the brightest shade of pink I could find, and sure enough, it looks like something out of the movie Legally Blonde. It’s pink, it’s paisley and it even has a pink mouse to match. My friend J, who is definitely not a girly-girl, looked at me like I was crazy. Why, she wanted to know, would I ever buy something so atrociously hideous? Aren’t I a little old for a Barbie-pink computer?

The answer, my friends, is obvious. I live in a house full of boys, and they are addicted to any and all things electronic. By making my laptop the most girly-looking object possible, I insured that both my husband and heathens would never ask to borrow it, play with it or even touch it.

Genius, I know. J, however, was still skeptical.

Last week, we got J a very nice ping-pong paddle for her birthday. See, my husband, J’s husband, J and I all have cocktails and play ping-pong together when we have a free evening. Everybody is pretty competitive, and we even argue about who gets which side of the table.

 As soon as J opened the swank new paddle, both my and J’s husbands got an envious gleam in their eyes. Surely, they could use it too?

J turned to me and suggested we get a Bedazzler, a pink marker and emblazon the handle with the words “Princess Paddle.”

She learns quickly.

Ohhh, Louisiana…How I Love Ya…

I had to make a too long road trip today from my home in northern Louisiana to the very south end of Louisiana for a work function. Despite the fact that driving six hours is sheer torture, I always get a kick out of the incredibly weird stuff I see on the highways and back-roads of my home state. Today, I observed the following:

  • An elderly man rollerblading down I-49
  • A sign warning drivers: “Prison in Area: Do Not Pick Up Hitchhikers!” Because, of course, we Louisianans need reminding that some hitchhikers may be dangerous…like for real, ya’ll.
  • At least six different roadside stands called “House of Meat, ” half of which offered fresh turtle meat! Yummers.
  • A hand-painted (poorly) sandwich board manifesto that started with “Every village has an idiot…;” I could not read the rest, or I would have probably run off the road. This six-foot tall manifesto was propped against a pole outside a service station, next to a hound dog also tied to the pole.

Yep, I love living in the weird capitol of the nation.

Alarm Clocks are Not Necessarily the Spawn of Satan

It doesn’t matter how early I go to bed, how much sleep I get, or how good the sleep in question was.

I still take it as a deeply personal and intentional insult when I wake up to an alarm clock. At 6:01 a.m., I firmly believe that the alarm clock is a self-righteous, annoying  spawn of Satan, who lives and breathes to tick me off.

I am seriously not a morning person. I thought I would outgrow this after high school. Then I hoped I’d out grow it after college. I REALLY hoped it would get better once Demon Baby slept through the night. I REALLY, REALLY hoped I’d get used to it when I went back to work.

But, alas, I now have to chalk this one up to genetics, nature or some voodoo hex I’ve yet to discover.

In the meantime, my family will just have to maintain the morning safety perimeter until I’ve had my Diet Coke, lest they ask for breakfast too soon and draw back a nub.

Well…Dang.

As my husband was working on our repurposed Kuerig-cup seed project this weekend, my camera started acting pretty twitchy.

And after a very short amount of time, twitchy became non-functional.

After I finished hyperventilating, I finally gathered the mental wherewithal to check Google for an answer to my cameral dilemma.

In very short order, I learned that “black screen of death” is so commonly associated with my camera model, Google has it ready for auto-fill in the search field.

That, my friends, was a very bad sign. Needless to say, I managed to offload the pictures I already had on the camera, but it looks like I am out of frapping luck with repairing the problem. Basically, it would cost far more in parts and labor than the camera is even worth.

You hear that Canon? That is the sound of me and you breaking up.

Too Fun.

Saturday was a hoot and a half.

But first, the back-story (and forgive the low-quality iPhone pictures). Every year, my kids’ school holds an annual auction/dinner/dance as a fundraiser. Up until now, this has been fairly unexciting, as the school gym is not exactly the type of place where you want to go party down and spend some money. After all, we all spend enough time at the school anyway. This year, a group of moms started to think outside of the box. Instead of the school gym-banquet gig, we decided to host a similar event at someone’s (very nice) house, with a more relaxed, cocktail party type of atmosphere.

The theme for the evening is “Taste of Italia,” and since our principal just happens to be Italian, we convinced her that her secret family recipe for Italian cookies would be a way better dessert than some generic caterer’s cheesecake. She agreed, but when we realized we would need a boatload of cookies for 200 people, my friend A decided that we would all make them together. This way, all the moms could bond, get familiar with A’s house (because the event will be there), and we would all learn about our principal’s coveted family tradition.

We had mothers, grandmothers and even some daughters show up, and we tackled those cookies in no time at all.

Our cookie-making get-together started as a practical way to accomplish a task, save some money and prepare for a huge event. What it turned into was a day of fun, stories, debates on proper fig cookie recipes and caloric suicide. I ate more cookies than one girl should eat, and my scale told me this in startling detail this morning.

Now, if the event is half as successful as the preparation, then we will hopefully make progress in raising money for an elevator. Why is this so important? A girl in my youngest’s class was paralyzed last year in a one in a million complication from a rare virus she contracted.

Though she will never walk again, H is still an active, healthy, stellar student. Without an elevator, however, she will have to leave school next year, as all the upper grades and enrichment classes are upstairs. If you want more information on H’s Elevator Fund, leave a comment. We can use all the help we can get in keeping this little girl with her school friends and family.

Not That I Am Complaining…

I’m not one to complain about the cold weather.

After trudging through a summer that was hotter than Hades, I am infinitely happy with not sweating my makeup off before 9:00 AM.

However, my 100 year-old, historic home has hardwood and stone floors.

These floors do not feel very good at 6:00 AM after a night of 20 degree temperatures.

I’m just saying…

Cold is a Relative Term

It’s gotten a wee bit cold here in Louisiana. We even had a day off from school and work yesterday, all because we got a few snow flurries on Sunday.

Yep, you’d think 32 degrees was an arctic blizzard of epic proportions. Half the roads were closed, because we are never prepared for the possibility of icy roads. Why waste tax dollars on something that never happens anyway? That is…until it does…

Last year, when I was at a conference in New Orleans, the organizers decided to cut the event short because snow started to fall. The guest speakers from Iowa looked at all of us like we were out of our minds.

Trust me, you don’t want a bunch of native Louisianians on the road during a snowfall. Hence the whole day-off thing. Otherwise, calamity would ensue.

While our snow sissy-ness results in these rare but welcome days off, we do pay for it eventually in the form of four months with 100 degree/nearly 100 percent humidity weather.

But for now, I’m going to bask in the fact that I live in a place that shuts down an entire day for five minutes of snow…and stick my cold toes on my husband when he least expects it.

A girl’s got to have her fun somehow…