The Liebster Award – Part 1

http://thethingsiseeuphere.com/ was kind enough to nominate me for The Liebster Award so I will do my best to accept it and pass it on. Thank you kindly!

I’d like to thank my agent, my manager, my parents, God…….oh wait, not that kind of award. Oops, oh well, I now have an acceptance speech for when I do win that award.

There are rules to this award and I will do my best to spread the word. I am supposed to answer 11 questions, nominate 11 bloggers with under 2o0 followers and ask them 11 questions. I will do my best to follow the rules.

Right now I will have to do this in two parts, this first part will be to acknowledge the person who nominated me and answer the questions posed to me, the second part will be to nominate 11 others and ask them 11 questions. With everything on my plate at the moment, part 2 will be on the back burner for a short time.

Here are the questions and my answers:

1. What was the worst thing you ever got into trouble for as a child?

This is really a tough one as it seems like I was always in trouble for something. I’m going to concentrate on the word ‘child’ here so I don’t make a mistake and tell you about any ‘teen’ trouble I got into. I had a bit of a temper as a child. My Mom and Dad installed new countertops in the kitchen, my Mom was super excited and the counters looked great. Not long after (and I mean within the first few days) the counters were installed I got mad at my Mom, for what? I have no idea. I took a serving spoon, you know, one of those old heavy duty ones with a wooden handle that doubled as a weapon. I wielded that spoon like an axe and went to work on the edge of the countertop and chipped the living daylights out of it. Mad was not a word that described what my Mom was. Uff da.

2. If you could marry a cartoon character who would it be?

Yosemite Sam. Why? A gun waving, cowboy hat wearing bad boy…..need I say more?

3. If you were an alcoholic drink, what would you be and why?

A margarita. It looks and tastes sweet but packs a big punch.

4. Do you think blind people actually see things in their dreams?

Yes. They probably see things way more clearly than those of us with sight do.

5. If people point to their wrist to ask for the time, why do people get mad when you point to your crotch indicating you want a hand job?

Oh boy. Well, for one, you have your own hands, when someone points to their wrist it’s obvious they don’t have a watch.

6. Have you ever had an imaginary friend?

As a kid, maybe. As an adult, I have two, Me and Myself.

7. What’s the longest you have ever gone without taking a bath or shower?

I can’t think of a time when I’ve had to go on a trip to the Amazon or a camping trip to the middle of nowhere for a week so I would have to say two, maybe three days.

8. Have you ever farted during sex?

Hasn’t everyone?

9. If you were caught peeing in public what excuse would you use?

“Sorry officer but I HAD TO GO! Holding it can cause a UTI and we wouldn’t want that, now would we?”

10. Would you rather only be hit on by ridiculously unattractive people or only people of the same-sex?

I’m not into the girl thing, not that there’s anything wrong with it, so I’d have to say ridiculously unattractive men, one of them has to have a great personality and treat me like a queen…or maybe have a lot of money….hmmmm.

11. Would you eat chocolate pudding that tasted like shit or shit that tasted like chocolate pudding?

Chocolate pudding that tastes like shit, it’s not much different from tasting like that right now but I’d eat it before a pot pie, that’s for sure.

I will attempt to get part 2 of my mission completed as soon as possible.

Writer’s Cramp

Well hello there. I know, it’s been too long. My apologies for that. There are a few things that have hindered my ability to post these days.

I went on a short vacation to meet Idaho. We had a blast, I took lots of notes and plan to write a story or two about our endeavours. You won’t be disappointed, we had tons of laughs and a medical issue on this trip, I knew the healthy streak wouldn’t last long.

Picking up bartending shifts and the two-hour time difference from Nevada has my nights and days screwed up and of course the tiny sleep schedule I do have is completely out the window. I don’t think I sleep at all now and I’ve pretty much stopped eating too. Run for cover, hide the children, call 911! There has never been a time in my life that I don’t eat. As my sister and I say, ‘feed a fever, feed a cold, feed everything’. I’m not holding my breath on actually losing any weight though, I couldn’t get that lucky.

Without an actual full-time day job, the developer of my phone app at a new job which keeps him too busy to do his side work (what’s that all about?) and some newfound determination to discover a dream job, I decided to dive headlong into putting a book together. Not a small project to embark on. I’m making wonderful progress though. I’m pulling particular stories from the blog and also adding new stories that won’t be found here. Sorry, I’ve been cheating on you and writing for my book. It’s just writing, it doesn’t mean anything, don’t be like that. I’m sorry baby. Oh wait…..I think I went off on a tangent there. ….awkward.

I’ve actually been writing quite a bit so I believe the writer’s cramp I’m feeling in my hands is legitimate, bartending is a vacation compared to putting a book together. I never thought I’d say bartending was a vacation.

See you soon!

The First Time

Stop. Not THAT first time, I just threw up in my mouth thinking about having to share that story so that won’t be happening. Ewww.

I leave for Reno in less than three days and I will be going without a computer. I know, therapy is scheduled and TSA has been alerted. Even prior to the days I had my own laptop I traveled with a work laptop. I think there’s only been a time or two I braved airport security and didn’t have to grab an extra bin for my computer in the last ten years.

There are three reasons for me embarking on this new territory:

One, our plan is to be on the bike for a good portion of the trip. This is new for us and I’m super excited to see what sort of adventures it brings. I’m at odds about exactly what attire to pack, should I go with ‘full fledged biker chick’ or ‘first time biker chick’? I’m going to shoot for somewhere in between, I don’t have chaps, I won’t be wearing a bikini top with jeans (ever) and I can’t wear my hair in a long braid with my bandana yet. I know, I know, I’m stereotyping but that’s where I will probably be eventually so I figure I can go there.

Two, a month or so ago my computer started making a sound similar to a loud snowmobile. In order to work on it while watching TV I had to turn up the volume to 47 so I could hear it over the newly added noise. My new roommate has a very nice laptop and was kind enough to say “why don’t you use my computer, that one sounds like it’s going to burst into flames”. I have been very thankful for the offer.

I’ve had my computer since about the turn of the century and as you can understand I have LOTS of stuff saved on it so not to use it is a bit odd. I was working on it last week and it just quit on me, I mean the screen went black and it shut off completely. I hate to admit it but I haven’t had enough guts to attempt to even turn it on since then so I will not be taking it on another trip. Maybe when I get home I will talk nice to it, pray to the computer gods and push the power button.

Three, I DON’T HAVE TO! It hit me that this is the first time I will be traveling where I don’t have to check work emails, be available by cell phone for work or wonder what’s happening with my clients while I’m gone from work. Holy crap, I don’t have a job!! I mean, it’s been very obvious I don’t have a job, but wow is life changing.

Although a portion of my Thanksgiving trip to Idaho was without a job, I still had my computer and still had to tie up loose ends while I was gone. All in all, I can’t wait!!! I can’t wait to see what going away is like without having to bring a computer, check work emails, check-in to make sure everything is okay or take client calls. I’m excited and nervous for my first time.

As I was packing today a weird feeling came over me when I realized I could take an actual carry on with me that wasn’t my computer bag. What do I put in it? How big of a bag should I take? Should I only take a carry on and no actual luggage? Which bag do I use? About that time, I started getting sweaty palms and panicking so I put down all the bags and walked away. I guess this is all a work in progress.

I’m sure I’ll have stories about my first time when I return and I will be more than ready to share them with you. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that I don’t freeze up at airport security because I don’t know how to go through without a computer and not make it on my trip.

Sleepless in Wisconsin XIV

I really have no idea if that’s the roman numeral for 14 or not but tonight I don’t care. I am so tired of this not sleeping thing I could throw up. I’ve had another run of bad sleeping the last couple of weeks but have been trying to ignore it……as we already know, that doesn’t work.

For a few days I had heartburn to the point of being on the verge of throwing up which I know was part of the problem. I would imagine some of you are thinking…..’hey chubby, stop eating’, but heartburn has never been a problem for me. I can eat the rear end out of a rhino and things are fine…..normally. That’s why this has been so upsetting to me, although I haven’t been eating rhino lately I haven’t been eating much of anything because of the burn.

I visited the chiropractor today for other issues and when he had me lay down on the torture table he asked “suffering from heartburn are ya?” without even touching me. He freaks me out like that now and then. When I told him I did he took his index finger, poked me near my left shoulder blade and said “I bet it hurts right here”. Pretty sure my scream and jerk were enough of an answer. He adjusted me and miraculously I haven’t had heartburn since. I forget about him for things like that and wish I didn’t because the 8 rolls of tums sure didn’t help.

While I’m ranting I may as well share that not only am I struggling with heartburn, I feel as though I have been drug behind a snowplow by my arms. A friend and I got ourselves into a cleaning project that was more than we could have imagined. At this very moment I would rather be kidnapped by an unknown Amazon tribe and tortured for days than ever wash walls again. I was already suffering from some unknown issue with my elbows (thus the chiropractor and the not sleeping tonight) and I’m pretty certain the cleaning made it worse. The chiro isn’t very impressed with me but he’s used to it.

The person we’re doing the cleaning for also has a sleeping problem so we’ve been swapping stories of insomnia. The difference between us is he has money so infomercials are actually useful to him. I noticed several purchases from crappy late night TV in his apartment. I thought about leaving a note for him with the things I think I could use but knowing him he’d actually purchase them for me.

Tonight I’m watching a Finding Bigfoot marathon instead of infomercials and I can’t decide which is actually worse. The episode on now is in Idaho. Tomorrow when I speak to Idaho (the guy) I will have to see if he’s interested in doing a little squatch hunting the next time I’m there. Maybe we’ll film our adventure and push these four yayhoos from the show and take over. I bet we could be entertaining. To end the show they said “Idaho is part of the pathway from the Rockies to Canada for the sasquatch”. The squatch are migrating north to Canada?? What does Canada have to offer that we don’t? How do we know this for sure? Maybe the Canadians aren’t actually trying to find bigfoot so they’re going there to be left alone………interesting concept. Maybe our show could center around keeping the squatch here in the states.

If there was anything else on I would turn the channel but there’s not. What the hell do I pay $85 a month for if I can’t watch anything better than this in the middle of the night? I’ll call the cable company tomorrow and ask them…..wait…..no, I won’t. I’m pretty sure they won the “Worst Customer Service on the Planet” award last month.

Those were some super random writings tonight, I think it’s time to find something else to do like the dishes or laundry or something. I’m not even making much sense to myself……and that’s bad.

Second Wind

Recently I’ve been noticing I get a second wind quite often. Well, I say that and then think to myself “Really? Were they second winds or were they first winds?” I mean, I made it through most days accomplishing some tasks like bartending, grocery shopping, post office, library and bank, you know, every day items. But did I accomplish enough? Obviously not, because there were tasks left over, there always is. So something happens right about bedtime, or even after I have been in bed, the notion to a get project done hits me and I have to do it ‘right now’. Well, that’s dumb, and I mean dumb.

While I was putting plastic on my living room window at 1:00 o’clock on a Thursday morning I realized how silly that was. I had been in bed for two hours tossing and turning and decided I needed to be productive. Had I been as productive as I should have been during the day on Wednesday (or any other day in the last week for that matter) I wouldn’t have had that plastic still sitting on my kitchen table. God knows it wasn’t going to hang itself, I couldn’t find the ‘self hanging’ kind, they must have been all out.

I live in a duplex so my second winds have to be within reason. There are some things I would have liked to do but figured I best not, like putting hangers up on the wall in the basement, or laundry, or vacuuming the floors. I wish I could say getting on the elliptical but unfortunately exercise has not been one of the things I HAVE to get done in the middle of the night. Nope, it’s been things like baking cookies (for those of you who know me this is not a lie but they were not from scratch), doing dishes, putting clothes away, getting my tax stuff together (really?), paying bills and mopping floors. Each time I catch myself doing those things I think of how dumb it is that I’m accomplishing them in the middle of the night.

As I finish this post at 4:00 AM typing away on my slowly dying computer that sounds like a Model T I thank my lucky stars that Best Buy isn’t open or my fourth wind of the night would be driving to get a new computer. My second wind consisted of finishing a book and cleaning the toilet and my third wind was writing this. I wonder if I should seek professional help or perhaps just be sure my first winds are much more productive? God knows I don’t have the time or energy for these late night rendezvous with undone tasks.

Tomorrow (well tonight I guess) I hope to go to bed and not be compelled to get up and do crap I should be accomplishing during the day. That’s probably like asking the neighbors to pick up their dog poop but a girl can hope.

Blue Jeans

I’m not sure about you but blue jeans are a pain in my rear (intended). I would imagine we all have trouble finding jeans that fit comfortably and look good. Tall, short, fat, skinny, I think it’s tough to find that REALLY great feeling pair of jeans. In my experience when you do find them you have to take out a mortgage to actually purchase a pair. Most jeans I’ve even slightly liked lately are $100, well, for $100 they should be massaging my backside, doing my dishes and should make me look about 50 pounds lighter. They should also not cause a muffin top (mine is more like the whole pan of muffins) or make my underwear ride up into the unknown. I am usually at a loss and just have to buy something that fits and looks half decent.

I’ve mentioned excessive butt crack in several previous posts. It happened again at pool this week, one player showed the crack itself and one player showed the pink lace thong she was wearing. Not sure which was worse. Perhaps the maker of blue jeans will find a happy medium between the top of the crack and the belly button as I do understand not wanting to wear jeans like we did in the 80s that you could almost wear as a bra too.

One other thing I’m confused about is the extra little pocket in the front of jeans.

Seriously, there’s even a button on this super secret pocket and it maybe holds two dimes and a nickle. With not a payphone in sight, I’m not sure it’s a bonus to have this. I try to keep as little as possible in my pockets anyway, well, actually there’s really no room left in my jeans to put anything in my pockets, so what am I going to do with that one? Perhaps it’s for looks, which doesn’t pertain to me either because I haven’t been able to tuck a shirt into a pair of jeans since sometime in the 1994. Which means there is no one that’s seeing that pocket anyway……and if they are…..I’m fairly certain they don’t care about that pocket.

Then there’s those pants with worthless pockets all around. Why even bother with the pocket. In the picture above the super secret pocket is damn near as big as the actual pocket so none of them fit anything remotely useful in them. My cell phone is too big for the regular pocket so that idea went to the wayside pretty suddenly. I feel as though this pair would have been better off with fake pockets sewn in, they would have been just as useful.

Happy jean shopping. I hope you have better luck than I do.

Daily Prompt – Change

Today’s daily prompt is: “What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?”

It’s probably self explanatory by the name of my blog but the changes I’d like my blog to make on the world are small changes within people that could make big changes on the world.

Don’t take life so seriously, find the things that make you smile, giggle or die laughing and surround yourself with them. This could be a funny friend, a trip to Wal-Mart (you know, you’ve all seen funny there), a giggling child or situation that makes you smile.
Create funny yourself, we’re all funny in our own way, find yours, it’s there, you just have to look for it. Sometimes your funny is just to laugh at others. For the love of God, don’t force it if you’re not actually that funny, there’s nothing worse than awkward moments when you hope to be funny and no one else thinks so. I’ve been there, I know.
Don’t take yourself so seriously, when you learn to laugh at yourself you’ll find others funny. I took a good fall the other day on the sidewalk in front of three friends. The toe of my hooker boot caught a rock and my top half got moving WAY faster than my bottom half. It didn’t take me long to be laying on the sidewalk, face down. All I could do was yell “MAN DOWN” and laugh hysterically.
Look for laugh lines and smiles that reach someone’s eyes. Those people are great to be around, their laugh makes you laugh harder.

By surrounding yourself with funny, you’re adding years to your life and hopefully someone else’s life too. A good attitude, a great laugh, a funny joke or comment can make someone’s day, in turn they will spread the wealth, guaranteed.

Can you imagine a world where everyone smiled and laughed, even a few more times a day? Our jobs would be better, our shopping trips would be better, our relationships would be better. Try it, you’ll like it. Life without humor is just life, life with humor is living.

Daily Prompt – Sunshine

I decided to do the Daily Prompt from WordPress today. The challenge was to think of a word, do a Google image search on it and then write about the 11th image that came up. Needless to say by the time I finished reading the challenge I had thought of several words and I was biased.

What to do? Well, I enlisted the help of Idaho to give me a word. Knowing full well it could be a disaster, I sent him a text to ask for the first word that came to his mind…..fail, didn’t dare use that one………I asked for a second one, his word was ‘sunshine’. I’m not sure if he’s been drinking at work today because that was a bit of an odd choice but I wasn’t about to ask for a third one so I’m going with sunshine. My photo came from the website http://www.parisdjs.com/index.php/post/Paris-DJs-Soundsystem-Morning-Sunshine and here it is:

It’s funny that sunshine would be the word he picked today I feel as I am the farthest thing from sunshine. I have my moments of niceness but I’m a bit stressed out with coworkers today so the door to my office has been closed. I don’t want my non-sunshiney mood to creep out into the lives of others. I’ve been trying to be conscious of that more and more lately. Just because I’m having a frustrating day doesn’t mean everyone else is. More than once today I pictured me clobbering someone over the head with a frying pan or gouging their eyes out with a spoon. No, I did not act on it, I exercised self-control I think is how they put it.

Just for the fun of it I Googled ‘frustration’ and the 11th image is from http://booksyourkidswilllove.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html.

Now that’s more like it! That’s about what I looked like for a majority of the morning, or felt like it at least, he’s pretty cute though and I wasn’t cute. Then I took my lunch to write this story and being able to be mouthy and sarcastic by writing has helped my attitude immensely. Now I almost am sunshiney. Look out world, a frustrated, sunshiney girl is on the loose, I can’t wait to see what the day ends up like. I bartend tonight, this ought to be good.

Same Name

Ever wonder who else has your name out there? I bet some of you even know a person with your same name. I’m curious now and then so I Googled myself today. I know, I know, if we would have said that 20 years ago our parents would have scolded us.

I was pleasantly surprised that the first three entries were my LinkedIn page, Following Funny’s Twitter and Pinterest. Then it’s no longer me but my name is on a page with Chuck, in Mount Prospect, Illinois, I’m also on MyLife in Madrid, oh how exciting, someone with my name is in Madrid! At closer inspection, it’s Madrid, IA, not quite as exciting.

On the first page there is also all the “find the address, phone number and criminal record” results that come with all name searches. I’m okay not searching for my criminal record, I know all too well what it is…..I mean, I’m sure I don’t have a criminal record.

As I go through the pages of results I find out I am in Pleasantville, PA and London, Ontario, I was slightly excited here again with the whole London thing but no such luck, it’s Canada, eh. I found that my Twitter account has a value of $31.74 which I have no idea what that means but I’ll take a check for that and I’ve recently been on an Alzheimer’s walk, wonder how much money I raised?

A majority of the first 5 pages are not me which is a bit of a relief since most of it’s crap anyway. Following Funny’s Facebook page didn’t come up so I might want to do something about that.

To take my curiosity further I clicked on the “images” search in Google and found some gems. Of course, I picked out the ones I thought were the funniest to share with you.

I do hope I wear this outfit one day!

Not my dog, but it’s cute. I hope its name isn’t Peggy, that’s not a very good name for a dog.

This is for sure not me as the troops would not want me to wear my pajamas for them. Nice legs though.

No clue what is happening here.

This is not me, nor a relative of mine that I’m aware of but I do love how this picture was tweaked in Photoshop for some reason or another. Maybe the picture is from a police line-up photo and the height lines were removed. Wonder what her crime was?

This one disturbs me. There’s the unibrow, the closed eyes and the possibility his nipples have been removed.

Okay, I’m quitting before I have bad dreams. It was fun while it lasted. I encourage you to Google yourself, it gave me a good laugh.

Things That Make Me Smile II

I received this text from a friend after she took her dog for a walk:

“Who shits twice on their walk? Who unties the bag and gets it all over their fingers? Yeah, that’s our dog all right. Next time I won’t tie the bag so tight. Sheesh, lesson learned.”

I received this instant message from a coworker on a Wednesday morning:

“Speaking of drinking. Monday I decided it was a good idea to not eat and save my calories for wine. Turns out that isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had.”

When Idaho arrived I asked him how the flight was. He said “great but I had to go to the bathroom super bad but was scared to ask the two ladies next to me to move during the flight so I held it”. I’m glad he wasn’t scared of me when I met him!!

Idaho and I were in the car with my parents going to dinner on Saturday night and my dad said the following as we were talking about family:

“My grandpa was buried Catholic but because he wasn’t a true Catholic he couldn’t be carried through the cemetery gates so they had to carry him through the ditch.”

It happened again!!! Idaho got sick while he was here. It happens to one of us every time. I sent him on a plane with a bad cough and a terrible head cold. When I talked to him yesterday it now sounds like bronchitis. He’s going to stop coming here pretty soon.

Today I received a voicemail and the following words and phrases were in it and I will let you draw your own conclusions how it went.

Bodybuilder neighbor
Middle of September
Speedo
Smelly overflowing garbage
Empty health food containers

Driving in heavy traffic on the freeway yesterday we were at a dead stop in construction. The third car in front of us didn’t start moving when everyone else did. After a few minutes the truck in front of us tried to go around him on the right when he stopped and got out of the truck. We started getting out because we noticed the driver wasn’t physically moving and his head was over to the side. The truck man pounded on his hood, gave the driver the thumbs up to ask if he was okay. The driver then started moving. Apparently he just needed a little nap during the slowdown!!!