A Word On Fries . . .

There is something magical about the French Fry. A potato, one of the world's most wonderful foods, from such is brought magic things like the chip, mashed potatoes, au gratin potatoes, and a whole host of other delicious things, can also be manipulated by a thread of genius and turned into a french fry. Slice that puppy up, deep fry it in oil, sprinkle with salt, and you have a food so glorious that you just know God loves us if He gave us such a miraculous edible.

There is really just one problem with this perfect food. And it is that, after about 15 minutes, a fry transforms from a hot, crispy, salty, mealy, wonderful snack . . . to a limp, soggy, cold, pasty mouthful of yuck. In a matter of minutes. It is astounding how fast this happens. Good to evil, just like that. And once they go evil, there is no bringing them back. You can't microwave cold fries and bring back their fabulousness, and why would you bother sticking them in the oven and hovering around it for up to 15 minutes trying not to burn them but trying to get them warm enough to tolerate? It's just not worth it. Not when you can just go back to McDonald's and get a whole 'nother box for less than two bucks.

Seriously, dogs won't even eat that stuff. I know, I have two of them living with me. Today, twice now, I have come to my room to find the contents of my garbage can spread all over the floor. The empty soda cups from Dairy Queen and McD's were licked clean, a couple tissues were ripped apart, the empty box which at some point last week encased a paper wrapped burger was torn apart and licked clean. But the bright red carton half full of cold McDonald's fries? It wasn't touched. The thing was not even tipped over!

Ok, we are talking two Labradors right now, these dogs routinely swipe food off the counters, Sammy's plate, and the garbage when they believe they are hungry enough (they really aren't), but they didn't touch half a carton of cold fries! I was a little astounded (when we say astounded, I mean I sat there with a handful of damp dog-chewed tissues for a solid ten seconds with my mouth hanging open) until I remembered the occasions when I have been silly enough to give cold fries a try. Gag me.

It is fascinating to me the shocking difference that only five minutes of room temperature can make on fries. Such manna from heaven, turned vomitious. It's so sad. I mean, chocolate doesn't go bad. You can unearth a bag of Hershey's Kisses form your cupboard left over from last Halloween (or even the one before that) and eat them with a smile on your face. It's so bizarre.

Anyway, thank you for reading tonight's episode of "Junk Food Theater". We hope you join us next time, best wishes and good night.

Not Quite a Baby

So, last week I had a little round toddler living in my house with a softball shaped face (barely discernible chin)and little fat legs and baby feet and sparse hair that liked to get snarled while said toddler was asleep.

This week, I all of a sudden have a tall, almost gangly little girl, with a thinner face, long lean legs and the kind of feet that love to walk on tippy-toes and pose, and hair that still gets tangled and snarled in a mess, whether she is asleep or awake. Um, where did the time go? It was like when she was a baby, and the most adorable thing about her was her big toothless cheeser smile, then suddenly she had teeth and she wasn't a baby anymore, she was a toddler. The new phase was fun, in a lot of ways much funner than the baby stage, but the baby was gone.

Now the toddler is gone, and in place there is a little girl that will be turning four in a couple months and going to preschool. A mouthy and stubborn little girl, to top it off (yes, Mom, your curse worked and she's just like me).

A little girl that loves cartoons and Disney movies, mainlines Nesquik chocolate milk, string cheese, and hot dogs. A little girl that has, over the last year, become the dog's little master and best friend. A little girl that is so smart she can play games on Bumpa's old laptop on the internet and work the buttons on the remote control. A little girl that loves to play outside, rain or shine, and has no problem whatsoever with becoming absolutely filthy in the process. A little girl that loves to hand out hugs and kisses and high fives to everybody, who has inserted her bossy little self into all the lives around her and nestled in permanently.

It is amazing, considering the scope of change a little bitty baby has on a person's life, that they don't require background checks at the hospital after you have one. Competence testing. A whole slew of ability and aptitude tests to see if a person is actually prepared and capable of handling the cute soft thing wrapped in the blanket in the corner making cooing noises. You'd think they'd make sure you can handle it before just handing it over and sending you on your merry way!

Also, on a side note . . . I just cut Sammy's hair. Yeah, me, with no hair experience at all aside from the odd hack job on an unfortunate other person or myself, I cut my daughter's hair. I think it looks ok . . . at the moment it looks a little uneven, but I'm pretty sure that's just the way her hair lays. That, or I just destroyed her hair and this is going to be a horrible phase in her life where we don't take pictures for a few months and never speak of it again.

Well, the little girl is currently eating all of my coveted cheddar and sour cream Ruffles potato chips and watching Fantasia and tossing around her new short hair, so I think I'm going to join her.

Keep a sharp eye on your kids . . . next week they aren't going to be like they used to anymore.

Computer Games. Ugh.

Sammy has discovered, through the magic of the internet (yes, my 3 year old plays around on the internet), computer games. So far, she has discovered a Winnie the Pooh game and a Tangled game. Now, see, this is a problem for me. Because I am not a video/computer game girl. Like, at all. Want to know what computer games I play? Solitaire. Mahjong. Spider Solitaire. Purble Place if I'm feeling really crazy. The last time I played a video game, it was Halo. I spent the whole whopping half hour I played looking at the pretty scenery after getting lost and not being able to figure out where the crap I was. And the time before that? I spun around in circles firing my big gun before one of my team members shot me out of pure annoyance. And before that, let's see, there was a failed attempt at Super Mario Bros and before that . . . Battleship on Super Nintendo. Yeah.

Now Pete, on the other hand, he is a video/computer game guru. He plays Halo like he was the one that created the game, he's got almost as many computer and Xbox games as he does movies, and I don't think the guy could live if he didn't know that he had the option to play some kind of violent, shoot-em-up game somehow. I'm sure if he were home, we could figure this out.

You see, this is the point we keep getting stuck at: Pooh gets stuck on a cliff, and Flynn gets stuck on a rock. I don't know how to make the stupid things jump! The last time I played a computer game on a regular basis, I was six! Our game involved blocky boy and girl characters that roamed around collecting alphabet letters and buckets of pink goo to dump on the monsters that were after the book worm. And it took me a long time to master the jumping technique, which was pushing the up and right arrow buttons at the same time. I used to make my dad do that part. For a long time. We're talking years.

Anyway, if only Pete were here, he would not only get Flynn Rider to jump, but he would also find him a jet pack, win a lasso of Rapunzel's hair, earn 5 extra lives, and get a coupon for Starbucks. I kid you not! Winnie the Pooh would end up living in a honey tree with bees for servants, an all-you-can-eat honey buffet, and a Lamborghini. And I don't care if all of those things are available in the game or not, but Pete could probably do it.

This is such a problem. Because Sammy gets so frustrated and insistent when I tell her I can't do the game. She looks at me like I'm so stupid. Hey, kid, I could talk your ear off about a million things on this planet, most of which I know how to do, but I cannot do computer or video games. It's just not in my genetic makeup. I can do archery on the Wii, that's about it. And I recently figured out how to make the Xbox do Netflix, which I consider a major accomplishment. Other than that? You're SOL.

Now . . . if I could just figure out how to make Flynn Rider jump . . .

You Might Be A Redneck If . . .

I realized something a little disturbing a minute ago. While I was listening to a country song about a trucker. You see, country music is pretty much the staple music for rednecks, and I have always been a country music fan. More so the stuff from the 90's to now, but still. So, I'm listening to this song about a trucker, and my husband is a trucker, and I'm thinking to myself, "Ha, kinda makes us a little redneck-ish."

And then I considered something.

Here's some info I know about rednecks. They live in the country, you know, rural areas. They own horses, and the smell of manure in the morning is like a breath of fresh air. Hand-me-downs are almost as good as shopping at Walmart, which is the mecca of a redneck when there is one in the area. Rednecks love country music, play guitars, drive pickup trucks, and eat fried chicken. A lot of rednecks are truckers. Sometimes their family tree is a little bit . . . skewompus.

So . . . for a good portion of my life I lived in an apartment building next to a field, in which there lived horses, in a smallish town that always seemed really Mayberry to me. I even rode one of the horses once when the neighbor kids and I jumped the fence. The smell of manure, to this day, is still a bit homey to me. I'm very careful when walking through tall grass to avoid cowpies and other treasures that might be hiding in the grass.

I love hand-me-downs, and my mom and sisters and I play the pass-along game very well. My daughter, for her whole life, has been wearing some of the same outfits I wore when I as a baby and toddler, and I always pass on my nice clothes that don't fit me anymore to my sisters who are all smaller than me.

I also love shopping at Walmart, that is like my favorite store ever. I am hard on clothes, especially shirts and jeans, so I can't afford to spend half a paycheck on a new pair of pants every six months. $20 jeans at Walmart, come to mama! And $4 t-shirts? I'm so there! I also know where to find all the food stuff at Walmart, especially the snack aisle.

I LOVE country music, it is by far my favorite music genre ever. I love most kinds of music, with the exception of rap, most hip-hop, most jazz, and soul and stuff (I never grew up with it), but country is my music. Love it, love it, love it. I also play guitar, and someday I want to have my own pickup truck that makes the other little four door sedans on the road look little and scared. I also want a nice little car with amazing gas mileage, but my heart's desire is a really big pickup truck. And I love fried chicken, KFC is one of my favorite restaurants.

This is practically irrelevant, but I have a cowboy hat too. It's my favorite hat. And I recently bought cowboy boots that match it.

My husband became a trucker at the beginning of this year, completely with the insane facial hair and one arm tan, the other not. It took a lot of self-control not to pin him down, sit on his chest, and take a razor to his face and scalp. It was long enough that you could almost pull it into a ponytail in the back.

And as far as my family tree goes, my psycho uncle was once married to my sister-in-law (big disaster, don't ask), meaning my uncle was my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law was my aunt, my mom was my sister-in-law's sister-in-law, and my husband was his sister's nephew-in-law.

Now, I've always considered myself a country girl at heart, but holy cheese balls.

I'M A FREAKING REDNECK!!!!

Technology is Winning . . .

You know what one of the best things in the world is? When you can go back and read something you've written and and still find it funny. Bonus points if you actually laugh, which I did. If nothing else, I have the consolation that I can occasionally be a funny person, and luckily I get it in writing sometimes.

So . . . guess what. No, I'm not pregnant. No, I don't have a present for you. No, you cannot have my candy bar. Any more guesses? Anyone? Ok, so . . . I got a new phone. And I am unsure how I'm feeling about it. Because it's an Android, a Samsung Continuum, if we're being specific, and I've never had an Android before. I've never had the desire for one, because the things always looked WAY too complicated. I need a phone that calls, texts, and takes pictures. Yeah, that's pretty much it. I don't need it to be able to transform into any kind of gadget you can imagine, send lasers to the moon, or predict my mood. I'm fairly sure the first two are pretty useless and the third one I'm starting to get really good at doing all by myself.

So why did I get one? Well, I didn't want to. It was a battle, and Pete's been trying to talk me into getting one for at least a month. I was steadfastly refusing. The only reason I got one is because the selection for normal phones is pisspoor now that Androids have hit the scene. Beware old people, normal phones are phasing out. And sadly, I'd rather have to figure out this contraption in my pocket than deal with a crappy phone for the next 22 months. Or however long I have until I can upgrade.

I now have a phone that can predict my mood based on a scan of my thumb, has a selection of at least 4 different flashlights, pretends to be a pad of sticky notes, and makes a beeping sounds just like the Wii when I get a text message. I think I'm getting the hang of the texting, and I do have a few apps I really enjoy. One is jokes. The other is music. Another one is wallpapers that I collect like a homeless man collects spare change. All in all, I think I'm getting used to it, and bonus points because I'm getting a really awesome cover for it! PURPLE HARRY POTTER STYLE CHECKS, OMG!!!

Anywho, how's life? I haven't posted anything for like a month, I feel bad. I could have jotted down all manner of Sammy shenanigans, I'm sure. But I've been busy and never have anything to talk about when I actually remember I have a blog. Bearing in mind the danger that I might be repeating myself, it's like every time I've tried to keep a diary. I do great . . . for two days. And then cast the poor thing aside for up to a year or more and then when I need to have a massive venting session, guess who gets hired for the occasion? Long lost diary! Don't worry, though. Blog is not diary, will not vent on blog. Unless there is a really funny punchline.

Ooh, ooh, I have one other thing to tell about. StumbleUpon. It is amazing. It is a website you go to (www.stumbleupon.com) and you sign up for free, and you select the categories that interest you. And then, you click the Stumble button, and it takes you to a random page of the internet based on what categories you like!!! IT'S FRICKING AWESOME!!! Never has it been so easy to waste an hour doing something completely useless! You just keep clicking, and you thumb the page up or down according to if you like it or not, then Stumble again! It's so cool! You should try it, just for kicks. I've found an enormous crapload of stuff I've loved, pictures I've saved, and projects I want to do. I've been having a ball! So, there's my advertising for the day, everyone get off my blog and scurry off to go check it out now!

. . .

You're still here. What are you waiting for?! Go!!!

Soap Is Not A Plaything

My dear darling daughter brought something to my attention today that I hadn't noticed before, and it's significant enough to be worth pointing out. The child is extremely talented at creating disasters. I'm not talking your everyday, run-of-the-mill child disasters, like coloring on the wall with a crayon. I'm talking the big whoppers. Like coloring on the wall, the chairs, the cabinets, the table, and their own bodies with a marker. Of the non-washable variety. These disasters happen fairly frequently, such as the ketchup-smearing party. The great toilet paper caper. The bathtub tidal wave predicament. The chocolate-milk-spitting occurrence. The water-and-dog-food-mixerama. The juice puddle oops. The deliberately-peeing-on-the-floor-instead-of-the-toilet incident. The apple and orange throwing game. The dance-on-the-crackers-on-the-carpet day. The popcorn-is-confetti misunderstanding. The doggies-like-to-eat-a-whole-box-of-vanilla-wafers problem. And, sad to say, and we had another one today.

To qualify as a disaster, the act done by the child must have one or more of the following requirements: significant (definitely more than normal) cost, cleanup of site and/or child, aftereffects, side effects, and mental and/or emotional damage to parent. Please, if any of you have stories you'd like to share, do tell. I'd love to hear about kids that are either better or worse than mine. Because both kinds carry some kind of status for me. "My kid is better than yours, ha ha." "My kid is worse than yours, pity me."

Anyway, about the incident today. I like to call it the soap-is-not-a-plaything experiment. You see, Sammy is fascinated with soap. She loves to play with the stuff, the bubbles in the tub, the hand soap when she washes her hands, shampoo. Well, shampoo she recently became less enamored with because she discovered that it tends to hurt when it gets in the eyes. But bubble bath and hand soap are very dear toys for her.

Today she learned why that may not be the wisest of choices. You see, apparently she decided to empty half the bottle of hand soap onto the sink, spread it around and all the way down the cupboards, and smooth it up her arms as well. And didn't wash it off. I hear her start her "hurt cry", and go running to find out what she got stuck in, under, on top of, or out of. I go in to my room and see her standing on the bed with white streaky stuff on her face while she's screaming and crying. I realized it's soap, she's covered with it and it's in her eyes, and pick her up and take her to the bathroom to rinse her off. She didn't appreciate it, and by the time we were done with that part, her whole face was red and splotchy like it gets when she cries hard. Then we had to rinse her off in the tub because her clothes were covered in soap and her arms were too. And then, since in my haste I hadn't really had time to survey the damage except for the top of the sink, I found the copious amounts of soap and water running down the cabinet under the sink.

I had to take a few deep breaths. We got Sammy dressed again, did her hair again, and set out to clean up the soap. Yes, she helped. No, she did not want to. Yes, we had a discussion about why playing with the soap is a bad thing. Yes, she cried again. No, I did not feel bad AT ALL for making her listen to why playing with soap is a bad thing and making her help clean it up, even with her red eyes.

Now, I was in a bad mood anyway. Pete went back to work today, I work every single day this week, and my room is a mess. I really did not need this today. Nor did I need to buy soap again so soon. Or toilet paper, since Sammy is still under the impression that toilet paper is a toy. But now I have half an hour until I need to leave for work, I need to change my clothes because now I'm covered in soap, I have to clean up lunch because Sammy HAD to have mac and cheese AGAIN, and thanks to the clean up in the bathroom, I have an extra load of laundry to do before I go to bed tonight. Joy.

Garfield, I'm so there with you buddy. I hate Mondays.

Diaper Vs. Panties: The Debate

You know, I usually try to have some idea of what I'm going to write about when I shimmy on over to my cute little corner of the internet here, but tonight I don't. Not the foggiest idea. I was showing my hubby, Pete, the grand chopstick caper from last week and figured since I was already here . . . Yeah. Got nothin'.

Although, may I just mention how annoying it is to have a song stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or the words? Wanna know what's worse? To have a whole musical stuck in your head when you don't know all the music or words. I have had the soundtrack to Sweeney Todd (creepifying movie) stuck in my head ALL DAY LONG. The same lines, over and over again. It's been driving me bonkers. I tried to distract myself with Cats, and it just didn't take. I lip-synced through an abbreviated version of at least half the musical today at work (yes, I did get weird looks), and I STILL had Sweeney Todd stuck in my head like he'd taken up shop there and had no plans to vacate. *Annoyed expression* See, I LOVE the music, it's just . . . oh, gorgeous, I love it. But the story is about fourteen different kinds of creepy. And I will never watch that movie again, unless I suddenly find myself nursing a really kinky blood/gore/slitting throats fetish. But the music . . . Now, if only I could remember the freaking words.

Ooh, ooh, I have another funny Sammy story. This one is the Panty/Diaper argument we had tonight for a good fifteen minutes at bedtime. I also have a story about her banzai leap off the furniture yesterday, but I kinda already told that one on Facebook. The punchline is, she shorted it. But anyway, Panty/Diaper Debate. You see . . . I forgot to go to shopping today . . . and we're out of diapers. Completely. Panties work great when the child is conscious and is being told to go pee every hour, but at night? Yeah, right. Not happening, waterproof mattress protector aside.

Well . . . we had no choice, we had no diapers. So I, thinking that she wouldn't care that she got to wear panties to bed, indeed, might even be excited about it, held them out to her while she was running around her room with her bare bum hanging out. Her answer? No. Mommy was not amused. So I tried again, explaining that the diapers were all gone and she needed to wear panties tonight. No. *Annoyed expression* We tried bodily lifting her into the things and she threw a fit, crawling onto her pillow, facing the corner, burying her head in the mattress, and sticking her butt up in the air as a defensive position.

We tried to talk her into it. "Look, this pair has pretty flowers all over it! Do you want to wear the princess panties? Oh, cute, bows! Don't you want to wear some panties with bows?" She was not convinced nor swayed in the slightest, merely hurling the pair of flower panties back at Daddy and possibly shouting an obscenity in whatever language it is that she speaks. It's certainly not English.

At this point I'm torn between laughing hysterically and letting her go to bed naked. We were ransacking the house trying to find a diaper lying around somewhere. There is ALWAYS at least two diapers running around the house stuffed down the side of a mattress, tangled in the covers on a bed, sitting under a small collection of dog hair on the floor, tossed in a basket of laundry to be folded, stashed in her "going to Grammy's house" bag. Tonight? NOTHING. Not a diaper to be found ANYWHERE. We tore our rooms apart trying to find one, just one little diaper that the girl could wear to bed because she was finding her panties offensive. Nothing.

I had to go relieve myself at this point before I giggled and needed my own diaper, and by the time I got back, Pete had found one blessed diaper tucked in the sheets on his parents bed. Hallelujah. We were saved. Child: diapered. Panties: exiled to drawer. Bedtime: hour late, but accomplished.

So, I guess you could say that Sammy won the debate tonight. If I had remembered to go to the store and actually get diapers since I knew we were out, this whole fiasco would have been avoided, but then I wouldn't have a funny story to tell you, now would I? Life's funny that way, if not a tad cruel. But anyway, I'm going to see about either reading some of my fantastic book that I'm obsessed with, or going to bed a titch early . . . honestly, it's a toss up. There's a sleeping man in my bed, and he's a lot more exciting than a book . . . but he is asleep. *Shrugs* I'll let you know. Ciao!