Things I Do That Pete Finds Annoying/Endearing

All of us have those traits, those absolutely idiotic quirks or habits that drive our near and dear completely insane. And here is a list of mine that annoy Pete, although thankfully he can usually find something endearing about the situation to make him not want to kill me.

#1 - Shoes. I am a shoe girl. I love shoes, I think they are fabulous and wonderful and no matter how fat I get, my shoes still fit. Same thing with purses and jewelry. I still fit the earrings that I wore in junior high! Anyway, yeah. I have easily 30 pairs of shoes, scattered all over in our closet and on the floor in front of the closet. Basically anywhere near the closet is a shoe deathtrap. However, I think Pete kinda likes the little squeal I make when I see a new pair of shoes I must have. Until he realizes he has to pay for them.

#2 - My side vs. His side. Of the bed, that is. See, when he's on the road, I can think of no valid reason that I can't just shove all the crap on the bed over on his side at the end of the night when my eyes fuzz over so bad I can't see. That is, until he comes home. And has a mountain-sized mound of crap all over his side of the bed. But don't worry, he gets even. Because he just shoves it all back over on my side.

#3 - Hobbies. I have . . . a lot of hobbies. I do crafts like crazy, including everything from sewing to coloring. Yes, coloring. With princess coloring books and colored pencils. And these hobbies of mine take up a LOT of space. I could fill a room with all of the crafting/hobby crap I have. I have a guitar, a box of items to be used when I someday have the vineyard kitchen I want, boxes of movie ticket stubs and Sammy's old nursery drawings she brought home from church, scads of scrapbooking stuff. It is truly insane. And yet . . . I honestly use all of it. I don't think Pete has found a good side to this yet.

#4 - Freak out at electronics. This happens a lot. I do something to my computer or phone that I didn't want to do, and I immediately throw a whiny tantrum that potentially escalates to sulking, stressing, and even the silent treatment. It doesn't annoy him to have to fix it, usually. It bugs him when I throw a fit at the problem. But then he gets to call me a dork.

#5 - Making him render an opinion. "What color should I do?" "Which shoes look better with this?" "How should I do my hair?" "Does that match?" "What should I make for dinner?" His answer? "I don't know." "I don't care." Do I let him get away with that? Psh. Nope. I bug and nag and pester and annoy until he heaves an annoyed sigh and I get an answer. Drives him nuts!

#6 - When I randomly wander off at the grocery store. We're walking down an aisle, I see something shiny, or cheap, or tasty, or whatever, and without a word I just suddenly start veering off in a different direction to beeline at what I just saw. And right after I disappear, Pete realizes I'm gone and has to go find me. It happens ALL THE TIME. He's taken to standing behind me while I push the cart with an arm on either side of me and holding on to the cart as well. People probably think he's being really cute with me. Nope. He's keeping me from wandering off. I'm like a psycho bunny.

Now . . . there are also a few things about me that he finds endearing. I'm putting these mostly because I can't think of any more things I do that consistently annoy him (and he's denying 3 out of 6 of the above things). I would ask him, but he's half asleep. And I would be fulfilling #5 if I woke him up and asked him.

#1 - I ask questions about video games. I've discussed before my absolute lack of ability when it comes to video and computer games. I have not improved. But for some reason it really tickles his fancy when I ask questions about something he is an expert at. It's the same with Star Wars and Star Trek. Now, I'm a total Star Wars Fangirl, but Pete is a bit more knowledgeable about the stuff that happened before, after, and in between the movies. And he's kinda a Trekkie too. And I think he really digs being the source of knowledge for me.

#2 - I am a klutz. No, really. I can list 3 spectacular face plants right off the top of my head, and I can even tell you which shoes were at fault each time. And two of those were in public! I also injure myself on a fairly regular basis, especially when in proximity to the stove. I have a wicked awesome steam burn scar on my wrist from one of those escapades. But rather than finding me a hazard, Pete just finds it slightly adorable at how accident prone I am. Especially since that means he often gets to roll his eyes at my shoes.

#3 - I talk to myself and lip-sync with my headphones in. I think the rockstar lip-syncing makes him laugh the most. Oftentimes when I make dinner I do so with my MP3 player blasted and wearing my noise-cancelling SkullCandy headphones, and I can't resist that. So I lip-sync along quite enthusiastically, and apparently that is a really funny thing to walk in on. And yeah, I talk to myself. More often than not calling myself an idiot for doing a stupid. He likes to listen to me argue with myself.

#4 - My giggle. Apparently I have a signature giggle. The kind that even when I text *giggling* on my phone, Pete says he can hear it. I know I giggle all the time, I have structured my life so that I have plenty of opportunity for kicks and giggles at every opportunity, and I guess it has paid off. Because I have a Pete-approved giggle, and he gets a dorky little smile on his face every time he hears it.

Next time I think I'm going to have to make a list of the things Pete does that I find annoying/endearing . . . this could be so fun . . .

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!!!

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!

Beat the Jell-O into Submission

Today . . . has been an epic day. It's the Saturday before Easter, which means that all that fun holiday stuff that you can't really do on the Sabbath, happens today. You know, shopping for all that stuff you forgot to buy at the grocery store on the four previous trips you made. Making the house all pretty and shiny for Sunday. For my family, that means boiling and dyeing the Easter eggs, so they're all ready to be skinned and eaten alive the next day. Oh, and getting started on all the food that the ravenous children will be eating tomorrow.

Of course, I'm talking about my mother. I am not cool enough to clean my house (well, rooms that I live in at my in-law's house) for special occasions. Or every day. Or at all, really. Have I mentioned I hate cleaning? Yeah. But my mom, who is pretty much the Supermom that other moms try to emulate and usually fail at, is awesome like that. House: clean. Brand new Easter clothes (half of them handmade): done and ironed. Food: ingredients gotten (after 17 trips to the grocery store). I am not this cool. I would go to the grocery store once . . . and if I forgot to grab the French fried onions for the green bean casserole, well, dehydrated onions work too, right? And how crucial are the apples in the Snickers n' Apple Salad? Cut up Snickers smothered in Cool Whip (I remembered to buy that, right?) works just as well. Right?

Well, anyway, my Mom's amazingness aside, here is what else we did today: We went out for lunch and a movie. The movie was Hop, and it was cute and funny and a keeper! I love James Marsden. But the real highlight of this outing . . . was lunch. We went to the Beijing Buffet, all 8 of us, and systematically consumed half the food in the place. And my little brother . . . found the chopsticks. Now, see, normally this is not a problem, since 7 of us are over the age of eight and therefore quite adept at using chopsticks. However . . . my daughter . . . is 3. We gave CHOPSTICKS to a THREE YEAR OLD. Yes, at the time, I knew this was a supremely stupid idea. I knew I would regret it. I was not, however, prepared for how . . . epic of a fail it turned out to be.

First of all, she tried to eat salmon with the chopsticks. And promptly ditched one of the chopsticks out of sheer annoyance. So, three year old, piece of salmon, single chopstick. And next to the plate, a cup of Egg Drop Soup. Want to know what happens when you semi-violently attack a helpless piece of salmon with a chopstick? That's right. A piece of it goes flying hari-kari to commit suicide in the cup of soup, and it may or not have had help from the semi-violent three year old brandishing a chopstick like a Japanese samurai sword.

Most of the salmon (that didn't end up lying peacefully in the soup) ended up scattered all over the floor. Then . . . we moved on to the Jell-O. My sister, with the greatest of intentions, got my daughter some Jell-O cubes to eat for desert, along side the ice cream (just for the record, Sammy ate more of the ice cream than she did of the actual food for lunch). Still using her single chopstick, my daughter decided that the easiest way to make use of these strange, squishy, rubbery-lookin' orange things would be to spear the sucker, raise it in the air, and try to navigate it to her mouth. Didn't work. *Plop* Orange Jell-O jiggler is back on the plate, somewhat holey, and three year old is surveying it with a look of confusion.

So, we moved on to a different tactic, holding the Jell-O in place with a finger while sticking with chopstick and again raising into air and maneuvering to mouth. *Squish* Jell-O, meet table. At this point, it occurred to my daughter that Jell-O seemed way more like a toy and less and less like something to try eating. So she proceeded to chase the gelatin cube around the table, giggling as it bounced off the edges of plates. And then, apparently offended and outraged that it had the nerve to split in half, she then started to beat the Jell-O into submission (that phrase courtesy of my hysterical Dad), and once subdued, sweep it all onto the floor.

It was around this point that I figured I should stop laughing and take the chopstick away. I wrapped it and the masticated Jell-O up in a napkin, keeping it out of her reach. So, Sammy just stole my sister's chopsticks, dropped one a plate, and in the process of smacking it with the other stick as punishment, sent the one on the plate flying over our heads, to bounce off of the table behind us and roll to a stop under a chair.

By now, I was crawling under our table in embarrassment and shame as my daughter shrieked with laughter and kept trying to find the missing chopstick. And then started whacking my sister with the other one, prompting me to get out from under the table and remove all chopsticks from within her reach and hide them. We managed to get out of the restaurant without too much incident (leaving a $12.50 tip for the poor person who had to clean up the smooshed Jell-O, bits of noodle and rice, and flakes of salmon ground into the carpet. Oh, and the chopstick under the chair at the other end of the room).

Apparently her exertions at trying to tame the wild Jell-O jiggler had just worn my poor daughter out, and she slept through most of the movie. Which left her all kinds of chipper and perky at Walmart, which was just so . . . fun. Really. Yeah. The next adventure on the docket was dyeing Easter eggs, and after getting the six dozen eggs boiled (yes, six dozen) and ready to go, my mom and I shared a nostalgic moment together, grinning like little kids as we plopped the little color dye tablets into the mugs, to fizz and bubble in the vinegar at the bottom. The smell of vinegar has always reminded me of Easter, for this exact reason. We watched the little tablets scoot around the edge of the cups as they bubbled, sending the dye swirling up in their wake.

And then . . . my little brother and sister got ahold of the stuff. A nine and eleven year old, 2 dozen eggs, and 12 mugs of pretty darn permanent multicolored dye, and these really nifty "dye pens" we found at Walmart that consisted of thin tubes of dye with a Q-tip fluff on each end. You break the seal on one end, and all the ink rushes to the cotton at the other end. Voila, Easter egg dye pen! Let me just say that it is a good thing my mom's Easter tablecloth is vinyl.

And now, I'm sitting at the table amidst the aftermath of a whirlwind evening of dyeing Easter eggs. We even have a set of eggs decorated as Gru and his minions from Despicable Me, I kid you not. Those were my brothers invention. Oh, and by the way, if you do not know how to juggle, attempting to learn how with hard-boiled eggs is . . . well, hysterically funny, but maybe not advisable.

So now, I'm going to see what I can do about cleaning up the disaster that once used to be the kitchen table, stick the 6 dozen eggs back in the fridge in preparation for tomorrow, and pour 12 cups of dye down the sink (best part of dyeing eggs). I hope everyone else has as . . . memorable an Easter as I did. Ta!

Ooze

*Oozes onto the blog, peers around sleepy-eyed* Helloooooo. *Blinks* You want to know what happens when sleep deprivations meets a surprise long shift and dizzy spells. Ooze. That's what happens. A complete melty kind of conglomeration of all the exhausted body parts of a person that moves very slowly and thinks even slower. And ooze like this is extremely reluctant to separate itself from surfaces. It's like fast drying glue, and it takes a significant amount of effort to pry one's oozed self off a surface once you're all oozy and comfy on it.

Another side effect of this ooziness is that your funniness perception skyrockets. EVERYTHING is funny. Especially the looks people give you when you kinda collapse on the nearest piece of furniture laughing your head off at something that really was not that funny in the first place. *Whispering* I did this a lot at work today.

An additional symptom to this ooze is a delayed response in your mental processes. All of them. Attention span, forming words (sentences are pretty much a joke), there's a time delay between when someone talks to you and you actually register the fact. And by the time you "come to", half the conversation is over and while you're sitting there looking kinda loopy and dumb everyone gets a giggle or an eye roll out of it.

So, to wrap up this exhibition of ooze, heed this warning: Don't let the ooze get you. It is reluctant to let go. I would know. I'm oozy-glued to the couch right now, my reaction time to any kind of conversation is right around amoeba level, and there is a good chance that by the time I quit giggling at the most retarded things, I'll have confused and frightened every person in the house. So I think I'm going to get right on that. Good night darlings, I hope you have better luck escaping the ooze. Good luck.

Fairies, Big Toys, and Cliffs Notes

So, I was going to do my Things Your Waitress Won't Tell You, but I'm not functioning very well right now and I only got to number two and realized I was rambling. So we'll try for next time with that.

My baby is sick. *Sad face* I'm fairly certain we got colds after having that virus, and since she was a lucky bug and escaped the virus, she got slammed by the cold. She's got huge dark circles under her eyes and they're red and puffy, her nose is running like a train and she's just as ornery as a bear. I'm keeping her loaded up on kid's ibuprofen and nighttime cough and cold, but she's still having a hard time. One of her favorite movies is Polar Express, which she endearingly calls "Choo choo" but I hardly let her watch it because there's just something sacreligous about watching Christmas movies when it's not Christmas, but I've let her watch it as much as she wants today. Which is, like, 8 times. At least. I was at work this morning, so who knows. I'm hoping her cold wasn't made worse by playing outside the other day.

We spent the night at my parent's house and they live right across from the elementary school, so we all went over and played on the Big Toy for about an hour or so. We're talking 4 adults, two over the age of 40, a 17 year old, then 3 kids from 10 to 2. Us adults discovered via the monkey bars and zip line that we have muscles that have lain dormant for a good 10 to 20 years! I'm sure it was a riot to see us all playing around. My daughter was having a ball climbing up the slide and going down, and climbing up, and going down over and over. My littler sister was climbing everything, my other older sister was trying to simultaneously hold onto the dog (a very spazzy miniature American Eskimo named Miko) and jump on the tires in the sand box. My mom was alternating between spinning on the twirly stool-looking things and testing the zip line. My dad was busy crashing himself into the rest of the big toy while testing the zip line and helping my daughter climb back up the slide. My hubby was everywhere getting into everything, particularly the toy that's like a log in the water that you run on and try not to fall off. My brother was climbing around on the big tires in the sand box, and I was going between the zipline, the tires, and the Maryland bars (I'm not actually sure that's what they're called, they're two parallel bars that slope down to the ground from the Big Toy. You just hook your legs over the bars and zoom on down. In my case I was more of very slowly creeping down since my jeans weren't very slidey). It was a blast and we were all SO sore the next morning! And then before we left my baby insisted that we go back and we climbed up and down the slide for another half hour.

Anywho, I got the funnest package in the mail today! I have a favorite site called Collections Etc. and they have the coolest stuff! It's one of those catalog places that have all sorts of stuff that you don't really need, but at the same time you can't live without it, you know? I ordered a couple things last week and they came today! Joy! I got a set of three blown glass art necklaces, they're really pretty, and a figurine set of fairies in the woods! I didn't know if I expected them to be bigger or smaller, but for some reason I was so surprised and downright tickled when I opened them up! They've got glittery wings and the details are so cool! They are now in a spot of honor on the shelf on my nightstand, next to my musical doll my daughter got me for Mother's Day and the silk flowers in the white pail that I change when I'm in a mood to. So today was a lovely package day! I am going to have the hardest time deciding which necklace to wear first! Gah!

On a side note here, I have discovered that I love Cliffs Notes. I see them at the library all the time, so a few weeks ago I just grabbed a handful and took them home. They are so awesome! You get the whole plotline without having to read hundreds of pages! I read Wuthering Heights (depressing, glad I didn't read the long version), King Lear (want to see it now), Othello (depressing), The Iliad (interesting), My Antonia (glad I never read it in school), I tried to read Canterbury Tales but there were just too many flippin' characters, I did Beowulf (pretty nifty, I love mythology), and Henry V (cool). Who knows how many pages I would have had to read and Shakespeare I would have had to decipher? I love the story of Little Women and the Jane Austen's, but I can't stand the language. It's fantastic, but it takes you a freaking eternity to read! So I am more than happy to settle for the movie versions, or, in the case of this paragraph, Cliffs Notes! Hooray for Cliffs Notes! I have another 50 or so that I'm going to check out, and Don Quixote is the next one in the stack on my dresser. I'm excited!

Okey dokey, I think my mouth runneth over enough for tonight, and I shall now . . . do something. I was so tired earlier that I actually slept for an hour, and it was 9 o'clock! I'm still tired, but my mind is going 110 mph so I'm going to have to find a calming activity. It's a challenge when the last 2 discs of NCIS are beckoning and I also have 2 movies from the library to watch. David and Bathsheba with Gregory Peck and Immortal Beloved with Gary Oldman, it's about Beethoven. If either are remarkable, I'll let you know. But not tonight! I am not staying up til 3:30 in the morning again, no way! And so, I take my leave. G'night, y'all!