CRAFT TIME: Halloween Party Invitations

I've got a lot of stuff going on right now.  Some of the biggest news is that I'm getting my very own spa room at a friends' salon.  Allison and Chaunah own Salon Trisse in St. John, IN and have been great friends and now great bosses.

One of the things they wanted to accomplish is to re-launch their salon which a short six months ago was owned by other people.  I tossed out the idea of having a month of Halloween activities leading up to a big Halloween/Fall Open House.  To get out the word to their customers I decided to create some Halloween party invitations.

Punching Is Fun

All I'm missing is the beard.

I'm still in a funk, and I've had several days in a row of simply being annoyed with people in general.  This annoyance will be detailed in another post, but today I got a reprieve from the grumpies due to comedy from a surprising source.

Children.

Someone Call Al Green - I Need to Know How to Mend a Broken Heart

This was SO not the post I was going to write yesterday/today.

The one I was going to write was a witty little piece about senior citizens.

And I really wish this wasn’t the one I felt compelled to start writing at 3:00AM.

Nefi was our baby.  We got her almost three months to the day of our wedding.  I remember the day well.  She was wriggling and snorting, running from room to room checking everything out.  She was a pudgy, wrinkly ball of love.  A crowd pleaser from the very beginning and I mean that seriously.  I don’t think anyone met her that didn’t fall in love immediately.  

I honestly think this is one of my favorite pictures of Nefi (on right)

I threw Chris a surprise birthday party and he wasn’t the person of honor – Nefi was the star.

Why I'm Glad I'm Old

Happy Birthday to Me - blurgh

I turned 40 four months ago.  I hated it.  Yes, my husband posted pictures of me dancing in a happy birthday hat in a Mexican restaurant, but inside, I was miserable.  To make matters worse, I was practicing being 40 for about six months before I actually turned 40.  When the subject of age would come up, I’d say, “I’m almost 40 and…”  Unfortunately, I’ve trained myself to always say that, so now I say, “I’m almost 40… crap, I am 40.”

However, over the past several months, I’ve been getting used to my new decade of life.  Then I got one of those stupid “When I was your age…” e-mails today.  You know the ones.  The adults tell kids how easy they have it.  “We didn’t have call waiting; we got a busy signal… blah blah blah.”  Really all it does is remind you that you’re an old fart.

When a Wrong Turn Becomes Oh-So-Right

Today, while running errands and thinking about how much stuff I had to get done today (and still have half a list to get through at 8PM), I made a wrong turn.  It was one of those things where to turn around would have taken just as long, if not longer, as making a large circle to the destination, so I pressed on.

I am SO glad I did because had I gone the right way, I would have missed the events of 175^th street in Hammond, Indiana on this glorious morning/afternoon.  Had I not been driving, I would have rolled down my window and filmed this.  Alas, I was, and pulling over to film little children seemed… well creepy.

New sport for dogs?

I always try to warn the local wildlife/pets that find their way into my yard. Squirrels, birds, cats... they like to lounge around in the grass.  Honestly, I don't know why we get all the neighborhood cats either.  We pick up dog waste immediately and have sealed garbage cans, yet one day I went out back and found four - yes FOUR - cats napping in the yard.

Come to my house and THIS is what awaits you.

Anyway, like I said, if I'm taking the dogs outside, I'll try to shoo everyone away by knocking on the door, call out the windows, etc... until they all reach safety.  Not that they've ever caught one of the visitors without divine intervention or would even know what to do if they caught one.  Still, I don't want to take the chance and/or worry that one could be sick.

This approach doesn't always work.

When to Perform the Puppy Heimlich Maneuver

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on this blog and a friend reminded me of that a couple of days ago.  He said that he missed my dog stories, so this post is for him.

I need to keep slim
so I watch what I eat

Lola, the Chihuahua, is a very picky eater.  I’d say about 50% of the time, she doesn’t eat her breakfast and about 25% of that 50% requires me to sit next to her while she eats, or she’ll sit and growl at the pugs.  I’m like her little Chihuahua bodyguard.

I’m Not Crazy – REALLY!

Today, I was committed to writing a new post for my food blog You Want Me to Cook? but as usual, I’ve gotten sidetracked by a bunch of other crap.  Also, the dogs have kept me quite entertained and always serve as a great distraction to things I have to get done.

Earlier today, while playing with Lola, I made up a “Ode to Lola Bean” song to the tune of ‘O Sole Mio.  Of course, I don’t have the voice of The Three Tenors… my version sounds more like a pirate’s parrot that has a head cold.  While Lola sat at perfect attention with her ears perked, Rampage kept trying to lick my face while bouncing up and down on my lap.  Nefi simply sat on the floor and howled.  I could only imagine what was going through their puppy brains at that moment.

I often “speak” for the dogs.  Now, I know animals can’t talk and what probably runs through their head is something like the following: FOOD, OUTSIDE, FOOD, TREATS, FOOD, PLAY, FOOD, SQUIRREL, FOOD, NAP.  They don’t feel emotion, like humans do, but I do think they have the ability to learn and pick up on cues.  For example, I dare you to say the word “treat” in my house.  If you do, be prepare to be mauled until you get them one.  Rampage and Nefi know basic commands and all three understand “no” especially when I’ve got my hands on my hips and am giving them the stink-eye.

Also, I think they definitely have distinct personalities.  Lola is fiercely protective and sneaky when she needs to be.  Rampage wants to be loved and has to be the center of attention.  Nefi, who has led a life of mostly luxury, is strong, in charge and is the leader of our little domesticated pack.  It’s because of these personalities that I feel like if they could speak, they’d say the following:

You got somethin’ to say to me jackass?

What?!?!  You said you wished you had help with the laundry.

Laugh all you want.  You know I’m 10xs more comfortable than you right now.

Yes, this is how I spend my days.  I think I need to get out more.

A Typical Sunday

There’s a stink-eye stare down going down at our house.  It is between Lola and me.  Before I get into that, a little background…

Yes, this is what awaits me on the weekends.

My husband makes me breakfast on Sunday and often Saturday mornings.  He makes eggs, hash browns, bacon, toast and coffee.  I have to admit, I love it when he indulges me like that.

Also, I LOVE bacon or as my husband calls it “freedom meat.”

Today, there were some um.... issues making breakfast.

Things That Make Me Happy

First, I’d like to say thank you to everyone that showed me love and support with my last post.  It was quite terrifying to put myself out there, but all the fears I had were quickly erased after the thoughtful comments, messages and texts began to appear.  Even more important was the fact that many people shared their own struggles with me and how they are working on getting stronger.  When you’re in the grip of despair, sometimes getting stronger seems impossible, but when people share where they were and where they are now… it gives you that much more hope to carry on and heal.

So in light of my last post, I thought I’d blog about things that give me great happiness.  Some are big things.  Some are little things.  They are not listed in any particular order.

The Price Is Right

I’ve been watching this show since I was a kid.  During summer breaks, my butt was plopped down in front of the television from 10:00-11:00AM during the week.  There’s nothing that gives me greater pleasure than watching someone win a car... okay, any prize!  I cheer and clap when someone gets a bonus spin and is going for that $25,000 on the wheel.  I almost wet myself with joy when a woman won a double showcase a couple weeks ago giving her the third-highest total ever won on the show – a little over $109,000.  Before you ask… I don’t like Plinko mostly because it rarely yields any big money.  Bonus: I can sing the Cliffhanger yodel.  Additional Bonus: I have been practicing my Barker Beauty walk and presentation for about 35 years.  They have been perfected.

Do You Know This Person?

Recently, one of my favorite bloggers The Bloggess wrote about her fight with depression.  It inspired me to talk about my own struggles.  However, this is not an easy task.  So much emotion gets backed up that it can be impossible to sort it out into words.  Please bear with me as I attempt to do that.

This bout of depression was triggered by a very large event in my life, but it continues to linger due to triggers – some small, some large – that send me into fits of anger, sadness, disgust and hopelessness – all directed at myself.

Depression is a lonely illness for several reasons.  Most people, who suffer from it, try to hide it.  We put on a brave face trying to mask our pain.  This is usually out of self-preservation since sadness is only tolerated so long by those around you.  You don’t want to be the person that everyone avoids because you’re never happy.

Then that pain begins to eat away at your very being.   I compare my depressive episodes to a werewolf… you keep urges at bay and seem very normal and then the full moon comes out.  You turn into a version of yourself you’re afraid of.  A version you don’t understand.  A version you can’t control.  A version that you feel needs to be kept from others.

This monster inside of you causes you to lash out, creating anger and confusion around you.  People begin to distance themselves from you.  To preserve any relationships that haven’t exploded, you go deeper into isolation.  This fuels the depression like gasoline does a flame.

There is a huge temptation to self medicate.  Drugs, alcohol, food… all are tempting to try to soothe the pain inside.  Physical pain and suffering are much more appealing than feeling like you’re drowning in sadness.  Often times, you do things to yourself without even knowing it until it’s done.  I have a penchant for scratching myself.  Most of the time, I have no idea I’m doing it.  I stop in horror knowing that I shouldn’t, yet the burning of my arms and legs takes my mind away from the sadness.  The redness, welts and hives that form give me something to focus on other than the pain.  My mind sees them as battle scars that show physical pain which most people can relate to.  Then the shame sets in.  The fear that someone may see what you’ve done soon follows.  Then the realization that no one does notice and your pain is invisible to all around you.  The cycle then starts again.

It’s difficult to reach out for help.  To be honest, most of the time I don’t know what I need.  It’s like I’m drowning and the people who love me are standing on the shore with ropes, life rafts and floatation devices.  I’m struggling in the water and they are all calling out to me as to what they should do.  I’m too frightened to give them instructions… I just need them to help save me.  

I didn’t write this post for pity.  I wrote it in the hopes that if you know someone who suffers from depression that you can have patience with them.  To those that suffer with me, I wish I was in a better place to try to get you through.  I just know that when I read The Bloggess’ column, I felt like I wasn’t alone and that did help.  I hope this does for you what her column did for me, which was give me a reason to keep fighting.

And that’s all I really need.

Joe Simpson? Is that you?

If you have Comcast and are ever bored, you can amuse yourself by reading the descriptions of shows in their Television Guide.  

I'm not sure who gets to write them, but I'm guessing it's a combination of fanboys and bitter journalists who thought they'd be writing for the foreign press or covering The White House.  Most of the time they are harsh (Miss Manners would not be pleased) and good for a snicker or two.  As an advertiser, I wouldn't be terribly thrilled with some of them since most of them try to talk you out of watching a program on which they may have paid for advertising. 

However, this little gem is something different all together...

I'm guessing that this writer has a thing for Jessica Simpson and is maybe thirteen... or perhaps a family member.  Ashlee isn't working right now, right?  I'll give him/her this though... I'm kind of wanting to watch this movie now.  It's been a while since I've had a good mocking.

Meet the Kids – Rampage

Rampage was quite a surprise for us. 

We knew someone that works at a local shelter that was keeping an eye out for any pugs that needed a home.  A horrible puppy mill had been broken up and there were pugs involved, but we were told it could be months before the dogs would be healthy enough or legally released to adopt.  It was in the following week we met and adopted The Lovely Lola.  

About 6 weeks later, I got a phone call that a pug had been rescued from a back yard.  If we were interested, we needed to come see him fairly quickly before he got put up for adoption.  My husband was working, but he told me I should go meet him.  I packed up the girls and we were off.

Rampage in motion - our first picture

Rampage was a bundle of energy from the second they brought him out.  He was friendly, approachable and just a delightful dog.  He ran from person to person wanting to be hugged.  I laughed and laughed and fell in love almost immediately.  The girls met him and although they were a little leery, there was no snipping, growling or biting, so I called my husband and said that maybe we should help the little guy out.  About 45 minutes later, all the paperwork had been signed and he was off to the vet in the morning to be neutered.

Meet the Kids – Lola

The story of Lola starts at a dark place.  My husband and I were reeling over the loss of our beloved Mufi, our 1-year-old pug puppy.  Parvo had taken her from us (please get your doggies vaccinated) 6 months before.  The vet gave us the okay to get another dog, but we were still very raw.

Nefi, on the other hand, was getting REALLY irritated with us.  All the hugging, love, kisses… she just wasn’t used to it.  See, she’s not a snuggler.  Nefi’s more of a companion.  She wants to be near you, but she wants to dictate the amount of affection she gives and receives.  We needed major snuggles and she wasn’t very interested in giving them to us all the time.

We decided to look for a dog to adopt, but were unsure of the breed we were looking for.  We weren’t sure we could have another pug right away.  We had the funny idea to get Nefi some tiny companions that we would call her “bodyguards” and began looking at Chihuahuas.  My husband and I went back and forth about what to do, what breed to get and when to get it.

Our First Official Picture Together

Then one day we walked into a pet store looking for Nefi’s food.  We were in the wrong store, but at the very front was a Chihuahua rescue.  They were adorable.  All were friendly and jumping around.  As I talked to the rescue’s owner, I noticed the sling around her neck moving.  I asked, “Is there a dog in there?”  She said, “Yes.  Would you like to see her?”  I was interested and out came The Lovely Lola.  I fell in love almost immediately.  She handed her to me wrapped in her blanket (which we still have) and she sighed and shivered while I scratched her little tiny head.

I began to cry and told my husband that we had found our new family member.  

The Day I’ll Never Live Down

Girls Rule - Boys Drool

I grew up in a family of all girls.  Because of this, I wasn’t exposed to many things my husband knows and loves from his childhood.  GI Joe, Transformers and Thundercats are a few that come to mind.  I’m not saying that I was devoid of “boy stuff”.  I regularly watched Batman and Spiderman and still hold the original Star Wars trilogy as some of the best movies of all time.  However, I must admit my ignorance to a lot of after-school television that catered to boys.

When it came to prime-time television, my parents were in control.  The basic rules were this, my father was in charge and if sports were on the schedule, that’s what we’d watch.  If no sports, he handed the reins to my mother and she selected our evening entertainment.  Because of this, we didn’t watch many crime shows because she hated them almost as much as she hated westerns.

Disaster Porn Review – 2012

I have a love of bad disaster movies.  I guess it’s because I have a personality where I get great pleasure out of making fun of stuff.  If I had a nickel for every time my husband says, “Stop mocking me!” I’d have a crap-load of nickels.

There are several reasons I enjoy disaster movies:

• Because they are so ridiculous in what a human being is capable of surviving.  I understand the whole “suspension of disbelief” that needs to go along with moves, especially this genre, but it just goes so far out of bounds that it becomes comical.  I enjoy keeping a count of all the times the main characters should have been evaporated, blown up, melted, crushed, etc… 
• The bad special effects.  While the movie makers do an excellent job destroying stuff, putting real people in the middle of the destruction is doggone near impossible without looking fake.  It’s kind of hard to take impending doom seriously as the hero is hanging above a pit of lava when every hair is in place and there’s not a singed eyebrow to be had.  Hell, I singe off eyebrows and arm hair at least once a week while cooking.  In fact, it happened today.
• The connections between the main characters.  Characters all over the country/world stumble upon each other and all have some connection other than just being in the same place at the same time.  This phenomenon started bugging me when the movie Independence Day came out.  The president’s wife is found by the stripper girlfriend of the Air Force pilot who is the only one to take out a spaceship who manages to make his way to Area 51 where the stripper girlfriend manages to get the First Lady and also where the President is at even though he was in Washington DC at the start of the attack.  It’s coincidence on steroids.
• Gratuitous destruction of cities and national landmarks.  The white house is blown up.  The LaBrea Tar Pits erupt.  New York City is taken out by a tidal wave.  I actually get angry that Chicago is rarely featured in the destruction orgy.  You know why I was willing to see Transformers 3 – Dark of the Moon?  Because they destroyed landmarks that I used to live across the street from… not that I hope anything ever happens to my beloved corn-cob-buildings (aka The Marina Towers), but it’s fun to see things on screen that you have a personal connection to and the interesting ways they are taken apart.

So that leads me to my mocking of the movie 2012.  Tagline “We Were Warned.”  Not true, if you actually take the time to watch the movie.  Most of us would have been left to die under a pile of rubble or be melted with molten lava… but I’m getting ahead of myself.

 

I’d like to start off by saying that this movie honked me off because the apocalypse as predicted by the Mayans is supposed to be one of two days: December 21 or December 23 – which has been the most publicized date and which just so happens to be my birthday.  If the world does in fact end, it better be my birthday.  Of course the stupid movie writers use December 21.  Buttholes.