Updates!

Hey ladies and gents! In case you were wondering, I am alive. My negligence of this blog is getting worse, but I only sort of feel bad. I am sure you are wondering what is going on with me, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this, so let's start with the positive updates in my life and then I will leave you with the negative to help you better face your day.

~ I was a judge for a short story competition! The contest is still going on but I was chosen to be a judge for the 2nd round. :D Let me just comment that I was so surprised at the quality of the entries. Out of the 32 stories I was assigned, only 5 were worth reading. 5. Seriously. It was a great experience and one that I'm glad to put on my resume!

~ I got a new job!!! It is so ridiculous the way this all worked out that I cannot contain myself. I've been praying for a looooong time for the Lord to guide me to a job that will allow me to ultilize my skills and love for writing/editing on a full-time basis. I have been in the accounting field for almost all of my professional life and I felt like the Lord supported me in my desire for a change but all of my attempts to do so never came to anything. Until.... this Thursday a friend of mine (and former boss), Crystal called me and asked me if I was interested in coming to work with her. Guess what I will be doing? Writing and editing, baby! There will be a lot of paper pushing and clerical work, but I feel really excited and ready to begin this job. I interviewed on Friday and accepted the position that same day. Just like that. I feel so blessed (seriously so blessed, ha!) that Crystal kept me in mind (and talked me up to her boss! Thanks, Crystal!) and that everything worked out as smoothly as it did.

~ My apartment flooded. If you hear loud weeping, don't be alarmed. We have been dealing with this disaster for a month already. Take a look at these pics so that you can try to understand the drama that is this flood: Fyi - These are not dirty footprints. The carpet is soaked with water, lots of water, which poured into our apartment because of the neighbor's bad pipe. The pic doesn't do the situation justice, but believe me when I say there was A LOT of water.

The carpets had to be ripped up, cleaned and the pads replaced. They have come and done this four times in the last month 'cause the water just keeps coming. Four frickin' times! The only blessing that has come out of this. My Cuban lover.

Meg's entire bedroom had to be moved to the "safe zones" in the apt. Only my bedroom and the living room didn't flood. The box springs to her bed had to dry in the kitchen after the water in there got cleaned up.

I was sent on a mission to go in to the tempest to look for the DVD remote.

Meg's room.

More of the packed living room.

Our guest bathroom.

The dining room.

My light through all this darkness.

My TV Boyfriends

Megen and I watched the The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning with Ivy the day before yesterday and I commented (not the first time) on how strangely attracted I am to Ariel's father, King Triton. You may call that creepy, but I call it love.

Other strange love interests include:

Alton Brown of Good Eats - Sometimes he repulses me and other times I wouldn't mind having his child. This picture evokes repulsion more than anything and yet my love is so all-encompassing that I can overlook it.

Gil Grissom - CSI. Not really such a "strange" love interest and nothing of which I am ashamed. I am so madly in love with Gil (we are on a first name basis) that my heart aches for him. He is such a mysterious man, intelligent, socially inept and incapable of fully giving his heart to me. What more does a girl need? *Sigh*

Michael Scott - The Office... and Dwight Schrute sometimes!!! There is nothing intelligent about Michael and he looks to be a horrible kisser. He's awkward and cringe-worthy.

I think it is Dwight's mustard shirt that gets me every time.

I also have a little crush on Nephi. He's not on TV, nor is he fictional, but whatever.

Snack Time

There is a homeless woman who lives in front of my work. She meanders from business to business throughout the day and has found permanent residency across from our building. My boss hates her because she has taken over a bench on the front sidewalk and encroaches on our property. Cops have been called and threats have been made but she wont leave. Maybe the woman thinks we have trespassed on her property; she has lived in the area longer than us.
This week my coworker, Tabitha and I went across the street to a convenience store for a snack. We crossed paths with the homeless lady and she stopped us. I knew she would before she did.
She asked if we could buy her a few things if she gave us money. I looked at Tabitha and thought Be Christian. "Sure." I assumed she wasn't welcome in the store. The list was drawn up on a square of napkin as follows (in this exact order, if it means anything at all to you):
- Cookies
- Pepsi Bottle
- Coca Cola Bottle
- Mountain Dew Bottle
- Ice
- Neapolitan Ice Cream
- Snack pack "aka Lunchables"
- Pinesol for Bacteria
- Cold water

The list disgusted me. When I asked for the money she paused and said, "Oh, they'll take care of it for you inside." I looked at Tabitha, confused. "Who will?" I asked the woman.
"Oh, the Military will. They'll cover the tab. I work for the Military." I looked at Tabitha again because she actually was employed by the Military before working with me. She left me to fend for myself. "I'm sorry," I said. "I can't buy this for you unless you give me the money." I imagined she was going to hit me. I imagined she would try to grab the wallet that I gripped tightly in my hand. I imagined she would spit obscenities. She looked at me. "I'm sorry," I repeated and tried to give her the list back. It had already ripped at the bottom destroying Pinesol for Bacteria. "You keep it." she said. "Just in case it all works out."
In the store Tabitha said, "She's crazy."
"I was just trying to be Christian. Maybe I should've gotten her something anyway."
"Maybe if she'd just asked for a snack and a bottle of water I would've. Not a whole grocery list."
"She's obviously not OK."
"Let's walk around her on the way back."

The next day she wasn't parked in the usual spot. She'll be back. She has to come back. I wish I would've asked her her name.

Mamma Mia!

You know, I've often prided myself on how following my gut-instincts (aka The HG) has kept me from harm, and yet tonight I went against those internal whisperings and allowed my peers to talk me into something that I knew would only bring me tears in the end. I went to see Mamma Mia. *sobs loudly*

Let me first explain that I am a huge fan of ABBA. But this... this was not ABBA. This was Meryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan awkwardly squawking their notes and yearning in heartache as they reminisced about their 20-year old relationship that went wrong. I don't know what you have to say about the duo, but Meryl Streep kicked A in The River Wild and I even loved her in The Devil Wears Prada (and nearly every movie she's been in) but this was a hot mess. I've never really been a Brosnan fan, though he isn't unfortunate to watch... until now. He looked awkward when he sang and he needed to shave, badly. I love a man with stubble, but he had a homeless man's shadow which immediately implies an emanating stench and drops the sex factor a few points. They were not the only main characters, but I have to pick on them because I expected more from them.

I have no idea who choreographed this, but it certainly wasn't anyone from the So You Think You Can Dance crew. Can I just use the word "awkward" here again? Maybe they made the dance moves unremarkable because all of the 60-year old Greek women extras they used had to nail them?? I'm trying to understand here. And let's not forget the moment where Streep runs and jumps through an open gate and with the art of cinematography the camera is slowed down and staggered in a moment that is very reminiscent to the Power Rangers and Tron. I also cannot fail to mention the happy ending where water is spraying everywhere and ALL of the men in the movie suddenly have their shirts off and are laughing and dancing and hugging/kissing their significant other.

Oh my gosh, I have so many other things to say about this movie, but if I keep ragging on it I'm going to start looking petty. Here's what others have said about it (I got these from Rotten Tomatoes and thought they were dead on):

"There might not be anything as utterly dispiriting as watching people pretending to have fun, and that is quite literally the only card the movie has to play."

"You could spend all week eating bacon at a pig farm and still find more ham in "Mamma Mia!," an irrepressible, unstoppable kaleidoscope of karaoke camp gone berserk that features a cast happily mainlining ABBA's songbook."

Let me just say 3 good things about it so that I end this post with positive karma floating in the air:
1. Megen and I laughed so hard while watching this that I snorted on two separate occasions, which made us laugh more and fear an uproar from the audience. They probably misdiagnosed my guffaws as movie-watching delight.
2. Amanda Seyfried (who plays Streep's daughter) has a beautiful voice.
3. The scenery makes me want to quit my life and move to Greece.

I just had to share this with the masses. I felt it my duty. Amen

Everyone is Fond of Owls

I bet you are all disgusted by staring at that Smores madness over and over again. Sorry! I thought of good ol' Cat Face to post but #5 was really disappointing so I have decided to make an executive decision and move on. May Cat Face rest in peace (unless I find another clever one to post). I found this and loved it. Let me know what you think.

Recipe for Disaster!

Have you ever wondered what charbroiled Smores look like after being left alone under the broiler for approximately 3 minutes too long?


















Can you guess where the graham crackers were?!



















And now you know.

Tilt & Pour Slowly

Please tell me, is anyone else as freaked out by these new milk containers as I am? My loved ones know that I have a real problem with change AND a love for milk, so you can only imagine how I am feeling right now.

What was wrong with the old containers? I once read somewhere that sunlight will break down the vitamin D in milk and now I wonder if this conspiracy has anything to do with the new gallons. Okay, so let's say that it is true since science has never lied to us *cough* in the past. I don't know if the breakdown in the vitamin's molecular structure and atomic ratios and other smart-sounding scientific terms significantly occurs enough to change the container! Its not like we are taking our milk for a walk so that it sunburns all the vitamin D away. It is sitting in the dark fridge for most of the time so I don't know what all the complaining is about.

Why do I really care, you ask? Because I am part of a culture that needs to SEE what they are buying. You could be selling me a bottle of bleach with a milk sticker slapped on it and wouldn't know until I got home. I need to see that mold isn't growing up on my whole wheat slices, and that my eggs aren't cracked and oozing onto its neighbor thus making it nearly impossible to pull them out of the carton without having a handful of egg guts and shell. I need to insure that the creamy deliciousness that I think I am purchasing isn't going morph into a glass of curds and whey. Listen, sometimes its hard enough to tell if milk is good with the opaque containers I have grown up on since all the rotten chunks sink to the bottom anyway, but I have also seen some yellowish looking cow nectar with an expiration of a week or more away and thankfully all crises were diverted before the gallon of cottage cheese ended up in my cart. How am I supposed to divert a catastrophe if I can't see it through the white container?

And what were they thinking with that big ol' pour spout? Seriously? Look at the difference between the quarter and the opening. That's a wide mamma jamma! Its big enough for me to put my head in there and tongue that milk right up...and it even lets a gang of vitamin D destroying sun in every time the cap is unscrewed. Hypocrites.

"Tilt & Pour Slowly," the best cautionary alert I have seen in a long time, cause if you don't half of the gallon is going to be cascading down your front when all you were trying to do is take a little glassless sip.

These new containers are out of control.