I've gotta chase the papers

Crocheting

I think the majority of the very few people that read this know I crochet. Even when I had a job, I did it a lot. I have been crocheting for about 5 years. I may be an old lady, but I enjoy it. I can make stuff. Will a ball of yarn. Can you? That's what I thought. 

So in my "time off "I have crocheted a lot.  There are only so many blankets and scarves and such I can make for myself. So now I am attempting to make some for other people.  Maybe someone will actually  buy it. 

I have an etsy store.  It's still in the beginning stages so it looks a little barbaric but my stuff is on there, and this is just a small amount of what I have put together to put on there, I just have to finish it, but my stuff is on there. Look at it. Buy it. Tell all your friends. Support the poverty stricken. 

My shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=8171590

Here are a few things I have on there. 

iPhone Cozy - Yes I am serious

Star Afghan

Rainbow Brite Scarf

Also, if anyone should happen to want me to make them something, I surely take requests and I surely have the time, so let me know. It's something I love doing and I love to make things for people. 

And if I don't sell a thing, guess what all of you are getting for Christmas! So go ahead and pick your faves now!

I Just Awoke From a Nap, Actually...

Sleeping

*Doesn’t it look comfy?

I have been given the gift of time by being fired by a shrill, red-headed anti-christ of a bitch and I have chosen to use this gift by sleeping. 

When this whole “Not having a job” phenomenon started, I was still on my working internal clock.  I would go to bed at a reasonable hour and wake up around 9:00.  That was when I was trying to stay busy and productive and I thought it would be only be a few weeks until I had a job again. 

Oh how delusional I was...

Now I am lucky if I wake up by 11:00. However, do not let this fool you into thinking that I am getting insane amounts of sleep. I am not. 

No matter what time I go to bed, usually around 11:00 or so since David has to actually get up and go to work, I stay up reading for an hour or two. Reading is my only vacation from the sucktitude of having nothing to do, my only way to escape.  And then I go to sleep. At 2:30 every morning, I wake up.  I am usually up for a few hours watching tv and then I fall back asleep and wake up at my normal time, too dang late for an old lady like me to be sleeping.  

And I would be lying if I said I didn’t take a nap most days, as well. I do. I wake up, read for a few hours and then I end up falling back asleep.  I used to feel badly about this, but not so much anymore. What else do I have to do? Nothing. I literally have all the time in the world to do whatever needs to be done. If anyone has any errands that need to be run while you are at your pesky job, let me know.  

I used to feel worthless when I would sleep past 10:00. Since I was working all week long, my weekends were days I could get stuff done, however we all know that on my weekends I like to do absolutely nothing. But I felt I was accomplishing more by getting up at a reasonable hour and then doing nothing.

I suppose I could use this time to volunteer, do charity work, cure cancer, raise awareness of the evilness of buying from floor covering distributors, but I would much rather be lazy than productive.  Sleeping is fun, you should try it some time. 

And now that it is getting colder outside, I relish every sleeping minute.  You know when you get up for work in the morning and it is freezing and you have to avoid frostbite before you get in the shower? Yeah. I don’t have to do that. I can stay in my warm bed all day if I feel the need. You can apply for jobs all day long in bed.

* Yes, there are six pillows on our bed. Four of them are Davids.  And, yes, I am making that blanket currently.  

All the Single Ladies

Since I am doing book reviews I might as well do movie reviews. I love movies and I am an avid fan of Netflix, so let’s do this.

Obessesed

You know with Netflix when there are no movies left for you to see that are new so you have a “might as well” list? It’s in your queue and at times you forget to update it or move any movie to the top, so you get a random movie in the mail one day and you watch it just for the hell of it? That is what Obsessed was. 

Obsessed is the movie with Ali Larter of the whipped cream bikini fame and Beyonce of single ladies fame to make a bastardized sub-par version of Fatal Attraction. The only difference (besides the boiling of bunnies) is the husband, Derrick (who is actually Charles from The Office, whom we hated for replacing Michael for a short time) has no guilt in the matter.

Ali Larter plays Lisa, the psycho temp from Derrick’s office who falls for Derrick and tries to replace his wife Sharon (Beyonce).  That’s the entire plot. There is no complicated storyline here.  What you see is actually what you get.  I could tell you how the movie ends 15 minutes into it. And the acting, do I even need to comment? Larter can only play one role. The role of the seductive annoying chick.  Her role in Heroes is one of the reasons why I don’t watch it anymore. And Beyonce needs to stick to dancing in leotards, work with what you know, I say. 

The start of the movie, mild flirting happens between Lisa and Derrick.  The warning signs are all there, but Derrick being a man is oblivious to them and goes on about his day.  The hormones hit the fan when Lisa tries to molest Derrick at the company Christmas party where (of course, and inexplicably) no spouses are allowed.  She follows him into the men’s room and all hell breaks loose. 

At this point, in my opinion, Derrick has every right to grab Lisa by the hair, yank her outside to the rest of the party and say, “Yeah, so she tried to rape me.”  That’s justified to me.  Does he do this? Of course not.  He doesn’t sleep with her or lead her on.  He just has the unfortunate luck of having a psycho for an assistant. 

If you are completely innocent and you can see the obvious crazy eyes (to me, she doesn’t even have crazy eyes, she has dead eyes) in the office temp who wants to get in your pants my first course of action would be....Anyone? Anyone?  TELL YOUR WIFE! If you have nothing to hide, tell your wife everything. Then, tell Human Resources.  You just saved your job and your marriage in about ten minutes time. Tah Dah!!! It really is that simple. If you don’t want to appear guilty, tell someone. It’s as simple as that.

But that wouldn’t make a very interesting movie would it?

Things get out of hand, as they always do in bad movies, and Lisa ends up trying to kill herself in Derrick’s work retreat hotel room because she can’t have him.  He finds her dying in the bed and takes her to the hospital where everything comes out and his wife and job want him gone. Saw that one coming. How could THAT have been avoided???

Lisa recuperates and Derrick and Sharon reunite and everything is just peachy, they go on a date and Lisa comes to their home while the babysitter is there and takes their child. 

Hold it right there...

One, this child is DUMB.  I have no children but I do have nephews who are pretty dang smart. If some crazy bitch comes into their room and wants them to go with her into the night their first question, I have no doubt, would be “Who the fuck are you?” They are my nephews, what can I say? They don’t know this person and their second reaction would be screaming for the babysitter, that they do know, to stab someone. Or they would forget the babysitter altogether and they would employ their Power Ranger moves and drop kick her where she stood.  

Two, what kind of babysitter is this? If a crazy stalker was after my husband and she was watching my child, maybe let her know. If someone you don’t know comes to the door, give the parents a ring. Problem solved.  

Of course none of this happened. Derrick and Sharon get an alarm system and forget the entire thing ever happened. 

What would I do???

I would say to David, “Where is your biggest gun?” and when that gun wasn’t big enough I would mosey on down to Wal-mart to find a bigger one. You know the elephant gun that Reba McEntire has in Tremors (I am SO Netflixing Tremors right now) I would need something that big. I would keep it on my person at all times.  I would then wait at the front door to blow her brains out. Done. Movie over. 

This doesn’t happen.  Sharon comes home to find Lisa in Derrick’s old football jersey in their martial bed and Sharon then beats Lisa down. 

Could I survive in a fight such as this? Probably. I have an older sister and we fought often. Christy was always in much better shape and she had a good four years on me but she was never a match in a fight. Christy may me stronger than me and in much better shape, but I am meaner. In any small fight we ever had, I got the upper hand because I was always so mean. We never really had any Thunderdome type fight to the death.  I was never that pissed at her and she would quit once I had her on the ground, so it never came to bloodshed.  But if I ever was in a fight, even with a person who was far beyond my physical prowess, I am full of enough piss and vinegar to hold my own, or at least I think so. 

Lisa gets a few good hits in but in the end, Lisa falls through the attic floor onto the glass coffee table. This doesn’t kill her but the falling chandelier does. 

Movie over.  

This movie is full of flaws and gaping plot holes but I didn’t expect much from a movie starring a Tyra Collete wannabee and Beyonce, queen of the catchy pop hits. And I loved entertaining bad movies, but this was not one of them. It’s just a bad movie. 

My Life at Grey Gardens: Someone Hand Me a Wet Nap.

I know, I know, I haven’t written in two weeks. Here you go.

Reading. I read a lot. I enjoy reading anyway but now I have nothing but time to read all day unless I sleep all day. So I read or sleep.  That’s my day. So I thought, BOOK REVIEWS! I usually only buy a book if someone of whom I value their opinion tells me it’s good.  I love book reviews because they let me know what I want to read next.  If you read certain books that I do, go to pajiba.com and read their book reviews. That is where I get the majority of my recommendations. 

So yeah, I am doing book reviews now. ENJOY!

I read a little bit of everything but I love a true story. A biography or events that have happened, etc. Especially if the people in this true story are crazy. Cults, psychopaths, etc. Bring it on.  Crazy people amuse me.  I find them both horrifying and amazing.  And true stories are more interesting anyway. You can’t make this stuff up. The most twisted writer in the world could not come up with this stuff. 

My Life at Grey Gardens

A while back I Netflixed the original documentary detailing the lives of Big Edie and Little Edie, the aunt and cousin of Jackie O. Grey Gardens is what they call their house in East Hampton. HBO just did another movie on Grey Gardens with Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange that won a bunch of Emmys, I think. With good reason, it’s pretty good as well and you get some background and there are snippets from the documentary. That can be Netflixed as well but to get the full severity of the crazy that lurks in this mother and daughter, you need to watch the original documentary.  I watched the entirety of it with my mouth open.  

They went from old money and high society and such things that I know nothing about to living in squalor. They became recluses over the years, something I can sympathize with here lately, and they were afraid to leave the house in fear of being kidnapped, run over, assasinated, etc. Loony.  

They bred cats, not intentionally but they had a few cats and over the years those few cats multiplied.  Big Edie couldn’t move around well enough to walk anywhere so she mostly laid in bed surrounded by dozens of kittens. It makes my eyes water now just thinking about it. In the book, the author says she walked into Big Edie’s room one time and found 22 cats on her bed with her. 

It was a wooden house and since wood decays over the years and they certainly weren’t going to have any of the holes repaired, a number of racoons invaded the house. Instead of doing something about a racoon infestation they gave them names and kept them as pets. They even fed them as regularly as their cats. 

I am in no way making this up.  Those crazy ladies fascinate me to no end.  Not only because they live in filth but because they are for real insane. I can not put their insanity into words, it is something you must see for yourself. 

So this book was written by a family friend, Lois Wright, who lived at Grey Gardens, yes LIVED, for 13 months, from May of ‘76 to June of ‘77. I wondered what sort of person could live there for a few hours, much less over a year.  But Wright is a little nutty herself.  She’s an artist and a palm reader.  Yeah.  The book is a log of what they do in this house, how Big Edie and Little Edie react with each other and their crazy outlook on the world outside that house. 

That may sound boring to some of you but let me assure you, it’s not. I read the book in two days, finding it hard to put down.  Here are few WTF? moments that might pique your interests:

- No one has a key to this house, if you leave it, you have to yell through the holes in the windows for someone to let you in.  

- I have no idea how they bathe. The tub in Big Edie’s room is for the cats and what other tubs or showers they do have don’t work even though they have running water. 

- They refuse to cook in the kitchen since they have a gas oven and stove and they fear the house would blow up, so they cook on a hot plate in Big Edie’s room.  Wright complained the few times she had to prepare their meals on the hot plate, it was very hard to cook because the cats wouldn’t leave it and you had to do all of the preparing and cooking surrounded by cats. And this was AFTER what they refer to as “The Raid.”

East Hampton wanted them evicted. The house on the outside was in shambles, and the outside is nothing compared to the inside. So the health inspector came and wanted the house evacuated if they didn’t clean up in a certain amount of time. Big Edie and Little Edie refused to leave and they refused to clean. In steps Jackie O. She paid to have the place gutted and cleaned to get it up to code.  Five years after that is when Wright came to visit.  In the movie they show the health inspector holding back vomit once he steps the door. I can not imagine the stench, nor do I want to.  When the book was written, they were at least trying to be a little cleaner using trash cans which they never did before. How did they used to take the trash out? They didn’t. 

They may be loco but I find them endearing. They are obviously a close mother and daughter since they never leaves each other’s side (Little Edie can only leave Big Edie’s room when she is asleep or when given permission), but you can tell they annoy the crap out of each other. The way they speak to one another is hilarious. They are very defensive of the choices they have made to bring them to this but you can tell they regret a lot of them. When Big Edie’s husband died he left everything to his other wife (he never divorced Edie but remarried anyway) and Edie only got an allowance from a trust. When the trust ran out they had no more money.  They were given the choice to sell Grey Gardens right after he died, and move elsewhere so they could live comfortably forever but Big Edie refused. That was her house and she would only leave it “feet first.”

 

The book also takes you back to Grey Gardens after Lois left up until Big Edie dies. She fell out of bed one night and broke her leg. She wouldn’t let any doctor examine her leg and it got so bad she could not move from the bed at all so she developed bed sores since she was never left bed. She couldn’t even use a bedpan and wouldn’t move to wear Depends, so she just went in the bed.  Not sure if she ever changed her clothes. She stayed like this from July to January. Why? Because she would not leave her house and if a doctor ever entered the room they would make her go to a hospital and she wouldn’t leave the house. 

So read the book but watch the movie first. If you don’t like documentaries, then watch the HBO  version.  It’s insane. The only small complaint I had is that Wright gives you every detail she can which sometimes is good and sometimes it’s not needed. She goes into detail about her car that is broken down and I was like “Yeah. Don’t care about your car, get back to those crazy bitches.” but the unneeded detail is few and far between. Most the details in this book will make you cringe.  I cringed and gagged aloud a few times but I also laughed. They are really a couple of genuine, delusional, hilarious nutcases.

Why, this stuff's made in New York City. NEW YORK CITY?!

Travel!

This blog here will be unmanned until Wednesday, September 9th.  I will be in New York City (every time I say or hear New York City I think of that old Pace Picante commercial) visiting Morgan Beene.  

Tisha Leigh and I will be leaving today around 2:15 and arriving home Tuesday around 6:23 in the pm. 

To sum up, these three super cool people right here will be occupied for the next few days:

For both the flight there and the flight home I will be considerably out of it.  I have to take no less than two Dramamine per flight or else it's going to be bad news for me and quite embarrassing for Tish to be with the sick girl who can't stop puking because her head thinks the plane is spinning around in circles.  YAY VERTIGO!\

Tish would look something like this (she's the one on the right):

And I would feel and look something like this:

So you people will have to make due. Sorry to let you down. However, Monday is Labor Day so I hope the lot of you have something fun and exciting to do.  

Will I be summing up the trip when I get back? You bet your ass I will!

Peace to the Out. 

It's Funny Until Someone Sets Themselves on Fire

Amateur Exterminator Observer

One Saturday I was following my normal routine, sitting in the red oversized chair and reading.  David was in the backyard cutting the grass. 

I was nearing the end of The Dark Tower, and I heard a banging on the back door.  It’s frantic and I heard yelling as well but I couldn’t make out what the yeller was saying. The only word I could distinguish was “Fuck!”

I unlocked the back door and David came charging in yelling, “I was stung by a hive of yellow jackets!!!” And he went running into the bathroom. I am not sure what he thought going into the bathroom would do. You can run cold water over the stings, I suppose. I assure you they will not wash off.  

Does anyone remember a commercial back in the day, before DVR, and they were advertising a book or something about home remedies? Well I remember one of them was aspirin over bee stings. You just take the aspirin, crush it up and rub it over the bee sting. I guess to alleviate the pain??? Whatever the purpose of the aspirin was, it didn’t work. 

David was still in pain and he was pissed off and griping and then the swelling started.  David is allergic to a lot of things and I feared that this mysterious stinging beast would be yet another thing that he is allergic to.  Thankfully, it wasn’t.  He started to swell but I didn’t see him make the international choking symbol and his face never turned purple, or even blue so I figured he was alright.  

David is not exactly sure what it was that stung him. He said they looked like wasps but they were black and yellow.  I have seen no such bug in or around our home, but I will take his word for it and we will call them yellow jackets. Whatever these things were, they had to die. 

He brought out an aerosol can of ant killer and headed to the backyard.  I thought to myself “Wow, that is just going to piss them off.”  I pictured David spraying these things with the ant spray and then the entire hive getting wind of this and attacking him. I started calculating alternate routes to the nearest hospital.  I didn’t say anything to him about this being the dumbest idea that he has ever had (not true). You know those moods that people get in and you don’t dare speak up about anything for fear you are just going to make it worse??? Yeah. I kept my mouth shut. 

I sat back down and watched out the window, car keys in hand, for the stinging to begin.  As I am watching David take action I noticed something peculiar, I said aloud, “Is that fire???”

Yes. It’s the Hillbilly Blowtorch. Take an aerosol can and a lighter and stand back.  

I got up from the couch and went outside, not with my car keys but with my phone. The fire department would need be called eventually...Oh and I grabbed my camera. 

I stayed a safe distance away (the photo was taken from extreme zoom).  I stood there with all 3 dogs at my feet.  All of us had our heads cocked to the side in awe of this man on a mission.  We stood there like that for what seemed like forever, watching David engage the Hillbilly Blowtorch no less than a dozen times. 

When he was finally finished he turned back towards the house, threw his hands up in victory and shouted, “Those mother fuckers are dead now!”

We came back inside and I suggested that maybe he take a Benedryl or two and sit for a while since the swelling was increasing.  He agreed that maybe that was a good idea. And then he went fishing instead.  

Painting...

the Fireplace.

Leftover paint is a dangerous thing in this house...

It was the same white as the trim and such. Now it is the same brown as the bathroom. 

But, Seriously, I Need New Clothes...

Worrying.

The unemployed do a fair amount of worrying.  I am a worrier anyway (thanks for that, mom) but not having a job or a steady income adds to this worrying considerably. 

You may think I worry about big things. How will I put food on the table? How will I pay the cable bill? How will I keep my home heated and cooled (in all seriousness, David and I could probably get by without heating for an entire winter. Air conditioning? Not so much)?  Can I keep my dogs in shots and dog food? 

The answer to all of these things is yes. I can do all of these things, at least for a little while. We have 3 fully stocked freezers so we will not go hungry and when those are empty, David can just go shoot something else. (FYI, I haven’t bought any bread or any bread related product in over a month) I am unworried about the aforementioned things...for now. 

I worry about far more important things:

How am I going to buy a new fall wardrobe? I need new jeans, how can I afford them? I really wanted a new computer, will I ever get one? Will I be able to buy a new fall purse? The third season of 30 Rock comes out soon, how can I obtain that?

These are the selfish, shitty things that keep me up at night; how I am going to clothe myself and keep myself entertained.  

Mostly I just worry about what the frick I am going to do for a living. I look for jobs every day. I have yet to hear back from any of them. However if I want to be a telemarketer or sell life insurance, I am all set. I want to do neither of those things. 

I had a job just to have a job for a very long time and I am hoping it doesn’t come to this.  But if I have to, I have to. 

People keep telling me to be a writer. Yes, that is all well and good and that is what I would love to do. But Stephen King isn’t Stephen King overnight. 

Writing is what I have always wanted to be and planned to be I just had no clue of how to be one. Well being a “writer” isn’t exactly the issue. Anyone can be a writer, I would like for it to my career. How does one do this without welfare and government cheese?

I also have a fear that I will sit down to actually write something substantial and I will fail miserably. I will write something mediocre (I have written a lot of mediocre garbage that will never, ever be seen by human eyes) 

However, there are a ton of mediocre writers out there that took their mediocrity to the bank. Stephanie Meyer comes to mind. No doubt the Twilight books were entertaining, but she is a terrible writer. And if it weren’t for millions of horny teens (and housewives) on the planet, she would be a terrible poor writer. Even while I was reading those dang books (I quit mid #4, it got too ludicrious for me to not hate myself for continuing to read) I was thinking to myself, “Wowza, she is an awful writer.” 

Then there is Alice Sebold. Sigh. Okay, I know that The Lovely Bones was a best seller and it got rave reviews and all of that, but it was awful. She had no clue of who her characters are and they change from page to page.  And not a one of them had any redeeming qualities.  I was rooting for George Harvey to kill them all by about chapter 10. If you can make me care about your characters and care about what happens to them, bravo, you did you job as an author. 

And, I may be mistaken, but I know that while I was at Target the other day, I saw a book by Lauren Conrad. Like LC from The Hills and Laguna Beach fame. Yeah. I could be wrong, it may not be THAT Lauren Conrad, but if it is, color me disturbed. 

Anyhoo, I worry that I am not that good to begin with and people are just being nice. I fear everyone is giving me a false sense of entitlement and I really suck out loud. 

I am also worried that my creativity might be completely spent. I am getting on in years, you know. I might end up with something like “See Spot run” and I think that has actually already been taken. 

I am being told not to worry and that everything will eventually work out but in the meantime what do I do? Use the same fall purse from last year???? Unheard of...

 

Eight. Minutes.

Calling Tech Support

Our Satellite went out a few weeks ago. I don’t watch regular tv during the day so I kept forgetting to call. Here lately, I only watch regular tv when I go to bed. And by then I am not calling about it. Yesterday I finally remembered during reasonable hours. 

I called Dish Network Tech Support so basically I called India. A very nice man named Bert answered the phone. 

His real name was not Bert.  I find it slightly sad that when a company outsources all of their calls to a foreign country, the actual residents of that country that work there have to Americanize their names.  His real name is no doubt something Indian with great meaning, yet to appease the pompous Americans, his name is Bert. 

So I gave Bert my account information and I tried to explain the problem.  The box works just fine. We can still view everything on DVR but we kept getting the “Searching for Signal” screen (Error Code 015, if you were wondering) which said to me, the dish itself was faulty.  I explained this to Bert.  He asked me a few questions and I answered them as best as I could. 

Five minutes pass with mundane questions such as: What is the weather like outside? Is it Sunny? Is it hotter than normal? etc.  Basically, Bert wanted to know if it was raining.  It was not. What saddens me as well is that Bert deals with these pompous Americans all day long and I have no doubt that some people call during a thunderstorm because their signal is lost making this Bert’s first question.  I bet at that call center in India, they could play a drinking game. Everyone take a shot when someone calls because of a lost signal due to the rain. It interrupted their American Idol watching, dammit!  FIX IT!  

After I answered all the easy questions to weed out the really stupid people who usually call, I interrupted Bert:

“Bert, you are a super nice guy and I hate to waste your time. But I have checked all of these things already and I think you are going to have to send someone out here. Can you just send someone, please?” 

Bert said he would like to do that but he has to ask these questions before they send a technician. 

23 minutes later...

Bert: “Stacey, we are going to have send a technician.”

You don’t say?

Twenty eight minutes of questions. During this time I turned it off, turned it back on. Unplugged it, plugged it back in. Check the set up about 4 times after making minor adjustments that didn’t do anything. Made sure the cables were properly attached to the box and the wall, etc. All of the things I did about 2 weeks ago. But I humored Bert and did what he asked. As I said, he was a nice guy. 

Bert told me a technician would be there between 8:00 and 12:00 today.  He also told me that we have a warranty (we do?) and we wouldn’t get billed. He congratulated me on having the warranty and then reiterated, “That means you will not be charged.” Thanks, Bert!

So I get up early this morning, around 8:45.  I could have slept much longer but I figured with my luck I would be asleep and then they would be here. Stella would go nuts at the door and I would still be half asleep when I answered the door.  Also, every Dish Network guy that has been out to our home have both been pretty cute...I’m just sayin.

So I get up and go about my morning routine just waiting for the doorbell to ring so we can get this fixed and I can go on about my day. My morning routine is as follows:

Pee (of course)

Brush my teeth

Make the bed

Grab a Perrier out the fridge

Fix a regular water in my Memphis Tervis Tumbler

Turn on the fan in the living room and turn the air down to 70 ensuring that I am freezing

Get a blanket and sit in the red oversized chair and read.  

I usually read for at least 2 hours every morning. Sometimes 4. It just depends. You know that point when you are reading and you are sitting there and you are like “Okay, I think I am done.” I just wait until that happens. 

So I go about my routine, still expecting to be interrupted. 

Dude gets here at 12:15.  Of course he does. I could have slept so much longer. He leaves at 12:23.  Eight minutes. It took him eight minutes to fix the problem.  He had to replace some splitter thing that had gone bad. 

And this guy wasn’t cute. Bummer. 

Making Sushi

I attempted to make sushi on Sunday.

I didn't do anything fancy. I did some vegetable and fruit rolls with cream cheese and a crunchy shrimp. If I sucked at it, I didn't want to waste a whole hell of a lot of money on ingredients if it was all going to be a blob of crap.

My only concern was, "How does the rice stick together so well?" There is no trick to it. Rice is sticky and you have to continue wetting your hands to keep it from sticking to your hands so you can actually manipulate the seaweed. It also stuck to my hair, my tank top, my face and my foot.

I didn't do too shabby for my first time. It was very messy and I hadn't a clue of what I was doing but every single one got eaten. Not in one sitting, even though that has never been an issue with us, but it was tasty.

My next sushi venture will be raw. I think I am ready. Yes, just after one time I am ready for the big time. I am a genius at cuisine, you know.

My next ethnic food attempt will be: Indian. Real indian. Not like chicken curry.

Betty Crocker is a Chump Compared to Me

Making Delicious Breakfast Pastries!

In addition to make delcious bread, the breadmaker also has dough settings.

David has asked me a few times these past few weeks, pleaded with me actually, "Please stop making things."

I like to cook and bake and there are only two people there to eat whatever I make so the duty goes to David and myself to make these things gone. I don't care for being wasteful.

What I used to do, when I had a job, was bring at least half of it to work and give it away there. I suppose I could still drive up there and deliver my home baked goodies to my former coworkers but I just don't see that happening.

One day I made soft pretzel dough and when looking for that recipe I came across the recipe for cinnamon rolls. I pointed it out to David and his exact words, "Please don't make those." And I said I wouldn't.

So I made them on Sunday. I made them while David was gone doing something or another. He walked in smelling the aroma of fresh baked cinnamon rolls and he looked at me and said, "What did you do?" He acted mad for about two seconds and then he ate one. That day I had one cinnamon roll that I saved throughout the day. David had 4. I am just saying.

He does like to complain about me making an entire cake for two people to eat and when I fix his plate for dinner he always says, "That is way too much food." But does he ever have an issue cleaning his plate or putting a large dent in a cake? No. No he does not.

And the cinnamon rolls have been frozen in packs of 3 for later consumption.

Don't tell me those don't look delicious (they were).

Instead of a Chinaman Peeing on a Rug, it's a Chihuahua Peeing on a Couch

Painting a Couch

Yeah.  When I tell people this they look at me like I am crazy or stupid or both. Alcohol and boredom yield very peculiar results. I didn’t use fabric paint or anything nor did I look up the proper procedure for painting a fabric couch. I just did it. 

Our current kitchen table is a hand-me-down from my parents from when I was a kid. We each had our own seats where we always sat at every dinner. I now sit where my mom used to sit, which is weird (if you were wondering, we do eat at the kitchen table a lot, just me and David. It’s a good habit to get into, I feel). I painted the legs on the kitchen chairs the same purple as the wall. To kind of jazz the table up a bit since we can’t afford a new one and the table is still in pretty good condition. And while I had the paint out I started looking at the couch. 

It’s a loveseat that was, again, another hand-me-down from my parents. We aren’t too cool for used furniture. If it’s free, it’s me. 

It’s a cheap fabric loveseat that my parents threw upstairs in what people call a “playroom” for their slothful children to destroy in time with their snack food eating and non-stop tv watching (It was 1998 when it and the matching couch were bought and my sister and I were certainly old enough to know how to treat furniture, we were just slobs).  

Christy and I would fight for the couch every Sunday morning.  The first person to get up and get their beverages and snacks for the day won the couch all of Sunday.  The couch laying honor was only given up when one of us actually got up to leave the house for candy or TCBY.

There were some days when Christy would never show up on Sunday. Probably still passed out from the night before in someone’s front yard (What? This actually happened). And I would have the couch all to myself to stretch out on and watch endless TBS.  And there were many a day when the loveseat would go unused, keeping it in pretty good condition. 

David and I took the set with us to our apartment.  The couch was already covered in unidentified stains (don’t want to know) and the cushions had seen better days.  At the apartment is when we also added Stella to the Logan Family.  She was a teeny adorable puppy and potty training was in motion so both pieces of furniture were spotted with Puppy Pee as well. Some parts were actually soaked in pee but we just turned the cushions over. 

When we moved into the house, the couch was retired to the Deer Camp, where all hand-me-down anything go to die. 

The loveseat we kept, and in its years here it has sustained some hell.  It sits in front of uncovered windows and, in the sun, it has faded considerably. My one hanging inside plant that I have yet to kill hangs over it and when I do remember to water it, I tend to over water. The water then drips onto the left arm of the couch. So now we have a faded, water-stained couch spotted with aged Puppy Piss.  It’s dirty and dusty and I have had to resist the urge to burn it for a very long time. 

So the loveseat was going to be thrown away and replaced with something else. 

I finished painting the chair legs and I looked at the half-empty can of paint. Paint that will no doubt be sent to the garage to age and probably thrown out in time. I then looked at this disgusting, festering eyesore of a couch. From the paint, to the couch. And I thought “Why the hell not?”  

The end result was surprising. And I think it is going to hold up for quite some time, as well especially since it doesn’t see a lot of traffic anyway. 

Please ignore the white sheets covering the cushions.  Those will be recovered once I pick out fabric. The white sheets were given to us by our Asian neighbor.  She is a housekeeper at some hotel (she told David which hotel but he has a very hard time understanding what she is saying...and so do I. It takes some concentration).  We think it is a fancy hotel because she tells us (at least we think she does) that if the sheets have any small defect they have to be thrown away. The same goes for towels or rags.  I would never use hotel sheets for actual bedding. I am sure the sheets have been bleached to high hell and are perfectly safe, but they skeeve me out.   She has given us countless sets of sheets so I used them to cover up my grody, embarrassing loveseat.

Many other things have been painted in my time off but that is for another blog for another day. 

Learn New Skills! Like Cleaning!

Mopping the Floor

I am not the best housekeeper.  I didn’t know how to work a washing machine until I moved out of my parents house in 2004. Everything was always done for me and for that I will always be grateful to my mother. 

During my endless hours at home I mopped the floor for the first time in my life. I am in no way exaggerating. I have never, ever mopped a floor until Monday; August 10, 2009.  

My least favorite thing in the world is washing dishes. Especially the dishes that have been sitting in the sink overnight (or, let’s be honest here, for a few days) and the water has been sitting in a dirty pot and it’s now all cold and murky. To me, mopping the floor is like taking grody dishwater and smearing it all over the floor. It just seems counter productive. So I just don’t do it.

I got the idea to actually mop while watching tv. I asked David “Do we have a mop?” He looked at me for a second, speechless, and then said, “Uh, yeah.” I didn’t know. I have never used it before. The few times (very few) that the floor has been mopped, David has done it. It never even crossed my mind that the floor needed to be mopped. 

I started with the kitchen and since everything was out and the sink was full of Pine Sol and Windex (I didn’t know...) I might as well do the rest. In doing this I came to a very sad and enlightening observation...we are some gross people. 

I am a messy cook.  Flour, nuts, cornmeal, sprinkles, all of it goes undetected once it falls on the floor. If it’s a big chunk I just call Stella and she takes care of it. If it’s small enough it sticks to your feet and then once you walk on a rug, it gets transferred to the rug and then it gets vacuumed up every week (that’s a lie, ever other week).  The floor gets indirectly swept.  It’s taken care of.

Not so much.

Some people reading this may or may not know that David is a flooring contractor and he is responsible for all of the flooring in our home* (if anyone happens to need flooring installed...help the Logans out, I am unemployed you know). And I used to work at a flooring distributor providing us with a nice discount. So the floors in our home are very nice. Probably nicer than our dirty asses deserve. 

Our laundry room, you know the place that we take our clothes to be cleaned, was vile. And, yes I am slightly embarrassed to admit this, the tile floor in our laundry room has never been cleaned. We have been in this house since 2005.  Four years, with a dog who violently sheds, and we have yet to clean the laundry room. It’s been organized and cleaned “out” but it has never seen soap of any kind. And if we didn’t store broom in there, it wouldn’t have seen that either. 

I don’t really sweep either. We have a hardwood vacuum for the massive amounts of dog hair and I use that quite often but a broom seems so...archaic. Since it has never been cleaned or swept there were some super gross things in the laundry room floor: forgotten pieces of dog food, a ziploc bag with “Stella”  written on it that I know was from 2006, empty spider eggs, dead spiders, and (sigh) a small, dry pellet of dog poopie.  

There was also a green blotch on the tile that I thought was a naturally occurring aspect of the tile. It wasn’t. The blotch is still unidentified but it surely did come off with a little scrubbing. 

Overall the mopping experience was a good one. The floors looked so...clean when I was finished. Who knew? I am not saying I am going to do this again any time soon but the results were quite impressive.  

* I did grout a closet before we moved in and it was the most horrible thing ever. It was so messy and time consuming that I eventually started crying and threw a small hissy fit.  David then took it away from me and did it himself in about a tenth of the time it would have taken me. 

If Cookies Don't Get Me Hired, My Boobs Will

Resume Perfecting (Fake and Real)

BLAH. The word “resume” (as in that thing you put together to get another job not as in continue what you were doing) strikes an uneasy, about-to-vomit reflex, to me at least. 

I have never needed a resume until now and when faced with the task of actually creating one, I was lost. And, to be honest, sort of annoyed at having to do this in the first place. Annoyed at what? Not really sure. Maybe annoyed that people aren’t lined up to hire me (how dare they!).

I went on Monster and filled out all the blanks and that was the template for my resume. I didn’t have much else to add to this and I really didn’t know what to add. Thankfully, I have friends who deal with resumes and they were happy to jazz it up for me. It was much, much appreciated.

But then I got to thinking; Why do resumes have to be so formal and boring? This does not show what sort of person I am or what I can even do, really. Sure it shows the countless computer programs that I am capable of operating but they don’t know how good I am it. I guess that is what my portfolio is for. 

Can’t I just say the things that I want to say about what type of chick I am and how I would be to work with? Isn’t that what people really want to know in an interview? I have no doubt that I can do whatever job is offered to me, and I know I can do that job well, but how am I as a person? Here is my Fantasy Resume. The resume that companies SHOULD ask for when hiring anyone:

Stacey Garrett Logan

Job Title: Being Awesome

Years Experience: My Whole Life

Skills: Kicking Ass. Taking Names.

Objective:

To have a job that I enjoy and doesn’t make me want to kill myself.  

Qualifications: 

I am super qualified, for anything. For real. I could do any job you would ever need done.  Of the many computer programs that I can operate, I have taught myself each and every one of them in record time. If your company requires me to manipulate a computer program that I have never seen before, give me 2 days and I will rock your face off. 

So, like, why hire me: 

I am a cool girl, and I have been told I am fun to work with. Isn’t that what is most important? To spend an entire work day with someone who you don’t mind hanging around?  When the opportunity strikes, I can also be very entertaining.  I excel at story telling especially when the story contains my family or my friends. I like to laugh and my level of Goof is off the charts when time and opportunity permits. 

I am a hard worker. I worked for the same company for 10 plus years and in that time I worked in every single department. In those departments I worked hard and I always got the job done well and it was done in time. And most of those years I only worked part time and STILL outworked the full timers. 

I am a good cook and excellent baker. I can give you a long list of references that can vouch for this fact. I also like to bring treats to work to share with my coworkers on a random basis. Who doesn’t love treats?! Can you say, “Increase company morale”?

I am pretty giving. For every holiday, if I like you, be prepared to receive a “happy” from me. Usually consisting of childish trinkets and loads of candy. And if you have any sort of pop culture obsession, be prepared to be inundated with said paraphernalia. 

I am creative thanks in no small part to my love for reading, television and movies.  Every creative aspect from my former company for the past five years was solely created by me. Coworkers even came to me with personal requests as well and I was happy to use my creative skills to help a dude out. 

I am smart. This resume should prove that. 

I am unemployed. I need a job. Mostly because I would like to keep a roof over my small family’s heads and, to be honest, I need cable and I enjoy my fair share of trips to amazon.com. I also like to be occupied for the majority of the day and job helps with that considerably.

So hire me. I promise you will not regret it. Be ready to receive a pat on the back from each of your superiors.  They will recognize the genius in you for hiring me. I’ve seen it happen and it could happen to you. 

Saturday and Sunday - Blog Free

I have chosen to take the weekend off. You people get the weekend off, so why shouldn't I? 

Plus, I literally do nothing on the weekend. And this has not changed since I have had a job. I used to clean on the weekend but now I do that every day so there is no need. 

Sunday has and will always be the day that David and I watch movies and drink all day. I am in no way ashamed to say this. We don't move from the couch and we start drinking around noon (sometimes sooner).  You should try it. It's good stuff. 

So everyone enjoy your weekend, I will see you back here on Monday with fresh Tales of the Unemployed. Maybe you all can take this time to register as one of my Followers? Just a suggestion.

Maybe Play some Twister this Weekend:

I Hear the 7th Circle of Hell is the Grocery Store

Going to the Grocery Store

I know that this is far from the truth but I feel like I spend a full day at Kroger every week. It only feels that long because I hate it so much. I have tried going to Kroger drunk to see if that makes it any more enjoyable, but then I just have to pee midway through and I usually buy way more than I need.

I am also the youngest person at Kroger at noon on a random Thursday. The youngest person without children, that is. And usually the bitches that do have children have a car seat in the basket and a toddler walking alongside.  And they are always blocking EVERYTHING. Especially while they let the toddler pick out what kind of cookies or cereal they want. And you say, politely, “Excuse me...” with a smile on your face and you get this aghast look like “How dare you, I have children.” And your point...

Usually at Kroger I have some form of incident and these incidents fall into categories, and I have no clue of what it is about my face that complete strangers always feel the need to tell their honest opinion:

Tattoos - It’s hot outside and I usually wear a tank top or a dress to when I do my shopping. Of course once I enter the automatic doors I start freezing my ass off. My tattoos are usually always showing.  And someone always, ALWAYS, comments on them and usually they are the people that work there. And it is the same people every time. 

I am a fan of the self checkout.  I use my own bags (you should too) and the checkers and baggers get very snippy when you hand over your bags. I do not see the issue since you can fit so much more in them than those dang plastic bags. Especially since every Kroger bagger puts no more than 3 items in each bag. It drives me insane.

I am not really sure why people always feel the need to comment on tattoos. Usually they are complimentary, but not always. 

The Self Checkout Lady, I call her Martha (not her name), is usually there. I have had to explain to her at least three times what the one on my arm is and the significance. I really hate explaining the significance of tattoos to people. But, whatever. And after I am finished explaining Martha ALWAYS says “Oh...Okay, that’s different” then she walks away. Every time. 

The next is a girl who mans the self checkout randomly.  She is about 20 and I call her Stephanie (not her name).  She has one tattoo of a flower (Guess where it is?!?!) and she tells me about it every time I see her. And her boyfriend (who I have reason to suspect is fictional) has tattoos as well. Then she asks me how many I have and what they all are and where I got them and it is exhausting. Especially when I just want to get my flour, sugar and salsa and get the fuck out of there. I usually hide from her or I go to the line that she is not in. It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t had to answer these SAME questions every time to the same girl.

Then I got this random dude who wrangles carts that asked to touch it. He was at least 50 years old and he ran up to me as I was entering Kroger and said, “That’s a cool tattoo you’ve got there. Wow. Can I touch it?” My response, “I would rather you didn’t. It just feels like skin.” Creeeeepy. Who does that?   

Dogs - The few times that I buy dog treats are usually the times that I have too much crap to use the self checkout. Someone always comments. Usually they ask what kind of dogs I have. I tell them and every FREAKING time they turn their nose up when I say “Chihuahua.” Stella Bean is awesome and she will rip out your jugular for saying otherwise. Lay off Chihuahuas! 

So yesterday I explain to the bitch checker what sort of dogs I have and I am sitting there watching the bagger struggle with my reusable bags (why is it that every bagger has the hardest time ever putting groceries in reusable bags? It’s not rocket science. I could do it in less than a minute) I paid and got my receipt and I am waiting for all of my groceries to go in the bags, Bitch Checker says this:

BC: Do you have any children?

Me: No, just the dogs. They are my children.

BC: *eye roll* Dogs are NOT children! I don’t see how people can say that. Dogs should never be referred to as children.

Me: *bags finally ready, taking cart from slow bagger* You are right, Dogs are so much better. It’s really an insult to dogs. Toodles. 

Yeah, I said “toodles.” I am not sure what it is, but I only have these incidents at the Southaven Kroger. 

I have to start going to Shnucks.

Semi-Professional Bath Giver

Babysitting!

Let me say now that I will in no way babysit anyone else’s children.

Christy (my sister) informs me that she paid someone $50 to watch the boys for 3 hours. Uhh, I will do that. I do it for free but if I am getting paid, I might be a little more eager.

Tuesday night was Christy’s turn for dinner. After dinner, Garrett asked Christy if he could run their bath water (Garrett is 4 and Whitman is 2, they bathe together).  That was a big negative from Christy so I offered to watch while Garrett ran the bath water himself. I wasn’t aware that neither my sister or my mother would ever show up to help in the bathing process.  

Not that it is a big deal. I have given them a bath many times and they always make it...entertaining. Yes I suppose that is the correct word to use. 

Garrett runs the water and turns the cold all way the way on. “I want a cold bath,” he says. I convinced him otherwise. Garrett then gets in the bath and says, “Stacey, watch this,” and he stands in the tub full of water that both he and his brother are about to take a bath in and he pees. Fresh bath water, now containing toddler piss. And as soon as I put Whitman in the tub, guess what he does? Pees. Awesome. 

I knew this was coming. They do it every time and you have to learn to live with it. Yes, they took their bath in pee water. Don’t blame me, I am not their mother. 

I wash their hair and all that so the bath itself is done. Then they both ask for more soap in their hair so they can give themselves Soap Mohawks. Garrett fixed Whitman’s and vice versa. This does give me a little hope that they will be as cool as their Aunt Stacey when they are older. 

 They love baths so they are in no hurry to get out. I am stuck in the bathroom watching them. What seems like hours pass and Garrett stands up and says “Stacey, look...” he turns around and there is a distinct turd poking out of his booty. Yes, you read that correctly.

I walk into the kitchen and tell Ron, “Your oldest son just showed me a turd poking out of his butthole. I am not removing it. That is a job for someone else.” I have no issue with changing diapers or wiping after they potty but I flat out refuse to remove a turd while it’s still clinging. 

Ron goes to take care of the situation and comes back and says, “It wasn’t a turd. It’s a Power Rangers sword. He thinks it’s funny to stick it up there.” I say, “How is that better??  ”  I was more comfortable with the turd.  

It wasn’t a large sword. It’s action figure size and he didn’t actually insert anything, he just held it in his butt cheeks. The kid will do anything for a laugh but that didn’t make it any less disturbing. And he thought it was hilarious. I go back in the bathroom and he was cracking up. He says, “You thought I poo pooed ” 

Then they both start putting the bath water, the water they have both bathed and peed in, in their mouths and start spitting it at each other. I try to hold back the gags as I let the water out of the tub so this bathtime will finally end. 

Boys are freaking weird and they start being freaking weird at a very early age. Weird and super gross. 

I would rather starve than eat your bread

Now is the time to use all of those wedding gifts that have never been used. The road to a yard sale is paved with good appliance intentions. At the very top of our laundry room storage closet sits, a bread maker...

When David and I registered for wedding gifts we didn’t have any issues on what to pick or what we needed. Except the bread maker. The Breadman Pro to be exact. We had no use for a bread maker and I had no want for one. David did. He registered for it at Target and, of course, someone bought the thing for $100. That was one big gift that we could have gotten something that we could actually use. Taking it back WOULD have been a good idea, but David was positive we would be lost without one. 

Almost 4 years later, the Breadman Pro has only been used once. David tried it the first year we had it. I wanted nothing to do with it and was still boycotting its existence and the massive amount of space it took up when storage space is always in short supply. I didn’t even eat the bread when he made it. I realize this makes me a brat.

I would say day 4 of having no job this thought crossed my mind , “I could use that fucking bread maker.”

I had no clue of what to do with the thing so I moseyed on over to Kroger. They have those boxes of bread mix that you can use in a bread machine. So I got one of those just to try it out. I followed the directions on the box of mix and as I am kneading the dough with my hands on flour covered wax paper, I think to myself, “If I have to do all of this bullshit then what good is it to have a bread maker? It needs to rise for 3 hours? Why don’t I just bake the shit in the oven? Dumb.” 

Then I looked at the actual book to the bread maker. 

Oh. 

If I hadn’t gotten all bake-sure of myself, I might have actually used the thing how it was intended to be used. All you have to do is throw all the ingredients in the bread maker, choose what type of bread it is, and hit start. It does the mixing, kneading, rising and baking for you. This whole bread maker phenomenon started to make a lot more sense to me. It’s actually kind of cool...for a kitchen appliance. 

So in a week and half I have made: 2 loaves of white bread, 2 loaves of Italian herb bread, a loaf of multigrain flax bread and a loaf of whole wheat bread. And just so no one will be overly concerned about my carb intake, I have been freezing the bread for later use. 

I wanted to make sourdough bread but you have to have a starter that you let sit and rise for 5 days, stirring 3 times a day. Then you use the starter as an ingredient to make the sourdough bread. I read the cockamammie instructions for the sourdough starter and thought “Who on earth has time to do this?” Wait. I do. 

So now sitting in the poorly used project room there is a loosely covered bowl of sourdough starter sitting on a long forgotten treadmill. So far I haven’t forgotten to stir the mixture 3 times a day. And in all seriousness I can barely contain my excitement for when I actually get to eat the sourdough bread. 

I also got asked the question, “Isn’t it cheaper to just buy a loaf of bread?” No. No it’s not. 

You can buy all the ingredients pretty cheap and the ingredients last for at least 5 loaves. Also the ingredients last a lot longer than a loaf of bread. Plus when you make your own there are none of those pesky preservatives in your bread. And with regular Wonder Bread (we buy Kroger brand bread, we aren’t proud), you don’t get the added bonus of saying “Yeah, I made that.” 

Introducing my Jobless Ass

What does one do when they are unemployed? This is the first time since I was 17 that I have never had a job.

And I usually get the question, “So what do you do all day?”  

Well there is the obvious: look for a job. But there is really only so long you can spend a day surfing the internet and posting your resume to any website that will allow it. I am about to post my resume on Facebook. It couldn’t hurt. 

What did I used to do? A bastardized sup-par version of graphic design. I created the advertising and promotions for a floor covering distributor. It sounds far more glamorous than it actually was. But I was freakin’ good at it and I enjoyed what I did. 

I am currently looking for something along those lines or really just any job that I won’t hate. I worked for a lot of years with a job. That is all it was, a job. Maybe let’s dust off the old brain and actually use it to earn a paycheck, what do you think?

But enough about finding a job. What am I doing when I am sitting at home ALL DAY LONG while everyone else I know is actually working. 

It makes a for a long day, I will tell you that much. I used to think the days at work were endless and mind numbing... just wait until your weekend never ends and there is no end in sight. 

Most days I am not even sure what day it is. Not like the 12th or whatever, but like today is Tuesday. I just realized that. It is only TUESDAY!

Since I have been given the precious gift of time, I am trying my damndest to make the most of it. You know those things that you have always wanted to do but you neither have the time or the want to actually do them. I know that the last thing I want to do when I get home from a long ass day at work is crap around the house. So, now, since I have nothing else to do, let’s get some shit done. 

Go ahead and check back daily to see my progress around the house and to gauge my amount of boredom. 

And I now have a blog. I did get the idea from Jana and I thought about it long ago and now I will have time to update the damn thing. Go check it out. I am going to post occasionally on the ‘book as well. So go to my blog. Let’s make me famous.