I'm Screwed Because God Is A Shat-fan *UPDATED*

In all honesty, I didn't think I'd be posting again so soon. I mean, I'm ready to tear my hair out over here and that should be keeping my hands way too busy to type.

First of all, when it's just Hubby, Munchkin and myself, I'm neurotic about keeping the house clean. In part because I'm simply neurotic and in part because when one lives in 540 square feet, a single dish in the sink can make the kitchen look like you've neglected it for weeks. One unmade bed turns into a pig-sty of a bedroom and God-forbid the neatly placed coverings come off the falling-apart couch, cause then you have not only a tangled, wrinkly mass of blue fabric hanging to the floor, you also see quite clearly, from every room in the house, the many rips in the upholstery of the second-hand couch that were once small tears, but thanks to an inquisitive two-year-old who shall remain nameless *eyeroll* they are great big flapping cushion-innards-showing rips so the living room looks as if it were destroyed by college-student-rock-stars.

In other words; I have a system that, when utilized, keeps this place from looking like a ghetto shack.

I also have a budget. One that has to be adhered to strictly to keep the lights and the phone and the internet on while still providing enough sustenance to feed two adults and a child for two weeks at a time, which isn't as easy as it sounds when your two-year-old is a total might-as-well-be-crack Milk Junkie of the highest order. As in two gallons every 3.6 days.

Don't judge me, Mamas. I hear your tongues clicking. I don't do juice. It's milk or water; so the kid wants milk, he gets milk.

Anyway, as stated last time, the step-son is here. He was supposedly sent with money for food. Because in all honesty, this kid eats like... well, I don't even know what. Nothing I can think of eats as much as he does. He's a bottomless pit. Like, for realz, yo. Like, if I spend $200 on groceries every two weeks to get our normal household occupants through, I need to double it to add the step-son for one week and not be stuck with nothing but top ramen and water for the second week until the check comes in. Seriously. Not even exaggerating.

Locusts. I guess the closest thing would be a swarm of Locusts.

So here we are on Tuesday evening. New roommate is at work ~ at a bar, so he comes home semi-sloshed between 4 & 5 am which I totally hear, because the door is right by our bedroom and I have 'Mama hearing' in case the Munchkin needs me. Dude is always very considerate about being super quiet and he only comes in and goes straight to bed on the couch, but still. The bar closes at 2 and I could totally be on the computer until he comes home, but we never know when that's going to be, except that the pattern, as I've already stated, seems to be between 4 & 5 am. Driving. Me. Nuts.

And then there's the food-Hoover-step-son who is still just as mopey as I stated in my other last post mentioning him, except now he's more so because he rolled his truck and is just a big ass ball of mopiness now. And he's still a huge 6'7" along with the munchkin and the roommate and the 6'4" Hubby and my non-smoking weight gain of fat ass trying to fit into a trailer built for two anorexic midgets, or one shortish normal-weight person.

Anyway, the Hubby called the ex-wife (aka step-son's mother) who knows about the four months of unemployment, and says that if step-son is coming she needs to send him with some money for food, cause we just can't do it any other way right now. So she does. A credit card. With $20 on it. (which they totally told me was like $60 so I wouldn't go stupid on them) And what do these two geniuses do with the card? They go to fast food twice and now the card is empty. *deep cleansing breaths* And to top it off, the drought that we've experienced for nearly the entire summer has picked the last couple of days to break. So, today, we have rain, and Hubby can't work on the ex-wife's car in the rain so he and Munchkin and step-son are sitting around watching movies and eating up food we can't spare if we want to continue to eat anything with a nutritional value above dirt for the rest of the time till payday, and the aforementioned weather means that step-son will be here now through Thursday at the minimum.

Dear Lord God Almighty, please, please, help me because Jail Sucks. And I don't want to have to suck anything while I'm in a jail in Texas because I'm sure the woman's facility contains people of questionable gender that could bench-press bulls and tractors and shit, and I don't want to be some Bertha's pudgy-love slave.

So, please God, please keep me from killing these men with the intelligence and foresight of 12 year olds and just for fun taking out the other guy who keeps telling me the exact number of motorcycles that are going by on the highway outside as if I give a good God damn, and where to get the best hamburger as if I'm two seconds into my Texas residency. Oh, and btw, now my two year old has started to tell me to "Shu-Hup" the second I take a breath and look as if I'm going to speak and won't give me hugs or kisses cause he only wants to spend time with 'the guys'.

Whatever I have done to deserve this God, I choose the quick painless death of tripping over too many feet in the living room and going head-first into the wall and crushing my cranium along with being electrocuted by the wires in the wall when my head passes through to the next room, instead of starving to death with a bunch of locust-like, authority-on-nothing-important, think-they're-grown, non-planning slobs who take up so much room that I have to go outside to change my fucking mind. Amen.

PS. Is this because I became part of The Bloggess' Army on twitter and have been writing unkind things about William Shatner because of 'his feud' with The Bloggess that she totally made up kind-of.

Therefore, you didn't think it was funny when I said that William Shatner chose the ending for the Sopranos finale, or that William Shatner wouldn't hand Julia Roberts the phone in Steel Magnolias, or that William Shatner told W & Cheney about WMD, or that William Shatner drinks out of the milk carton, or that William Shatner is the leader of the underwear gnomes...

It is, isn't it, God. You're a Shat-fan, God. A Kirk-loving-trekkie.

And I, am totally screwed and going to hell.

*UPDATE* PPS. Oh, just fucking beautiful. Shatner and the Bloggess made up, and I'm still over here going to hell. Besides, who the hell else am I going to vent at in a completely passive-aggressive manner to release my fire-hazard-cause-it's-over-capacity (among other reasons) home situation? Now I have to find some other iconic twitterer to take out my misplaced-anger upon. Damn it. Cause, lets face it, Shat was perfect in this capacity, aside from the obvious going to hell part. If anyone has any ideas on who to target next, let me know. Thanks

It's A Very Serious Condition; Possibly Fatal, So It's Nothing Short Of A Miracle That I'm Posting Instead Of Hooked To An IV In A Hospital Somewhere

First of all, before I get started, I'd like to take a moment and wish my Aunt Sherry a Very Happy (number undisclosed) Birthday on Thursday, August 6th. I hope it's wonderful!!! I Wish I could be there to help you blow out the candles, but I'm missing my tiara and magic wand... which is cool if they wind up at your house, gift-wrapped by the universe as birthday presents. Otherwise, just have a piece of cake and send me the calories. I'm happy to take them for you. And just so I say it all public-like, thank you so much for being super-extra-awesome-and-wonderful to Jos during her visit. You were always such a blessing to me, thank you for paying it forward to my girl. You're awesome, and I love you!

*pause for authentic slight tear-up*

OK, now...

This week, I'm playing along with Mama Kat at Mama's Losin' It. Her weekly feature Your Assignment, Should You Choose To Accept It had a prompt that caught me this week: What's ailing you? Diagnose yourself with a syndrome. (inspired by Kimberly from Kamp KK) My mother, being a retired RN (that's registered nurse to y'all) I thought this would be fun...

Turns out, I'm one sick puppy... aside from mentally (I could hear every single person I ever met in my entire life my sister laughing-so-hard-she-snorted in my head as soon as I typed that and had to clarify!!) ...and I'm about to get a whole lot sicker, because...

I'm back here typing out my five-minute title to this post and I hear a blue streak that rivals one of mine. So my ears prick up (yes, Beavis, I said prick) cause it's gotten all quiet-like again except for what sounds like wires and such being moved. Then hubby comes flying in here like a man on a mission, grabs some things off of his mechanic's carts and swoops back out, nearly running over the munchkin (just call me shadow, Daddy) without so much as a backwards glance. So I get up to see who's life he's saving on our kitchen table because as far as I'm concerned, the only reason to mow down a toddler involves carotid arteries shooting blood all over my kitchen with the chief of police in the driveway, savvy?

So I whip out of the back room to see a pathetic black box with wires strung out from the AV system and a look of grave misgivings on hubby's face as he sits down to operate on his patient.

Uh-Huh. *eyeroll*

This is the emergency.

Shallow breathing and non-responsive pupils from the Playstation.

The Playstation that the toddler has taken to operating (properly, including game changes, might I add) without our help or supervision. Yes, y'all as of last Thursday, it is not my adorable bright-eyed-redhead slapping my arm saying, "MomMY! GeH UP!" but the soundtrack to MX vs. ATV games playing at Daddy-Loud-levels that wakes me up. Oh goodie, another gamer in the house. I'm so proud. fucking liar

And, now I understand completely. It's like when your best friend gets kinda soused at your BBQ and then runs over your beloved pet Sparky with the John Deere. You still love 'em, but you kind of can't look at 'em right now and you're trying to reserve your outburst cause you're not sure if Sparky is gonna live yet... it's like that with Hubby and the munchkin hunched over a black box on my kitchen table cause Boo still doesn't realize that Daddy thinks he's the reason Sparky the Playstation is in critical condition.

I say nothing, because I have a strong sense of survival like that and go back to my computer before he asks for my help, because let's face it, I hate Sparky. And while I'm not exactly reveling in the pain of it's possible death, I'm also not going to get roped into trying to help revive that time-sucking pain-in-my-ass either.

I know it's gotten really bad when he comes back into the computer room for a crash cart in the guise of an air compressor. Now, mind you, he's got the case off the game, and I can't, for all the tea in China, figure out what in the hell he needs the air compressor for, but again, I'm still wishing myself invisible during this *ahem* tragedy as he zips past me to perform CPR.

This is where I should have copped a fucking clue, but I totally sold my brain on eBay for gas money, so it didn't occur to me that he was going to do the compressor procedure outside, even though I couldn't hear it being used, so DUH, as in Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin's love child, Dumbass Griffson.

Cause next thing I know, here comes munchkin, holding his hand out to me. Not crying or whining or fussing. Just holding his hand out to me. I look down and his pointer finger is bleeding right in the center of the pad of his finger. He sees that I see the blood, and then he puts his thumb against it (spreading the bloodiness around for good measure) and starts saying, "Owwwww" as a few tears start and build up as I inspect the damage to now, a full blown cry. Aaaand now, as if on cue, here comes the blood for real. So I scoop up little bleeding man and off to the bathroom we head...

I'm one step into the living room, heading for the bathroom when, for some unknown mama-instinct reason, I look over and see the cause of the blood... Hubby's motherfuckingsharpassboxcuttingknife wide open. The one that he was so concerned about Sparky that he left in easy reaching distance on the kitchen table and neglected to specifically tell my dumb ass that he was going outside despite how obvious it was to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Now, SPARKY MUST DIE AND HUBBY MIGHT NEED TO GO WITH IT. So I kick open the back door and spout some super-loud fuck you's parenting tips at hubby so that he could hear them over the compressor on my way into the bathroom with our much-more-important-than-a-fucking-video-game bleeding son... not that I'm wigging out now that I know what he damaged himself on... Nah, not at all.

I rinse and peroxide (which starts a whole new round of I'm-Dying-Mommy tears) and inspect the wound in between putting pressure on the finger with a towel ~ which, for you childless people, is way more difficult than it sounds. Picture trying to catch and hold an overfilled water balloon one handed and covered in Crisco. That kind of comes sort of close. Maybe.

I ascertain that he's basically tapped his finger against the sharp-pointy tip which, although I can't tell how deep the cut goes, is better than, say running his finger down the blade. Thankfully, despite the immediate disturbing mental picture of how bad it could have been, I can not see bone, nor is there blood coming from anywhere else. *sweatdrippingdownforehead* Disaster less massive than was possible... *deep breaths*

In my Mommy-insta-nurse-just-add-blood superhero costume I decide to put a band-aid on it. Except, have you ever tried to put a regular sized band-aid on a two-year-old finger? It's like using an ace-bandage for a sprained finger... you know it's gonna be waaaay too big from the second you start, but if you angle it like you're trying to do origami or some shit and stand on your head during a full moon, it might just work for a while until you can tell if it's a minor cut or if you're going for that wonderful thrill-ride of emergency room visit complete with explanation that won't get you arrested for child abuse on the spot.

OK, band-aid on. Munchkin bending finger to assure me that I didn't cut off circulation entirely to his finger with my creative bandaging. Tip of finger is not turning blue. We're good. Ten minutes later, munchkin can still waggle finger, tip is still not blue, and putting tip of finger to my lip, tip of finger is still not cold, ie: circulation still happening. Also, band-aid is not bled-through. Which is a good sign, but not good enough for me to stop rehearsing my emergency room recount of how munchkin came to be damaged in full view of two completely competent, loving parents. that's my story and I'm sticking to it

Half an hour later, the kid is fine, the finger is forgotten, and he's pulling out Harry Potter movies so he can decide between the Boo-version of Citizen Cane that is Sorcerer's Stone and Prisoner of Azkaban which is his Godfather Part Two... And, Yes, Virgina, there is a Santa Claus, cause Sparky. Is. Dead. *RenfieldLaughAsITwirlMySnidelyWhiplashMustache*

Except, now I have to deal with a hubby who is in Playstation withdrawals. I fully expect him to go to bed tonight at 7:12 pm. And by tomorrow, he'll be furiously hitting buttons on the game controller and making fake shooting noises at Dr. Phil and Oprah... but that's not the worst of it.

I've told y'all before that he's been cramping my computer-time-style... Yeah. I have a feeling that by Friday, I'll only be able to get on the computer from 4-6 am and only with prior written permission from a parent or guardian and possibly the Pope, or maybe the cheerleader from Heroes cause she's totally in his five so he might listen to her... and I need to consider sending Megan Fox an ape-load of tweets pleading my case so maybe she can get me some computer time too... in case the Pope and the cheerleader are busy...

Oh yeah, and that self-diagnosed disease of mine? It's Dumbass Griffson Sparky Mortality Gateway Inacessability Disease exacerbated by Spousal Pre-pubescence coinciding with the arrival of Florence.

So, as you can see, it's a very serious condition, although, to be honest, the IV I mentioned may contain Lithium and Valium.

The Most Important Thing About Nostalgia

I want to know what the hell is going on! Sunday friggin' afternoon at 5 pm, and there were FORTY-EIGHT blog posts on my dashboard. I can barely get myself together to post Monday-Wednesday-Friday and y'all are putting out 48 posts on a Sunday?!?!?

I feel like the kid who goes to kindergarten for the first day and all the other kids know each other from two years of pre-school. Totally screwed and left out, but having no idea how to relate that without biting.

Of all the posts, the one that made me go, "OK, now that needed to be posted today, for sure" was from Chris at Maugeritaville: August 2, 1979. Two words: Thurman Munson. I can't believe it's been thirty years since I stared at the radio in the rental house in Long Beach Island, NJ as if they'd announced a nuclear holocaust. A mixture of OMFG and... no, that's it, just OMFG. Of course, I was 8, so that particular phrase did not spout forth, but with today's knowledge, I'd say that pretty much summed it up.

Just another instance of my childhood poking me in the ribs and saying slyly, "Hey, remember me?"

I've had a lot of those lately. All kinds of odd, where-the-hell-did-that-come-from memories sprouting forth unexpectedly. Is it the grave economic condition of our country and the world that has made me wax nostalgic? Or wishing I could raise my kids in a more innocent (seeming) time. Or my subconscious mind freaking out about getting closer to 40 even though my conscious mind couldn't give a running rat's ass in a rolling donut... I don't know.

I just know that lately I've been longing for the view from my childhood bedroom window, and swimming all day without giving a damn how I looked in a bathing suit. How my aunt had long hair and taught me how to comb out my hair easily when I got out of the pool. I look back and wonder how the hell my mother kept London Broil on the table and the lights & phone never got cut off even once even though my dad refused to pay child support.

I remember when you HAD to go to the movie theater to see a movie. I remember when Easter was not only awesome for the egg hunt, but because that was the week that they showed The Ten Commandments AND The Wizard of Oz (I always ran into the kitchen to my mom when the flying monkeys came on). I remember when you had to get up to change the channel and Superman had a whole phone-booth to change in.

It was back before I did all the screwing-up that got me where I am today.

Now that I think about it... knowing that I could not possibly have made any other choices than the ones I made with all the various factors affecting me at the times that I made them... it's more like wow, thank GOD that I don't have to go through all those learning experiences again!

I already know that double perming over super-light-by-way-of-40-volume-peroxide will leave you with hair that disintegrates in your hands so that you'll have to cut your hair off all the way to the scalp. I also know that if this happens in a time before Susan Powder you will be ridiculed because you are not undergoing chemotherapy.

I already know to check the oil in your 'new' car even if your brothers just rebuilt your engine, otherwise you run the risk of blowing up the engine, and no longer having a cute, freshly detailed Chevette, but having to wait months for a LeMans that looked like it had belonged to felons.

I already know to check that the back of my skirt isn't stuck in my pantyhose when I emerge from the restroom in an expensive restaurant and thinking that guys are looking at me cause I'm Oh-So-Hot so I smile broadly and wink at them on the way back to my table.

I already know to keep extra feminine hygiene products in my purse at all times; that there are heavy flow days, and white shorts are best avoided on those days.

So, no matter how appealing those days of old may be trying to seem, I know one other thing... that even if I could go back and visit those days, they wouldn't be nearly as wonderful as I remember them. And that may be the most important lesson of them all.

How Well Do You Know Harry Potter ~ Yes, A Quiz

So do y'all remember a week or so ago when I told y'all about our midnight pancakes and Harry Potter viewings? Well, things have changed. We still do the pancakes, but, Harry...

My son is Harry~ed. Or Harry~fied. Or whatever Harry word you can come up with. The boy has taken to telling us about the "ShhhhNake" or Dobby or shouting "Up!" at the vacuum cleaner attachments. He has also learned to work the home theater system better than a Best Buy employee... so we go from one Harry to another Harry to another Harry... until my daughter and I are playing our own Harry Potter game: we give each other lines and have to tell each other what movie it comes from. I haven't been to the theater for installment #6 yet, but I've got 1 thru 5 down cold.

Being as this is my life right now, I'm going to give you a chance to play... All of these lines come from the MOVIE versions of the Harry Potter books:

1. The Sorcerer's Stone
2. The Chamber of Secrets
3. Prisioner of Azkaban
4. The Goblet of Fire
5. The Order of the Phoenix

So what movie did these lines come from? Mind you, most of these are for the advanced class, Boo is on week two of all Harry all the time... besides, I hate easy trivia, it's an even bigger waste of time than... well, difficult trivia.

Good Luck!

1. Foul, loathesome evil little gargoyle!

2. Foul, loathesome troll!

3. You see it all the time with dogs. If there's something wrong with the bitch, there's something wrong with the pup.

4. That's right, Harry, no post on Sundays.

5. It's not much, but it's home.

6. Diagonilly!

7. Blimey, that's one big woman.

8. Look at him, Petunia! Our boy's gone yumpy.

9. I'll be upstairs making no noise and pretending I don't exist.

10. Alas. Earwax.

11. Goodbye, friends of Hagrid.

12. Sorry, professor. I must not tell lies.

13. Fine. Just so's ya know, he's a bloody coward.

14. I solemly swear that I am up to no good.

15. The Irish are getting their pride on!

16. You have dirt on your nose, did you know? Just there.

17. You know how I love it when they walk.

18. You stroke the spine, of course!

19. Accio Firebolt!

20. Don't call me Nymphadora!

21. He's back!

22. Give me my wand, Tom.

23. Slytherin!!!

24. Turn to page three-hundred and ninety-four.

25. You've got to mean it, Harry.

So what do you think? Did you pass your OWLs?
Let me know how you did!

Click here for answers!

Meme-ories

I know, y'all... I'm running exceptionally late today. Someone in Health and Human Services finally got back to me, surprisingly, not to bitch me out following my letter, but to help me get them the form that they needed so that my son can finally get his medical coverage back. Needless to say, as important as all of you dedicated readers are, the Munchkin's medical had to come first... Now that I've found, printed, faxed and recontacted the worker, who was actually pleasant and helpful despite my bitch-fest letter, I can come over here and write something wonderful for y'all...

Problem is, I don't have anything majorly wonderful to expound upon today, so I'm stealing a meme from Forever A Jersey Girl. I enjoy her posts and she's won a place in my heart for being, like my mom, a die hard Mets fan. For those of you not into baseball, let me just say that being a Mets fan is not an easy thing to be. They are kinda seen as the younger-less-wonderful-brother of the Yankees... and their season record tends to shore this view up. So, God Bless all of you Mets fans, hope your season doesn't suck, and thanks again to Forever A Jersey Girl for letting me steal this one in my time of writer's block need. I like this one cause it doesn't go into a lot of details, it's simply, have you done it or not...


You are supposed to copy and paste this list into your own blog and bold the items (I already post in bold, so I highlighted my 'yes' answers in purple) that you have done.. this is being passed around but I think it's a fascinating conversation starter...

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a Praying Mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30.Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David in person
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt in person
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Been to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Gotten flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Crossed the Equator
100. Seen the Southern Cross
101. Been Whitewater rafting
102. Held someones hand right while they died.
103. Seen a ghost
104. Had your heart broken
105. Seen the Rolling Stones
106. Seen Madonna in concert
107. Seen the Northern Lights
108. Secretly been in love with somebody
109. Eaten calamari.
110. Adopted a pet from an animal shelter.
111. Been a literacy volunteer.
112. Been stung by a jellyfish
113. Almost died.
114. Appeared on tv
115. Been to a Broadway show


What have you done? Feel free to use this to stave off your writer's block, you're welcome.

Congrats, Happy Dance and Squeal

So I'm over here all jazzed cause I got the blog colors right, finally, and now they match the header. Which, btw, is no easy task. Blogger does NOT have these colors standard, people. I'm all WHOOT thinking Sherwin-Williams is going to call any moment and offer me a huge ass contract as a colorist, cause I'm that good...

When I stop by Sue's blog, Happy Meals & Happy Hour, and she just got such OMG phenomenal news that I'm so jealous that I could spit out my cheesecake my colorist future is now making me yawn. Damn it Sue, you know this places you in the pedestal-untouchable category, right? For those of you that haven't already popped over there, shame on you! Sue is going to be in the next Chicken Soup book, and if that wasn't fancy-schmantzy enough, the other people who are going to be in it with her would make you choke on your Chardonnay...seriously! Huge Congrats, Sue!!! And go check it out, ya slackers! Now I feel a little like Brody: "I was the inker on the comic" Chakaluka King: "No, you. are. a. tracer..."

But I do have some other awesome news for y'all right here at lil' ole' Aria'z Ink... I'm going to have a couple of giveaways coming up in March that y'all are going to loveLoveLOVE (pinky swear!)

AND now for my own version of Sue's book news: My Girl is coming for a visit! Got all the details straightened out and she's going to make it for our birthdays ~ every last one of us in this house is a March baby... So I'm cool with not being in a book! (longLongLONG pause for happy dance!)

... and Barefoot Foodie just twittered me that she likes the new colors too (squeal, I totally blog stalk her, y'all!). My day is lookin' up!

Affiliate Marketing and A Lot of Linky-type Love

Is it a good day or a bad day? Damn, I'm confused...

First thing this morning, I woke up with a pain in my arm. Not just any old pain, but a wincing , tear inducing, what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-me!?!?!?! pain in my forearm. Nothing I did made it better or very much worse aside from rubbing it ~ Don'tTouchIt! DONOTTOUCHIT! ~ which made it really hurt... I want hospital-grade-instantaneous pain relief! Why does Advil take so long to kick in?

Once I could move my fingers without becoming bleary-eyed, I got online, and found some great comments on my last post, one of which is from my bud over at The Retirement Chronicles that I want to answer ~ and I picked up an award from The Retired One. It goes along with another one that I got from Pehpot at Make or Break yesterday, so I'm all giddified cause I'm a blog-approval-craving-pleaselikeme-whore that way.

Then I get another comment from Can Can at Mom Most Travelled telling me that there is subsidized childcare at BlogHer '09 so maybe I can sign up for the fully-funded-free-ride contest over at Momma Findings... which was totally cool of her to let me know!

Then I go to refill my coffee and come out to a goldfish landmine field which was laid with great care, strength and dexterity by my turbo-terror-tot, all, and I mean ALL over the living room floor. On the upside, he had actually drank his milk, instead of spitting it all over the furniture and the floor, and himself as well. I actually remember, not so long ago, when I could walk into my house and it did not reek of old milk. Good times...

So, now you see my confusion... bad, good, good, bad... I don't know what kind of day I'm having! So I've decided to concentrate on the good (with a healthy dose of Advil) as any one of my new affiliate Hay House authors would tell me to do.

Which brings me back to affiliate advertising and answering The Retired One's comment question (completely paraphrased by me): What is affiliate advertising? But before I do, I have to let y'all know, that The Retired One reached out to me in December, when she was super-brand-new to blogging after she found me on LinkReferral which is a traffic exchange site. I fell in love with her wit and humor and writing straight off the bat, she leaves me fantastic comments all the time that crack me up, and if you're looking for a new blog to make you laugh, you really-seriously-doitorIwillhuntyoudown need to go over to The Retirement Chronicles and have a read. She's one of the cool people. You'll like her.

OK, now that my shameless plug of The Retirement Chronicles is over (for now, today) I'll explain affiliate marketing for anyone who doesn't know what it is yet.

While some blogs make money by "pitching" their site to large companies in an effort to get them to advertise on their site for a fee, I, who am stupid as a stick about pitching companies, chose to go with affiliate marketing. This is where you sign up with one main company, such as Link Share, who then hosts many other big-name companies. You choose which companies you'd like to run ads for, and then apply to said company through your account at Link Share. If you are approved, they have several types of ads that a site owner can run, such as text links or banners, etc. If someone clicks through one of your ads and buys something (this part depends on the company's terms, sometimes you just need to refer someone), you, as Jane Doe site owner makes a commission based (again) on the agreed to terms of your contract.

The trick to this kind of making-money-with-your-blog, is finding ads to run that will appeal to your audience and be utilized, thereby making sales, which is what makes you money. If no one buys anything, or signs up for anything, you get nothing. However, it is free for you, the site owner, to run the ads, so you're not paying out to make nothing. That is the upside. And, there are (supposedly) people out there who are making a fair monthly income running affiliate marketing. I, so far, am not one of those people.

Then again, I started doing it in hopes of maybe supplementing hubby's income and buying my own cheesecake. At the very least (cause when you first start, and you sign up for a bunch of newsletters on/about/from affiliate marketers, it sounds OMG- next-year-I-am-buying-a-mansion-and-a-pony lucrative), with my common-sense I hoped to (realistically) pay my dial-up Internet access fee. But, hey, like I said, it's free to join these programs, so no harm, no foul, just kinda disheartening.

So that, dear readers, is how affiliate marketing works, and how it's worked out for me. I want to thank all of you for your comments... If you have left a comment this month, you may want to check back and see my response. I've been adding my response comments, and will continue to do so ~ usually on the day that the new post goes up, so I can catch all of you at once. In line with expanding the whole comment concept, please feel free to ask any questions that you have, I'll do my best to answer them, or point you in the direction of someone who can. Who knows, you might wind up asking something that to answer, will take me most of a post, and you'll wind up with a buncha linky-love... So comment, and ask away!

I'll post the awards Monday, so I can start the new week and the new month on a YayMe note... as well as showing some more linky-type love, cause I love, Love, LOVE paying it forward, and isn't February (according to Hallmark) the month of love?

Good luck to whomever You are rooting for in the Super Bowl, and happy weekend everyone!

Happy Holiday Two-fer

I know that I have mentioned before, Judi's blog, [zany life + crazy faith]. Last month she asked me to do a guest post for her list of November Holidays (a complete explanation of this is available in my post Guest Posting on JLo's NO-HO This month, Judi is doing a much shorter guest series for the 12 Days of Christmas. I am featured today for, obviously, the 10th day of Christmas. I have been enjoying Judi's blog, [zany life + crazy faith] for nearly my entire blog career of a whopping 6 months...

I've decided today, that since this is the Hectic-Holiday-Hell-Season and most of us are running around like on-fire-chickens-with-our-heads-cut-off we need, more than usual, some down-time and some laughter. Also more than ever, we need less run around. Therefore, dear readers, I am reprinting here both guest posts for your pre-Christmas deep breath. They are both available with a pic on Judi's blog, [zany life + crazy faith]. By the way, Judi's blog is fantastic in it's own right, so just cause I've done MY reprints for you, don't be lazy and skip her blog... even if you have to bookmark it and check it out after New Year's it is well worth the read. Now, without further ado, here are Clean Out Your Fridge Day and On the Tenth Day of Christmas...


Clean Out Your Fridge Day

original work by Aria Douthat, reprinted from
[zany life+ crazy faith]
originally posted on November 15, 2008.

I have located Jimmy Hoffa. He is trapped in the back of my refrigerator.

The November 15th holiday; Clean Out Your Fridge Day gives me impetus to wade through the little wads of single chicken pieces in tin foil and last-hot-dog-in-the-pack packages; the ones that weren't closed correctly so they leaked on the shelf and dried up before being shoved to the dreaded no-man's-land of 'the back of the fridge'. The place where fridge things go to never-be-heard-from-or-recognized-again, just like poor Jimmy.

There are containers of what may have been stuffing (or possibly mashed potatoes) that were relegated to leftover status because there was too much left to throw out. Upon trying to use them later, it turned out to be not enough to use. Now, they sit in their many containers as monuments to science-experiments-gone-wrong brought about by ingrained guilt about starving children in Africa.

I need to throw out the peppers that I bought too many of when I made Italian-style sausage that got eaten once. I didn't know vegetables were capable of looking as though they have melted... And I know cheese is aged, but after 8 months in the meat drawer, it's not advisable that you actually eat it...although if I ever need penicillin, I'm all set. Which is a good thing, because I'm pretty sure there are bacteria growing in there that would rival a freshly opened Egyptian tomb for toxicity levels.

There is no order left within the doors that I keep spotlessly clean on the outside, to disguise the atomic fallout that is the interior. I have become an expert at balancing because I open the door with one hand, take out what I need with the other, and kick back the mold-monster-gnomes with my foot before they can jump out and abduct my son. I manage all this while blocking the view of within, as it would surely scar some peoples' psyches forever.

The shelves are chock-a-block full of things that have been shoved, wedged and jammed on to them. The drawers have comfy cozy beds of many, many layers of onion shells that were scraped off by the net bag they come in. There are mostly-used butter quarters left in their wrappers placed around the interior in an almost artsy way. There are too many half-drank 20 oz soda bottles to count, all of which are flat and have been for some time. The door is piled precariously with Chinese-food condiments and ketchup packets. There is a jar of hot sauce that was first put in there by Civil War Soldiers and grape jelly that is re-forming into raisins. And that is just what I can actually see... there is so much more buried in there.

So it is, with a clothespin on my nose, bio-hazard grade gloves and a triple-lined garbage can, that I will attack the festering disgrace in my kitchen. I'm optimistic that I will have it emptied, sanitized and put back together by Thanksgiving...so I can work on filling it with things to clean out next November 15th.

Hang on Jimmy, I'm coming...



On the Tenth Day of Christmas
original work by Aria Douthat, reprinted from
[zany life + crazy faith]
originally posted on December 10, 2008

On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me... Ten Lords A Leaping...

Really? Ten Lords A Leaping? Think about that for a minute.

It wasn't until Judi asked me to do this post, that I stopped to consider this line, even though I'd sung the song many, many, (too) many times. Normally I do it in my head with a different Muppet character calling out each of the days, because I was cursed as a child with the Muppet's Christmas album, featuring John Denver. Don't ask, just marvel at me in wonder when you consider that I've never been institutionalized for insanity... But, I digress...

The rest of the song, while long and repetitive, makes sense:

Items one through five numbered, OK, I can understand that, and then...
Six geese a laying
Seven swans a swimming
Eight maids a milking
Nine ladies dancing
Eleven pipers piping
Twelve drummers drumming

All of those things were common enough then, to hold up today... But, ten lords a leaping??? Never once, in any historical document, book, or movie did I ever see or hear of a 'lord-a-leaping' never mind ten of them.

Is this what was supposed to make this particular gift special and rare? Because in the regular day-to-day a lord wouldn't be caught dead 'a leaping' anything. Lords were either members of the actual royal family, or at the very least, land owners... masters of their lands and anyone that worked for them in a feudal system.

I doubt they'd be taken seriously when they gave an order if they went about 'a leaping' all day... If that were the case, they couldn't get the maids to milk, the geese to lay, the ladies to dance, or anything else done on the list. And, any lords that were prone to 'a leaping' were most likely locked up for lunatics~ almost like they had spent countless childhood hours listening to the Muppet's Christmas album.

If they had been raised on said album, the lords would know that Lew Zealand the Muppet that juggled fish and spoke in the odd accent (and wasn't the Swedish Chef), sang the 'ten lords a leaping' part and they would still, some thirty years later, hear Miss Piggy belt out, " Fiiiiiive Gol-den Riiiiings... ba-dum-bum-pum " every time the song was played, so that even though the rest of the English speaking world does not do so, inside their heads they would add the ba-dum-bum-pum after five golden rings, even though, thankfully, they would no longer sing it aloud to their embarrassment in any carol-singing-groups...

Yes, I know, that's just me, but if it had been the lords, at least it would explain the 'a-leaping'...maybe.



I hope you got a kick out of the posts... Now, don't make me kick your rear to get you back out there... You can do it! Of course you can... as long as there's still Starbucks in the mall ~ or as long as your mouse-finger isn't in a splint!

Guest Posting on JLo's NO-HO

Well, tomorrow is the big day; my First Ever Guest Post (YAY!!! Can y'all hear the Jefferson's theme music?) is being published on [zany life + crazy faith]

Normally this blog is authored by Judi Moran, who is an excellent writer, an amateur photographer with a good eye, and in my opinion, a really cool lady. I cannot begin to describe to you the largeness, and possibly overwhelming nature of turning your blog over to guest writers for an entire month. It sounds like a vacation, but I assure you, it Really Is Not. It may very well be more work that producing your own posts. And for this, Judi, my admiration of you, not only for your work but also your generosity in turning over your blog to showcase other readers has grown (you already ranked pretty high! *wink* Go WOMAN! lol) exponentially.

So, in case it wasn't already obvious, I am extremely honored that Judi asked me to sign up for a NO-HO. Which, by the way, all you fellow Slut-Brains, is not what you think! I know, I thought it too, and simply assumed that Judi was taking on another direction; which was accurate, just not in the way that my immediately-drop-to-the-gutter-and-roll-around-in-giddy-twisted-fashion mental processes went to; my Slut-Brain as I call it. NO-HO actually stands for November Holidays. Turns out that some bored and probably deranged card-company-worker has come up with an actual 'Holiday' for every single day in November. When you go over to [zany life + crazy faith] you'll understand why I think that...

I have to say that I have been enjoying all of the guest posts. Some are art, some are video clips, some are actual writings... More than anything, I'm loving finding new styles and exploring the works of the new-to-me bloggers and artists that Judi has managed to assemble... It is all the more humbling (and ego-boosting, if I am truly honest) to have been picked. My personal fave so far has been November 13th, World Kindness Day. Head over to Judi's blog and choose your own fave!

Therefore, it is my great joy to invite all of my readers over to Judi's blog [zany life+ crazy faith] and check out my guest post for November 15th, which is Clean Out Your Fridge Day. That title just cracked me up, so you know I had to take it and run with it. Enjoy Y'all and thanks for reading!


I have to throw in a mini-disclaimer here; My fridge was NOT the one I wrote about, nor the one pictured, just in case you were considering coming to dinner at my house. It was modeled after an actual fridge though, and then of course expanded upon to make my point.