And The Honest Scrap Award Goes To…….

  • January 31, 2010


Hey guess what? Despite my utter inability to get a single post written in the last two weeks I still have an award to post on this blog, courtesy of Funny Girl Goes Blog . The fact that she gave me the award months ago isn’t stopping me from finally fulfilling my award duties though. Hey, better late than never I always say.

I’m supposed to tell you ten true things about myself that no one else knows. Since I’ve told everyone for more than they ever wanted to know about me in the first place, I’m not even sure I can come up with ten new things. Yet here they are:

1) I am working on my second novel. I submitted two chapters of my first book to an online writer’s forum I frequent and while they said my writing was solid and the mechanics were fine, they also told me my chapters were boring and that I needed to structure the book differently.

Ouch.

I took the criticism to heart though and when I read the pages again, I could see what they meant. In the meantime, I had an idea for another book that I liked even better so I shoved the pages of the first book in a folder and started the second. I think I’ve been able to avoid the mistakes I made with the first book because of the constructive criticism the writers on the forum gave me. I may have 47 crappy unfinished novels shoved in a folder by the time I’m done but submitting a manuscript to an editor is on my bucket list and I will cross it off someday. Oh, and every day I print the pages of my current work-in-progress, three hole punch them, and put them in a white binder that Lauren decorated with kitty stickers because I am all high tech like that.

2) I like Coke versus Pepsi products, specifically diet coke. I will drink diet pepsi if I have to but I won’t like it and I’ll probably complain. I frequently have the Coke vs. Pepsi debate with my dad and my friend Stefani and so far we are at an impasse because no one is budging. I drink one diet coke a day, always with lunch.

3) I am fascinated by Mt. Everest and the people who climb it. I have watched countless shows about it on the Discovery Channel and I know all the different places the climbers reach on their quest for the summit. I don’t want to climb Mt. Everest, but I love watching others do it. I also love the book Into The Air by Jon Krakauer which chronicles the tragic events that occurred in a race for the summit in May of 1996.

4) I don’t like to travel because I can’t stand sleeping in hotels. This didn’t use to bother me but as I’ve gotten older, I can barely stand it. It doesn’t help that I read articles in the newspaper about the resurgence of bedbugs (why media, why?) and I can’t help but think about all the people who have done God knows what in the bed I am sleeping in. Shudder.

5) I like to listen to music really loud and I have always had the best stereo system I could afford (except now because I don’t want to damage the offspring’s ears). I’m pretty sure I already have significant hearing loss in one or possibly both ears. I was working out on an elliptical machine at the gym the other day and I had my 70’s super playlist cranked as loud as it would go which is why I didn’t hear the guy who came right up to me and grabbed my arm which made me scream. He thought I was his wife. I’m pretty sure I scared the crap out of him and now he can’t hear either but it’s totally his fault because he shouldn’t go around touching other men’s wives at the gym.

6) King cobra snakes scare the piss out of me. I can’t even watch Rikki-Tikki-Tavi even though it’s animated and has a happy ending.

7) I have to wash the outside of all fruits and vegetables, even things like cantaloupe and watermelon, before I will cut them and eat them. When I see people peel the sticker off their apple and eat it without washing it I’m practically apoplectic. When customers at the grocery store put their fresh produce in the grocery cart without putting it in a plastic bag first I stare at them openly and have to restrain myself from going over to them and saying, “You know that grocery cart is a holy fucking cesspool of germs, right? And, just out of curiosity, are you going to wash that before you eat it?

8) I should really have a hair power of attorney because I cannot be trusted to make good hair decisions on my own. If my hairstyle garners any compliments whatsoever, rest assured that, at my next hair appointment, I will fuck it all up by asking my hairdresser to do exactly the opposite of whatever she did that made it look so good, i.e. if it’s highlighted I’ll make it darker, if it’s long and layered and wavy I’ll hack it off and wear it all one length and straight.

9) I love watching Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, especially the shark attack files which sounds really morbid but it’s not like I have a time machine people. By the time I’m watching Shark Week, these people have already been bitten and/or killed. Unfortunately, I may have accidentally scared the crap out of the offspring because they like Shark Week too and have informed me that they will never, ever swim in the ocean. That’s okay though. The three of us can hang out on the beach scanning the waves for schools of bait fish and dorsal fins while Dave and everyone else swims. Discovery Channel? I’m sorry. Ocean swimmers? You’re welcome.

10) I like Glen Campbell and have several of his songs on my ipod. I don’t even care how unbelievably queer that makes me sound. Glen Campbell reminds me of growing up in the seventies and his music is pure nostalgia. My friend Ivetta and I made up a dance to “Southern Nights” for the school talent show when we were in 5th grade but we chickened out and didn’t perform. “Rhinestone Cowboy” will always remind me of my friend Ben because it is one of his karaoke songs and “Wichita Lineman” reminds me of my friend Bobbi because her husband Travis is a Lineman and I have been known to sing “I am a lineman for the county….” when we are having lunch together. I can’t help myself. My favorite Glen Campbell song is “Country Boy” (You’ve Got Your Feet In LA).

Now I just have to pick ten of my blogging buddies and let them know they have received this prestigious award. And to those that I choose? Don’t feel like you have to do this immediately, or at all if it’s not your thing. I just want you to know that I want to learn ten new things about you. Because I’m nosy.

I will be notifying the award recipients as soon as I compile my list of lucky winners.

Here are the rules for this award:

1. “The Honest Scrap” award is not one to hold all to yourself. It must be shared!

2. The recipient has to tell 10 true things about themselves in their blog that no one else knows.

3. The recipient has to pass along this prestigious award to 10 more bloggers.

4. Those 10 bloggers all have to be notified they have been given this award.

5. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them

Dear Gap

  • January 19, 2010

Your “tissue weight” material fools nobody (and makes me look like a prostitute since everyone can see my bra right through the fabric). If I wanted to wear a camisole under everything I buy from the Gap I’d just……

Post it notes

  • January 19, 2010

write a series of funny things to dave and the offspring on post it notes and then take pictures of the notes and scan them and write a post.

Dear Dave,

The dishwasher looks like it was loaded by a glue sniffing schizophrenic. Was it you?

Hey, Guess What? Time magazine must not think I’m that offensive because they sorta let me be in their magazine

  • January 16, 2010

Last week I wrote a post about TLC’s I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. You can read it here or you can just scroll down.

I received several nice comments from my blogging buddies and friends. And when I got home on Wednesday, there was one new comment.

Erin G said…
ok this is the funniest thing I have read IN WEEKS. Did you know that Time magazine quoted you today? (that’s how I found you.)

Anyway you’re hilarious and now I need to go read the archives because I am officially in an AWESOME mood. 🙂

Um, what? Me, quoted in Time magazine?

I don’t think so.

But then I googled and on the Time magazine website I found this (as always, click on any highlighted words and click back to return to the post).

I thought this was really cool. It’s one thing to over-share self-publish every random thought that pops into your head but it’s quite another to have a publication such as Time magazine quote one of those thoughts. I almost felt like a real writer.

I was so excited I printed the article and decided to show everyone at work. For those of you who are new to this blog, I have been a stay at home mom for ten years but since the offspring are both in school all day, I recently started working in our school district as a teacher’s associate which allows me to earn a little money and be on the same schedule as the kids. It’s working out well and my only regret is that working doesn’t leave me a lot of time for writing. I will have the summer off though so I’m hoping to write more then.

I had not told anyone at school about my blog because it’s rife with colorful language, rants about my neighbors, and posts about my love of wine and cosmopolitans. And not everyone likes that kind of thing which is fine because they can choose not to read it. But I really wanted to share this news with the teachers I eat lunch with because I had mentioned the TLC show a couple months ago and now I could tell everyone that, not only did I blog about it, but that Time magazine quoted it.

“Guess what guys? Remember when I was talking about TLC’s I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant? Well, I write this humor blog and I wrote a post about it and Time magazine quoted it!” I pulled out the article and passed it around the teacher’s lounge at lunch.

Jill: You should tell our principal so she can send a message out to everyone.

Me: Nooooooooo! I mean, I actually don’t want everyone at school to know about it because it’s kind of, um, inappropriate.

Hillary had her laptop with her so she typed in the address of my blog so everyone could read the post.

ACCESS DENIED. THIS SITE HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS PORN.

Son of a bitch!

I just got done telling all the Real Teachers that it was a humor blog and now they were all going to think I was some sort of Internet sex pervert.

“It’s totally not porn!” I said. “It’s probably being classified as porn because I use the f-word so much.” I’m starting to get embarrassed at this point because they probably still think I’m all porn-y and now everyone also knows I swear like a truck driver on my blog. Any legitimacy obtained by being quoted in Time magazine is being summarily eclipsed by my potty mouth and my tendency to write about things that are considered adult subject matter. I’m a bit surprised that my blog would be classified as porn but then I remembered that I did use the word bone in this post. As a verb. Huh.

I’m glad you can’t access my blog from school. I have two children in the district and it’s good to know they can’t pull up anything they shouldn’t be looking at while they are on a school computer. And kudos to the district for having a solid barrier designed to boomerang dirty girls like me right back to the seedier side of the interwebs where we belong.

Anyway, I am still feeling pretty good about the Time magazine article. I did decide to moderate blog comments though in case any pissed off pooper/birthers found me and wanted to give me crap about the post. So far I haven’t received any.

I did have one comment for moderation but it was somebody thanking me for the information on hydroponics. I have used the word hydroponic twice on this blog but both times I was referring to Trish’s douchebag ex-boyfriend and the fact that he wanted to grow pot hydroponically in the spare bedroom of her townhouse. So I’m not sure what the person who commented meant by “providing information”.

I’m a little curious about it though. If you read this post, or this post, you might think this is a blog about something other than f-bombs and vampire sex. And I’m starting to wonder if the next publication I might be featured in is High Times magazine.

But that’s okay. I wouldn’t mind. And I’ll always be able to say that Time magazine once quoted me too.

TLC’s I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant

  • January 7, 2010

The other night I was lying in bed trying to find something to watch on TV and despite Dave’s claim that switching from cable to satellite would give us loads of additional channels, my only choices seemed to be either Khloe and Kourtney take Miami or Keeping up with the Kardashians. Personally, I think the Kardashian family jumped the shark a long time ago and I’m not sure why they’re still all over the TV but whatever, I was certain I could find something better to watch on one of the other 70 million channels Dave said we now had.

And then I stumbled upon TLC’s I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. I was so amazed that such a possibility even existed I forgot all about how tired I was and proceeded to stare at the screen transfixed. One by one, women started explaining how they didn’t know they were pregnant and they really just thought they were constipated and needed to take a poop and while I watched the show I could only think of one thing:

You have got to be fucking kidding.

As any woman who has ever given birth will tell you, not knowing you are pregnant, during the approximately 40 weeks you are growing a human being means that not only are you unobservant, you might be slightly out of touch with your own body.

I knew I was pregnant even before I peed on the little stick. My boobs were so sensitive just the wind blowing on them was agony. I felt certain that people at work could see them throbbing and would think something was terribly wrong with me. They got bigger immediately and Dave was all, “Wow! Your boobs are getting really big!” and I’d be thinking “Enjoy ’em now loverboy because in a few months you’re going to be all, “Wow, your butt is getting really big too.”

To be fair, I have two really good friends who did not know right away that they were pregnant with their second children because they had needed fertility treatments in order to conceive their first babies and neither of them expected to be able to conceive on their own. They were both pleasantly surprised when they discovered they were going to be blessed with another child. Yet neither of my friends actually went into labor, delivered a baby, and told everybody later, “You know, I didn’t expect there to be a baby, I just felt like I had to poop.”

And that’s why I’m starting to believe that maybe TLC has gone a bit “Jerry Springer” on me because they know shit like this (heh, heh, I said shit. I made a pun) is going to grab my attention and generate higher ratings and a whole bunch of talk ’round the old water cooler. I mean, who confuses labor with a #2? And then admits it! On TV!

If the women on I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant had never been in labor before it’s understandable they might not know what it feels like but it’s also like they’re a little sketchy on the mechanics of poopin’ too.

And I may not be as familiar with labor pains as professional baby mama Michelle Duggar, but I’ve done it twice and both times my main concern was figuring out how Freddy Kruger had gotten inside my uterus because it felt like he was trying to stab his way out with those finger knives every two minutes or so. Never once did I think, “Hey, maybe I just need to take a poop.” Yes, your stomach can feel kind of upset during labor and there’s the all too real fear of actually crapping on the delivery table but I can still tell the two bodily functions apart.

“Oh hi. You’re a baby, not a #2 “

I know I kind of look like shit here. It’s 2:17 AM and I just shot a 9 lb. 6 oz. baby out my hoo-ha without the benefit of any drugs whatsoever.

Can you imagine sitting down on the toilet and thinking something is going to come out of somewhere only to discover that something totally different came out a completely different orifice? That’s what happened to one of the women on I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. She thought she had to go to the bathroom so she sat on the toilet, grabbed the counter and the towel bar because it hurt so bad and her baby plopped out of her into the toilet water and when she tried to get up, she was slammed back down onto the toilet seat because she was still attached to the baby by the umbilical cord! And while she was in the bathroom all confused and laboring and delivering and stuff her baby daddy was sitting out on the couch with the popcorn bowl yelling helpful things like, “Hey, are you almost done in there?”

I mean, did it not occur to her to yell, “Put down the popcorn bowl you dumbass because something that is NOT a turd just came out and oh my God tell the paramedics they better haul ass!”

That’s what I would have done.

On the show’s website I found the following: We are looking for new stories for new episodes of I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant. Or, as they probably like to call it, more unaware women who had babies and not number two’s and aren’t afraid to have it re-enacted on national television.

Oh, and there was a woman on the show one night who didn’t know she was pregnant TWICE. Probably you can tell I watch this show a lot. I’ve seen all the episodes. Some of them more than once.

So, I’m guessing TLC pays these women to go on the show? There’s got to be some incentive for admitting you didn’t know what the hell was going on.

But in that case, maybe the women are actually pretty shrewd. Maybe they don’t care if everyone laughs at how clueless they are.

Perhaps they’re even laughing all the way to the bank.

Good for them. Maybe they’ll start a college fund for their little miracles.

P.S. Guess what other TLC show I’m obsessed with? My Monkey Baby. Oh my God, how I love this show.

P.P.S. And now I totally want a monkey baby.

P.P.P.S And I want to go to Baby Gap and buy cute little clothes for my monkey baby.

P.P.P.P.S. And I want my monkey baby to sleep with Dave and me in our bed.

P.P.P.P.P.S Dave just saw this and said my monkey baby cannot sleep with us.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S I know Dave will change his mind when I bring my monkey baby home so I’m not worried.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S And then we’ll be as happy as these two!

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