Because Christmas will be starting promptly at…..NOW!
NEVER underestimate the power of the TOY catalog for Christmas! Even if your kids are teenagers now. Even if they are 6 feet tall. Even if they begrudgingly dress up for Halloween and complain that trick-or-treating is lame, but still go out there and then eat so much candy that they are sick the next morning. Even if they barely let you take a picture of them in said costumes. These children are powerless against the allure of the magical and colorful, red-ringed, fake wreath of holiday, dunt, dunt, dunnnn, TOYS!! No child can resist. Mine could care less about anything other than video or audio products, but they still like to look. They get all excited and starry-eyed. It’s sick. And truthfully, I think parents like to look too. What else would you have to talk about with the other desperate parents just before you shoot yourself in the head after the second hour of potentially paralyzing, soul killing fun at the Monkey Joe’s or Extreme Trampoline?? Yeah yeah….I signed the waiver…it’s my own damn fault.
The only negative comment I have on the greed of Christmas commerce being shoved down our throats two months early, and the fake anxious panic Target is trying to instill in parents everywhere by deadlining all these “great deals” by November 23, (not even Thanksgiving yet!), when they damn well know everybody who missed these first great deals will be flocking to their stores the Friday after for even better deals, is that their catalog is UGLY!! U-G-L-Y! You make your momma cry! You’re ugly!! Seriously. My picture is pretty true to life. And I tried to get it against a nice, dark background to make it look better. It’s not even a true white cover to give the red something to really “pop” against. It’s this sick, creamy, off-white, dingy pearl color. And speaking of the red, it’s too red. Like, dark red. It makes the green look like lime and not Christmas tree. I am NOT a fan of red and green together. Especially Christmas red and green. But if you’re going to print and mail the first toy catalog of the season you should make the cover bright and cheerful, and not some half assed attempt that looks like it got thrown together on somebody’s lunch break the day before Halloween. Not to mention the failure to use toys from this year. Buzz, Lightning McQueen, Elmo, Barbie, Rubik’s Cube, Etch-a-Sketch, Yahtzee?!?–thank goodness Hollywood cooperates every year with Christmas sales and releases another installment of the same movie so companies can use the same toys with new packaging.
That seemed kind of rough and harsh. I like Christmas actually. It always feel like something good is about to happen. But I kind of like my Christmas to wait until after Thanksgiving before it shows up and carol’s me to death. It doesn’t feel very special when it’s been going on for weeks and weeks and weeks. I also like Target. They do have good deals and they have had much better catalogs. It’s all about eye appeal. Luckily kids don’t care. The clever market research team probably told them not to bother with a fancy look because this is the catalog the kids are just going to flip and tear. Mine did.
All this rainy day, gloomy evening, dark-at-4:30 ranting post (Weather update! That’s for my newest official reader/cousin Linda. Shout out!) has made me thirsty! And since it is dark now, it must be nighttime, and that earlier talk of lime reminded me that I have Corona in the fridge. (That is some “chain of reference” for my other cuz Lorraine. Holler!) And just for the hell of it…Go Sox! (For my sissy, not forgotten, you were the first after all, and next year of course, ’cause baseball season is over. Woop! woop!) Later.
Quick extra note, without comment: The front cover does not say “Christmas” or reference “Santa” specifically. It does on the inside though. Holiday is all you get for now.
Neverending Halloween will be ending shortly.
Don’t be fooled by those fake pumpkins. But they look so real! This is the last of the pictures I took in the same area as the bench. So I guess I can declare Halloween and the rest of the Holy Days over for another year.
Also, it would seem I have picked up a few more fans in the last few days. It’s a peculiar medium, and a strange way to communicate with the outside world. It’s usually just me, alone, typing whatever pops into my head, and then putting it out there, never really knowing where it will land. Sometimes you get lucky, like these last few days, and I know some one is connecting with something I’ve written, but usually it just floats. That’s ok too because I write it for me anyway. I know it can’t possibly be just my family generating so many “hits”, there aren’t that many of us. So to everyone out there that keeps checking in, whether you comment, or like me, or just read and move on…
THANK YOU!!!
I should go do something weekend-like now. It’s pretty nice out for November in the Midwest. And my jaw is only hurting a little bit now. Teaser. Updates coming later! Everyone to the outdoors!
I believe the word you are looking for is “MASTICATE” !!
Thanks cuz!! You crazy lady!! But, for the effort, here is a giant piece of cake for you to chew on!! This is also your birthday gift! Doesn’t it look delicious? Can you see how big it is?? America has problems with these giant desserts.
Anyway, I didn’t realize your birthday was the same day as “Leftover Halloween.” Another fine holiday that I made up yesterday. If I had known I would have included you in the festivities.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!! To my cousin Lorraine!!! Wooo…..you are my most consistent reader and commenter!! (Throwing out that challenge to the other five….step it up people!!) And an all around cool chick on her own! (If anyone is confused, she’s the one who lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere, but they do have internet, so win-win!) Hope the day was great! And thank you for giving me an excellent opportunity to post that picture of the giant chocolate cake. I seriously had just moved it to my “extra pics” file a few days ago, heartbroken, because I had no good reason to put it on here. In your honor, I have created a special category “For Lorraine” (to the right) just for you! YOU ROCK!!
Coincidentally, I might have to start “macerating” my food just so I can eat! Jaw pain stinks!! I’m still undecided if it feels better or worse yet. Let me choke on a few more food items today and I’ll let you all know! I figure that if I can swallow, I’m good! I would re-phrase that or take it out all together, but I’m keeping it in there for the fringe crowd. Spicing it up on a Friday with some edgy humor. Trying to grow a larger fan base. Oh snap! There it is!
Now I have to go drive to the airport!! What, wha…??? I know. It’s not funny and it wasn’t meant to be. I literally have to go and drive someone to the airport in like, 4 minutes, so I guess I better go now. Keep reading! Tell your friends! Post a comment! By the time I get home it will be socially acceptable to start drinking for the weekend! Later!
Just a little devil before bed
Just a quick last post before I go to bed. I cannot stay up again until 3:30. I need sleep so I don’t kill myself driving my friend to the airport tomorrow.And more importantly when I’m driving myself home all alone.
We saw this altered car tag on the road somewhere last week and now here it is. I like this picture better than that cartoon witch and I wanted to leave my website with some good karma tonight. That way if anyone happens to click on my front page they’ll see a fairly cool image and think I’m all hip and stuff. And then the person who clicked it gets to be hip too just by association. It’s a public service I provide for free. Coolness for everyone!
I think I’m harboring a fairly nasty ear and sinus infection that has spread into my left jaw. It’s mainly at the joint and hurts mostly when I chew. Thank goodness I can still open my big mouth and jabber the words away. Although I have to say it feels best when I just shut up. I am even considering a trip to the doctor but I’m holding judgement until morning. Besides it’s really a great way to drop a few of those unwanted pounds. Liquids and soft foods create the least amount of stress to my mandible. (Ding ding. Twenty dolla’ word up in this house. Holler.) I am hungry though. That pain med I took is probably kicking in and I need some rest.
May your glass be always full, and may your roof be always strong over your head, and may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows your dead. ~Irish toast
That was a little extra for all the ones who stay out way too late. Sleep sweet and good dreams.
November 3. Or as I will be calling it: Leftover Halloween!
I still have lots of pictures and relevant things to say about the last three days. It can’t be over already! Look at that very cool picture! I took that with my CAMERA phone. Sometimes I still cannot get over how good technology has become. Wait until you see this picture of a snake we found. The pictures are so clear, it’s like you can see into his soul!
But this is a good picture for today. This is pretty much what it looks like outside right now. I guess we are lucky no more. Autumn seems to have arrived, all damp and bone chilling. I will not complain though, because the last few days have been beautiful and it is supposed to stay in the 50’s for the next week or two. That means I do not have to turn the furnace on yet! I try every year to see how long I can wait. It’s usually until the kids complain they are freezing, and actually cry tears. It sounds worse than it is. Usually the temp in the house is about 58 or 56. That’s not really even all that cold considering the air temps. It just seems cold when it’s in a house. There is a debate on what the record is. I think it may be Nov. 4 or Nov. 20th or so, around my daughter’s birthday. The BF thinks we might have made it all the way into December. I don’t know about that. It gets cold very fast around here, so that seems unlikely. But for the new record this year, we are easily at November 3. Go nature!
All Saints Day. Second in the Trifecta of creepy holidays in a row.
First, though, in my newest series of “skeletal trees against a sky background.” I’m not sure why I like taking pictures of the trees as they sit quietly in their places losing their leaves and turning their bark to a dark brown-black color, but I noticed that I have about 5 or 6 different pictures of various trees in various stages of dormancy, so what better time of the year to post them to a website that is mostly just for my amusement anyway?
In case you are scratching your head, like, what?, what other holiday is there besides Halloween this time of year?? Well, now that we have scared all the ghouls back into their rightful resting places, we want to make sure that they stay there.
So today, we have All Saints Day. A Christian/Catholic day to honor our Saints (and martyrs), known and unknown. The Catholics are real big on martyrdom, just ask any Catholic raised child with a Catholic mom…oh the sacrifices she has made for her children…with one hand to the forehead, and the other clutching at her heart…That’s why it’s a good idea to just hang out at the cemetery and throw goodwill all over the place, because you just never know who is sanctified and who isn’t. It’s the total Catholic way, better safe than sorry!
Then we have All Soul’s Day tomorrow. A much more exciting and morbid celebration of the dead. It even has an awesome title:
El Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. Also Catholic, mostly celebrated as you have probably seen in Mexico, with the skulls and candles and colorful skeletons. In a nutshell, it is basically a day to go visit relatives/spirits in the cemetery and assure them that all is good and they should just stay where they are at and not bother rising up and creeping around all benevolent and zombie like. Technically it’s celebrated on the First and Second. I researched it and the children and babies that have passed get today for their festival and the adults get tomorrow. I like this particular holiday because it is so specific and it has very uniform traditions. The main components are sugar skulls and marigolds and the departed’s favorite foods and beverages. All brought to the grave and offered up like gifts as if the dead have any other choice but to stay where they are at. Some believe that the spirits are allowed to walk around for this one day after resting the whole year, so it needs to be a real celebration. But not too good. The world is crowded enough without the undead returning to the population.
Sugar skulls and marigolds. It sounds like a rock band. But I am impressed by the fact that they have very particular items in their prayer rituals. Classic sugar skulls, which are basically just a candy-type confection shaped like a skull. They can be sugar or chocolate, and can have your name on it. They are representative of someone alive and symbolize “eating your own death.” I’m not really sure about the marigolds. It may be because they are colorful, and the celebration itself is supposed to be upbeat and joyful, or it may be that they stink and they keep the spirits happy visually, but repel them from trying to take up any real residence back in the world.
That’s it for my educational information for today. I had started this post at 9 am this morning but I got sidetracked helping a real friend in need. Seriously. You can hardly ever say that you had to go help someone who truly needs it. But this girl did.
Then when I got home I actually exercised. Yes. I said exercise. Two days in a row. Goal accomplished!! I will now be setting all my goals in the extreme short term. So much more satisfying then stretched out hopes and long term failures. I may set the goal to exercise tomorrow too….but I don’t want to get all crazy with it now.
Besides, I seriously have got to finish my school paper/project that I have not even started on. The only thing do I have is an idea about what to write, and if I have learned anything from the last 9 weeks, it’s that I stink at putting fingers to keyboard and just finishing my damn homework. Sorry I had to use a cuss word. I frustrate myself to no end with all this procrastination and I either have to stay up all night now or frantically try and finish it tomorrow morning. I’m starting to get off track here and I’m feeling tense and stressy. I just need to post this already and get some dinner for my family. Another home cooked meal (from the pizza place down the street) coming right up! I stink at cooked-meals-in-a-row too.
So that’s it. Hopefully you remembered someone you loved today and wished them peace and maybe said a little prayer for yourself, if that’s your thing. If not, you can try again tomorrow. Go hang out at a cemetery if you can and feel the earthly vibe of walking over restless spirits. Bring a lunch and offer some up to the deceased around you. Toss out some compliments and take pictures. I don’t think you necessarily have to know the person to pay your respects and wish them a good rest. It’s just good manners for the living and the dead. If I get off this site and do my work, I’ll post the rest of the stuff I have for these few days. There will not be any more serious and thoughtful musings on life and whatnot. It will all be silly jokes and goofy pictures. You know. The usual. I think we have all learned enough for this week. Later.
Just one more before I go
It’s really perfect outside right now. 5 pm. October 12. The sun is still up there but the clouds are moving in. It is supposed to rain tonight and lower our temperatures to somewhere back down in the normal autumnal degree range. That was a fine, complicated sentence wasn’t it? Did you just read it again? Anyway, the air temperature feels like skin temperature. It feels so close to body temp it’s like not being outside at all. And the sun is throwing off that color I like to refer to as “movie lighting”. The source is from one very specific direction and illuminates everything before it in a brilliant and bright, almost fake looking light. We are a media world. We all live in the movies. If you are anywhere near the Chicago area, take a few moments and go outside if you can. Just breathe in the air and appreciate the fantastic luck of being alive and able to view that sky. I have to go move through it now. By the time I get back out later, it will be dark and cool, and hopefully I will ride home under that last bit of the big Hunter Moon of the year and wait for the rain to wash all this summer away for good.
I should be ashamed of us
We “snack” like a bunch of cheap drunks at an all-you-can-eat-free-buffet-happy-hour for scroungy ass hobo’s in the sketchiest part of town. It’s ridiculous our diet. And no great mystery why we are all a little thick in the middle. Chili, with cheese AND sour cream (two heart attacks for the price of one). Chips AND dip. Sushi (what??). From Target. (double what??). Pigs in a blanket (me). Halloweenies (my daughter). Cocktail weenies in a biscuit (fact). 911! Whatever you call them they still equal chest pain in the middle of the night. It’s atrocious. And after I leave for school, the kids will probably eat a frozen pizza for “dinner”. And I will eat my pre-packed baggies of trail mix and coffee in my Soc. class while praying I don’t die of a coronary on the car ride home. That is, if I don’t pass out in the stairwell first just trying to get to class. Can everyone say huff and puhhh…Eh. Forget it. Apples and water all day tomorrow. Cleanse and flush. We’ll cure it with overkill. Sleep sweet. And upright. Night night.
Another beautiful day! And I had to stay in for most of it!! Bwaaahhhh!!
78 degrees at press time. Are you kidding October 12?? Thank you for giving me another day to feel good. I was feeling the hot lick of failure on my heels last night because I only managed to get about 1 page of my paper done and then I ate dinner, watched tv and went to bed.
But. Tuh-day. Yes! Redemption. I sat and just typed for hours. A nice breeze blowing in from the window and the sun shining down. My right hand was actually feeling tight and swollen. But I pressed on.
At about 10:30 am, the helpful village personnel that dig up all of our streets for their pure enjoyment on the nicest days of the year, drove by in their town truck and bull horned out an announcement that they were shutting off the water blumbablibabbababa….who knows….because they drove past while talking and NOT slowing down OR speaking loud enough into their little megaphone speaker thing on the vehicle. They might as well have just shouted it out the window at random houses. But I heard “water shut off” and I jumped out of my seat like my butt caught fire. I ran into the bathroom and took a fast shower, brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, and filled up our Brita canister. 15 minutes tops! It’s a record for me because I can really poke around the house for hours doing absolutely nothing. By the time I finished my clean routine the water was indeed off. And it still isn’t really on yet. The water that is coming out of our cold water faucet is the rustiest I have EVER seen it. It is a dark brownish orange with visible swirling sediment in it. I have lived here for almost 20 years and it’s truly disgusting.
My toilet is going to look like it’s been sitting in an abandoned house for years. Yuk. I have no idea what the hell they are doing this time but it’s messed up. At the very least though, I can flush my toilet so that is something to be thankful for. We still have some kind of trickling orange mess coming in. Showers should be fun tomorrow! Flush, wait a while, and you can flush again! Bonus!
After that drama/excitement, I sat back down and kept typing. Tippy tippy type type typing…Six pages later….done! I just couldn’t describe and type anymore. I had to end it already. It was 1:30 when I finally e-mailed that stinker to my teacher. (Has to be in before 5) That is the closest I’ve cut it so far. Not a good feeling.
But. Another butt. Some good stuff happened too. I applied for a few real jobs that are actually in my skill range and I got another rejection, but NOT because I am unqualified, but because the position is no longer available. Victory! Also I feel better too. Not fully recovered but better. My cold has moved from chest to throat and is threatening to take my voice away. The BF says, so sincerely (not really), awww, that’s too bad. Hmph.
That’s all. The kids came home. We ate a bunch of crap. They are doing homework now and I will be leaving soon. Had just enough time to snap that picture above and the one below. Back to reality for the Midwest. Tomorrow they say is a whole other ball game. Later.
just shy of pretty 
Blog Cred
November 4, 2011 at 3:39 pm (Day to Day, Holiday, Shameless Self Promotion, Updates) (Comments, Costumes, Halloween, Pumpkins, Self Promotion, Website)
Isn’t that a terrible word combination?? It sounds like a disease or a fancy cheese. Anyway, I can thank my sissy for helping me construct postings with more depth and attention to detail. She was confused by some of the things that are written and why, and it did occur to me that my last post could seem cryptic and confusing. If you go back and read, at least the last four days, Oct. 31 to the present, AND read the comments, you will be all caught up and in the know. While you are there, in the comment section, click that “like” button too, please!! It’s right there under my words—THAT’S what gives me all the “blog cred”–like street cred, but in the blogging world–yea yea I know, I never used to care either. And I feel ya’ if you don’t want to read posts AND comments too. I know I never do. Especially if there are like 50 of them. Luckily for you, there’s usually only 1 or 2, and they are in really short sentences. My reply’s are usually what take the longest to read. They are like mini-posts within the big posts. I do love to write! At any rate….Just do it!
I couldn’t think of what other picture to use for this, so I just put up pumpkins. Kid designed and cut. It’s awesome because I literally, do not have to do anything anymore by way of participation in this Halloween process. Nothing! They can carry and move them, draw them, cut them, gut them, and design and finish them. They can even use fire to light them. They said I could post their costume pic too, so that’s below.
As you can see, they look less than thrilled at having to stand there. Lately if they get that close it’s because they want to punch each other. I guilted them though with the whole, “it’s probably the last Halloween costume picture I’ll ever get with you two” spiel. It worked. Sort of. If you look close at the bottom left corner you can see my finger in the view. I had to take these pictures quick because they refused to pose and this is the best, and only, pic I got with both of them in frame. Teenagers are fun!
I have to go comment some more on my newest comments. And again, thank you all for reading!! I found money on the street today so I am about to update that little category. Hold on to your Friday, cause we are on a roll!
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