Loving Play

The two youngest members of my household, Remy & Annie.

Annie wants to play with her duck...while Remy wants to love Annie.

Annie, get that duck. Get it.

Eat that duck, Annie! Eat it!!

And then, exhausted from her chewing session...

Annie falls asleep, with her duck.



If you haven't joined Camera Critters yet, what's taking you so long?
Grab a camera, take a picture of a critter!!
It's fun!

I've finally one-upped Mary Poppins

The origins of this post started two nights ago, when I woke in the middle of the night with an intense leg cramp.

It HURT.

I hadn't had one in years!!

I find when I'm good about taking vitamins and getting plenty of potassium and fruits, that I don't have leg cramps at all.

Then I remembered my grandmother a sweet lady who-shall-not-be-named, mentioned that older folks suffer leg cramps. And she discovered, through the elderly grape vine, that if you put a bar of soap under your sheets, that they go away. She tried it, and it worked. Now she sleeps with soap in her sheets.

huh.

Then, on the NPR the other day, I heard them talking about leg cramps.
And how a teaspoon of mustard every day keep the leg cramps away.

huh.

A lady called into the show and said it worked for her. She had taken to eating everything in mustard lately. Lots and lots of mustard.

Then I thought...well, shoot, maybe I should try these two things.
But, then, I don't get the leg cramps enough to really tell if it was working or not...

Who knows what else mustard could do if we added it to our diets regularly?
Maybe it could increase night vision in our troops.
I'm sending a few hundred jars to experiment.
I'm sure they won't mind.





Then I found on Wiki that mustard plasters are used in Russia where they think it stimulates the immune system and relieves pain.

Maybe mustard in my hair every night would make it silky smooth with no tangles?
I might try it.

Maybe mustard applied in our nether regions could help people who have trouble getting pregnant, conceive! Think of the thousands they could save in fertility testings and treatment if only they had a jar of mustard?!

Who knows what I could discover!!

But maybe A teaspoon of mustard would help the medicine go down?
In the most delightful way.





What do you think?
How can mustard help you?
Any fun home remedies to share?




***I am not a doctor and should not give out medical advice. Please do not try any of these ideas at home. Ignore me completely, I am a cracked lunatic with no medical training whatsoever.

Silver-lined Excrement

My mom and stepfather are in Hawaii right now.

I'm so jealous.
I get emails from my mom talking about all the whales they're seeing.
The only whale I've seen in real life was Shamu at Sea World.
My mom takes fabulous photos, so I can't wait to see her pictures.

I digress.

While my mom is in Hawaii, her 13-year-old black Labrador, Seamus, is staying with us.






13 is really old for a Lab.
Seamus is an old man dog.
He has a gray muzzle, it's getting harder for him to see or smell, and he has trouble getting up and down.

And...wait for it...

he has trouble keeping poop in.

That's right, it just randomly pops out.

I warned the whole family to keep an eye out for poop.
And every day I've found some here or there.






Well, then we come to yesterday. I'm getting ready for work (at my new job!), and my dad calls me to his part of the house. He says he needs my opinion.

huh. That's unusual.
Does he want advice on what to wear?
His vision is bad.

Well, turns out, he wasn't sure what the big mess was on the carpet outside his room.
The mess that was smushed and tracked everywhere.

I gave my opinion.
"That's not mud, Dad."

I'm sure you've guessed by now, Seamus had struck again.

Texas Homeboy ended up on his hands and knees cleaning up miles of poop out of the carpet, while I finished getting ready for work.

Before I left, my dad said to me, "You know, there's a silver lining."
me: "Oh, really? What's that? (as the smell of poop permeated the entire household)"
Dad: "It could have been MY poop."

Oh. huh. He has a point.

And then, he took it too far...
Dad: "I bet my poop smells better."

Thanks, Dad.





That was the silver lining yesterday.


Do you look for silver linings in your bad situations?

Want to share one?

Taking note.

Yesterday.

Yesterday, I caught my dad eating ice cream with his spaghetti.
Yesterday, my mom's black lab Seamus pooped on our carpet. Several times.
Yesterday, Remy left a piece of gum on the toilet seat after trying to spit it in the trash can.
Yesterday, my children got out of school early due to the threat of ice. No actual ice. Not one bit.
Yesterday night, that ice finally arrived...it rained ice. But by then we were all in bed.
Yesterday, my husband fell asleep on the couch with his new love, the big screen TV.
Yesterday night, I shared MY bed with two boys and an 80lb dog.
Yesterday I was someone else.



NOW.

Now I'm half asleep in my chair.
Now I'm thinking. slowly.
Now I know it's time to get moving.
Now I'm me.



Tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm banning gum in the house.
Tomorrow I will not watch my father eat.
Tomorrow I will put a diaper on the black dog.
Tomorrow I send my kids to school no matter if there is ice or not.
Tomorrow I will watch LOST on that big screen TV.
Tomorrow I will probably end up sleeping with everyone in my bed.
Tomorrow I will be someone new.



Welcome to my life.



Who were you?
Who are you?
Who will you be?

How is a uterus hazardous to small children?

Cajun Mama had a tweet over the weekend that mentioned a uterus recall.

I was baffled.
I was intrigued.

I followed her link and found this:

I'm now in love with this company called I Heart Guts.



It's brilliant!
It's hilarious!




Where else can you find t-shirts that say this?

or t-shirts that say this?

That says, "Black Lung" in case you can't read it well.




And then they have plushies.




I've got beat...


heart beat, that is.

And a timeless classic: A heart of gold.

Way too cool.
I wish they'd send me some of their products, you know, so I could review them.

I'm in love.

What organ would you like to see made into a t-shirt or plush?

Wait, maybe you shouldn't answer that...

Answers revealed - Magical Photo Mystery Tour

The person with the most correct answers,
four right out of six,
is Erika Jean,
which is so cool,
because she's the one who reminded me
that I need to do a mystery photo post!

Clearly she rocks at this game.



Here are the answers:

I think just about everyone got #1 right!
Yes, it was a pill bottle.

Only two people came close to getting #2.
Everyone thought they were lite brites,
except Erika Jean and Linda,
who correctly guessed they were the tops to pens/markers.

#3 is another one just about everyone got.
The game board for Trouble.

#4 was kind of unfairly hard.
It was obviously a hinge.
But no one got that it was a glasses case.
But how could you know?
Maybe that one was too hard.
Sorry!

And most of you got #5.
A Waterford Crystal ring holder.
I just got it for Christmas.
I love it!

#6 was another hard one that only two of you got!
Good job, Mama Dawg and Sue!

It's Annie's well-loved and well-chewed bone.
Totally gross, I know.

Thank you so much everyone for playing!

I had so much fun reading your guesses.
We'll do this again real soon!

Magical Mystery Photo Tour

We haven't played this game in a while.

But, reader Erika Jean requested it,
so here we are.

Give me your best guess!
And if you have no idea,
please make something up.

Because I love the wild guesses, the honest guesses, all the guesses.
You bring joy to my day.

Prayers please

Please send out prayers and positive thoughts for my friend Kat from Sunshine and Lemonade.

Her husband had an aneurysm last night and surgery today.
I think he's stable currently, but keep them in your prayers.

Thank you.

Someone started a rumor about me.

Monogram Chick gave me an award.

Here are the rules.......

1. Choose...blah, blah, blah...brilliant in content or design

2. Show the...blah,blah, blah...can keep the nifty icon.

3. List at least 10 honest things about yourself




***************************



1. From a young age, I've had a fake name picked out in case I need to go into hiding. Does this make me paranoid?

2. When I was a teenager, I threw up on someone...in a rather awkward situation. Or should I saw a compromising situation? That's all I'm sayin'. Gingela knows the truth, as I confessed in her comments. She is NEVER allowed to tell what happened. (Ok, I just read her comment section where I confessed and she had a million comments. I'm so embarrassed!)

3. I spent most of my second pregnancy on bed rest. It was torture.

4. I've been inside a psychiatric hospital. But not as a patient.

5. I ordered beautiful earrings from Mama Dawg's Light of Her Life (her adorable ten year old).

6. I've fallen through a glass door before and severed most of the tendons in my right hand. I went through surgery and rehab and can now use that hand again. It has a big scar that's mostly faded now.

7. I work part time as a blog contributor for UpTake. I'm trying to make my boring attraction posts over there more exciting! Want to read about Texas' most famous whorehouse? Or read ten reaons why you shouldn't move to Austin? I love extra comments over there if you have the time.

8. In high school, I took an after-school photography course, and we went on a field trip to a junk yard. It was so cool. Normally I would insert a crazy, half-true story here, but I'm trying to stay honest, so I won't. Darn rules.

9. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life was tell my parents I was pregnant. I was nineteen and totally freaked out.

10. In my profile picture, I'm wearing a pink cowgirl hat. When I was in high school I participated in rodeos, and at the Houston Rodeo one year, as I was riding barrels, the hat flew off into the crowd. The person who caught it found me afterward to return it, and you'll never guess who it was?! It was Brad Pitt. OK, I'm lying. I have a hard time telling the truth when I write. I'm a writer. I lie for a living. I can't help it...

Thanks for the award, Monogram Chick!



I love your online store.
And I really love the car decal you made for me.

I now present this award to:

All Things BD - She has a very dry sense of humor

Tiney's Froggy Bloggy - She always cracks me up

BedsideTalesMan - He's hot and hilarious

So, what was your favorite thing I shared today?
Any subject you want to hear more about (except #2)?

Goose bumps

At first glance, it looks like today's post is about geese.

It's not.

What today's post is really about?

Don't run away, I'll tell you.

On this very day...

Exactly a year ago...

I started this blog.





To celebrate, I'll answer questions.
You leave them for me in the comment section,
and I'll work on answering them this week.




Oh, and by the way, this post also celebrates Camera Critters,
a fun weekend meme where you take photos of animals and post them online.

Join us.