Pop-Tarts

Recently the ad campaign for Pop-Tarts has included a series of animated cartoons set to music.
Here's the commercial I have in mind incase you are not a big T.V. person. (I am a knitter it kind of comes with the territory.)
For what ever reason this commercial has a profound effect on me. I do NOT want to eat Pop-Tarts, let me just make that one clear. I am definitely a toaster strudel person. But, this commercial stays stuck in my brain for days on end. And now its going to be stuck in yours!!! Ha ha ha!

The best part about this commercial getting stuck in my head is that sometimes I sing the songs in my head. Actually that's a lie. At least once a day the song is stuck in my head, but usually more then that, so basically at any given moment I could really be singing the pop-tarts song instead of paying attention to the environment around me. This generally starts getting into thinking of sunflowers with cartoon faces, as discussed here. Also, I very absentmindedly start to bob along with the song in my head.

Very often I find myself dancing along to the song, bobbing my head from side to side only to find that there is in fact no music. This happens when I am writing my blog posts a lot. I also do this weird tilt my head to the side thing when I am thinking. I am sure this will come up in a later post

Anywho.... that is all....

Those weights weigh about a billion and a half

Just because I feel like venting...

But there is a picture involved to make up for the meaningless bitching....

So last night I texted my sister to see if she was planning on going to the gym, mainly because I am super socially awkward, and I wanted to try the weight machines... but not alone... never alone because then someone will ask if I need help, which I desperately do, but I always say no. And then I usually fumble around clearly having no idea what I am doing, and obviously needing loads of help, and with more than just the weight machines...

So shes all "well I have the day off tomorrow can we go at 8"
And I'm all "No I'm a super bitch and I'm gonna make you go at 7:30!!! Roar!!"

So this morning my alarm goes off at 6:30... 5 more minutes stupid alarm!

7:30 rolls around... oh damn slept through my alarm so I drag myself outta bed, get cooper outside, get dressed grab my shoes and water and run outta the house, get in the car to bolt to the gym, and realize my gas light is on. Another thing I have to worry about since I hate talking to just about anyone I dont know. Just thinking about having to talk to the gas station attendant made my heart rate rise a little

By the time I get to the gym, my sister is already pretty much done... cause Im a slacker and now the worlds biggest jerk cause I made her get up early on her day off just so I could sleep through my alarm and be mega late...

So we make our way over to the weight section and start using the machines. The walls are covered from floor to ceiling with mirrors, so not only do you feel silly doing an awkward repetitive motion in a crazy looking contraption, but you have to watch yourself doing it. Or make it a point not to look at yourself, which is difficult since the entire gym is literally covered in mirrors, so it kind of adds to the awkward feeling of using the machines. To top it off the big scary man on the machine next to you has about five different angles to stare at you and plan how to kill you since he is obviously a murderer he is that scary.... when in real life he is probably a cuddly teddy bear with a yorkie terrier that has a matching gym sweatsuit....




anywho, so then I started doing some exercises my physical therapist recommended ages ago and I never did, but because I have skeleton arms, I have to use a three pound weight... THREE POUND weight...
meanwhile scary man is sitting next to me watching himself in the mirror as he lifts what is probably a million pound weight. All I can picture in my head is the old school cartoons with the guys with the bodys that are shaped like upside down triangles wearing what looks like those creepy wrestling unitard things, lifting other triangle cinder block weights with "1000 lbs" written on the front;

or the guy from the planet fitness commercial and all he can say is "I lift things up and put them down"

After the gym I had to go to the gas station, but because I am insane, I refuse to go to a full station. Not because its expensive but because I hate talking to the attendant. I immediately think I sound like an idiot and go over the brief two second conversation in my head wondering if I said anything dumb...
The gas tank thing says I have about 8 miles left in my tank, so a heart attack later and I found myself at a full station which immediately sends me into a panic attack because I have to say "Hi, can I have $20 regular? Thanks"
Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived living on my own for three years with out ending up hiding in a closet rocking back and forth sucking my thumb

This is not an archeological dig

As a female it is pretty much written in my DNA to crave delicious ice cream with insane ingredients like mini peanut butter cups or fudge shaped like fishes... Or better yet... cake batter ice cream (which I have only seen once, and need to find again asap, if anyone knows where it might be located)

I think this goes with out saying, that the ice cream is probably the worst part of the delicious treat, and the toppings and aforementioned crazy ingredients are basically epic. I dare you to try and eat ice cream with delicious treats hidden inside with out trying to dig around for the best parts. Because of this eating a pint of Ben and Jerrys becomes a little stressful.

I was not warned when purchasing my pint of ice cream that it would turn into an archeological dig.

Day 5

Day 5 Blarney Castle & Killarney

A few miles outside Cork, visit Blarney Castle and climb to the battlements to kiss the famous “Stone of Eloquence.” Also visit the Blarney Woollen Mills where you can find quality Irish-made goods of all types, conveniently displayed under one roof. Drive into the mountainous scenery of County Kerry to the attractive town of Kenmare. Stop at Moll's Gap for great views and continue along part of the Ring of Kerry route into Killarney. Check in to your hotel and relax before dinner

Happines

I think it is pretty safe to say that most of us have very nice lives. Whether or not we choose to see that, and appreciate it for what it is, is a completely different story.
In the past I have spent too many years being basically down right miserable. I often blamed it on everyone else around me, instead of looking at myself and creating the change that I wanted to see.
The past 6 months or so I have really been looking at my life and the choices that I have made, and doing what I need to do to make myself happy. I refuse to rely on other people for this and I have chosen the people around me in my life to remain in my life because they make me smile and laugh. As one of my good friends often says, they help bring me higher.
In the end though, it is up to me to decide what it is that is going to make me happy. Its my decision after all, who I keep in my life to help each other out.
I have also been trying harder to treat myself the way I need to be treated. If you know me well, you have probably heard far too many times my complaints of "well why can't I find someone to treat me the right way". Maybe I need to start doing it for myself, and everything else will fall into place; so that's what I have been doing. Ive been dragging myself to the gym even when I really don't want to, waking up early when I would really much rather sleep in, and eating all that boring healthy food. Kind of a fake it till you make it sort of plan. And for a while it really really sucked. Sometimes its my mom or my sister that is keeping me motivated to get going, so in that sense we definitely support each other especially on the sucky days.
But guess what, even though deep down I still have a lingering sadness regarding recent personal events, and I have entire days of sadness about it, I am generally so freaking excited about life that sometimes I annoy even myself.I have almost hit the same level as the way to perky front desk girl.
I know deep down that everything happens for a reason, and in the end everything will work out for the best. In the meantime I try to find simple things that make me really happy. I think in light of recent world events it is important to take a quick look at our lives and why we are so fortunate.
Anyways, this was going to be a quick funny post about things that have made me really happy lately,(I read "blogging dangerously" and she does this every week or so and I really enjoy reading it, only hers are a lot better) but I wanted to include a little more explanation. Maybe I am just being dramatic and cliche but that's ok, it happens to the best of us :)

1) I was in the book store the other day, and it was story time for the kiddies so there were a bunch of youngins on the upper level. All of a sudden this little girl started laughing so hysterically I could hear her across the store. It was the kind of laugh where its completely contagious and makes you want to hunker down for story time.
2) I fixed coopers "Baby" the other night so the stuffing wouldn't come out. He hasn't had it for almost a month, but when he realized I had it he all but jumped up on the counter to get to it. When I finished sewing it up he was so freaking excited about life I thought he would explode. He was running so fast he kept loosing traction on the hardwood and falling face first.
3) I am sitting here typing this blog post with the cat on the table next to me. When cooper came downstairs the cat immediately went to the corner of the wall and hid. When he came around the corner the cat scared the daylights out of him which in turn scared the cat. Awesome
4) Getting together with an old friend, killing a bottle of wine, going through facebook and sharing stories of old friends and ex boy friends and laughing till one in the morning
5)Being lucky enough to be able to travel. I know, your sick of hearing about it, but I am pretty sure that if I never get married and have children, I will be perfectly content with that as long as I can travel. I have officially stopped waiting for "the right time" to go on adventures because there will never truly be a "right time".
6) Making myself laugh so hard at the stupidest things that I am brought to tears several nights a week; laughter is truly the best medicine
7) Last night Vegas was hiding under a sheet we use to make our Tupperware containers look like pretty end tables. He was super skiddish and tip-toeing around like something was going to jump out and kill him. I took it upon myself to make this an entertaining situation and threw a cable needle at him. This produced an epic double jump back in surprise. It was so funny me and mom were brought to tears.
8) I burp, it happens, get over it. The other night I burped and mom laughed so hard she again was brought to tears. She was trying to say something but it was completely unintelligible. I am sure shes glad that I am home.

Whats actually going on inside my head....

Sometimes I am pretty convinced that I am a crazy person. Lots of things go on inside my head that I am not entirely sure is really normal. When I see something, or I am having a conversation with someone, something entirely different is likely going on upstairs.

When I see sunflowers for instance, this is probably what I am really picturing...

"Hi!I'm a flower and I am wicked excited about life!"

Or I am probably thinking of something similar to the very end of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, where they all skip off into Toon-land and everyone is happy. I am pretty sure there is a happy cartoon sun in there someplace. That's probably why I like sunflowers so much, because they make me think of happy cartoons.

When I see squirrels, running around being crazy squirrels, I start thinking of the Disney movie The Sword and the Stone, how they turned into squirrels for a little while and those girl squirrels started chasing them around cause they had crushes on them. If there are two I am pretty sure they are in fact the boy and the wizard running away from girl squirrels.

Also, I am pretty sure it is movies like this one that makes us girls grow up to be men-crazy stalkers... just sayin'....

The same thing goes for owls. Except for the whole men-crazy stalker bit...

If I am trying to have a really serious conversation with someone I care about, sometimes I go into panic mode.
I end up thinking things like "Holy crap this is really important/ I can't believe all this is happening/ I can't believe all this happened to them/I don't know if I can handle this" and on and on which inevitably turns into "Uh... umm... I have no idea what they are talking about now... Cantaloupe? Why are we talking about Cantaloupe... I really hope I didn't agree to something stupid or miss an important question... Maybe that's why they are talking about Cantaloupe now.... I should really start paying attention now because this is clearly very important....."

Sometimes I have missed entire conversations having another conversation in my head. Then knowing how important the topic was, I don't want to admit that I was not really listening. In my defense at least this time its legitimate. I am either panicking or trying to come up with some sort of plan on how to make things better with out hearing the end of the story. I then have to go back a few days later and ask probing questions to try and get the information back out again. This can be a difficult task because most people really don't want to go over a really difficult story, especially if it took them a long time to tell you in the first place.

In some cases this has happened and I've been too scared to ask the questions. I feel really bad that I cant pay attention and its not because I don't care. Sometimes its because I care too much, and I think my brain is like "F* this" and turns off so I don't flip out. I have gotten significantly better at paying attention as more serious situations occur as I get older, but every so often the switch gets flipped off. I guess this is my apology in advance for not listening to you. Woops! In any event, make sure I haven't had caffeine any time prior to having an important conversation because recent events have also shown me that this just makes the situation worse.

Things that really gross me out (but shouldnt)

.....and probably make me want to vomit

This was a very difficult post to write. Please don't use this against me in the future...

Raw eggs or eggs that aren't cooked long enough. By "cooked long enough" I mean they are almost about to burn before they are taken off the stove, and they are dry as a bone. Every so often I order eggs sunny side up, but then I have to try and eat them with out looking at my plate. Also they have to be eaten with bread as not to feel the undercooked egg texture.

Artificial grape flavor and artificial cherry flavor. These are both going to be a post at a later date, but they make me gag just thinking about it.

Chewable adult vitamins. For what ever reason my stomach doesn't digest regular vitamins fast enough. This leaves me feeling suddenly and  violently nauseous, complete with cold sweats, for about half an hour and then it leaves as quickly as it had shown up. I have recently started taking chewable vitamins instead. Those gummy ones looked really tempting, until I realized they were way too damn expensive. You get 50 for like 6 bucks but you have to take two a day instead of one. The chewable ones are one a day and you get 100. Deal.... until I took one... Citrusy death. I would almost rather have it taste like chewing aspirin. I am not sure why people feel the compelling need to flavor everything citrus, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.

The dry milk around the cap... enough said. Sometimes I get soy milk just to avoid this problem.

The water that forms on top of my Chobani. Sometimes I really pray that its hit the expiration date so I don't have to deal with the water. However, the best and the worst thing about Chobani is its ridiculously far away expiration dates. So I am stuck with watery yogurt that already looks like I am eating sour cream, which is really gross if you think about it or look at it too much
. Mmm... nothing beats pouring out your yogurt water first thing in the morning!


Wet peanut butter or mayo; neither of these containers will be recycled if I am made recycling captain, but this has already been discussed in great detail. I will not get my recycling gold star.

Mixing ingredients that are wet such as macaroni and cheese. I don't think I have had mac and cheese in about a year, but my step dad has it all the time. I have made it a point to be done with dinner and upstairs knitting when it is mac and cheese night. As much as I would love to eat dinner as a happy family, I just can't handle those noises. One time my sister was making Banana bread, which I love, probably too much, and my first reaction was to gag... whoops... 


The words moist, damp, and flap... gross...

There are probably way more things that make me want to die a little inside, but this is all I can handle right now

"IT"S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!!"

This post serves two purposes..

The first being that it is indeed the final countdown before my trip.... I will be leaving in 4 days. When I booked this trip I didn't think that it could get here fast enough. Now I am starting to worry its going to go by too fast. But its OK because I just got a brand new camera. I am going to be like those relatives that insist on showing you wicked old slides EVERY time you visit even though you have seen them about a thousand times, and they are of useless things like the toilet in the hotel room... except they wont be slides... But I am definitely taking pictures of the toilet in the hotel room... As a matter of fact, just for you I will take a picture of every toilet in every hotel... in case you were wondering that's about 7 toilets....

The second purpose is to be really annoying... :-D
There is a T-Mobile commercial where the girl is telling the guy how much his phone sucks, and she gets some video of some concert and the guy is trying to impress her with his phones amazing music skills. I personally would love it if my phone would play the final countdown on the keyboard... Every time I hear this commercial I get the song stuck in my head. But not the real song, the guy that's singing it and playing the keyboard. So sometimes I randomly scream out "Bo bo beee booo bo da do do doooo". And you totally know what I am talking about cause you know you do it too, you just wont admit it.

Irrational Fear #4: Idiocracy

Has anyone seen the movie Idiocracy?
One night an ex-boyfriend a few years ago rented it. I think he thought it was going to be a funny guy stoner movie, with dumb jokes you will only get if your high... and boobs.
Well he was wrong....  except for the boobs part. And there were jokes, it was still a comedy, but more of one of those dark comedies... but anyways....
This movie scared me more than any horror film has. And I hate scary movies; even ones that are meant to be funny spoofs, like Zombieland, kind of freak me out, so this movie really did a number on me.
Anyways... I am pretty sure the things that happen in this movie are going to happen in real life. Except for the whole getting stuck frozen in a capsule built for army testing, and waking up a thousand years later part.
Its all about how the average IQ drops significantly and everyone gets really lazy, and some how they started watering plants with Gatorade, so they have no food, and technology has taken over everything. Its kind of like a darker more sarcastic version of Wall-E. That movie freaked me out too..
At least on the bright side we will all be dead by the time these things happen.

This time next week

At precisely 7:00pm next Tuesday I will be here

Hopefully I will have arrived here with out incident or panic attack. I am still trying to decide if I should have a few drinks first so I can sleep the whole way... but then there is the whole really small bathroom issue....

Anywho this post was created entirely to make you really jealous of me...

Any you know it definitely worked

Happy Fat Tuesday!

What did I just agree to?

Way too often I realize I have been having a conversation with someone and have not heard a single word they said. I kind of wish I came to this realization a little sooner; I probably would have gone to a better school than Fisher Price College. My ADD makes no discrimination to who it spaces out on, and what they are talking about. It just kind of happens. Like this dog with narcolepsy....

Hes so happy running around eating flowers... I am pretty sure if he had the choice he would continue running around eating flowers, not collapsing on the ground and sleeping... its a beautiful day and now its wasted. Poor dog...
Now what was I talking about...
Oh yes...
Since I spend most of my time these days with my mother, she gets tuned out the most, and most of the time by accident.
Recently, she asked me about a recipe she wants to make for dinner.
I said "mhmm sure it sounds great".
I have no idea what I agreed too, and I had already admitted to not listening to her like 20 minutes prior, so I cant do it again. I need at least another hour before I can tell her I'm not listening and not feel bad.
So if I sit down at the table and find this on my plate

Either something went horribly wrong with the recipe or she is catching on to the fact that sometimes I just don't listen

Sorry mom

Running with scissors

This was an amazing book... and I highly suggest reading it, and others by Augusten Burrows, like Holidays on ice...

But that was not where I am going with this one...

Our kitchen and dining room form a big loop, or as cooper sees it, a dog track. Its not exactly open, but this is the basic floor plan:

Clearly I was actually meant to be an architect

Cooper is a crate trained dog, and he has no medium energy level. He is either sleeping or so extremely excited about life that it kind of makes me cranky sometimes. He is like the perky girl that works at my gym. Its 7:30 in the morning, what is there to be so excited about? It really should be illegal to be that excited at certain times of the day

When I come home its like the running of the bulls... only its one really small dog, and one really fat sausage dog. The sausage dog usually prances around for a little while, but in about 20 seconds he runs out of breath and hides under the table. Cooper is just getting going

The other afternoon when I came home I decided to run around the kitchen in circles trying to wear out my little crack addict. It was one of those days where it was so windy that if I took cooper out for a walk one of two things would happen. He would either turn into a kite and become airborne, or his lungs would become filled with sand. It gets so windy that sometimes they almost have to plow our street from the sand that blows up in the road

Anyways, after about my tenth lap around our narrow kitchen I asked mom, who was quietly washing dishes at the time, with the dishwasher open, making our already small kitchen smaller "Isn't this the part where you yell at me for running in the house"
To which she responded
"Um... only if your running with scissors"

Thanks for lookin' out for me mom! 

Where the F is my package! *Update*

Since we live in the armpit of the cape we find that we often don't have the same access to shopping that we once had when we lived a little more up state. That combined with our need for strange things like this....

(It puts yarn into what is called a hank)

... and we often find ourselves ordering things online. Bedsheets for over sized mattresses, copper foil, books, you name it and we have probably ordered it online. I think at one point we were doing Peapod grocery shopping, but that maybe have been during the non-cape days. Anyways, the point is that UPS knows us so well, between the store shipments and the house shipments, everything just gets dropped off at the store, and typically in a timely fashion.

When we first moved down there I had a pair of shoes shipped to me and they couldn't find the house. I am pretty sure if you put our address into Google maps, and looked at it from the satellite pictures, you can see the house from space; its a tall house, and its the only one on the street that is bigger than a matchbox. Basically you have to be pretty stupid to miss it. They have since learned their lesson.

Lately however, things have changed. I think the definition of "one day" may have changed. Recently we have ordered a number of things (actually all of the items aforementioned), all on express shipping. It started with the bedsheets. They took no less than a month to get to the house. Then it was the skein winder. Now its my travel documents which are time sensitive. If I don't get them I don't go, which is a problem. To deal with the panic that I have been feeling awaiting my package, I have decided that there is only one explanation in the problems with shipping:

They have added a processing center in the depths of Narnia, and all of our packages must be processed through said center before proceeding to the cape.

Look at that map! That place is huge! I am never getting my tickets :(


*Update* Just got my package with my vouchers and my travel book (my Frommers book totally kicks this books ass) Turns out Aslan thought that it was an important enough package that he wanted to process it himself. Hes a busy guy so it took a little while. He also wanted to make sure that all my information was correct before sending it on its way. Thanks Aslan! Your a life saver!

"Um... one thing about your harness..."

Lately, as in the past 10 months or so, I have been doing things to try to push myself out of my comfort zone. In the past I would pass up going out or trying new things way too often. The very idea of possibly having to enter a bar by myself before the other person got there was enough to keep me in the house on a Friday night. Learning something new, when I wasn't in school hiding in the last row of seats keeping my mouth shut, was also something I wasn't too fond of.

I am sure something happened when I was little that I never could really shake, but the idea of a stranger teaching me how to do something in front of yet  more strangers was just out of the question. Kind of goes along with the whole "I would rather die than give a speech in front of even just one stranger" fear that a lot of us have. If I meet someone new, like say on a date, or at an interview, I cant sit still. I am pretty sure I touch my face about a billion times, not counting the fact that I generally sit with my hand on my chin covering 90% of my mouth (not on interviews though, for those I fold my hands in my lap and twitch my leg uncontrollably, but at least that's under the table and kind of hidden). I then spend a considerable ammout of time analysing the interaction wondering if there was anything too awkward or weird that I had said. I am pretty sure this is the diagnosis criteria for social anxiety.

Anywho back to the point of the story... pushing out of my comfort zones and all that happy stuff...

Over the summer I started climbing with my friend which in its self was a huge thing for me, although I don't think I ever admitted that. I never learned how to belay though, because I needed some time to get over just going climbing in the first place. Forget the whole being afraid of heights business, or the fact that if something goes wrong, at best you are going to break a lot of things. This is a person I've known for 2+ years, and I still did not want to learn how to do something completely new and foreign in front of her.She wouldn't care if I did something stupid, and vice versa but that damn social anxiety monster got the best of me, and I just wasn't ready.

Finally last night I decided to just get it over with, this being at least 6 months after I first started bouldering. So not only was I learning something new, but I decided to go with someone I just met a week prior.... nothing could go wrong, and I will be fine...

Well, I am safe and sound but I can honestly say I wont be learning anything new any time soon...

First it took me about ten minutes to figure out my harness. I bought it months ago before I moved far away from climbing gyms, and have never used it. It's one of those two part complicated ones. So I finally get it on and I get tied in and climb; success! but my harness feels really weird.... its definitely going in places it shouldn't...

And as the not entirely friendly employee at the gym, who I've never even seen before tells me, after she comes running after me down the stairs... my harness was on upside down, and the most important part of it, the part that stays closed and keeps me from dying, was done wrong....

I felt like an ass.... Its clearly still bothering me.

When did I become the adult?

So, surprise I live with my mom and step dad.
Moms been on a diet for forever now, but this time shes serious... but only between the hours of 11 am and 9pm... because she doesn't get up until 11... and after 9, if you have a weight watchers ice cream, then it doesn't count...

"Mom its ten at night, why are you eating ice cream... and TWO why are you eating two ice creams at ten at night?!"
"Well, its a weight watchers thing, it only has two points"
"Um... but its still ten at night, and its still got sugar and calories that your not going to burn off, so it just turns to fat since you don't use it for energy... because its night time"
"Ok fine" *puts the second one back* "Tomorrow I will have it before 8"



She has since been sneak eating her ice cream since I go to bed at tenish.... But at least when I asked her about it she told me the truth

"Ok so since your sneak eating those, you have to keep going to the gym... forever"

If Trouble were a person she would be Rain man

This is trouble...

 

I am not sure why her previous owners named her trouble. Shes not my cat so maybe she gets into crazy shit when I am not around. Anyways, she would totally be Rain man if she were a person. Clearly she has managed to solve the rubix cube next to her, so she is obviously an Autistic savant. She also has this habit of staring and watching things for days on end before she makes her move. She needs to learn its habits and develop some sort of schedule before she can act on her environment. Most of the time she seems like she is slow and maybe slightly mentally retarded (and thats ok cause we would love her anyways) but she actually turns out to be some sort of master genius. Just when you start thinking that maybe you should figure out if there's a cat IQ test somewhere she pulls some sort of ninja move leaving you both confused and amazed. Kind of like in Anchor man how the dog ate the wheel of cheese, only it would be way more epic and she would actually do it